Online direct donation platform GlobalGiving launched a UK operation, GlobalGiving.co.uk in September. As a result, overseas development charities based in the UK stand to benefit. VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas), and many small and medium-sized UK charities, already had projects live on the UK website at its launch.

Registered as a UK charity, GlobalGiving.co.uk’s start-up funding comes from Venturesome, the social investment fund of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), the Travel Foundation, the Mathias Family Trust and a major City figure. It has also received corporate support from the likes of Expedia, Google and PayPal. A partnership with CAF also means that CAF donors can easily access, and donate to, GlobalGiving projects from the CAF website, using existing funds in their CAF account. The website also offers alternatives to traditional gift-giving. Donors can buy gift certificates, set up wedding lists or make donations in someone’s honour.

Since the establishment of the original GlobalGiving concept in the US in 2001, GlobalGiving.com has generated over $12 million to fund over 1,000 grassroots development projects around the world.

Among its first initiatives, GlobalGiving.co.uk is partnering with four international development charities to enable donors to give to four specific healthcare projects in developing countries: the Haiti Hospital Appeal, which aims to address the need for health facilities to serve 800,000 people in dire conditions in north Haiti; a VSO project in Uganda, involving community-based healthcare services to address malnutrition and preventable diseases; Tran Tanz, which provides transportation for people in Tanzania, where most live more than 50 kilometres from any healthcare; and Riders for Health, working in western Kenya to mobilize healthcare providers from grassroots organizations.

For more information
Contact CEO Sharath Jeevan at sjeevan@globalgiving.co.uk or go to http://www.GlobalGiving.co.uk