The idea of PledgePage started when John Petersen, one of the founders of the technology, and his wife did a marathon for Team in Training to help raise money to fight leukemia and other blood-related cancers. He put up a website to share his information and pictures with his friends. While he raised $7000, he gave birth to something which would raise millions more dollars.

PledgePage, started in the fall of 1999, was formed by five people who wanted to use the web to raise money for good causes in a more efficient, easy, and fun way. Adding to the promise of the web, PledgePage shaped a new technology to help nonprofits finally realize that the web can offer more than just a "donate now" button online.

Having developed, launched, and supported the philanthropic web-tool through the salad days of multimedia and internet euphoria, PledgePage faced the usual dot-com challenges in making the service self-sustaining. In April 2002, PledgePage corporation was dissolved and the technology, constituency and operations of the website were fully acquired by CharityFocus. The PledgePage team gave up on making this a viable business, but they didn't give up on the everyday heroes that have raised over a million dollars for many worthy causes. Its five founders moved on in alternate commercial directions but they continue to serve as volunteers.

CharityFocus, celebrating its third year anniversary, is a virtual organization that aims to bridge the divide between the internet and the inner-net, through service. A fully volunteer-run organization, CharityFocus builds web solutions for nonprofits, inspiring and utilizing volunteer effort. To minimize overhead, the group developed an extensive backend infrastructure, over which its 1400 volunteers have serviced close to 850 nonprofit requests.