WO2008134448A1

WO2008134448A1 - Supplying, verifying and tracking charitable activity disbursements

Info

Publication number: WO2008134448A1
Application number: PCT/US2008/061450
Authority: WO
Inventors: Troy Stremler
Original assignee: Newdea Inc.
Priority date: 2007-04-24
Filing date: 2008-04-24
Publication date: 2008-11-06
Also published as: AU2008245683B2; NZ581401A; AU2008245683A1

Abstract

Systems and methods relating to providing access to and managing information about philanthropic donations, resources, projects and disbursements. The methods and systems facilitate the verification and tracking of charitable fund disbursements and include one or more verifiable payment methods to provide funds to charities, and which allow the charities to spend those funds.

Description

SUPPLYING, VERIFYING AND TRACKING CHARITABLE ACTIVITY

DISBURSEMENTS

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims priority through, and hereby expressly incorporates by reference U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/926,120, filed April 24, 2007, entitled Supplying, Verifying and Tracking Charitable Activity Disbursements. This application also hereby expressly incorporates by reference U.S. Application No. 10/290,556, filed November 8, 2002, entitled Philanthropy Management System and Methods of Use and Doing Business, which claims priority through and expressly incorporates by reference the common applicant's prior U.S. provisional patent application, serial number 60/345,361 , filed November 8, 2001. This application also hereby expressly incorporates by reference, the common applicant's prior U.S. Application No. 10/873,995, filed June 21, 2004, entitled Improved Philanthropy Management System and Method of Doing Business. This application also hereby expressly incorporates by reference, the common applicant's prior US, Application No. 11/493,502, filed July 25, 2006, entitled An Automated Community to Exchange Philanthropy Information. This application also hereby expressly incorporates by reference, the common applicant's prior U.S. Application No. 11/542,929, filed October 2, 2006, entitled Philanthropy Management and Metrics System This application also hereby expressly incorporates by reference, the common applicant's U.S. provisional patent application, serial number 61/047,648, filed April 24, 2008, entitled Improved Philanthropy Management System and Method of Doing Business.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Systems and methods described herein relate to providing access to and managing information about philanthropic donations, resources, projects and disbursements.

COPYRIGHT AUTHORIZATION

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND

Philanthropy has been essential to advancement of society and betterment of the human condition for hundreds of years. Many of the very finest educational, health care, and religious institutions and activities have long been the direct result of philanthropic donations and activities. The resulting institutions, services, and products not only often fulfill substantia! voids that have not been, and often cannot be, met by government, brά. also expand the range of options and competitive alternatives to institutions, services, and products provided by the government and other private activities and entities. The net result is not only a more efficient allocation of resources in the market and society as a whole, but also substantial increases m the quality of societal morals, education, human interaction, spiritual accomplishment, and life all across society.

The effort involved, however, in actually making and managing donations on behalf of philanthropists or philanthropic institutions owning or controlling the capital is often a sizable, costly, and lime consuming challenge, particularly for those individuals or entities seeking to engage in philanthropic activities without use of a foundation. In general, identifying and researching charitable organizations can be difficult. More particularly, it is difficult to track and discuss how and where donations are being used. To help solve these problems, the applicants have developed automated systems and methods for philanthropists to gain access to projects and organizations of interest and, if desired, for projects and organizations to gain access to philanthropists or philanthropic or other funding. Implementations of such donation management systems and methods are described in common applicant's prior U.S. Patent Application 10/873,995, entitled "Philanthropy Management System and Methods of Use and Doing Business" and U.S. Patent Application 10/290,556, entitled "Philanthropy Donation Management Apparatus, System, and Methods of Use and Doing Business/' which are incorporated herein by reference. These systems make a variety of tools remotely accessible to donors. philanthropic organizations, project managers, team members, and others, which allow such entities to gain access to the systems from disparate locations, such as through an intranet or the Internet. The systems provide tools for organizations to manage information about themselves and projects with which they are connected or in which they are interested. They also provide tools for donor users to manage information about themselves and entities in which they have donated or that they are monitoring, and tools to find and associates themselves with those and other entities.

Despite the numerous tools and features described in the prior systems, they generally have not provided an automated way for a donor to trace what his or her money has been spent for. Moreover, they have not tied the verification and tracking features to a method that disperses money to a charity or charitable activity.

SUMMARY The applicant has invented systems and methods relating to providing access to and managing information about philanthropic donations, resources, projects and disbursements. In one aspect, the methods and systems include facilitating the verification and tracking of charitable fund disbursements. In another aspect, the methods and systems include the use of pay cards. In some aspects, the card may be associated with an account which is funded through a donor management system. In another aspect, the systems and methods provide access to information about potential projects and organizations seeking charitable funding. In yet another aspect the systems and methods track donations to specific projects, including information relating to the administrative costs associated with each project and the amount of donated money that was spent on the specific project In another aspect, a pay card is used to track donations to specific projects.

In another aspect, a donor and charity management system maintains information on charitable organizations, each of which may have one or more projects or endeavors that they are undertaking and which need or have funding. Charities may input a variety of information into this management system, all of a portion of which can be displayed to donors, such as project goals, project assessment information, etc. This information may also include audit trail information including payments made through a payment method such a pay card or stored value card.

In one embodiment, one or more verifiable payment methods are used to provide funds to charities, and allow the charities to spend those funds. In certain embodiments, once the payment method has been used to pay for activities associated with the charitable activity, a record is generated that is sent to the donor charity management system. In some embodiments, the record allows for the donor or others to determine if and to the extent payments benefited the charitable organization, in certain embodiments, the record contains information specific to individual projects.

In some embodiments, the methods and systems use one or more pay cards such as credit cards, debit cards, stored value cards, payroll cards, charge cards or some combination, to provide funds to charities, and to allow the chanties to spend those funds. Certain embodiments allow money to be securely transferred from donors, by way of the donor chanty management system to charities or charitable projects.

In some embodiments, a charitable organization can define activities necessary to achieve a charitable goal.

In some embodiments, the donor may use his or her pay card to associate his or her money with a specific task or project. The donated money, or at least a portion thereof, is then passed onto the charitable project or to accomplish a specific task of a charitable project. In certain embodiments, the methods and systems track how the donated money has been used.

In some embodiments, a donor can make a donation that is earmarked for a specific charitable organization, charity, or other philanthropic or supported activity using the donor charitable management system.

The foregoing Summary recites various features and advantages of various embodiments of the invention. It is to be understood that all embodiments need not necessarily include all such features or provide all such advantages or address the issues noted in the background. It is also to be understood that there are additional features and advantages of certain embodiments, and they will become apparent as the specification proceeds. The embodiments described in mis application can be added readily to, and utilized in combination with, the subject matter disclosed in the above- referenced related applications. It is therefore understood that the scope of the invention is to be determined by the claims and not by whether the claimed subject matter solves any particular problem or all of them, provide any particular features or all of them, or meet any particular objective or group of objectives set forth in the Background or Summary above. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The preferred and other embodiments are shown in the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. IA is a block diagram of a system for allowing donors, charitable organizations and others to fund charities, disburse charitable funds and track charitable disbursements;

FIG. IB is a fuller embodiment of the block diagram of FIG. IA; FIG. 2 is an example of how a potential donor may search for a charitable project, and then may make a donation to a chosen charity or charitable project;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a computer system that can be used in any of the examples herein to implement an automated community to fund charitable projects, etc., to disburse the funds, and to track the disbursements, such as the philanthropic system as shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of payment methods that can be used in a donor charity management system, such as the system of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

General Considerations

Disclosed below are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems having particular applicability to automating communities to exchange philanthropic information that should not be construed as limiting in any way. Instead, the present disclosure is directed toward all novel and nonobvious features and aspects of the various disclosed methods, apparatus, and systems, and their equivalents, atone and in various combinations and subcombinations with one another. Example 1 - System for Funding Charities, Disbursing the Charitable Funds, and Tracking the Disbursements.

With reference to FIG. 1 A, in certain embodiments, the present invention provides methods and systems for facilitating the verification and tracking of charitable fund disbursements. Embodiments of a donor and charity management system 105 allow disbursements that charities may make, such as paying salaries for staff, paying for supplies for staff, direct payments to those receiving assistance, paying for supplies used for assistance, such as vaccinations, mosquito nets, blankets, paying teachers' salaries, charities, charitable projects associated with charities, to be made with pay cards 180. These pay cards may be a debit card or a credit card. The card may be associated with an account which is funded through the donor management system 105. When the charity or a representative of the charity uses the pay card 180, the transaction may be sent, from the point of sale, or at some other time, through the network 115 to the donor management system 105. The donor and charity management system 105 can be embodied in software and can incorporate databases, interfaces, and other well-known and/or commercially available packages, and can employ any combination of the technologies described herein. Electronic communications can be any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, or data, transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or a photooptical system, such as through one or more networks, which may be an intranet or the Internet. The one or more networks may also be a geographically confined network, entity-specific network, or other network, possibly including one or more intranets of a corporate, education, hospital, or religious institution, government, or other system This might reduce access to and reach of the community while meeting other objectives such as restricting access to only those desired

Donors may be individuals, businesses, philanthropic organizations, or wealth managers. Charitable organizations include, without limitation, nonprofit organizations, religious organizations, aid organizations, health organizations, environmental groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other philanthropic causes. Charitable organizations also include members of such organizations, such as project managers, task managers, and the like. Examples of charitable organizations include, for example, and without limitation, the United Way, Doctors without Borders, the Sierra Club, Campus Crusade for Christ, the World Health Organization, and the Salvation Army. With reference to FlG. IB, in an embodiment, the donor and chanty management system 105 maintains information on charitable organizations 170, each of which may have one or more projects 175 or endeavors that they are undertaking and which need or have funding. The charitable organizations 170 may use the donor management system 105 using a network 160 or other communications system to input a variety of information, which may be input into a database 167, all or a portion of which can be displayed to the donors 155. This information may include anything related to the charitable organization or its projects, such as its current funding needs and expenditures. This may also include an audit trail tied to how charitable funds were spent. The audit trail information may include payments made through a payment method such as a pay card or stored value card. Also payment may be made through another vehicle for performing financial transactions, such a computer memory chip, as but one example. The phrase charitable organization 170 may refer to members of the charitable organization 170 acting on its behalf

For example, the information may include information regarding the nature of the charitable organization 170, ongoing or past activities or projects of the charitable organization, the level of funding of the charitable organization 170 as a whole or the level of funding for individual projects 175, data concerning how supplied funds have been spent, specific outlays for specific projects, specific funding needs for specific projects, the specific donor funds that were spent on specific projects, general donor funds that are earmarked for specific projects or specific activities (e.g. "buy blankets," "pay building rent," "teacher salary"), and/or general financial data. In certain embodiments, the charitable organizations 170 may add or remove projects 175 from the donor management system 105 and update the information stored in the database 167 in the donor management system 105, such as providing progress reports for projects 175, and providing updated financial data. A pay method 180 may be associated with a charitable project 175, a charitable organization 170, and/or a different grouping, such as a defined subset of a project.

The donors 155 may review all or a portion of the information on the charitable organizations 170 and projects 175. A donor 155 may choose to donate to a particular charitable organization 170, or to a particular project 175. The donation may be made to the chosen beneficiary utilizing the donor management system 105.

Example 3 - Computing Environment

Figure 3 and the following discussion are intended to provide a brief, general description of a computing environment in which the disclosed technology may be implemented. For instance, any of the functionalities described with respect to creating or using a pay card can be implemented in such a computing environment. Although not required, the disclosed technology was described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a personal computer (PC). Generally, program modules include routines, programs. objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.

Moreover, the disclosed technology may be implemented with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices such as PDAs, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, personal computers (PCs), portable personal computers, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. Any number of suitable operating systems may be used, such as, for example and not limitation, UNIX or one of its many flavors, Linux, one developed by Microsoft for use on PC's, an Apple operating system, an operating system developed specifically for mainframes, such as those developed by IBM, or the like. The disclosed technology may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may he located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Figure 3 illustrates a generalized example of a suitable computing environment 300 in which described embodiments may be implemented. The computing environment 300 is not intended to suggest any limitation as to scope of use or functionality of the disclosed embodiments, as the present disclosed embodiments may be implemented in diverse general-purpose or special-purpose computing environments.

With reference to Figure 3, the computing environment 300 includes at least one central processing unit 310 and memory 320. In Figure 3, this most basic configuration 330 is included within a dashed line. The central processing unit 310 executes computer-executable instructions and may be a real or a virtual processor. The environment 300 further includes the graphics processing unit GPU at 315 for executing such computer graphics operations as vertex mapping, pixel processing, rendering, and texture mapping. In a multi-processing system, multiple processing units execute computer-executable instructions to increase processing power and as such the GPU and CPU can be running simultaneously. The memory 320 may be volatile memory (e.g., registers, cache, RAM), non-volatile memory (e.g.. ROM, EEPROM, flash memory, etc.), or some combination of the two. The memory 320 stores software 380 implementing the described methods of supplying, verifying and tracking charitable activity disbursements.

A computing environment may have additional features. For example, the computing environment 300 includes storage 340, one or more input devices 350, one or more output devices 360, and one or more communication connections 370. An interconnection mechanism (not shown) such as a bus, controller, or network interconnects the components of the computing environment 300. Typically, operating system software (not shown) provides an operating environment for other software executing in the computing environment 300, and coordinates activities of the components of the computing environment 300.

The storage 340 may be removable or non-removable, and includes magnetic disks, magnetic tapes or cassettes, CD-ROMs, CD-RWs, DVDs, or any other medium which can be used to store information and which can be accessed within the computing environment 300. The storage 340 stores instructions for the software 380 to implement methods of creating, using, or facilitating the use of an automated community. The input device(s) 350 may be a touch input device such as a keyboard, mouse, pen, or trackball, a voice input device, a scanning device, touchscreen, or another device that provides input to the computing environment 300. For audio, the input device(s) 350 may be a sound card or similar device that accepts audio input m analog or digital form, or a CD-ROM reader that provides audio samples to the computing environment. The output device(s) 360 may be a display, printer, speaker, CD-writer, or another device mat provides output from the computing environment 300. The communication connection(s) 370 enable communication over a communication medium to another computing entity. The communication medium conveys information such as computer-executable instructions, compressed graphics information, or other data in a modulated data signal. These connections may include network connections, which may be wireless connections, may include dial-up connections, and so on. The other computing entity may be a portable communications device such as a wireless handheld device, a cell phone device, and so on.

Computer-readable media are any available tangible media that can be accessed within a computing environment. By way of example, and not limitation, with the computing environment 300, computer-readable media include memory 320, storage 340, communication media, a carrier wave through with the media can be transmitted across a network such as the internet, and combinations of any of the above.

Moreover, any of the methods, apparatus, and systems described herein can be used in conjunction with creating, using. or facilitating the use of an automated community in a wide variety of contexts.

Although the operations of some of the disclosed methods are described in a particular, sequential order for convenient presentation, it should be understood that this manner of description encompasses rearrangement, unless a particular ordering is required by specific language set forth below. For example, operations described sequentially can be rearranged or performed concurrently. Moreover, for the sake of simplicity, the attached figures may not show the various ways in which the disclosed methods, apparatus, and systems can be used in conjunction with other methods, apparatus, and systems. Additionally, the description sometimes uses terms like "determine" and "identify" to describe the disclosed technology. These terms are high- level abstractions of the actual operations that are performed. The actual operations that correspond to these terms will vary depending on the particular implementation and are readily discernible by one of ordinary skill in the art.

Further, data produced from any of the disclosed methods can be created, updated, or stored on tangible computer-readable media (e.g., tangible computer- readable media, such as one or more CDs, volatile memory components (such as DRAM or SRAM), or nonvolatile memory components (such as hard drives)) using a variety of different data structures or formats. Such data can be created or updated at a local computer or over a network (e.g., by a server computer).

Example 4 -Payment Methods

In some embodiments, one or more verifiable payment methods are used to provide funds to charities, and allow the charities to spend those funds. In certain embodiments, once the payment method has been used to pay for activities associated with the charitable activity, a record is generated that is sent to the donor charity management system 105. Using the record, the donor chanty management system 105 and/or the charity and/or an auditing firm, etc., can determine that the payment was made to benefit the charitable organization. In at least same embodiments, proof that the payment was made may be available to donors to the project, to outside agencies, etc., by, for example, being posted on a website associated with the donor charity management system 105. In ai least some embodiments, the information is available at the transaction level. In some embodiments, the verified information is available at the project level. In some embodiments, the verified information is available at the charity level; i.e., the charity can state that 95% of the money donated reaches its intended recipients, and so forth.

The payment method may be a pay card 410. The payment method may be a PDA with a credit transaction facility 415, such that money (or its electronic equivalent) may be uploaded to a chip associated with the PDA and then spent, generating a verifiable record of the transaction.

The payment method may also be a cell phone with a credit transaction facility 420. For example, such a cell phone may allow the seller to send a payment request to the user's cell phone; the user can then pay by confirming the request. Further, the payment method 180 may be an internet-enabled payment, such that funds available for a charitable project or endeavor may be accessible through an internet site (e.g., associated with the donor charity management system 105). A charity or charitable project may be able to access these internet-enabled funds and pay for products or services using the internet, or use them to pay for products and services which accept such forms of payment. Example 5 - Pay Card

In some embodiments, one or more pay cards, such as the pay card 410 (FIG. 4) are used to provide funds to charities, and allow the charities to spend those funds. The pay cards may be credit cards, debit cards, stored value cards, payroll cards, charge cards or some combination.

In embodiments in which stored value cards are used, the stored value card may allow the user access to money on deposit available to the charity. The money may be on deposit with the card issuer, the donor credit management system, etc.

The stored value card may be able to be used by anyone that has access to the card, or may require that a password be input for use, or that other security measures be used to access funds associated with title card.

In some embodiments, the use of funds associated with pay cards may be limited to specific uses, In certain embodiments, alerts can be set on the type of purchases so that if funds associated with a particular pay card are used or attempted to be used outside the authorized scope of use, such uses or attempts to use will be flagged for review and possibly reject such uses. In some embodiments, the donor charitable management system 105 monitors and flags uses or attempted uses outside of the authorized scope of use.

The pay card may be a payroll card used by, e.g., the charity, to pay employees. In such a case, for example, at the end of a pay period wages may be placed on (or accessible through) the card.

The pay card may be associated with a commercial merchant card processor, such as Visa or Mastercard. In such cases, the commercial merchant card processor, fund provider (such as a bank), or donor system provider or operator may share fees generated from pay card access, such as, for example basis point fees, tiered fees, a flat annual fee, or some combination with the donor and charity management system 105.

The pay card may be able to have money loaded/reloaded on it by some combination of the donor management system 105, the merchant card processor, the charitable organization, or qualified clients of the charitable organization. Some embodiments only allow money to be loaded on the pay card if there is authorization from the donor charitable management system 105 to the entity that will be using the card Other embodiments allow authorized users of a charitable organization 170 to reload the card. Various embodiments allow money to be securely transferred from donors, by way of the donor charity management system 105 to charities or charitable projects in far-thing locations. In some embodiments, the pay card may be loaded/reloaded in a remote location using an internet or other network connection.

In some embodiments, the donor charitable management system 105 charges a fee for reloading the card. In some embodiments, the donor charitable management system 105 charges a fee for using the pay card 180.

In some embodiments, the donor charitable management system 105 can securely transfer funds from donors 155 to charitable organizations 170 and/or projects 175 using the pay card 180.

In some embodiments, when the pay card is used, a record of the transaction is stored on the card or otherwise delivered to the donor management system 105 or other transaction management system or facility. In some embodiments, a record of the transaction is sent to the donor management system 105, by, e.g., the Internet. In other embodiments, This record may then be downloaded into a database, such as the database 167 associated with the donor charitable management system 105. The record may indicate the particular charity with which the payment was associated. In some embodiments, the record may indicate the particular project with which the payment was associated, for, by example, being associated with a specific pay card associated with that project. In some embodiments, the specific payment may then be associated with a task or event associated with the project. The donor charitable management system 105 may then be able to link specific payments made with the pay card to specific funding activities and/or reporting mechanisms. In some embodiments, the donor charitable management system 105 can use the data from the pay card to provide fund verification and reconciliation, and/or to create an audit trail In some embodiments, the fund verification and reconciliation is done in real-time, In certain embodiments, the reconciliation process ties individual transactions to individual project budgets. The charity may then be able to determine, for example, what percentage of donations were used for activities such as fundraising and administrative activities, and what percentage of donations were spent directly for the charitable projects, where funds were spent, by whom, when, etc. in some embodiments, the donor management system 105 can use the pay card information to tie together the financial accountability together with the project information so the donor can monitor the impact the project is making.

Example 6 - Method to Track Funds Supplied to Charities In some embodiments, a charitable organization can define activities necessary to achieve a charitable goal, such as "increase literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa." Activities that might be undertaken in such a project might include; Select and train literacy instructors.

Assess literacy levels of women and men. Produce and distribute literacy materials. Provide basic literacy, post- literacy and numeracy training for (f/m) community members and groups. Coordinate with Government to provide certification of learner achievement. stipends for facilitators, curriculum assistance and testing of learners (f/m). Establish key components to promote continuing education that will maintain and strengthen literacy skills such as creating box libraries, book clubs, rural lending libraries, and refresher workshops; and ensuring the key population has access to local newspapers.

Conduct accounting and financial literacy classes. Assure follow-up and monitoring.

Each of these activities may have associated expenses. For example, selecting and training literacy instructors may require salaries for the literacy instructors during training, rent for a suitable location Io hold the training, snacks to be served during training, and so on. Using the donor and charity management system 1OS, the charity may be able to budget desired funds for each of the tasks, and allocate funds as they come in to each of these tasks. Then, using the payment method 180, the individual tasks may be funded. For example, rent may be paid for a classroom using the pay card. When the rent transaction occurs, a report or report portion may be generated that is transmitted (either immediately or at a later time) to the donor management system 105. Such a report may allow the donor management system 105 to determine that the particular task (rent) was funded. The donor management system 205, or the charity using the donor management system 105 may then be able to modify its project information to indicate that the specific task has been funded. Example 7 -Method to Use the Pay Card

In an embodiment, a donor makes a charitable donation to a charity or a project associated with a charity. In some embodiments, the donor may associate his or her money with a specific task, such as "buy polo vaccine io be used for vaccinations in Uitar Pradesh, India " In other embodiments, the donor may associate bis or her donation with a more general task, such as "Eradicate Polio. "

The donated money, or at least a portion thereof, is then passed onto the charitable project. For example, a payment method, such as a pay card 180 may be loaded with the donated money, an identification of another asset, etc. Then, the payment method may be used by a charitable project to fund the associated charitable project

Example 8- Method to Supply Funds to Charities

In some embodiments, a donor 155 can make a donation that is earmarked for a specific charitable organization 170, charity 175, or other philanthropic or supported activity using the donor charitable management system 105. For example, as shown in Fig. 2. using a donor/charitable management system 105, a potential donor may search for a charitable project for which to donate 204, and then may make a donation 210 to a chosen charity or charitable project 175. This money is then transferred to the given project though a verifiable payment method. This money may be used to initially fund a project and/or to fund ongoing monthly and/or capital expenses. The verifiable payment method is given to the charitable project or someone associated with, the charitable project. When items are purchased using the verifiable payment method, an electronic transaction record is generated by, e.g., the commercial merchant card processor This record is then (or at some time, for example all transactions within a certain time frame may be transferred in a batch) transferred to the donor and charity management system 105. At the system, the record can then be used to verity that the donation was used for the project, to keep track of ongoing accounting and budgeting for the project 214, and/or to be used for auditing or reporting information either through the donor management system 105 or otherwise.

In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of the disclosed invention may be applied it should be recognized that the illustrated embodiments are only preferred examples of the invention and should not be taken as limiting the scope of the invention. Rather, the scope of the invention is defined by the following claims. We therefore claim as our invention all that comes within the scope and spirit of these claims.

Claims

We claim:

1. A method for funding philanthropic funding with a plurality of donors and a plurality of charitable organizations, comprising: allowing a plurality of donors to donate to a charitable project using a donor and charity management system; allowing at least a portion of the donation to be transferred to a verifiable payment method associated with the charitable project; using the verifiable payment method, allowing at least a portion of the transferred money to be spent on one or more transactions associated with the charitable project; transmitting information related to the transaction to the donor management systemf and using the transmitted information, updating financial information associated with the charitable project.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the financial information is the percentage of the donation that was spent on the one or more transactions associated with the charitable project

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmitted information is a credit card transaction.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the verifiable payment method is a stored value card

5. The method of claim 1 wherein updating the financial information further comprises associating the transaction with the donor.

6. A computer-implemented system for securely funding charities comprising: An internet-enabled donor and charity management system; at least one donor funding link whereby donors can donate to a philanthropic project; at least one pay card associated with the philanthropic project; at least one pay card funding link by which donations can be transmitted to the pay card; and at least one pay card transaction database whereby pay card transactions can be captured, stored, and associated with the philanthropic project.

7. The computer-implemented system of claim 6 wherein the database is operationally able to determine what percentage of the donation was spent on one or more transactions associated with the philanthropic project.

8. The computer-implemented system of claim 6 wherein the pay card is a credit card.

9. The computer-implemented system of claim 6 wherein the pay card is a stored value card.

10. The computer-implemented system of claim 6 wherein the pay card is a debit card.