What do you do after founding a powerhouse like Craigslist? Launch a worldwide site to help charities. It's now "the biggest thing in my life," says Craig Newmark

Newmark, pictured with President Obama,  says of  the site, which has just gone live, "I've decided to get much louder about good stuff that I know about. There are a lot of good, small nonprofits that need help in specific areas." 

The site is international and it is understood there have already been inquiries from around 10 countries, including the UK. 

Newmark, who lives in San Francisco, sits on the boards of more than a dozen agencies that do everything from raising money for schools to supporting returning U.S. service personnel.

He wants to help these and other groups get the word out, possibly with a well-crafted elevator pitch ("I've had to suffer through so many bad ones"), or through an online giving campaign, he told the San Jose Mercury News

His eventual aim is to link up everybody on the planet to bear online witness to good works. The new site is a sort of open beta test for charity, "In the Craigslist pattern, we listen, and then we respond to people and do better after that," he told the paper.  "Craigslist has gotten together maybe 100 million Americans, and that's a good start."

Newmark, whose net worth was estimated last year at $400 million, plans to stay involved in Craigslist. He still gets email queries from users and routes them to members of his staff. "It connects me to the grass roots, and that's valuable," But Craigconnects is now "the biggest thing in my life," he says.

Peter Zollman, founder of Orlando-based AIM Group, pointed out in the article that charities need cash more than publicity. 

"It's not my place to tell Craig Newmark how to spend his money," said Zollman, "but to me personally, it would've been more impressive to say, 'I kicked this off with an $X million donation to each of these charities I believe in.' "

Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard professor and Internet expert, said, "It's heartening to see Craig put his most valuable asset -- his trusted name -- behind an effort to help sift good charities from bad ones."

 Newmark was inspired after asking Susan Nesbitt, a consultant and former deputy director of the Craigslist Foundation, to pull together a list of all the nonprofits he was supporting..

"I thought she'd give me 20 or 30; it turned out to be more like 100," he told the Mercury News. "I thought, 'That's my tipping point, I'd better get a team together and do something.' "

Craigconnects is the result. Newmark wants donors to be able to read testimonials about nonprofits, view their ratings on sites like Charity Navigator and Guidestar, and link to their pages on Facebook and Jumo, a philanthropy-themed social network.

The site's real strength, he hopes, will be come through when non-profits  start utilising the platform to push their own case. 

"By 2030, I think everyone will be connected on the Net," says Newmark, who'll 60 next year. "We'll all be working on our own ideas for mutual good. And that's what I what to do with the rest of my life."