CANADIAN FUNDRAISER
"COMMUNITY STOREFRONTS"
Shopping and giving on-line...
by Tanya Hancherow, Web Networks
July 29, 1998--If an eight-month pilot project succeeds, Canadians will be
able to make donations to their favourite charities on the Internet, as well
as shopping at a wide variety of small and medium-sized enterprises--and not
worry about credit card fraud. Titled Community
Storefronts and accessed at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/, the
initiative is a partnership between Industry
Canada and a consortium of private sector companies,
including DoP@y eCommerce Solutions,
Strategic Profits Inc, GE Capital
Information Technology Solutions, and the Royal Bank of
Canada. Pilots are located in four Community Access Program
sites--North Okanagan, BC; Lanark County, Ontario; Joliette, Québec;
and Cape Breton in Nova Scotia--as well as Web Networks, Canada's only
national non-project Internet Service Provider, http://community.web.net.
At the onset of the program, there are 750 products and services on
offer--scheduled to rise by another 1,750 shortly--and 60 nonprofit
organizations, from which consumers can buy merchandise and/or to which they
can make a direct donation. "With national groups ranging from
Canadian Feed the Children to the United Way of
Greater Toronto, from Bridgehead to Green
Teacher and from the Canadian Centre for
philanthropy, the e-commerce pilot project is opening up doors to
generating greater public awareness and increased revenue for nonprofit
organizations in Canada," says the announcement of the program.
Each of the consortium members brings appropriate talents and resources
to the project: DoP@y eCommerce Solutions has the accredited payment system;
Strategis Profits Inc provides the e-commerce business model training and
the Shop Site Pro shopping cart license through its partnership
with I-central; GE Capital Information Technology Solutions offers
a central, secure hardware system; and the Royal Bank reconciles VISA
merchant transactions and supports the authorizations of most major credit
cards.
To investigate how the system works for fundraising, at the home page
first click "welcome" or "bienvenue". On the Welcome page, click "worthy
non-profits". On the page titled Canadian Charities and Social Service
Nonprofit Organizations, first click "list of organizations" for a full
list of all currently participating nonprofits. Then click "Web Networks,
to bring up a page of links to the participating organizations. Each can be
accessed from here to get a description of its activities and other
information, and each has a secure donation form through which a surfer can
make a donation to the charity of his/her choice.
It's tomorrow's fundraising today. Check it out.
For further information: Web site http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/cs
Tanya Hancherow, Web Networks (416) 596-0212, ext.
16; Gladys Nova, GE Capital, (905)
568-6935; Graeme Harris, Royal Bank
(416) 947-5883; Bill Turner, DoP@y (819)
778-6666, ext. 36; Catherine Clarke, Strategic Profits
Inc. (604) 684-5671; Justine Akman, Industry
Canada (613) 954-3520, fax 941-2811, akman.justine@ic.gc.ca.
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