What was your goal in creating MyRegistry.com and how did you get involved with helping nonprofits?
MyRegistry.com was founded in 2005. We wanted to give people the ability to create a gift list for any gift-giving occasion and be able to add any item from any store or goods and services- thus our tagline, All Stores, One Registry. Although there is a long history of registries for weddings and babies, when we started our business, we also saw a huge opportunity for all the other gifting events – birthdays, holidays, housewarmings, etc, but we didn’t really anticipate that we’d be working with nonprofits. Nevertheless, our technology is incredibly flexible, and when the nonprofits came, we discovered that our system was completely in sync with their needs.
Tell us about your first nonprofit gift list.
2005 was the year of Hurricane Katrina, and many non-profits were looking to collect donations to help in the storm’s aftermath. We all remember the images from New Orleans and they got much of the attention. But all across the South, the damage was terrible. We received a phone call from a large church in Mississippi who needed help. Their members had lost homes, their savings, in short, everything. Their region was overlooked, not in Louisiana, and they wanted a way to let people all over the country know what their congregation needed. They had found our website and thought we could assist them. Our team mobilized, and remotely put together dozens of gift lists for their congregants. It was our first foray into working with a nonprofit. We realized that there was something special, an incredible synergy between our services and the needs of nonprofits. We knew we could leverage MyRegistry.com for gifting with a purpose.
How does MyRegistry.com for Nonprofits work?
Nonprofits have different needs from a bride or an expectant mom, so MyRegistry.com for Nonprofits is set up to meet their specific needs. With well over 10,000 active nonprofits using the platform, we’ve gotten pretty good at providing a platform that can work for any kind of nonprofit and any kind of in-kind contribution campaign. They can add any item from any store in the world, so they do not have to be US-based to use our services. We allow customization with logos and imagery. Organizations can embed the gift list directly into their websites for more visibility. They can even collect cash donations through the gift list and easily track their donors.
Recently I was invited by The Nonprofit Library to show its members how the platform works. Visit www.nonprofitlibrary.com to watch the recording. (You’ll have to create an account if you don’t already have one.) The Nonprofit Library is a community designed to introduce nonprofits to the tools they need to be successful.
Two final things about the gift list for nonprofits, one, we have an amazing “concierge” team who is available to help set up an organization’s gift list if they need some assistance and the service is free. Here’s the link for you to set up a meeting directly: https://meetings.hubspot.com/ganderson5
