German Auction-Site “Ycare” Joins World Trade Center Memorial Fundraising Campaign

New York, NY, July 26, 2006 --(PR.com)-- The World Trade Center Memorial will be the most costly memorial built to date. The price tag now stands at $740 million. A national advertising campaign has just been launched and, expanding its ambitious fundraising campaign on an international basis, the Foundation has now been joined by “Ycare,” a German online auction-site. The founder of this new philanthropic website, Daniel Vinovitsch, contacted the Memorial Foundation after visiting Ground Zero last year from Germany. He demonstrated how Ycare works and could be put to use in aid of the Memorial Foundation. The result – two Ycare fundraising pages, one in English and one in German, just went online.

“Standing at Ground Zero last year,” says Daniel Vinovitsch, the founder of Ycare, “ I was overwhelmed by mixed emotions of grief and anger. Once again I envisioned the collapse of the Twin Towers, and, once again, I felt an immense deep sorrow in my heart and anger about this unthinkable attack.

”It was here that I learned more about the Memorial Foundation, and I wondered how I could possibly contribute to the memorial. On returning to Germany, where I have been living as a US citizen for the last 40 years, it crossed my mind that Ycare, a website developed by me and a small team, was an ideal platform to advertise the Memorial Foundation’s cause by inviting the global community to participate in building the Memorial.”

Ycare is an online auction-site similar to eBay. Its mission, however, is to offer not-for-profit and grass-root organizations new opportunities for fundraising while at the same time promoting and advertise their charitable causes. These organizations can showcase their projects by creating their own fundraising pages on Ycare for free. Projects can range from fundraising for the PTA, for medical research, for the homeless, or for a foundation such as the World Trade Memorial Foundation. It doesn’t matter how big or how small a project is. Projects are funded either through online auctions of goods or direct cash donations.

What makes Ycare special is that people who put things up for auction choose themselves how much of the proceeds from a sale they will donate to the project of their choice and how much they will keep for themselves. Simply put, Ycare’s motto is "Give a little- keep a little." Ycare charges a 4% auction fee for a successful sale but only on the portion of the proceeds that is not donated to a project. Sellers at Ycare can set minimum sales prices and there are no placement fees or any additional fees. If all the proceeds from a sale are donated to a charitable cause, there are no auction fees at all.

“We are very proud, that the Memorial Foundation has accepted our offer to use Ycare for their fundraising campaign. We are also very confident that many in the global community who care deeply about 9/11 will participate, through their donations, in getting the World Trade Center Memorial built. One day, on a visit to New York, they will be able to say: 'I helped build the Memorial!' ”

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