How we began
Online Giving Foundation Ltd was established by Tina Paterson. When living in New York, Tina was inspired by the thousands of "ordinary people" who ran the New York marathon each year, and so in 2004 she decided to run it and raise money for the National Stroke Foundation using a US online fundraising site. She spent about 15 minutes in total personalising her fundraising page and sending the links to friends and family in Australia and the United States so they could donate to her chosen charity.
She was amazed that she raised around $5,000 for her charity just by giving up 15 minutes of her time!
In the last 10 kilometres of the marathon when she hit the infamous "wall", what kept her putting one foot in front of the other was remembering the messages that her friends and family had posted on her page and their donations to her charity. A self-proclaimed mediocre runner who took about double the time of the professional runners, Tina still counts this as the second best day of her life (after her wedding day!).
After returning to Australia in 2005, when a friend in Melbourne who was raising money for charity sent an email saying "you can either send me a cheque or give me your donation when you see me", Tina realised there was not a really simple way for individuals to raise money for their chosen charity online in Australia. So she created Online Giving.
The Online Giving team have several years of project management, not-for-profit, marketing, IT, customer service, finance and legal experience across Australia, the US and Europe. We have partnered with several charities and not-for-profit organisations in Australia who loved the idea of Online Giving and have provided invaluable advice and direction in the creation of this web site.
Like our charity partners, we are a not-for-profit organisation ourselves with a passion for helping others make a difference. We love to get involved in events to raise money for Australian charities in a simple, innovative and effective way. We are committed to professional and ethical fundraising and are working to transform the face of charitable giving in Australia. We love what we do and we hope it shows.