March 11, 2008

With a few extra clicks of a mouse, GivingCart can change ordinary Internet shopping into timely acts of generosity — a response to Catholic financial needs close to home and throughout the world.

"The idea is that Catholics spend money every single day, and this Web site is a place where everything can be bought and you earn a percentage of what is spent for a Catholic cause," Ben Olsen explained in a telephone interview from Steubenville, Ohio, where he graduated from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Olsen helped develop GivingCart, The Catholic Way to Shop, an online fundraising tool designed to support approved Catholic parishes and organizations connected to the Catholic Church, or that serve the Church.

For example, if a consumer goes to the GivingCart Web site and purchases $100 worth of merchandise from Amazon.com, that company will give a $4 (4 percent) commission to GivingCart which, in turn, will give 80 percent of that to the consumer's designated Catholic organization.

Other businesses on the Web site offer different commissions, ranging up to 40 percent.

More than 350 businesses are already included on GivingCart, and more are always being added. Currently, consumers can shop online through GivingCart at such places as 1-800-Contacts, Staples, Gap, Brookstone, Golf Galaxy, Hotels.com, Sony and Amazon.com.

Making a purchase through GivingCart does not cost anything extra.

There are currently more than 22,000 Catholic organizations and causes listed as potential beneficiaries of GivingCart. They include churches, youth groups, schools, colleges, religious orders, seminaries and pro-life leagues.

Olsen said Justin Schneir of California, GivingCart executive director, got the idea for GivingCart while working on a fundraiser for a pro-life group and realizing the organization spent more time raising funds than doing ministry.

Olsen and Schneir are friends who have an "entrepreneurial streak," Olsen said. They work with Ben Dunlap of California who deals with GivingCart's technology.

GivingCart is owned and operated by GivingCart Foundation, a joint project of Olsen, Schneir and Dunlap who want their work to help change the world for their fellow Catholics and the Roman Catholic Church. GivingCart Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity incorporated in the state of California.

The site, http://www.givingcart.com/, opened to the public in November.

In response to a sharp decrease in tithing and the coincidental emergence of e-commerce technology, GivingCart helps the Church thrive and grow in the modern world, its Web site notes, adding, "The potential for revenues generated by GivingCart is virtually unlimited."

As of Feb. 7, GivingCart had raised $4,500 for Catholic organizations. Checks are mailed to recipients quarterly.

"I like this site because it gives friends of [our school] the opportunity to buy what they need, and give to the school at the same time," said Jon P. Hughes, development director at Bishop Marshall School in Morrisville, Vermont. "I know several people who have expressed that they would like to support BJAMS more financially but their budgets are limited, so they buy some items online for the same price or less than they would pay traveling to Burlington, and they support Bishop Marshall (School) at the same time without impacting their own tight personal budgets. It's a win-win situation."

Other Web sites have a similar system of generating funds for charitable causes, but GivingCart is unique because all its beneficiaries are Catholic organizations, Olen said. "We're earning money from big, giant corporations and we put it in Catholic hands."

Some of the organizations listed as beneficiaries are umbrella organizations for Catholic groups such as a Newman Club, Olsen noted.

Asked why he and his friends launched GivingCart, he replied, "It's what God put on our hearts to do."

Hughes said he thinks "it's wonderful that a group of young people, in love with the Church and her mission, got together and created a site aimed at supporting Catholic charities across the country."

You can support Catholic Exchange, we are a 501c3 non-profit organization, by signing up here: www.givingcart.com/catholicexchange. Your support helps to keep this site active and projects like Champions of Faith.