We’re changing the way we help you give

by Givey Team

12 November 2014

Our goal with Givey is to help people make giving a part of their everyday lives. We’ve spent three years learning, improving, and exploring how to do this as best we can, and now we’re ready to make two pretty massive changes to Givey that will set it significantly apart from the other giving platforms out there.

It’s a huge risk making these changes but we feel it is essential if we are to make a genuine impact on the culture of giving. Here we explain what these two changes are, and why it’s necessary for us to make them…

The first big change is the decision is to cap all donations on Givey at £100. We’ve done this because our aim with Givey is to bring people together to support the causes they care about, and we’ve come to see extremely large donations as counterproductive to this goal. For example, if you went to contribute to a cause and the previous donation was of hundreds of pounds, you’re likely to be completely discouraged from leaving your donation for fear of being embarrassed, or perhaps feel the need to give much more than you feel comfortable giving, just to keep up.

The second big change we’ve decided to make is to stop publically displaying the amount each individual has donated to a cause, only displaying the amount we raise as a group for fundraisers and charities. This is because in the three years we’ve been helping our users give to the causes that matter to them, we’ve come to realise that the amount of money we donate is the wrong metric to focus on. Our levels of available time and money fluctuate throughout our lives, but if we can develop a habit that focuses on engagement over transactional value then this habit has the best chance of surviving the different seasons we face in life.

The reason we’ve decided to make these changes to Givey is because we’re committed to helping make giving a part of our daily lives, not something we only do when a friend is running a marathon – a social change, not a financial transaction. We believe the only way to make this a reality is by shifting the focus from the amount we give to the frequency with which we give, and believe this will unlock incrementally more online giving in the UK than the emphasis on individual transaction size that has dominated and stunted the growth of the online giving platforms of the past.

We’re still completely free to use, and 100% of every donation still goes directly to charity, but now:

  • The maximum donation you can make at a time is £100
  • The amount of money you donate is not displayed publicly anywhere on the site

We’re hoping this leads to more people donating more frequently to the causes that matter to them than ever before, and we’re excited for you to join us!

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