Yahoo! Taiwan philanthropy homepage offers a better giving experience

Although this blog focuses primarily on the mainland, it is interesting to make comparisons with the nonprofit technology field in Taiwan. Yahoo! Taiwan's philanthropy homepage is similar in style to mainland sites such as Tencent Gongyi and Yeepay Gongyiyuan, allowing immediate online donations as well as ways to donate goods or become a volunteer.

Compared to mainland sites, it offers a greater level of detail and choice in the break-down of funding: most projects list several funding areas, and donors contribute directly to one of these areas rather than to the project as a whole. This increase in the donor's degree of involvement is likely to improve the overall giving experience. Likewise, projects in need of volunteers or donated goods also list these requirements in detail.

Yahoo! Taiwan's online donation platform also pre-dates the mainland sites, having been launched in mid-2005. In contrast, Yahoo! China offers no similar services, although it does have a philanthropy channel offering the latest nonprofit news and links to nonprofit project homepages hosted on Yahoo! (although at the time of writing, these links appear to be broken).