_Jason Côté is Executive Director of “CanadaHelps”:http://www.canadahelps.org/, a public charitable foundation that runs Canada’s only online giving website that provides access to all of Canada’s 80,000+ registered charities. As a social entrepreneur, he is personally committed to helping mission-based organizations use information technology to support their work._
*One Degree:* “Jason, do you feel that Canadian charities should be doing more to leverage the Internet, and if so, what should they be doing?”
*Jason Côté:* The Internet is a potential windfall for charities both for short-term fundraising objectives and more importantly, long-term relationship building. The bottom line is that if you’re a charity and not fundraising online, you’re not only missing a significant audience segment, but the most cost-effective medium for building donor relationships. Online fundraising can be done more cheaply than offline because donors can be acquired and retained with lower production costs and no postage or telemarketing costs. Here’s “an example of the impact of online versus offline to a charity in New York.”:http://www.changingourworld.com/site/PageServer?pagename=cl_cs_ephilanthropy_wfan_clients
Many Canadian charities, especially the smaller ones, are still struggling with the classic lack of time, money, and expertise. Larger charities with resources are doing a great job; have a look at “World Wildlife Fund Canada’s Save Our Climate website”:http://www.wwf.ca/HowYouCanHelp/SaveOurClimate/. The site mashes information about the campaign with the reasons why donors have given in a beautiful Flash-based interface. I made a donation; you can search for my name (see the search bar at the bottom of the page) to see what I wrote in the sky.
Category: 1.5 Questions
Patrick Dinnen is a volunteer with the Wireless Toronto community group. Wireless Toronto launched in Spring 2005 with the goal of encouraging the growth of wireless networking and building community in interesting and innovative ways.
Since their launch, Wireless Toronto have formed partnerships with local businesses to create a network of free-to-use WiFi hotspots across the GTA. As well as hotspots in cafes, bars and restaurants Wireless Toronto switched on a free WiFi network covering the St Lawrence Market building in November 2005, creating Toronto’s largest public WiFi zone.
*One Degree:* “Patrick, what does the “Toronto Hydro WiFi blanket announcement”:http://www.thtelecom.ca/one-zone.html mean to Toronto and to the “Wireless Toronto”:http://wirelesstoronto.ca/ initiative?”
*Patrick Dinnen:* Thinking about these questions I come back to the goals of Wireless Toronto ‘a not-for-profit group dedicated to bringing no-fee wireless Internet access to Toronto. Our aim is to encourage the growth of wireless networking and to build community in interesting and innovative ways’. From that point of view, I think there’s much to be positive about in Toronto Hydro’s announcement.
Although we got some more details from Toronto Hydro today there are still a lot of unanswered questions. But right now, here’s what I feel:
Availability of competitively priced WiFi Internet access in 100% of the downtown core, which Toronto Hydro’s plan calls for, is a great move forward for Toronto residents, businesses and visitors.