’Tis Better to Give Than to Receive

The UJC and American Jewish World Service are among 21 new charities (and the only ones from the Jewish world) that can now participate in the charity gift card offered through the nation’s leading provider of this product, Seattle-based TisBest. TisBest, as in “Tis better to give than to receive,” allows its customers to customize and purchase charity gift cards as gifts to support the charity of their choice. The idea behind offering charity gift cards is to create new fundraising avenues for nonprofit organizations.

According to TisBest founder Erik Marks, “every American can enjoy and participate in philanthropy. TisBest is dedicated to expanding philanthropic giving by offering our customers a high quality, diverse set of charitable organizations to support.  We selected these 21 charities from the hundreds of nominations because we believe that these finalists best fit our criteria of widespread endorsement, fiscal responsibility, ingenuity and success within their area of operations.”

New charities are screened by TisBest staff each summer. They typically must be featured on Charity Navigator or Guidestar and have revenues over $3 million per year. The 21 new charity offerings add diversity to TisBest’s current charities that received more than $350,000 in donations in 2007. New TisBest charities are nominated by TisBest customers or the charities themselves.