WO2001029787A2

WO2001029787A2 - System and method for accumulating individual gifts to create a group gift

Info

Publication number: WO2001029787A2
Application number: PCT/US2000/028544
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jeff Reifman; Shannon N. Kipp; Brian S. Keffeler
Original assignee: Giftcertificates.Com, Inc.
Priority date: 1999-10-18
Filing date: 2000-10-16
Publication date: 2001-04-26
Also published as: WO2001029787A3; AU1333601A

Abstract

A mechanism (101) for automating the task of accumulating a group gift to be donated to a recipient (123) is described. In one embodiment, the present invention is a network (120)-accessible software application that allows a promoter (121) to initiate a gift campaign. The promoter (121) identifies to the software application the recipient (123) and the potential participants (125-128). The software application then automatically contacts the potential participants (125-128) and invites them to donate to the group gift. At the termination of the gift campaign, the software application issues the gift to the recipient (123).

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ACCUMULATING INDIVIDUAL GIFTS TO CREATE A GROUP GIFT

Field of the Invention

The invention relates generally to a method of accumulating a group gift for the benefit of a recipient. More particularly, the invention relates to a method of soliciting donations or contributions from a group of participants for a group gift to be presented to an individual, an identified group of individuals, a charity, or any other recipient.

Background of the Invention

Most people are familiar with giving group gift certificates for birthdays, retirement, anniversaries, and baby showers. In the traditional manner, an individual would manually solicit individual donations from multiple participants to be aggregated for a group gift. Once that individual had accumulated a sufficient number of donations, a gift certificate may be generated with the combined donations. At that point, the gift certificate could be presented to the recipient, and the recipient could enjoy a larger single gift rather than many smaller individual gifts.

The traditional method of accumulating a group gift has the benefit of simplicity. Unfortunately, the traditional method also consumes a lot of time from the individual accumulating the gift. Despite the technological revolution the world has experienced for the last several years, no serious effort has been made to automate the group gift-giving experience. Only one known automated method allows an individual to present a gift certificate to a recipient. That method, which is described in detail at "http://www.flooz.com," merely allows an individual to purchase, online, a gift certificate and have the "Flooz" service deliver the gift certificate directly to the recipient. Unfortunately, that system does not allow for the inclusion of many participants in the same gift. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an automated method of accumulating, from two or more individuals, donations to be included in a group gift. Moreover, the mechanism should provide the ability to expand the list of participants.

Summary of the Invention

The present invention provides a mechanism for automating the task of accumulating a group gift from multiple donor participants to be presented to a recipient. The recipient may be an individual, identified group of individuals, a charity, or the like. The invention may be implemented as a network-accessible software application that allows a first individual (the "promoter") to initiate a "gift campaign." For the purpose of this discussion, the term "gift campaign" means the task of contacting a group of participants for the purpose of soliciting donations or contributions to a group gift for the benefit of a recipient. The promoter may interact with the software application to identify, at a minimum, the recipient and a list of participants in the group gift. Each of the participants should be accessible to the software application over a network, and preferably through an e-mail account. For example, the promoter may identify each of the potential participants by an e-mail address.

The promoter may optionally identify a reason for the gift, e.g., a special occasion such as a birthday, anniversary, retirement, etc. The promoter may also optionally identify a suggested individual donation amount and total gift goal. The promoter should identify a triggering event to terminate the gift campaign. For example, the promoter may identify a particular date or time at which the gift campaign will terminate. Alternatively, the promoter may identify an aggregate gift amount at which the gift campaign will terminate. Another option allows the a default termination event to be provided by the software application. After the promoter has provided all the necessary and optional information, the software application automatically contacts each of the identified participants.

If an e-mail address was provided to identify the participants, the software application generates and transmits an e-mail message to each of the identified participants. The e-mail message should, preferably, identify the recipient of the group gift and instruct the participants how to contribute to the group gift. In one embodiment, the e-mail message may include a Universal Resource Locator (URL) that points to a web page that allows the participant to contribute to the group gift. For example, a participant who receives the e-mail message may open an Internet browser at the URL provided in the e-mail message.

The software application makes available a donation page at the URL identified in the e-mail message for receiving donations from any participants who visit the site identified by the URL. The donation page may include data entry fields that allow the participant to contribute to the group gift, by providing credit card information or other financial commitment. The software application stores each commitment made by each participant that visits the donation page.

At the occurrence of the termination event, the software application closes the gift campaign and generates a gift certificate for transmission to the recipient. In one aspect, the gift certificate may be in the form of an electronic voucher for a

certain sum of money that may be redeemed by the recipient online with various subscribing vendors. In another aspect, the gift certificate may be in the form of

a check or other negotiable instrument to be presented to the recipient, for

instance if the recipient is a charity. It should be appreciated that the gift certificate may be in many forms and those described here are for illustrative

purposes only.

The software application may optionally perform various other functions

upon termination, such as notifying the promoter of which participants donated

during the gift campaign, that the gift campaign has ended, the aggregate amount of the group gift, that the recipient has received notice of the gift certificate, or that the recipient has spent the gift certificate.

The present invention overcomes the limitations in the prior art by

allowing an individual (the promoter) to initiate a gift campaign and avoid the

time-burden of manually soliciting donations from each of several potential

participants. The present invention provides a mechanism for automating the task of soliciting those donations. These and other benefits will become more apparent by close examination of the detailed description of the invention taken in conjunction with the several figures.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same become better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIGURE 1 is a block diagram of one network environment having a service provider with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIGURE 2 is an illustrative display screen of a creation page for creating a gift campaign in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIGURE 3 is an illustrative display screen of a summary page for displaying a summary of information collected on the creation page in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIGURE 4 is an illustrative display screen of an acknowledgement page for acknowledging the creation of a gift campaign in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention; FIGURE 5 is an illustrative display screen of a donation page for receiving donations to a gift campaign in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIGURE 6 is an illustrative display screen of an electronic message to be sent to participants in the gift campaign inviting them to contribute to the group gift in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIGURE 7 is a functional flow diagram illustrating a process for initiating a gift campaign in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIGURE 8 is a functional flow diagram illustrating in detail a process for providing information necessary to initiate a gift campaign in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIGURE 9 is a functional flow diagram illustrating in detail a process for contributing to a gift campaign in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment

Briefly described, the present invention provides a mechanism for automating the task of accumulating a group gift to be donated to a recipient. In one embodiment, the present invention is a network-accessible software application that allows a promoter to initiate a gift campaign. The promoter identifies to the software application the recipient and the potential participants. The software application then automatically contacts the potential participants and invites them to donate to the group gift. At the termination of the gift campaign, the software application issues the gift to the recipient.

FIGURE 1 is a functional block diagram of one network environment 100 for which the present invention is particularly well-suited. The invention may be embodied in a service provider 101 that offers an automated gift campaign service to subscribers. The service provider 101 may include a web server 103 and an e-mail server 105. Both the web server 103 and the e-mail server 105 are connected to a wide area network, such as the Internet 120. Although the Internet 120 is described here as the preferred wide area network, any such network or medium for connecting distributed computer systems may be employed in other embodiments of the invention. The web server 103 and the e-mail server 105 are also connected to each other so that they may communicate, such as over a local area network connection 107.

The web server 103 includes web server software (not shown) that is capable of making HyperText Markup Language (HTML) pages available over a wide area network, such as the Internet 120. Web server software and HTML pages are known in the art. The e-mail server 105 includes e-mail server software (not shown) that is capable of creating, receiving, and transmitting e-mail messages to individuals having e-mail capability. Typically, e-mail server software includes the ability to store address books containing e-mail addresses for intended recipients of e-mail messages. E-mail server software is also known in the art. The web server 103 and the e-mail server 105 are illustrated in FIGURE 1 as two separate computers for ease of discussion only. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that web server software and e-mail server software are often resident on the same computer.

Also illustrated in FIGURE 1 are several computer systems connected to the Internet 120. A promoter 121 is connected to the Internet 120 and may be used by an individual that desires to initiate a gift campaign. A recipient 123 is also connected to the Internet 120 and may be used by the individual on whose behalf a gift campaign is conducted. Finally, there are several participants 125- 128 connected to the Internet 120 and may be used by individuals that the promoter desires to include in the gift campaign.

In this embodiment, each computer system is connected to the Internet 120 in any acceptable way. For example, promoter 121 , recipient 123, participant 125, and participant 126 may be connected to the Internet via dial-up connections over standard telephone service. In contrast, participant 127 and participant 128 may be connected to a local area network 131 and have access to the Internet 120 via a network server 133 with a dedicated connection. The network server 133 may also include e-mail server software (not shown) for providing e-mail service to the network clients, such as participant 127 and participant 128. One example of such e-mail server software is the Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail server software owned and licensed by the Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington. Each of the illustrated computer systems (121-128) includes web browser software for downloading and interpreting HTML pages made available over the Internet 120. In addition, each of the computer systems connected to the Internet 120 may include e-mail software for transmitting and receiving e-mail messages over the Internet 120. One example of such e-mail software is the Microsoft Outlook Express e-mail software owned and licensed by the Microsoft Corporation. As is known in the art, some computer systems may alternatively access e-mail messages through the use of the web browser software rather than through the e-mail software. For example, the "Yahoo Mail" service, offered by Yahoo! Inc.. allows web users to access e-mail messages with web browser software rather than e-mail software. For the purpose of this discussion, any e- mail capability is acceptable.

The network environment 100 illustrated in FIGURE 1 allows the service provider 101 to provide an automated gift campaign capability. The web server 103 includes HTML pages that are accessible to users of the Internet 120 and which enable a gift campaign to be initiated and conducted. Each of the several computer systems may connect, via the Internet 120, to the web server 103 to access those HTML pages. As discussed more fully below, by interacting with those HTML pages, the promoter 121, the participants 125-128, and the recipient 123 each take part in the gift campaign.

FIGURE 2 illustrates one example of a first HTML page, the creation page 200, that may be made available by the service provider 101. The creation page 200 is made available over the Internet 120 for the purpose of initiating a gift campaign. The creation page 200, as well as other HTML pages discussed later, is designed using standard HTML programming and may invoke scripts which may be readily created by those skilled in the art using standard scripting techniques. Although HTML is described here as the preferred language, other languages, such as extensible Markup Language (XML), may be employed without deviating from the spirit or scope of the present invention.

The creation page 200 includes several form fields or data entry fields. The use of form fields is conventional in the art of HTML programming. The name field 201 receives the name of the recipient 123. The recipient may be an individual, a group of individuals, a charity, or any entity intended to be the recipient of the group gift. The address field 203 is a form field that receives an identifier that can direct the service provider 101 to the recipient 123. In this embodiment the address field 203 may be configured to receive and e-mail address. Alternatively, the address field 203 may be configured to receive any other identifier for the recipient 123, such as a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address, or the like. The participants field 204 is a form field that receives identifiers for each intended participant. In this embodiment, each participant is identified by an e-mail address. Optionally, the names of each participant may be included in association with the e-mail addresses.

The occasion field 205 is optional and may receive identifying text associated with the purpose of the gift. For example, if the gift campaign is for the purpose of celebrating the recipient's birthday, the word "birthday" may be inserted in the occasion field 205. The optional message field 207 receives text intended as a message to the participants describing the purpose of the gift campaign.

The trigger field 211 receives input identifying a particular date at which the gift campaign will terminate. In this embodiment a date is used as the triggering event. The date may be entered through a series of drop-down menus 212, 213, 214. Alternatively, the trigger field 211 may receive some other triggering event information. For example, an aggregate total gift amount or a number of participants may be used as the triggering event to terminate the gift campaign. An optional suggested donation field 217 may identify a dollar amount suggested as the individual donation per participant.

Finally, a button 221 may be used to capture any information provided in the several form fields of the creation page 200 and pass that information to a database resident on the web server 103 or elsewhere. The service provider 101 may associate the information in the database with a unique code or identifier for the particular gift campaign just initiated. That unique code is used later to retrieve and manipulate the information stored in association with the particular gift campaign. As will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the button 221 may additionally be used to navigate from the creation page 200 to another HTML page, such as a summary page 300.

FIGURE 3 illustrates one example of another HTML page, the summary page 300. that may be made available by the web server 103 over the Internet 120. The summary page 300 may be a simple advisory page that displays, in a summary field 305, the information captured by the creation page 200. The summary page 300 may also include two buttons, an edit button 307 and a next button 309. The edit button 307 may be used to return to the creation page 200 and correct any errors in the summary information. Clicking on the next button 309 causes the web server 103 to accept the information in the summary field 305, and may cause an acknowledgement message, such as that illustrated in FIGURE 4, to be displayed.

FIGURE 4 illustrates an acknowledgement message 400 that the web server 103 may display in response to an acceptance of the summary information displayed in the summary field 305 of the summary page 300. The acknowledgement 400 may additionally provide a hypertext link 403 to yet another HTML page for making donations. Hypertext link 403 allows the promoter 121 to proceed to still another HTML page, described below, and make a donation to the gift campaign.

FIGURE 5 illustrates an HTML page, the donation page 500, made available by the web server 103 for the participants 125-128 or the promoter 121 to make donations to the gift campaign. Information passed to the web server 103 when access to the donation page 500 is requested may identify a particular gift campaign, such as that associated with the recipient 123. The information may be some form of the unique code, discussed above, created when the promoter 121 initiated the gift campaign. That information allows the web server 103 to tailor the donation page 500 to the recipient's gift campaign, and also to associate any donations made with the proper gift campaign. For example, the information passed allows the web server 103 to retrieve the information stored in association with the recipient's gift campaign. In this embodiment, the visitor is informed that the donation page 500 is for the benefit of the recipient 123 by reciting the recipient's name in a welcome field 503.

The donation page 500 also includes a participant name field 505 and a participant address field 507. The participant name field 505 allows the individual visiting the donation page 500 to input his or her name. Likewise, the participant address field 507 allows the individual visiting the donation page 500 to input an e-mail address. A message field 509 is also included to allow the participant to provide a personalized message that will be delivered to the recipient 123 with the gift. A donation field 51 1 is provided to allow the participant to input the amount of the individual donation. In this embodiment, the donation field 511 is a drop-down menu having several discrete dollar amounts. Alternatively, a simple textual input field may be used to allow the participant to input any desired amount.

A credit card field 513 is provided to accept credit card information from the participant. The use of credit card acceptance and validation fields is known the art of hypertext document creation. The donation page 500 also includes two buttons, a cancel button 515 and a participate button 517. The cancel button 515 allows the participant to cancel the donation without being charged, while the participate button 517 causes the web server 103 to capture the information provided on the donation page 500 and complete the donation, such as by passing the information to a credit card processing software application. Activating the participate button 517 may additionally result in an acceptance message (not shown) being displayed to the participant.

FIGURE 6 illustrates a sample e-mail message 600 that may be generated by the e-mail server 105 and transmitted to each of the participants 125-128. The e-mail message 600 of this embodiment is a textual message that includes explanatory text inviting the participant to donate to the gift campaign. The e- mail message 600 may also include a text field 601 containing the text from the message field 207 of the creation page 200 (FIGURE 2). Finally, the e-mail message 600 includes a universal resource locator (URL) 605 directing the participant to the donation page 500. As is known to those skilled in the art, the URL 605 may include the unique code 607 that was created by the service provider 101 when the gift campaign was initiated and that uniquely identifies the gift campaign.

FIGURE 7 is a functional flow diagram illustrating a process 700 for conducting a gift campaign in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The process begins at starting block 701, where the promoter 121 desires to initiate a gift campaign. Processing continues at block 703. At block 703, the promoter 121 connects to the web server 103 via the

Internet 120 in the conventional manner. For example, web browser and dial-up software resident on the promoter computer system may be used to establish a connection between the promoter 121 and the web server 103. The promoter 121 may download the creation page 200 to initiate the gift campaign. Functions performed by the promoter 121 in connection with the creation page 200 are described in detail below with respect to FIGURE 8. Briefly described, the promoter 121 provides all the necessary information to initiate the gift campaign, such as the recipient's name and the list of participants. The promoter 121 may additionally provide any optional information, such as the triggering event, the occasion name, a message to the participants, a message to the recipient, a suggested donation amount, a target donation goal, or the like. After the information is provided by the promoter 121, processing proceeds to block 704.

At block 704, the service provider 101 creates a new gift campaign on behalf of the recipient named by the promoter 121. The service provider 101 may store the information provided by the promoter 121 in a database resident on the web server 103 or other storage device. In addition, the service provider 101 may generate and associate a unique code, such as code 607 (FIGURE 6), with the recipient's gift campaign. When the gift campaign is created, processing proceeds to block 705.

At block 705. the service provider 101 generates a notification, such as an e-mail message 600, for transmission to each of the participants identified on the creation page 200. The service provider 101 may generate the e-mail message by accessing the information captured from the creation page 200 and stored on the web server 103 in association with the gift campaign. That information may be passed to the e-mail server 105, where it is incorporated into a conventional e- mail message. The e-mail server 105 may include a hypertext link or URL, such as URL 605, within the e-mail message 600. The hypertext link or URL may include the unique code associated with the recipient's gift campaign. After the mail message 600 is created, processing proceeds to block 707.

At block 707, the e-mail server 105 issues the e-mail message 600 to each participant identified by the promoter 121. The e-mail server 105 may transmit the e-mail message 600 to each participant in any conventional manner. Processing then proceeds to decision block 709, where the service provider 101 awaits input from the identified participants.

At decision block 709, the service provider 101 awaits an indication that the triggering event has occurred to signal the end of the gift campaign. Until the triggering event occurs, processing proceeds to block 71 1 each time a participant visits the donation page 500 as identified in the URL 605 of the e-mail message 600. If, at decision block 709, the triggering event has occurred, processing proceeds to block 713.

At block 71 1, a participant, such as participant 126, connects to the service provider 101 and interacts with the donation page 500 to make a donation to the group gift. The process by which the participant reaches the service provider is illustrated in FIGURE 9 and described below. After the participant has made the donation, processing returns to decision block 709 where processing continues to await the triggering event.

At block 713, the triggering event terminates the gift campaign, and the service provider 101 creates a gift certificate for presentation to the recipient. In one embodiment, the gift certificate may be a digital certificate representing a cash amount that may be spent by the recipient 123 at any of several online vendors. For example, the recipient 123 may navigate to a shopping page (not shown) and exchange the digital gift certificate for items made available online by vendors with a business relationship with the service provider 101.

Alternatively, the gift certificate may be any form of negotiable instrument for presentation directly to the recipient, such as a bill of exchange, promissory note, bank check, certificate of deposit, or the like. Processing then proceeds to block 715, where the gift certificate is presented to the recipient, and the process terminates at ending block 717.

FIGURE 8 is a functional block diagram illustrating a process 800 performed by the promoter 121 to input the necessary information to initiate a gift campaign. The process 800 enters at block 801 from block 703 (FIGURE 7). From entering block 801, the process 800 proceeds to block 803.

At block 803, the promoter 121 interfaces with the creation page 200 to identify the recipient of the gift campaign. In this embodiment, the promoter 121 may navigate to the recipient name field 201 of the creation page 200 and type the name of the recipient. The process continues at block 805.

At block 805, the promoter 121 interfaces with the creation page 200 to identify the participants of the gift campaign. Again, the promoter 121 may navigate to the participants field 204 of the creation page 200 and type identifiers for each of the participants, such as an e-mail address for each individual participant. The process continues at block 807.

At block 807, the promoter 121 interfaces with the creation page 200 to identify the triggering event for the gift campaign. As before, the promoter 121 may navigate to the triggering event field 21 1 to provide the triggering event information. As mentioned above, the triggering event may be any event that indicates that the gift campaign should terminate. In this example, a date is chosen as the triggering event. However, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, any acceptable event may be used to identify the termination of the gift campaign, such as achieving an aggregate goal for the group gift, or the like. The process continues at block 809.

At block 809, the promoter 121 interfaces with the creation page 200 to identify any optional information related to the gift campaign. It should be appreciated that the steps suggested at block 809 are optional, and any desired information may be provided to the creation page 200 to supplement the gift campaign, such as a message to the recipient, a message to the participants, a name of the occasion, a suggested donation amount, or other information. After the promoter 121 has provided all the necessary and optional information on the creation page 200, clicking the next button 221 captures and stores the information. The process then continues to block 81 1 where processing returns to block 703 of FIGURE 7. FIGURE 9 is a functional block diagram illustrating a process 900 for donating to a group gift during a gift campaign. The process begins at starting block 901, where a promoter 121 has initiated a gift campaign and the service provider 101 has issued e-mail notifications of the gift campaign to several participants 125-128. Processing continues at block 903.

At block 903, one participant, such as participant 125, receives the e-mail notification of the gift campaign. In this embodiment, the e-mail notification is in the form of an e-mail message, such as e-mail message 600, informing the participant 125 of the gift campaign. The e-mail message includes a hypertext link, such as URL 605, to the donation page 500 for the gift campaign. After the participant 125 receives the e-mail message, processing continues at block 905.

At block 905, the participant 125 activates the hypertext link in the e-mail message. As is known to those skilled in the art, activating the hypertext link may cause web browser software resident on the participant's computer system to retrieve and display the donation page 500. It should be appreciated that because the hypertext link includes the unique code 607 associated with the gift campaign, the donation page 500 is retrieved and displayed in association with the information unique to the recipient's gift campaign. When the donation page 500 is displayed to the participant 125, processing proceeds to block 907.

At block 907, the participant 125 interacts with the donation page 500 and provides the necessary information to donate to the gift campaign. The participant 125 may review the information and messages, such as the name of the occasion, associated with the recipient's gift campaign. The participant 125 may make a suggested donation, or any other donation, as discussed above regarding the donation page 500. After the participant 125 has completed the donation, such as by clicking the participate button 517, processing proceeds to block 908.

At block 908, the participant 125 may forward the e-mail message 600 to other individuals not yet identified as participants. The e-mail message 600 contains all the information necessary to connect to the service provider 101 and make a donation. Accordingly, any individual may be a participant, not just the participants identified by the promoter 121 at the time the gift campaign was initiated. This aspect allows the list of participants to be extended to include as many participants as may receive the e-mail message 600, which is, of course, practically impossible with the traditional method of accumulating a group gift. It should be noted that forwarding the e-mail message is optional and represents a capability of the present invention but not a necessary component. From block 908, the process 900 proceeds to ending block 909, where the process 900 terminates.

While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated and described, it will be appreciated that various changes can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:

1. A computer-implemented method of conducting a gift campaign to accumulate donations for a group gift, the method comprising: receiving from a promoter (121) an identifier for a recipient (123) of said group gift (803); receiving identifiers from the promoter (121) for each of two or more participants (125-128) to be invited to contribute to said group gift (805); generating a request to participate in said gift campaign for transmission to each of said identified participants(125-128), said request including instructions to enable said participants (125-128) to contribute to said group gift on behalf of said recipient (123); and transmitting said request to each of said identified participant (125-128).

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of, prior to transmitting the request to each of said identified participants, creating a unique code that distinguishes said gift campaign from other gift campaigns conducted on behalf of other recipients; and including said unique code in said request to participate.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein said instructions to enable said participants to contribute includes a universal resource locator (URL) (605) that leads to a donation page (500) for accepting donations from said participants.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, further comprising the step of receiving from one of said participants visiting said donation page a donation to said group gift.

5. The computer- implemented method of claim 3, further comprising the step of receiving at said donation page a donation to said group gift from an individual that was not one of said participants identified by said promoter but that received said request to participate from one or more of said identified participants.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of terminating said gift campaign upon the occurrence of a triggering event; and issuing said group gift to said recipient.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said triggering event is the expiration of a pre-determined amount of time.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said triggering event is the occurrence of a pre-determined date.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said triggering event is the accumulation of a pre-determined number of donations.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein said predetermined number of donations is measured in terms of an aggregate amount donated to said group gift

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein issuing said group gift comprises: generating a gift certificate to represent said group gift; and transmitting said gift certificate to said recipient.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 1 , wherein said gift certificate is an electronic voucher that said recipient may redeem in exchange for goods or services.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 1 , wherein said gift certificate is a check.

14. A computer-implemented method for accumulating donations to a group gift, the method comprising: receiving information from a promoter (121) sufficient to identify a group of participants (125-128); generating an electronic message (600) to request each said participant (125-128) in said group of participants to donate to said group gift; said electronic message including instructions operative to enable said participants to access, over a global computer network (120), a service provider (101) to make a donation to said group gift; and transmitting said electronic message to each said participant (125- 128) in said group of participants.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein said information sufficient to identify said group (305) of participants includes e-mail addresses for each said participant is said group of participants.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein said information sufficient to identify said group of participants includes an identification of a recipient (123) of said group gift.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, where in generating said electronic message includes generating a unique identifier for said group gift and including said unique code in said electronic message.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein said instructions in said electronic message include a universal resource locator (URL) (605) leading to a donation page (500) resident at said service provider and wherein said universal resource locator includes said unique code.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising the step of receiving from one of said participants a donation to said group gift made in accordance with said instructions in said electronic message.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising the step of generating a gift certificate representative of said group gift; and presenting said gift certificate to said recipient of said group gift.

21. The computer- implemented method of claim 20, wherein said gift certificate is an electronic voucher.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 20, wherein said gift certificate is a negotiable instrument.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 22, wherein said negotiable instrument is a bank check.