History
The 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami provided the initial inspiration to create a program to do this with a simple checkbox on a single web site which invited customers to add $2.00 for a charity to the purchase of a travel insurance policy. Within a few months this had raised $50,000. Based on this surprise success, Footprints was re-engineered so that people could donate to location-specific, project based initiatives which improved collections still further and provided the donor with a tangible connection to their choice of project.
After the success of project-based donations, the team decided if they really wanted to make a BIG difference, they needed to share their technology with other e-businesses: to build a network of e-businesses across the globe willing to raise a lot more money for tangible charitable projects.
And so it was that an API was developed making the technology available — for free — for e-businesses (Electronic business) to integrate into their web sites. More partners means reaching more customers and raising more money to fund more projects. All from $2 donations.
The Footprints Network has set itself the goal to raise $1 billion by 2018.
Read more about this topic: Footprints Network
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.”
—Imre Lakatos (1922–1974)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)