A little change goes a long way--spare change that is--asking donors to round up their purchases to help a charity is a great way for non-profits to make giving easy. Of course putting the roundup program into place can take a lot of work, but now it is as simple as a mouse click thanks to SwipeGood, an online service that allows donors to roundup every purchase they make to benefit their favorite charity.At the end of the month, the total rounded up amount, which is on average about $15, is forwarded to the donor’s charity of choice.
People want to give, it really is as simple as that, but they also want giving to be easy and SwipeGood is a way for people to integrate giving into their daily lives explains Steli Efti. Efti, a social entrepreneur, was working for Supercool School, an open education platform he founded, when his good friend Anthony Nemitz brought him an idea. Nemitz wanted to create a way for donors to round up their credit card purchases to help their favorite charity.
Efti loved the idea and it wasn’t long before SwipeGood was up and running. It works like this; a donor visits the SwipeGood site and selects the charity they want to support. Then the donor enters their credit card (currently only one card is allowed) and billing information, they can even set a monthly donation limit.
Once enrolled all the donor has to do is use the credit card. SwipeGood tracks their purchases over the course of the month and at the end of the month SwipeGood deducts the total rounded up amount from the donor’s card and forwards it to the donor’s charity. It is simple, easy and wildly successful beyond his hopes, explains Steli of SwipeGood.
Not only is it easy for the donors, it is easy for the charities as well. They simply enroll via the SwipeGood’s website. After that, Steli says, it takes about 24h for a charity to be approved and within two months, the charity should receive its first payout from SwipeGood. There are no fees to the charity, but SwipeGood, which is a for profit company, does take a percent of the monthly donation to cover operating expenses and credit card fees.
Steli is pleased that demand by non-profits to be involved has been very high To help the non-profit spread the word about its participation in SwipeGood offers a unique SwipeGood charity page. SwipeGood encourages non-profits to promote their involvement in the roundup program via various social media channels. SwipeGood expects continued growth in the next year, because people want to give, even if it is just small change.
