Barbara Pash
Associate Editor
Alexander Blass wants you to give, and he’s found a new way for you to do it. Last April, Mr. Blass founded the Web site, RealityCharity.com, which has already racked up 5 million hits and won him the Daily Record’s 2007 Innovator of the Year Award. Mr. Blass, a Baltimore native who grew up in Darchei Tzedek Congregation and graduated from Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering and business from a number of prestigious universities, including England’s Oxford University.
He could have taken several different career paths and, in fact, did. Before founding RealityCharity.com, he was a software developer. A principal in the Maryland Venture Fund (a venture capital firm focusing on early-stage companies), and an investment banker with Legg Mason Wood Walker.
“My experience is the technical side, not just technology for its own sake but how to leverage its impact,” said Mr. Blass, 33 and single, now a Mount Washington resident who is active in young professional activities at Beth Am and B’nai Israel congregations.
But Mr. Blass, despite his cheerful and enthusiastic manner, has an unusual background. His father, Dr. Thomas Blass, is a child Holocaust survivor, having lived with his mother in Budapest, Hungary, in hiding during World War II.
Afterward, with most of the family dead, mother and son made it to Canada, where Dr. Blass, a psychologist and author, grew up. Mr. Blass proudly points out that he is named for his late grandfather.
The experience had a lasting impact on the family. “I grew up in a philanthropic household. Giving back, tzedakah, was important,” said Mr. Blass, who still remembers the many shlichim, emissaries from Israel, who traveled through his childhood Orthodox neighborhood seeking donations for various worthy causes.
“My parents never turned anyone away,” he said.
In 2004, just back from getting an MBA at Oxford University, Mr. Blass decided to take a different path.
During his previous jobs, he had sat on many organizations’ boards, where he had seen first-hand the unmet charitable needs.
“The vision of RealityCharity came to me, a centralized place for organizations, non-profits and people to come together,” said Mr. Blass, who then spent three years developing the technology. Patents are pending in the United States and abroad.
RealityCharity.com has been described as the “eBay of giving.” Mr. Blass calls it “the world’s first person-to-person philanthropic community.”
Through RealityCharity.com, donors make their donations directly to the organizations and non-profits in the United States and abroad that list their fund-raising campaigns on the platform.
“It doesn’t prevent [the organizations and non-profits] from seeking funds by traditional methods “like mailings and phone-a-thons, said Mr. Blass, “But it helps them publicize their fund-raising, gives them credibility” and reaches a wider audience than they otherwise would have.
Mr. Blass financed the privately owned RealityCharity.com himself. He has a staff of 10 that verifies the accuracy of the information from the organizations and non-profits, which pay a subscription fee and an operating fee to be listed.
Individuals also can get a listing on RealityCharity.com. They are verified through another company and pay no subscription fee.
RealityCharity.com is designed with numerous functions to help donors. There are 40 categories of causes, 50 tools to link up with fund-raising campaigns, and continuous financial updates on the progress of the campaigns.
“I wanted to create something that was easy, fun and direct,” said Mr. Blass, who has entered into a partnership with PayPal, the first of its kind, he notes, that allows donors to contribute in different currencies via credit card.
Steve Kozak was on the judging panel for the Daily Record’s 2007 Innovator of the Year award. Mr. Kozak, executive director of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, said Mr. Blass’ RealityCharity was chosen because “it’s the beginning of a trend. He is on the front end of a trend” that is changing the way charitable donations are made.
“What struck the judging committee is that RealityCharity provides an easier and more transparent way for people to give,” said Mr. Kozak.
“It’s the social and business aspects coming together. Like FaceBook [a social networking Web site], these new communities are providing more ways for people to network socially and professionally, and now they can also do it philanthropically.”
Mr. Blass has ambitious plans for RealityCharity. He talks about seeking corporate sponsors for the site. He doesn’t discount collaboration with the “right partners.” He mentions expanding to Africa, where he has been invited to speak at a Pan-African conference.
“We could leverage interest in and RealityCharity to raise money for global research on HIV/AIDS,” a major health threat in Africa, he said.
But there is no doubt that Mr. Blass is happy with what he has accomplished so far. “I really wanted to do something that truly mattered, given my background,” said Mr. Blass, who has visited Auschwitz, Dachau and Birkenau concentration camps.
Now, thanks to his creaton, RealityCharity, “in the future every organization will be conducting fund-raisers in this fashion,” he said.
Charitable Facts
30 cents: The average amount U.S. charities spend to raise $1
$300 billion: The amount of charitable donations Americans made in 2006
86 percent: The number of Americans who gave to charity in 2006
1000: The number of fund-raisers RealityCharity.com has hosted since April 2007
– Facts according to Alexander Blass
