Participant Media’s TakePart.com Launches Online Donations Powered By CrowdRise

LOS ANGELES (November 20, 2013) — TakePart.com, Participant Media’s digital network is expanding its TakePart Action Platform (TAP) to connect socially relevant digital content to donation actions in collaboration with CrowdRise, the leading crowdsourced fundraising platform designed to make giving and fundraising fun. Donations are the latest social action feature to be added to TakePart’s suite of tools that includes petitions, letters of support, pledges, and awareness actions to learn more about a specific issue.

TakePart’s customized version of CrowdRise’s proprietary technology easily allows readers to donate with the support of relevant content by connecting potential donors with feature articles, breaking news, photo galleries video, and other inspirational stories that encourage action.

“We’ve learned through our research that our readers are looking for a variety of options to express their support for a cause and TAP is designed to give them these opportunities by connecting all of our content to a range of social actions,” said Karina Kogan, SVP, Digital, Participant Media. “It’s exciting to offer our readers an easy way to contribute to an important fundraiser thanks to the work of the exceptional team at CrowdRise.”

“The notion that people simply want to read content and go on their way is just done,” said CrowdRise co-founder and CEO, Robert Wolfe. “People are thirsty to do so much more. People want to participate and change the world and it is so, so awesome that TakePart is taking such an incredibly proactive role helping to drive that change and catalyze an entire generation of passionate activists.”

TakePart is launching donations in conjunction with a special campaign with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian aid organization, which provides life-saving assistance to refugees and people who have been displaced by war, persecution or disaster in over 40 countries around the world. In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan the IRC launched an emergency response in the Philippines where over 4 million people have lost their homes. The IRC is focused on getting clean water to some of the most isolated regions of the Philippines, re-opening health clinics and hospitals, and helping Filipinos to rebuild their local economies. Through a series of original articles written by TakePart’s editorial team, and social actions powered by CrowdRise, users will have an opportunity to act on their support for by donating $10 -$100 to provide essentials such as emergency relief to help victims in the Philippines survive and rebuild their lives. The donation action can be found at http://bit.ly/17bbAN6.

“TakePart has been a wonderful supporter of the International Rescue Committee’s mission. They are always eager to raise awareness for our work – from the 2011 drought in East Africa to the ongoing conflict in Syria to the recent devastation in the Philippines,” says the IRC’s senior vice president for external relations, Carrie Welch. “We are excited to play a role in the launch of Donations.”

Other organizations that are part of TakePart’s Social Action Network (SAN), and which TakePart is working with to launch the donations feature include Endangered Species Coalition, American Rivers, EWG, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, United Way and Oceana.

The Web’s premiere destination for the socially conscious consumer, TakePart.com differentiates itself by connecting all of its stories to social action, empowering readers to take part in the solutions and make an impact. TAP powers dynamic content-to-action matching and also provides a set of distributable TakeAction Widgets that are as easy to install as a Facebook “Like” button and allow brands and nonprofits to marry their content to socially responsibility initiatives anywhere on the Web. To date, the company has worked with over 600 non-profits with a collective reach of over 75 million people.

ABOUT TAKEPART.COM

TakePart.com the digital network of Participant Media, is a leading source of socially relevant news, opinion, entertainment and information about ways to get involved with the issues that shape our lives. Participant’s philosophy that “a story well told can change the world” is the driving force behind TakePart’s mission: to inspire and accelerate social change by connecting compelling content to action.

ABOUT PARTICIPANT

Participant is a global entertainment company founded in 2004 by Jeff Skoll to focus on feature film, television, publishing and digital content that inspires social change. Participant’s more than 40 films include GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK, SYRIANA, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, FOOD, INC., WAITING FOR ‘SUPERMAN’, THE HELP, CONTAGION and LINCOLN. Through its films, social action campaigns, digital network TakePart.com and Pivot, its new television network for Millennials, Participant seeks to entertain, encourage and empower every individual to take action.

ABOUT CROWDRISE

CrowdRise is a crowd-funding platform for people and organizations to raise support for charitable causes. CrowdRise’s core principles are that people have unprecedented power to use the power of networks to leverage their personal capacity and that raising money for charity and giving back should be fun. CrowdRise’s custom-built platform and game theory, as well as the company’s proven record of designing innovative crowd-funding strategies, provide individual fundraisers, charities, and events with powerful tools to raise the most money for their causes and share compelling philanthropic stories with their personal networks. The site lets anyone turn their friends into an active base of donors for any cause and lets any organization, company, or event unlock untapped leverage out of their existing platform.