Abstract:
A method for facilitating charity donation matching, includes the steps of collecting information of potential donation receiving entities, inviting a potential donating entity to register contact information and donation criteria, prompting the potential donating entity to pay a matching surcharge, accepting the matching surcharge, matching the potential donating entity with one or more potential donation receiving entities and generating matching results, and providing the matching results to the potential donating entity.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    The invention generally relates to a system for bridging between the private and public sectors with charity receiving entities, such as schools. In particular, the system works with private companies, government, community and nonprofit organizations to locate public (or private) schools or school systems in their local area, region, state, or on a national basis to support. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    Most charitable originations, such as Red Cross, Purple Hearts, Salvation Army, Make A Wish Foundation, etc. facilitate three-party charitable money and/or gifts giving, by receiving the money and/or gifts, providing proof of donations to the donors for tax deduction purposes, and then giving away the gifts or spending the money for the particular charitable causes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,519,573 describes a host operating a central server, such as a web site, and potentially other support services, such as telephonic support. A gift giver visits the host web site and selects a donation amount and a gift recipient. The host then transmits the charitable gift to the gift recipient, along with a unique code which enables the gift recipient to redeem the charitable gift. 
         [0005]    The system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,898,575 allows participating charitable institutions to identify goods and services needed and donors can donate money to be applied for those specific needs by the institutions. The system also provides an aggregation of participating merchants that provide goods and services needed by the charitable institutions that can be purchased by such institutions with a system debit card. 
         [0006]    The system in US. Pub. No. 200200116214 allows a purchaser to select a beneficiary and predefines a donation percentage to a purchase/transaction amount to be donated from the merchant to the beneficiary. 
         [0007]    US. Pub. No. 20050125342 provides an IVR system interacts with callers to conduct donation transactions between callers and caller-selected charitable or political entities. 
         [0008]    The system in US. Pub. No. 20050159976 conducts a fundraising campaign over a wide-area network by hosting a website, registering on the website, making a charitable donation on the website, contacting third parties via email messages soliciting charitable donations, and providing one or more reports, on the website, including information on the status of the fundraising campaign. 
         [0009]    Currently, there is a demand for a third party to the donation to facilitate charitable money and/or gifts donation in an hands-off manner, i.e., without receiving the donations and dispensing donation receipts. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0010]    It is a purpose of this invention to bridge the gap between industry/community and education and to strengthen school outreach to the external community. 
         [0011]    It is another purpose of this invention to connect businesses, communities and other donating organizations to the school starting from the donor&#39;s perspective and goals to appropriate school recipients. 
         [0012]    It is still another purpose of this invention to provide a system by which private and community entities can donate according to their specified donation criteria while matching to the needs of the individual schools. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0013]    The foregoing and additional features and characteristics of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description considered with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals designate like elements and wherein: 
           [0014]      FIG. 1  shows a conceptual diagram according to the invention; 
           [0015]      FIGS. 2A-2C  are together a block diagram showing one embodiment of the overall hardware/software structure implementation of the system shown in  FIG. 1 ; 
           [0016]      FIG. 3  shows a sample match form prompted by the system to a donating entity; and 
           [0017]      FIG. 4  shows a sample input form prompted by the system to a participating school. 
       
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
       [0018]    With reference to the figures, like reference characters will be used to indicate like elements throughout the several embodiments and views thereof. As shown in  FIG. 1  illustrating the system  100  according to the invention (i.e., SchoolBizMatch) connects public or private donating entities  20  to direct donation receiving entities  30 , such as schools in the K-12 education sector. Fortune Magazine reports that 50% of the K-12 public and private schools in the U.S. are partnered with business in some manner. The system  100  out-reaches to potential donating entities  20  and donation-receiving entities  30  via press-releases, e-mails, newsletters, etc. inviting them to visit a SchoolBizMatch website  10  in order to register their information into the sample flow charts shown in  FIGS. 2A-C . 
         [0019]    In  FIG. 2A , the system  10  invites a potential donating entity  20  to become a partner in the SchoolBizMatch (SBM) website  10  via welcome page/step  110 , and introduce the history and background of the system via a page/step  120 . This website  10  offers to the business or community organization a tour of the educational framework and ways to get involved in a specific school or school system via a page/step  130 . The system then invites the potential donating entity  20  to pay a flat surcharge (e.g., $95) in a page/step  140 , to access information of donation receiving entities  30  collected and analyzed by the system. In the step  150 , the system prompts a Registration and Match Form as shown in  FIG. 3  to match automatically. The form includes a business name field  21 , a business address field  22 , a city field  23 , a state field  24 , a zip code field  25 , a contact number field  26 , a contact number field  27 , a contact e-mail filed  28 , a categories of participation field  29 , a grade level field  30 , a number of student field  31 , and an additional information field  32 . For example, the categories of participation field  29  shows a drop-down leaf listing: after school programs, arts education, athletics, business management, career development for students, early childhood education, facility and supply management, financial literacy, leadership for teachers and administrators, parental involvement, professional development for teachers, reading literacy, science literacy, tutoring and mentoring, etc. The grade level field  30  shows a drop-down leaf listing: pre-kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, etc. 
         [0020]    According to  FIG. 2C , the donating entity would enter data for the Registration and Match Form into a protected domain of the system. Specifically, the donating entity would login (step  310 ) into the protected domain; the domain is protected or secured in order to prevent the use of the donating entity&#39;s information by third parties accessing the website of the system  100 . For example, securing the donating entity domain would prevent third party solicitations directed to the donating entity from other charities or fraudulent sources. The donating entity then enters its data according to the Registration and Match Form (see steps  110 - 150 ). 
         [0021]    Once the Registration and Match Form is inputted into the system  100 , the data is managed as a database according to step  320  so as to be available to match with the schools listed in the database of the system  100  as explained herein below. 
         [0022]    As illustrated in  FIG. 2B , the school enters the data from a needs analysis into another protected domain of the system. The needs analysis is a process conducted by the individual schools to identify the needs specific to that school. The details on the needs analysis process and how to conduct the process may be available to the schools through workshops, in-person classes or online classes. The substantive content of the needs analysis is based on SBM&#39;s High Performance School Place Model, a governance and inclusion process involving varied parties/stakeholders. The school would then login (step  210 ) into the protected domain; this domain is protected or secured due to the potentially sensitive and proprietary nature of the information relating to the school, its operation and its students. 
         [0023]    Under step  220 , the system prompts a School Registration Form as shown in  FIG. 4  in which the school inputs its data that then forms its school profile. This form includes a school name field  41 , a school address field  42 , a school district field  43 , a city field  44 , a state field  45 , a zip code field  46 , a contact name field  47 , a contact number field  48 , a contact e-mail field  49 , a categories of participation or need field  50 , a grade level field  51 , a number of students field  52 , and an additional information field  53 . For example, the categories of participation/need field  50  shows a drop-down leaf (similar to that in the Registration and Match Form of  FIG. 3 ) listing: after school programs, arts education, athletics, business management, career development for students, early childhood education, facility and supply management, financial literacy, leadership for teachers and administrators, parental involvement, professional development for teachers, reading literacy, science literacy, tutoring and mentoring, etc. The grade level field  51  shows a drop-down leaf listing: pre-kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, etc. For schools that have very specific needs not covered by the categories of participation/need field  50 , schools may enter the details of such specific needs in the additional information field  53 . Examples of such special needs include special education materials, facilities or equipment to accommodate disabled students, mentoring support for low income or single parent families. 
         [0024]    Alternatively, school profile data may be entered into the system  100  other methods as noted in step  230 . For example, state, county or other local government agencies responsible for the local school system may have already collected the same or equivalent data on the school(s) in a database that could then be transferred or converted into the appropriate database format that can be accessed and manipulated by the system  100 . Also, those same sources could be used to provide the national/regional needs analysis data that the donating entity  20  could review manually to determine its participation, instead of through the matching of step  160 . 
         [0025]    As shown in  FIG. 2A , when the school matching selection process is used, the system  100  then proceeds to match the donating entity  20  with one or more donation receiving entities  30  in step  160  based on the school profile data process of step  220  and the database management method of step  320 , as will be explained further below. The system  100  then shows the match results and a thank you screen to the donating entity  20  in a step  170 . The system will also inform the matched donation receiving entities  30  if the donating entity  20  so requests. However, the system  100  will not be involved in actual contact and communication between the matched donating entity  20  and donation receiving entities  30 . However, the system will coach the donation receiving entities  30  to function like a stand-alone charity organization to negotiate the donation, to receive the donation, and to issue donation receipts on it own. 
         [0026]    As an alternative to the matching step  160 , the donating entity  20  may review the inputted needs analysis from step  220  or a national/regional needs analysis provided by a third party participant that made its data available to the system  100  to determine which level of school, which category of programs, and to which school or schools to donate using the publication method (see step  330 ); namely the system  100  in effect publishes the data on all participating schools only to the donating entry  20  to allow them to manually select their participation. As further alternatives, the system  100  may import or make available to the donating entity  20  other types of information or other sources of information on schools having identifiable needs, such as through information from website statistics (see step  340 ) or other data gathering/collection methods (see step  350 ). 
         [0027]    In addition to the above-described matching process, the system  100  invites potential donation receiving entities  30  to register on the website  10  and attend an online or actual “When Your Partner Calls” workshop to help them deal effectively with business or community partners. 
         [0028]    The workshop conveys school-business partnership ideas; what schools can do for their partners and what business and communities can do for the school, new ways to bring in business and community support, sample school-business partnership ‘contracts,’ benchmarking a partnership&#39;s progress, evaluation tools for continued or new partnership programs, benefits to schools, business, and community, understanding the ‘business of business’, dimensions of leadership, the difference between leadership and management, teamwork techniques, public relations ideas for schools and business, grass roots needs assessment for the school, etc. 
         [0029]    Through this SchoolBizMatch web-enabled initiative, businesses and other users can register to help meet school needs and have a real hand in community development. SBM&#39;s strategy puts schools in the forefront, enabling them to receive valuable input and assets from private and public entities with the focus on student achievement. 
         [0030]    Although the ultimate goal of SchoolBizMatch is to facilitate the matching process, this website has the potential to be a clearinghouse for information on policy and programs for educational excellence and civic involvement that benefits schools, students, communities, and business partners. 
         [0031]    The principles, preferred embodiments and modes of operation of the present invention have been described in the foregoing specification. However, the invention which is intended to be protected is not limited to the particular embodiments disclosed. The embodiments described herein are illustrative rather than restrictive. Variations and changes may be made by others, and equivalents employed, without departing from the spirit of the present invention. Accordingly, it is expressly intended that all such variations, changes and equivalents which fall within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined in the claims, be embraced thereby.