A Time of Transition

One thing we know for sure in this life is that change is a constant -- something we can definitely count on! Some of us thrive on change, but I suspect most of us find it difficult to deal with. We don't like being forced to change the way we think or the way we do things.

At Together We Can Change the World, we've found that our mission statement (included in our name) requires us to be ever-vigilant of how we can help others make a difference in their lives and in our world. Because of this, and because we provide leading edge tools to help you accomplish this, we are sometimes one of those dreaded agents of change.

In 2005 a group of six people gathered for a weekend retreat to brainstorm how they could individually and corporately help the greatest number of people make a difference in the world. As a result of that session, they started a new business -- from scratch. Shop For Charity Day, Inc. was launched on March 22, 2005 -- two short months later. The purpose and goal was to help organizations, businesses and individuals raise massive funding for their missions and projects -- to literally change the way fundraising is being done. One of the tools to accomplish that goal was an on-line fundraising mall that would be offered without charge.

In just six months Shop For Charity Day had more stores (over 1,000) in our mall -- more than any other fundraising mall on the Internet. We also had a database of over 90,000 organizations (we currently have over 155,000) and we offered the highest cash-back program of any other fundraising mall. We featured one of our organizations every week with a custom story placed right here on the SFCD site. We also sent out a series of courtesy emails (E-Commerce University) to help our organizations maximize their presence on the Internet. We sent out a weekly newsletter offering tips, stories, quotes, and hands-on helps for making a difference in our world. We offered Project Managers to help any organization wanting the extra help in optimizing their mall. And we provided complimentary weekly emails that could be used as they were, or could be fully customized and forwarded on by the organization to their supporters. These emails highlighted stores on the mall – a way to help people remember to do their everyday shopping on their favorite causes’ online shopping mall.

Within that same six months, we created a second web site -- Together We Can Change the World where we offered complimentary resources to help people reach out to others through our exclusive e-cards, e-books, inspirational prints and more. And we created a third web site -- Together We Can Change the World Day where businesses, organizations and individuals could publicize their service projects and mobilize volunteers across the United States.