Method and apparatus for increasing charitable donations by providing instantaneous donor recognition

• US 7,321,876 B1
• Filed: 04/28/1999
• Issued: 01/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: CollegeNET Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CollegeNET Incorporated
• Inventors: Wolfston, James H.
• Primary Examiner(s): ELISCA, PIERRE E
• Application Number:
  US09/300,881
• Time in Patent Office: 3,191 Days
• Field of Search: 705/30, 705/39, 705/8, 705/9, 705/40
• US Class Current: 705/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3674 involving authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/382 insuring higher security of transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0279 Fundraising management

Abstract

Charitable donations are increased by automatically providing immediate on-line recognition of on-line donors. A list of donors is maintained on a Web page acknowledging the on-line contributions. Donor names on the list can be links to additional information about the donation or the donor. Information about donor and donation is entered by the donor, who can specify what information is to be published on the Web and what information is to remain unpublished. The donor list can be arranged in order of donation size, and donors can compete for position on the list. The donor information can indicate membership in a group, and donations can also be totaled by group to encourage donation competition between groups.

Claims

1. A method of increasing charitable donations to an organization, the method comprising:

providing to a first donor over a computer network, in response to the first donor'"'"'s activation of a hyperlink, a page for initiating an on-line electronic funds transfer as a first donation to the organization;

accepting the first donation; and

without human intervention making publicly available over the computer network a page on which a list of donors is presented, including the first donor, to provide public recognition to the first donor, the page on which the list of donors is presented including a link to a page for making donations and including at least one link associated with one of the listed donors to a page having information about the one of the listed donors, the page having information about the one of the listed donors including a link to a page for making additional donations.

2. A method of increasing charitable donations to an organization, the method comprising:

providing to a donor over a computer network, in response to the donor'"'"'s activation of a hyperlink, a page for initiating an on-line electronic funds transfer as a first donation to the organization;

accepting the first donation; and

without human intervention making publicly available over the computer network information about the first donation to provide public recognition to the donor, at least one link for accepting additional donations being provided along with the information about the first donation.

3. The method of claim 2 in which without human intervention making publicly available over the computer network information about the first donation includes providing a link to an electronic page including information about the donor.

4. The method of claim 3 in which without human intervention making publicly available over the computer network information about the first donation includes:

making publicly available a donation list providing information about multiple donations, the first donation being one of the multiple donations, a page on which the donation list is displayed including a link for making an additional donation; and

providing on the page displaying the donation list a link to an electronic page including additional information about the donor and including a link for making donations.

5. The method of claim 2 in which without human intervention making publicly available over the computer network information about the first donation includes making publicly available a list of donations including the first donation.

6. The method of claim 5 in which making publicly available a list of donations includes providing in association with at least one of the donations on the list, a link to an electronic page including information about a donor who made the listed donation.

7. The method of claim 5 in which making publicly available a list of donations includes providing a list of donations on a page including a link to a page for making an additional donation.

8. The method of claim 5 in which making publicly available a list of donations includes making publicly available a list arranged in order of donation level, the donation level corresponding to the total amount donated by each donor on the list.

9. The method of claim 2 in which without human intervention making publicly available over the computer network information about the first donation includes making publicly available information about a donor who made the donation.

10. The method of claim 2 in which providing to a donor over a computer network a page for initiating an on-line electronic funds transfer as a first donation to the organization includes providing a page for payment by credit card, debit card, payroll deduction, or billing to a telephone number.

11. The method of claim 2 in which accepting as a first donation includes receiving a page in which the donor has provided information about the donor.

12. The method of claim 11 in which receiving a page in which the donor has provided information about the donor includes receiving information from the donor to indicate which parts of the information is to be made publicly available.

13. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

totaling donations by categories, the category of each donation being determined from information provided by the corresponding donor; and

publishing the donation totals by category on the computer network.

14. The method of claim 13 in which the categories represent groups of donors, the method further comprising using the totals published on the computer network to encourage the groups of donors to compete by increasing their donations.

15. The method of claim 2 in which automatically publishing on the computer network includes publishing the information on an Internet Web page.

16. An apparatus for increasing charitable donations to an organization, the apparatus coming:

a network server for communication with individual over a computer network;

a program executing on the network server to perform the steps of;

providing to a first donor over a computer network, in response to the first donor'"'"'s activation of a hyperlink, a page for initiating an on-line electronic funds transfer as a first donation to the organization;

accepting the first donation; and

without human intervention making publicly available over the computer network a page on which a list of donors is presented, including the first donor, to provide public recognition to the first donor, the page on which the list of donor is presented including a link to a page for donations and including at least one link associated with one of the listed donors to a page having information about the one of the listed donors, the page having information about the one of the listed donors including a link to a page for making additional donations.