Campus Media Center Develops Site to Ease Charitable Giving

The campus's Berkeley Center for New Media has developed a Web site that aims to make charitable giving easier by matching donors to potential non-profit organizations based on their preferences.

The Donation Dashboard site allows new users to rate their interest in 15 sample charities. Based on their responses, the system provides a customized donation portfolio with recommendations for different organizations.

"There are so many great organizations out there and it's hard to decide where to place your money, especially for young people," said Ephrat Bitton, an industrial engineering and operations research graduate student, who helped develop the theory behind the project.

The pilot system currently includes information on 70 non-profit institutions, including World Wildlife Fund and American National Red Cross, among others. Depending on the amount of interest in the project, the site could expand to include more charities, said Tavi Nathanson, an electrical engineering and computer sciences graduate student who is responsible for developing the software.

"People can discover more charities because (the system) is based on their interests, not just about what they've heard of or what is popular," Nathanson said.

Since the May launch of the site, 1,600 users have generated 25,000 ratings of non-profit institutions.

Marguerite Nowak, advocacy and education manager for the San Francisco Food Bank, said the site could help people who want to donate but do not have the time to thoroughly research different nonprofits.

"We have pretty good name recognition in the community, so I think it could help raise awareness, but I don't know if it would help the food bank receive more donations," she said.

The project implements an updated version of the Eigentaste algorithm, patented in 2003 by Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley professor of industrial engineering and operations research and the director of the center.

Goldberg said he hopes the project will instill in young people an early habit of donating to charity.

"Students usually don't have a lot of extra money, but we feel that it's important to develop a habit of giving, even if it's a small amount," he said.

Tags: DONATION DASHBOARD, BERKELEY CENTER FOR NEW MEDIA