Method of facilitating charitable contributions using a credit card

An apparatus for channeling funds to a plurality of eleemosynary organizations, such apparatus comprising:

• means for receiving a payment request by an issuer of a credit card from a merchant based upon use of the credit card where the credit card contains a blind identifier of an eleemosynary organization of the plurality of eleemosynary organizations;
• means for transferring a predetermined payment from the issuer to a trust organization along with the blind identifier of the eleemosynary organization;
• means for retrieving a name of the eleemosynary organization by the trust organization based upon the transferred blind identifier;
• and
• means for transferring the predetermined payment from the trust organization to the eleemosynary organization based upon the retrieved name of the eleemosynary organization.

An apparatus for channeling funds to a plurality of eleemosynary organizations, such apparatus comprising:

• a partner credit card bank adapted to receive a payment request from a merchant based upon use of a credit card where the credit card contains a blind identifier of an eleemosynary organization of the plurality of eleemosynary organizations;
• a contribution processor adapted to calculate and transfer a predetermined payment from the issuer to a trust organization along with the blind identifier of the eleemosynary organization;
• a identity processor adapted to retrieve a name of the eleemosynary organization by the trust organization based upon the transferred blind identifier;
• and
• a payment processor adapted to transfer the predetermined payment from the trust organization to the eleemosynary organization based upon the retrieved name of the eleemosynary organization.

A method of channeling funds to a plurality of eleemosynary organizations, such method comprising the steps of:

• assigning a blind identifier to each of the plurality of eleemosynary organizations by a channeling organization;
• generating a plurality of credit card applications where each credit card application includes the blind identifier of one of the plurality of eleemosynary organizations;
• granting a credit card to a credit card applicant by a partner bank based upon completion of one of the plurality of credit card applications by the credit card applicant;
• receiving a payment request from a merchant based upon use of the granted credit card by the credit card applicant;
• transferring a predetermined payment to a trust organization along with the identifier of the one eleemosynary organization included with the application of the credit card applicant;
• retrieving the identity of the eleemosynary organization based upon the blind identifier of the eleemosynary organization;
• and
• transferring the predetermined payment to the eleemosynary organization by the trust organization based upon the retrieved identity of the eleemosynary organization.