Secure Web Sites Important Fundraising Tool

Friday, September 09, 2005 — Online fundraising is one of the most essential parts of fundraising for the American Red Cross and many other major charities across the country. To date a little over half of the donations the Red Cross has received after Hurricane Katrina have been through online donations.
Unfortunately there are many people out there willing to take advantage of the kindness of others by creating fraudulent websites using reputable names like that of the Red Cross and other groups to gather credit card information and other personal details.
“Online fundraising is so essential to our operation,” said Sue Woodward, Director of Direct Response Fundraising for the American Red Cross.
Because of the high volume of visitors to the Red Cross has partnered with several other large, reputable organizations to support the vast number individuals chosing to make donations online.
“We want to make sure that people are not receiving an error message when they come to our site,” said Woodward. “We want to be there when people want to turn their compassion into action, and we don’t want people to be discouraged when they support us via the web.”
The American Red Cross considers the security of the donation website RedCross.org and its donors to be of paramount importance. As such, the organization uses several layers of protective measures including but not limited to blocking and filtering technologies, surveillance, system updates and anti-fraud measures. In addition, the Red Cross performs system vulnerability assessments using internal resources and external, third-party assessments.