CORA gets a charity
boost on the Web

By Lauren Fritsky
Times Staff Writer

Believe it or not, a teenage girl can search for pictures of her celebrity crush after school and give to CORA Services at the same time.
Through three Web sites — goodsearch.com, networkforgood.com and igive.com — CORA is making money when a regular citizen makes a Web search or a purchase.
CORA, a human-services agency at Verree and Susquehanna roads, is considered a medium-sized non-profit group. Director Terry Devlin decided to explore the new age of online charitable support because government funding and grants are harder to come by.
"We’ll spread our wings in terms of fund-raising," Devlin said. "It will complement part of our strategic plan."
CORA made just a little over $4 in the first two weeks after it launched the effort in mid-March. But Devlin thinks that with time the online revenue will keep growing.
"I think it’s going to be a multiplying effect," he said. "Times it by ten-thousand, we’ll be making a lot of money."
The first site, GoodSearch.com, which is powered by Yahoo, works like this: Half of all ad revenue generated from the site, or about a penny per search, is donated to the charity of the user’s choice. If 1,000 CORA supporters used the site twice a day it would generate about $7,300 in total donations each year. And since the money GoodSearch.com donates comes from its advertisers, it doesn’t cost the users or the organizations anything.
IGive.com allows you to support a charity by shopping at one of more than 680 online stores. Up to 26 percent of your purchase can go to the charity. The other site, Networkforgood.com, touts itself as a safe site on which to search for charities and manage donations.
Devlin believes that using the Web sites is easier for contributors than sending a check in the mail. And while the effort is starting small for CORA, whose chief fund-raising event is an annual gala, Devlin believes the group will soon be on to bigger and better things.
"I’m sure it only grows from here," Devlin said. ••
For more information on donating to CORA, visit the agency’s Web site at www.coraservices.org
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com