Helping Your Charity Blossom
Charity Blossom is on a mission of social good. We're here to help charities and nonprofits grow, bloom, and thrive. We help you plant the seeds to enable charities on their mission of good. Working together, we can help charities and nonprofits blossom.
For Donors
Donors are the foundation for nearly every nonprofit. Nearly all charities rely on you and your contributions to survive and succeed. Because contributions are the seeds of success, Charity Blossom makes it easy for you to make donations to your favorite nonprofits. Working with our partner, the Clearport Technology Group, you can make donations to nearly every recognized charities and nonprofits in the United States. The process of donating is easy, efficient, and effective. You can donate a little or a lot. We make it easy for you to contribute and track all of your donations online. Come next tax season when you are gathering tax information, you'll be thankful you made your charitable contributions through Charity Blossom!
Want to know more about charities and nonprofits? Find out about a nonprofit's mission, their effectiveness, finances, and other details. See how others have rated or reviewed a nonprofit and hear their stories about it.
Of course, we rely on your help too. As a community resource, we hope you tell others your stories and leave ratings and reviews of charities. You can help "complete picture" to give more exposure to these organizations.
For Nonprofits
Charity Blossom is here to help you too. First, our principle goal is to bring you more donors and donations. However, we provide you with tools to help you communicate with your donors and potential donors and build stronger relationships with them. Facebook, Twitter, email, and the Charity Blossom website (your "listing" page) are all ways we can help you get your message out to your constituents.
Our Donation Processing Partner, the Clearport Technology Group
At Charity Blossom, we work with the Clearport Technology Group to process donations. Clearport is a a 501(c)3 public charity. Donations are by processed by Charity Blossom and are sent directly into the donor advised fund sponsored and held by Clearport. At the time the donation is made, each donor may advise on how the donation should be granted to other charities. (When you do so, you will be prompted to agree to Clearport’s standard donor advised fund agreement.) Clearport, as the sponsor of the donor advised fund, retains full discretion and control over all amounts contributed into the donor advised fund, however. This means that, in the rare event that the organization you have recommended to receive your donation does not meet Clearport's criteria for donations (for example, the organization no longer has tax-exempt status or is no longer in active operation, among other things), Clearport will select an alternate grantee, if possible in consultation with you.
100% of your gift may be deducted as a charitable contribution on your federal and state income tax returns, subject to general limitations applicable to your personal circumstances. Please consult your tax adviser.
Why use a donor advised fund you ask? We've decided that using Clearport is the easiest, most efficient, and most flexible way for us to process your donations. As a nonprofit, Clearport is a trusted partner whose mission is to provide help and support charities and nonprofits. They are a great fit for our mission.
The above explanation of how Charity Blossom and Clearport handle donations is an informal description. Please see the Donation Processing section of our Terms of Service for a formal description.
Charity Blossom Accredited Nonprofits and the Charity Blossom Badge of Trust
Charity Blossom members that exhibit trust and transparency can become an Accredited Nonprofit of Charity Blossom. Accredited Nonprofits can then display the Badge of Trust. The Charity Blossom Badge is the symbol of truth, transparency and trust. Become a member, get accredited, and display the Badge to give your constituents confidence in your nonprofit. Whenever you see the Charity Blossom Badge, be assured! Trusted. Truthful. Transparent. Details on the Charity Blossom Accredited Nonprofits and the Charity Blossom Badge of Trust can be found here.
Team
Wayne Yamamoto ("Hustler")
Wayne is Charity Blossom's CEO and Founder. Prior to Charity Blossom, Wayne co-founded MerchantCircle. He was the CTO and Vice President of Products at MerchantCircle–the largest online network of local businesses. Previously, he was the Vice President of Engineering, first engineer and architect at BroadVision, a leading enterprise software company and Internet pioneer. Between BroadVision and MerchantCircle, Wayne was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and Entrepreneur in Resident at Rustic Canyon Partners. Early in his career, he was a software engineer/coder/hacker at Sun Microsystems and AT&T Bell Laboratories. He has a BSCS and MSCS from the University of Washington in Seattle.
Jason Culverhouse ("Hacker")
Jason is the Chief Architect and Founder at Charity Blossom. Previously, he was the Chief Architect and first engineer at MerchantCircle where he led all technical development. He was responsible for building www.merchantcircle.com–the largest social networking website for small businesses, with over 1 million members. Before MerchantCircle, Jason was a Principal Software Engineer at BroadVision. He has a BS in Computer Science from Louisiana State University. Jason and Wayne have worked together for nearly 15 years.
Jeff Lee ("Designer")
Jeff is Charity Blossom's in-house designer and cabana boy. Corn-fed and farm raised from the state of Michigan, he traveled far to be a part of the Charity Blossom team. Well as far as Mountain View, where he was also a key member of the MerchantCircle team.
Advisory Board
Rich Skrenta
Rich is CEO of Blekko, a new search engine startup. Previously he was founder and CEO of Topix, the leading online news community. Prior to Topix, Rich headed up engineering for a variety of products within AOL, including AOL Shopping, AOL Music and Netscape Search. Prior to AOL, Rich was the co-founder and CEO of NewHoo, which was acquired by Netscape and renamed the Open Directory Project. The ODP is the world's largest human edited directory of the web and used by Google, Yahoo, AOL and many other companies. Rich was an engineering manager at Sun Microsystems prior to NewHoo and has also had development roles at Unix Systems Labs and the Amiga UNIX Group at Commodore Business Machines. Rich holds a patent in network security, and has authored many well-known pioneering software efforts, including some early multi-user online games. Rich graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Computer Science.
Mike Markson
Mike is the Vice President of Marketing at Blekko. For the past 8 years, Michael has been a marketing and business development executive with technology companies. Prior to Blekko, Michael was a founder of Topix, where he was responsible for the company’s initial product marketing, its press launch as well as several of the post launch product initiatives. As VP Business Development of Topix, he closed deals with many top tier media properties (NY Times, Wash. Post, CBS, CNN, etc.), each of the major wire services (AP, Reuters, etc.) and many large sites (Yahoo, Ask, AOL, etc.). In addition, he led the process of selling the company to Tribune, Gannett and Knight Ridder in March of 2005. Prior to Topix, Michael was the General Counsel and Director of Business Development for Terraspring, Inc. Heading up the company’s strategic partner program, he created valuable alliances with entities such as HP and EMC and led the company’s efforts in its sale to Sun Microsystems. Prior to joining Terraspring, Michael was a transactional attorney for the New York offices of Brown & Wood. He has a BA in Economics from Wittenberg University, a JD from Capital University Law School and an LLM from Georgetown University Law School.
Adriana Gascoigne
Adriana is the Vice President of Marketing at SecondMarket, the global marketplace for illiquid assets. She is responsible for SecondMarket’s marketing, branding strategy, event production and digital media efforts. She assists in formulating the strategic direction and branding of the company as well as public relations efforts. Prior to joining SecondMarket, Adriana worked at a variety of technology start-ups spearheading marketing, communications and analytics. She worked at hi5, SocialGamingNetwork (SGN), Jambool’s SocialGold, GUBA as well as Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide as the Vice President of 360 Digital Influence and Edelman as the Vice President of the Digital Group.
In March 2007, Adriana launched Girls in Tech, an organization focused on the empowerment, engagement and education of women in tech. She is an “Intel Insider,” serving as a brand and product advisor for Intel. She is an advisor to a variety of start-ups including Involver, DooChoo, and Change.org. In 2009, Adriana launched SmittenWithMittens, a 501 (c) 3 providing fair trade mittens, clothing, uniforms and resources to orphans in developing countries.
Adriana holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Economics from the University of California at Davis and received a degree from El Tecnologico de Monterrey in Aguascalientes, Mexico in 2000. She is currently enrolled in USF’s MBA 2012 program.
Zaw Thet
Zaw is CEO and co-founder of 4INFO, the largest independent mobile media company in the US. In addition, Zaw is an angel investor, board member, and advisory board member for a select group of private technology companies in the mobile, social networking, and media/advertising sectors.
Zaw is also committed to nonprofits, serving on the national board of After School All Stars (ASAS). He is also Chairman and founder of Palindrome Advisors, a company dedicated to helping NGOs and nonprofit organizations leverage the power of mobile and social media to build communities, to raise awareness, and to increase funding.
Prior to founding 4INFO, Thet was a Director of Business Development at Spoke Software and was a special consultant to the San Francisco 49ers. Zaw graduated from Stanford University with degrees in Political and Computer Science, where he was a President's Scholar. He has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Soros Fellow.
Mark Hull
Mark is the VP/GM Partnerships for CrowdStar, the world’s second largest social game company, where he is responsible for distribution and the company’s global business. Previously, Mark was the VP Product Management for Vivaty, which was acquired by Microsoft. Mark began his career at Yahoo where he ran the company’s community and games product lines. Mark also has held executive roles at iWin and MerchantCircle. Mark’s favorite charities are Heifer International and Little Kids Rock.
Chris Tolles
Chris is the CEO of Topix, the leading news community on the Web. Prior to Topix, he co-founded Spoke Software, a business social networking company, where he was the Vice President of Marketing. Before Spoke, Chris was a Director of Marketing at AOL/Netscape for AOL Music, Netscape Search and Directory Products. Chris was a co-founder and VP of Marketing at NewHoo, and led the sale of the company to Netscape. After the acquisition, NewHoo was relaunched as the Open Directory Project at Netscape. Previous to NewHoo, Chris held a variety of sales, marketing and management positions at Sun Microsystems. Chris graduated from the University of California at San Diego with degrees in Computer Science and Economics, where he was awarded the Michael J. Addison award for his senior thesis about the online information industry.