June 29, 2009
Givvy.com and the Givvy charitable giving solutions we have developed are for sale. This is a “best offer” scenario – the site will be shut down by the end of July if it is not acquired or taken over. Givvy launched a week before Lehman went under and was never able to raise the capital required to make this a success. Feel free to spread the word.
What: Givvy.com is a charitable giving portal. There are many features, some of which are not turned on at the moment. Here is a list of the features/functions of the site:
Currently Active/Viewable Features ($ = revenue)
- Charity Mall ($) – utilizing the industry-leading Mall Networks online affiliate shopping mall infrastructure, people can shop at their favorite stores and generate a donation for their charity. The charity mall generates merchant rebates/commissions. These are shared between Mall Networks, Givvy and the users’ charity.
- Donate to Any Charity – through our partnership with Network for Good, Givvy members can donate to any of the eligible charities contained in our list of 1.4 million IRS-registered nonprofits.
- Facebook Connect Integration – people can join through Facebook and their Givvy activity can be posted to their Wall/profile. Note – the posting steps are nearly done.
- Friends – you can get your friends to join and earn a donation bonus based on what they earn for their charities. This is a multi-level marketing system where the shopping activity of up to 2 levels of friends can generate additional donations for you.
Currently Inactive/Hidden Features
- Company Giving Campaign Pages ($) – this system allows companies to set up campaign pages for their employees for their annual giving campaigns. There are two clients for this system and they both paid an annual subscription fee for this service. The market for this is hundreds of thousands of small and mid-sized businesses. Features include branding control (logo upload), and more.
- Charity Portfolios – assemble a list of charities and allocate a one-time or recurring donation
- Charity Member Funds – portfolios that you can share with your friends
- Social Friends – with profile pages, the ability to share your donations and charities with friends, etc
This technology/site will appeal to companies with an interest in charitable giving, or those who have large user bases to leverage this into. Revenue is negligible and costs are fairly low. The site is hosted at Amazon, and is written using PHP and the Symfony framework.
Please contact me if you are interested in learning more.
John
jtreadway@givvy.com
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Posted by John Treadway
January 3, 2009
Givvy launched at TechCrunch 50 in San Francisco on September 9th, just about one week before the failure of Lehman Brothers which sparked the financial crisis. We had a modest amount of coverage only being in the demo pit, but did get on CNET TV with Rafe Needleman. Overall we did pretty well in 2008 given the environment and the lack of funding. Here are some of the highlights:
- We generated over $47,000 in donations for 137 charities from Givvy members. That’s great!
- We launched two workplace giving campaign sites – one for ITA Software in Cambridge and another for Direct Energy out of Toronto. Both were very successful, especially ITA, and we hope to do more of these in 2009.
- Our free nonprofit charity database, GivvyBase, was launched in October. With over 1.4 million charities, this is the core of our giving system.
- In late November we quietly released Givvy API to enable developers to search GivvyBase and access our listings. We’ve had some interesting conversations with potential users in a number of interesting applications.
There are many things we did not get done in 2008 that we had hoped for – not the least of which was getting funded. We have a few revenue models – one of which is proven and ttwo others are being tested.
Givvy should have an interesting 2009. Thanks for your support!
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Posted by John Treadway
December 2, 2008
We’ve been working for a bit on an exciting new set of features for companies — Givvy@Work. We went live with one company a few weeks ago, and have just about wrapped up some small enhancements.
The basic idea is that any company can create their own Givvy@Work network and upload their logo. Then, anybody with a company email address can join the network (any employee can be the first to create the network too). Then, the network owner/administrator can create campaign pages with a fundraising target and a list of charities to donate to through Givvy. See a sample campaign page here.
Givvy@Work administrators can see who is donating, how much, and what charities are getting supported. Some companies out there charge real money for this – and perhaps we’re crazy to give it away. But we are!
We have plans for more features (matching donations, etc.) and we will charge for these. But for now, and in this time of need, have a freebie on Givvy!
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Posted by John Treadway
October 17, 2008
One of the most frustrating mega-charities in the U.S. is the Red Cross. American Red Cross provides services to hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents every year – for disaster relief, blood transfusions, health education and more. Despite their $3 billion plus annual budget, the American Red Cross has been struggling to find the money to pay for all of the work they need to do for victims of Hurricane’s Ike and Gustav and other disasters. They’ve had to take out loans and get emergency assistance from taxpayers.
One of key programs of The American Red Cross is to provide shelter, clothing, and financial assistance to people who have lost their homes due to fires or other circumstances. This is a massive organization performing very difficult and expensive services both here in the U.S., and overseas.
Make a donation today – even $20 can help. At Givvy we will match the first 5 donations – up to $250 total – to the American Red Cross that go through Givvy. This is a tough year for all of us, but think of those who are even less fortunate and open your wallets just a little today.
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Posted by John Treadway
October 14, 2008
Calling all nonprofits! GivvyBase version 2 is now live. Find your charity and update the information in our database. Add your description, events, volunteering opportunities, jobs and contacts. GivvyBase is free and will shortly have an open API so anybody can access information on your nonprofit.
Tell all of your friends at nonprofits too!
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Posted by John Treadway
September 12, 2008
See the article on Givvy in Xconomy.com. Here is an excerpt:
From what I’ve seen so far—and I’m still really just warming up the engine for my test drive of the system—Treadway and his crew have put together a nice set of Web 2.0-style features and tools while still keeping things fairly clean and approachable.
Read the whole article here.
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Posted by John Treadway
September 9, 2008
- Ushers In A New Era of Charitable Giving -
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – September 9, 2008 –At TechCrunch50 today, Givvy, Inc. launched Givvy™, a new online service to improve the charitable giving experience for millions of donors. Givvy (www.givvy.com) is the first site to align the charitable interests and passions of donors with an integrated framework to plan, research and execute their charitable giving. Serving the needs of those desiring more control over their giving, Givvy is a free, feature-rich, and easy-to-use site with data on more than 1.4 million IRS charities and provides a centralized repository for all a donor’s giving records.
“We created Givvy to help all donors be more effective and achieve greater satisfaction through their charitable giving,” said John Treadway, founder and CEO of Givvy, Inc. “Before Givvy, most donors did not have the information, guidance and support enjoyed by wealthy philanthropists. Now, everybody can increase the impact and scope of their giving with confidence and the support of the community of Givvy users.”
Key features of Givvy include:
- “Givving Plan” – Givvy helps you create a “Givving Plan” to guide your giving activities, with goals for amount donated, types of causes supported, and more. The “Givving Plan” is your roadmap for giving.
- Donation Processing by Network for Good – All donations on Givvy are processed by Network for Good (www.networkforgood.org), one of the leading donation processing services. Your donations through Network for Good, a 501c3 nonprofit, are totally secure, and are immediately tax-deductible (check with your tax advisor).
- Charity Portfolio – This patent-pending Givvy feature helps you create a portfolio of charities where you control the donation amount and timing of your donations, the organizations you want to support, and the percentage allocation of donations across your charities.
- Member Funds – Givvy member funds are collections of charities that other donors can use in their portfolios. For example, a children’s cancer member fund with several related charities can be created and shared with other Givvy users who want to support this cause but don’t know which organizations to support.
- External Donations – Now you can see all of your donations in one place by recording those made outside of Givvy with our “Record External Donation” feature. Whether made at another site, through the mail, over the phone, or in-person, recording donations in Givvy gives you a more complete view of your giving.
- Donation Reports – Quickly get a view of your “giving footprint” with Givvy’s donation reports. See all of your donations by date, charity and cause type in any time frame, and chart donations against your Givving Plan. You can also print or email a year-end report for your taxes.
- Donation Privacy Settings – Share your personal information with only the charities you want to receive it, and donate anonymously to all of the other organizations you support. Put an end to endless telemarketing, mail solicitations and email campaigns from charities.
- Givvy Network – Give better with help from your friends and family. Connect with people on Givvy who share your charitable interests, help others discover charities you support, and invite friends to join Givvy.
- GivvyBase – The core charity data comes from GivvyBase, our free and open-source nonprofit database. GivvyBase includes data on all 1.4 million IRS-registered nonprofits. Features of GivvyBase include:
- Free – all of the data in GivvyBase is free and accessible to anybody
- Searchable – our integrated search function makes finding your charities easy and fast
- User-Editable – registered users can maintain and update the database with content, tags, star ratings & reviews, and more
About Givvy, Inc.
Founded in December, 2007, Givvy, Inc. is delivering new and compelling solutions for donors to improve their charitable giving. Givvy seeks to provide highly functional tools that are easy to use, increase productivity for donors, and result in better giving for our members. Givvy – Better Givving for a Better World™
Contact:
John Treadway
Givvy, Inc.
617/290-3955
jtreadway@givvy.com
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Posted by John Treadway
