Charities join social networking world

A website that has been described as the charity equivalent of Facebook will let people make donations online to their favourite UK charity.

Mycharitypage uses social networking features such as videos, blogs and forum discussions to raise awareness of a chosen charity. Unlike some other charity sites, Mycharitypage does not charge a five per cent commission on donations; however donors are charged a two per cent card handling fee.

People who set up a profile at the site can earn commission for their chosen charity by shopping online with various high-street retailers. To do this they must click on the links to the stores provided by the site. For example, Mycharitypage offers five per cent commission at Argos, so if a user spends £100, they will have raised £5 for their chosen charity.

All donations are sent via an encrypted link to a central Natwest trust bank account set up by Mycharitypage. As well as a secure payment link, the website uses Mastercard Securecode and Verified by Visa online card security. Funds raised will be sent to a charity once a month, but the website developers hope to increase this to weekly donations eventually.

Adam Foyster, founder of the site said: "Being a marathon runner I got tired of having to give commission to similar sites when people sent me donations. We believe Mycharitypage is the only UK website of its kind that doesn’t charge commission on donations, so the charity receives the full amount every time.”

To set up a Mycharitypage account, people build a profile page for their charity, write blogs, upload photos and videos and contribute to forum discussions. As with Facebook, members can also build up a network of friends, send private messages and create and join groups.

A donation can be made by a friend or the person who set up the page using a debit or credit card. Funds can also be donated by texting a short code number that links it to the fundraiser's page. This is then added onto the donor’s phone bill along with a charge of around 37p-47p per text, depending on the network operator's charges.

However, donations can only be made to a charity that has signed up with Mycharitypage and friends can't donate by using the shopping links.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and Institute of Fundraising welcomed the site.

Megan Pacey, director of policy and campaigns said: "Social networking sites have the potential to provide a new fundraising tool for charities as well as engaging new supporters.”

Megan Griffith, research manager at NCVO agreed: “My charity page sounds like an interesting entrant into the world of online fundraising."

But she said that charities and other fundraisers should not put all their eggs in this site’s basket. She said the organisation’s research had found that people were using mainstream social networking sites to communicate rather than going to specifically targeted ones.

“It is also important for charities to get out there onto Facebook and other platforms, to be where the conversation is happening and to ensure their own websites allow people to link to them and to draw content from them. To set up yet another platform may be missing the point.”