In early 2008, while looking for a pencil in his stepson's drawer, Donate My Card CEO Lawrence Bracco was shocked to find about 15 gift cards lying there. "There must be a couple hundred dollars in there," he thought. "What a waste! " And that was it. He shut the drawer and forgot about them, too.

A year later, Bracco was chatting with a friend and the topic of philanthropy came up. He joked that, if he rounded up all the gift cards at his house, he could probably support his local chapter of the Red Cross for a year.

It turned out that, while there were several places unused or unwanted gift cards could be exchanged for cash or donated to a charity, they all required at least $25 on the card. There was no way for the small, remaining balances to be extracted and donated. As they explored the idea further, they learned that most of the cards people had lying around had been used, but had small balances remaining on them.

When all the remnant balances on gift cards and pre-paid debit cards in the U.S. are added up, it is estimated to be over $30 billion! And every year, an additional $5 billion goes completely unused. That's a great deal of money sitting in desk drawers, purses, wallets, on bulletin boards or in glove compartments. Imagine how much good would be done if these balances could be easily donated.

We did. And that's how Donate My Card was born.

Donate My Card™ is a company dedicated to providing a user-friendly process for consumers to donate pre-paid debit gift card values to our growing list of partner charities. Donate My Card provides a unique Digital Donation Solution^SM allowing consumers to donate their remnant values to worthy causes easily and securely through our website.