I’m pleased to announce that Tivix has launched a beta version of our new product, Give.fm. It’s a web application designed specifically for micro-recurring donations (individuals pledging 10-cents-a-day toward a cause, for example).
I thought I’d take a moment to address the two obvious questions about our new Give.fm offering – why micro-donations? and why recurring?
Micro Donations
Traditionally, fundraising profesionals at nonprofits have focused on high-capacity donors, for obvious reasons. But recently it’s become conventional wisdom that, in the aggregate, there is as much (or more) money in the long tail of smaller donors. The problem, of course, is that the long tail can be difficult to reach.
As an example of the power of reaching smaller donors, a special Haiti relief text-to-donate campaign in January 2010 by the Red Cross to engage mobile-phone supporters brought in $26 million in just 9 days. The younger demographic of Americans was eager act upon their social consciousness, and taken together they are an incredibly large donor base (even though their individual giving capacity may be lower).
But the fees for text-to-donate services are absurdly high. Creating a text donation campaign costs $3,000-$10,000 in setup fees, plus the mobile carrier takes as much as 20% of the money raised. In contrast, Give.fm charges nonprofits just $5/month for unlimited fundraising, plus standard credit card processing fees of approximately 3.75%.
Recurring Donations
Any nonprofit organization today is looking to improve the sustainability of their impact. One-time social benefit is good, but sustainable social impact is much, much better. And part of that is financial sustainability. Recurring donations, by definition, provide more sustainable support for an organization than one-time donations do. So, we’ve built Give.fm specifically to support recurring donations.
Social Media Integration
There’s another powerful aspect to Give.fm as well, of course: the way in which we’re harnessing social media. If you’ve followed Tivix at all, you know that we believe passionately in the unique power of social media for fundraising and advocacy. And so Give.fm has built-in support for spreading the word via Facebook and Twitter.
I’m incredibly excited about Give.fm, and we look forward to continuing to expand and refine the product in the months ahead!
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