Seattle 2.0 Awards Pictures and Another Honor for TisBest!

The TisBest Team holding the Seattle 2.0 Award for "Best Nonprofit Startup."  The team from right to left: Lorraine Craft, Jim Branch, Jon Siegel, Erik Marks, Jim Phillips, and Chad Edwards

TisBest Founder, Erik Marks, giving a brief acceptance speech at the Seattle 2.0 Awards.  Over 400 people attended the 2nd annual gala honoring the top innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors in the Seattle Startup Community.

  

Jon Siegel talking about TisBest Charity Gift Cards with entrepreneur, Ron Wiener, at the Seattle 2.0 Award Reception.

  


TisBest Philanthropy received the “Best Non-Profit Start-Up” award at the Seattle 2.0 awards event on Wednesday, May 19. This is a great honor for TisBest, and wonderful recognition of our efforts to connect individuals and businesses to the causes and charities they feel passionate about.

Our founder, Erik Marks, has succeeded in combining technology with the goals of micro philanthropy, and created an entire new category – the charity gift card – in the process.  That the technology hotbed of Seattle recognized the work we do is especially gratifying.

Launched in November of 2007, TisBest truly is a start-up. And TisBest has gone through many (if not all) of the usual challenges faced by new technology ventures. Now a scant 2.5 years later, TisBest has raised over $1 million for charity and created a significant following of people who are looking for a way to give a meaningful gift without giving “more stuff.”

One of the reasons I’m so pleased to receive this award is that it validates my belief that the entire world of giving – of philanthropy – is going through a massive set of changes. Just a few months ago, tens of millions of dollars were raised for Haiti relief using text messaging. That new development has forever changed the way we’ll respond to future catastrophes. New organizations such as Jolkona Foundation (www.jolkona.org) are springing up, creating imaginative ways for donors to better see the results of their donations. And a new generation is recognizing that one needn’t be rich to be a philanthropist.

TisBest is thrilled to be a significant part of the world of philanthropy. At its most basic level, “philanthropy,” from the Greek, means “loving humankind.” In today’s world, that meaning has broadened to include loving our planet, the plants and animals that live on it, the air we breathe, and even the freedoms we so enjoy.

So thank you to the Seattle Community and our national community of supporters for recognizing TisBest Philanthropy. We think the best is yet to come. Our goal is to create more awareness and open new sources funding for worthy charities in the years to come, and to make gift-giving a more meaningful experience for giver and recipient alike.

Jon Siegel, TisBest Executive Director
www.tisbest.org

Featured Charity: The Moyer Foundation

If you’ve followed Major League All-Star pitcher Jaime Moyer’s celebrated career, you know that he has been recognized as much for his work off the field as on.  In 2000, Jamie and his wife Karen established The Moyer Foundation.  Since then, the Foundation has raised more than $19 million to provide comfort and support to hundreds of programs that provide direct services and support to children enduring a time of profound physical, emotional, or financial distress. 

Their work strikes a very personal cord for me.  When my wife and her twin sister were 15 years old, they lost their dad to cancer.  Both described feeling isolated and lonely in the years following his death as they struggled to connect to kids their age that had experienced such a deep loss.

Stories like this led The Moyer Foundation to create Camp Erin, a bereavement camp for children and teens who have experienced the death of someone close to them.  I had tears in my eyes as I heard about the comfort and understanding Camp Erin participants find as they build friendships with other children who have gone through a similar season of loss.  You can see a few of these kids in this powerful 60 second video on the foundation’s YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CteEhsGsdmg

The weekend-long Camp Erin experiences are filled with traditional, fun, camp activities combined with grief education and emotional support -- facilitated by grief professionals and trained volunteers. These kids have the opportunity to address their feelings and memorialize their loved ones with other kids just like them.

Incredibly, Camp Erin is free to all campers.  The Moyer Foundation has established 36 of these camps in 23 states making it the largest network of bereavement camps in the United States.  Each Camp Erin is facilitated through a long term partnership with a local bereavement agency.  With the community’s support, The Moyer Foundation intends to raise funds to bring Camp Erin to as many as 60 cities nationwide.

Camp Erin is just one of several unique Moyer Foundation programs.  You can find more inspiring information and ways to support the organization by going to www.moyerfoundation.org.  We at TisBest congratulate The Moyer Foundation on 10 years of bringing comfort and support to children in distress.

Thanks for reading,
Chad Edwards – Charity and Community Relations Manager

Best Nonprofit Startup! We Need Your Vote!

TisBest Philanthropy is honored to be chosen as a finalist in the 2010 edition of the Seattle 2.0 Awards. TisBest was nominated in the Best Nonprofit Startup category. The winner is determined by votes cast, so I encourage you to go to the Seattle 2.0 site and vote for TisBest! The link is http://www.seattle20.com/awards/vote.aspx

According to Seattle 2.0’s website, “Technology startups have been the birthplace of some of the biggest changes in our way of life this century, from how we buy houses to how we manage our family photos, from how we entertain ourselves on the web to how we run our businesses.”

I’d add, “ . . . to how we give meaningful gifts and how we support important charitable causes.”

As technology continues to become an increasingly important part of our lives, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that technology is also playing an increasingly important role in the world of philanthropy. At TisBest, we see ourselves on the cutting edge of philanthropic giving and donor development.

Our vision is to introduce millions and millions of people to the joy of philanthropic giving – one gift at a time. We do it with the TisBest Charity Gift Card. If you’re reading this blog, it’s very likely that you’re a part of our vision!

We’re pleased and proud that one of the world’s centers of technological innovation – Seattle – recognizes the uniqueness and the value of what we’re doing. We’ll continue to create new ways to introduce people to the many worthy causes and tremendous organizations that exist to meet needs around the world.

Thank you for being a part of our success! (And remember to vote.)

Jon Siegel, Executive Director

The President’s Donations

President Obama’s announcement that he will donate his Nobel Prize money ($1.4 million) to 10 charities is terrific news. These are important charitable organizations which will use the money well.

We’re especially pleased that of the ten charities identified by the White House, five of them are part of the TisBest Philanthropy 250 charity list. Those are: Central Asia Institute, United Negro College Fund, American Indian College Fund, The Posse Foundation, and College Summit. 

That’s a pretty remarkable correlation, considering there are 1.2 million charitable organizations in the U.S.

To each of these organizations we say, “Congratulations!” You are very deserving.

Jon Siegel

Parade Magazine Survey: Americans giving generously despite recession.

A story in Sunday’s Parade Magazine titled, “Compassion Counts More Than Ever,” reports that even during this economic recession, Americans are giving generously to support the causes that are important to them. In addition, Americans in large numbers are donating their time to a wide variety of worthy causes.

It’s very encouraging to see that in difficult times – when it’s easy to focus on one’s own needs and difficulties –Americans are continuing to make sacrifices to meet great needs that exist in their own communities and around the world.

Parade asked 1,008 Americans what they’d do if given $100,000 to donate to charity. Of the 16 choices, the top five were:

1. Food and shelter for the needy
2. Research to cure disease
3. Disaster relief
4. Animal welfare
5. 5. Youth programs

These results correlate very closely to the charities selected by recipients of TisBest Charity Gift Cards.

Thank you for your continued support of TisBest Philanthropy, and the hundreds of charities we work with. This Mother’s Day, I encourage you to consider supplementing those flowers with a gift of charity. Your Mom will love you for it!

If you would like to learn more about the Parade survey, take a few moments to watch this interview with the editor of Parade and two volunteers that aired Monday on the The Morning Show on CBS:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Thanks for reading,
Jon Siegel, TisBest E.D.

And yet another earthquake

Several major charities have taken flack in recent weeks for spending less than 100% of the donations they have received for Haiti relief. Yet the recent earthquake in Chile is a grim reminder that financial reserves are essential if we are to be prepared to respond to the next disaster. It appears that keeping some resources in reserve is prudent.

We tend to think that calamitous natural disasters happen every four or five years or so. At that pace, there’s time to breathe between moments of urgent financial need. But this time, we were fooled. The ninth strongest earthquake ever measured struck just weeks after Haiti received a devastating blow. Relief agencies which are already stretched and weary may need to open a second front in what feels like a war against nature.

We encourage you to continue to support the agencies and organizations that provide food, shelter, medical treatment, and other assistance during this difficult time in Haiti and Chile. It takes a steady flow of donations in the quiet times in order to be ready to jump when the next disaster strikes.

Thank you for your selfless support.
Jon Siegel

Image credit: www.cmalliance.org

Featured Charity: Best Friends Animal Society

I was reminded of the great work of Best Friends Animal Society while looking for a charity to recommend to my 10-year-old niece. My wife and I bought her a TisBest card for Christmas and wanted to give her a starting point for her search. I thought of her passion for helping animals as I read about the group of animal lovers who founded Best Friends as a small animal sanctuary 25 years ago. Their pilot program rescuing dogs and cats on their way to "E-Day" (euthanasia) led them to build a haven for animals at Angel Canyon in Southern Utah. Today, their 33,000-acre ranch is the nation's largest animal sanctuary for homeless animals.

On any given day, the sanctuary houses about 2,000 dogs, cats, horses, burros, birds, rabbits, and an assortment of other creatures. Most of the animals have special physical or behavioral needs. Through the care of Best Friends' veterinarians, trainers, and caregivers, most of these animals - approximately three out of four - are able to go to good homes after just a few weeks. Animals who are unable to be adopted because of major trauma, age, or chronic illness find a permanent home at the sanctuary.

Best Friends Animal Society has been a leader in the "No More Homeless Pets" campaign: a spay/neuter, adoption, and public awareness program to bring an end to the killing of homeless animals in shelters. They have partnered with organizations across the nation to provide assistance and training to groups looking to create "no-kill" communities. And they are seeing results. According to the website www.utahpets.org, the number of animals euthanized in Utah shelters since 1999 has decreased by 30%.

Best Friends provides a whole host of other services including adoption, spay/neuter, and educational programs; the Best Friends Network; and Best Friends, the nation's largest-interest animal magazine. I encourage you to hop, trot, prance, or strut over to the Best Friends website (www.bestfriends.org) where you'll find incredibly cute pictures of the animals they work with and important information on their work.

We at TisBest congratulate Best Friends Animal Society on 25 years of building a better world through kindness to animals.

Chad Edwards
Charity & Community Relations Manager