GiveForward.com

Last updated
GiveForward.com
Type of site
Online fundraising
URL www.giveforward.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
Launched14 August 2008;15 years ago (2008-08-14)
Current statusOnline

GiveForward.com was launched on August 14, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. It was an online fundraising tool designed to help people raise money for the causes and organizations that they care about. GiveForward.com has become popular among the growing number of people who fundraise to help pay for a loved one's medical bills. The Chicago Tribune called it the "future of medical fundraising in the Internet Age." It now part of GoFundMe.

Contents

Users have initiated fundraising pages on GiveForward.com to raise money for medical expenses incurred by a friend, a family member, or even a pet. In March 2009, two sisters used the site to raise $32,000 to pay for one sister's kidney transplant. [1] After David Hartsock, a skydiving instructor, saved a woman's life after a parachute failure and became a quadriplegic, he raised over $150,000 on GiveForward. [2]

The platform charges a 5% fee to campaign creators and a processing fee of 2.9% + $0.50 per transaction. The site has raised over $190,537,000 for its users. [3]

World Give Day

World Give Day was launched by GiveForward in 2010 for May 4 as "one day a year when people focus on giving. One day when people across the United States can join together to make a difference. One day, where every person, regardless of age or income level, can collectively have a huge impact. Whether people give money, time, resources, or random acts of kindness, it all helps." [4]

GiveForward started an online and physical petition to support National Give Day. [5] The purpose of this collection of signatures was to encourage the Mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, to make May 4, 2010 the first National Give Day. [5]

Business Model

GiveForward.com, an American organization, has found a niche in the online fundraising industry by being one of few sites that allows people to fundraise for projects that are not affiliated with a registered 501(c)(3) (United States Internal Revenue Code). Due to the absence of this prerequisite, GiveForward cannot be designated a non-profit itself.

GiveForward operates as a for-profit company with a strong social mission. [6]

Fees

GiveForward.com platform charges 7.9% on all transactions, which includes the per transaction fee charged by credit card companies. [7] This fee is the same as other online crowdfunding platforms.[ citation needed ]

Founders

GiveForward was founded by Desiree Vargas Wrigley, a Latina serial entrepreneur in Chicago, and Ethan Austin.

Related Research Articles

FreeWill Co is a company whose website, FreeWill.com, has online software which helps people write wills for free and make charitable contributions, and it reports each person's planned bequests to charities which pay subscription fees. It also helps people write advance healthcare directives and living trusts in California.

The Children's Organ Transplant Association (COTA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Bloomington, Indiana, that helps children and young adults who need a life-saving organ, bone marrow, cord blood, tissue or stem cell transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support.

JustGiving is a global online social platform for giving. The firm's headquarters are located in Bankside, London.

Network for Good is an American-certified B Corporation software company that offers fundraising software and coaching for charities and non-profit organizations. The company was founded in 2001 by America Online (AOL), Cisco Systems, and Yahoo! and has processed over $2.2 billion in donations since its inception. Network for Good charges between 3% and 5% transaction processing fee for donations, in addition to any subscription fees that the charity might incur. The transaction processing costs may be covered by the donor or by the nonprofit organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Shop</span> South African online auction website

Bob Shop, formerly Bidorbuy or bidorbuy.co.za, is a South African e-commerce website based on an internet auction and online marketplace model allowing individuals and businesses to trade with each other. Transactions on bidorbuy are in South African rands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bring Light</span>

Bring Light, Inc. is an American company that runs an online web service which helps charities reach new donors and raise funds. It is also a social network for donors to find charitable projects to support and to help those donors make a bigger difference by getting others involved. Bring Light is now a part of Rally.org.

Fan-funded music is crowdfunding for music. Often, fan-funded music occurs in conjunction with direct-to-fan marketing. Fans of music have the option to donate and collectively raise money with the goal of jump-starting the career of a given musical artist. The fan-funding of music occurs primarily through web-based services using a business model for crowdfunding. Fans are typically given rewards based on their monetary contributions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crowdrise</span>

CrowdRise is a for-profit crowdfunding platform that raises charitable donations. CrowdRise was founded by Edward Norton, Shauna Robertson, and the founders of Moosejaw, Robert and Jeffrey Wolfe. CrowdRise was acquired in 2017 by GoFundMe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indiegogo</span> American crowdfunding website

Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows people to solicit funds for an idea, charity, or start-up business. Indiegogo charges a 5% fee on contributions. This charge is in addition to Stripe credit card processing charges of 3% + $0.30 per transaction. Fifteen million people visit the site each month.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Change.org</span> American petition website

Change.org is a website which allows users to create and sign petitions to advance various social causes by raising awareness and influencing decision-makers. The site is a US-based for-profit company and claims to have nearly 500 million users as of December 2022. Petitions often focus on causes such general justice, economic justice, criminal justice, human rights, education, environmental protection, animal rights, health, and sustainable food.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GoFundMe</span> American crowdfunding platform

GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the beginning of 2020, over $9 billion has been raised on the platform, with contributions from over 120 million donors.

Crowdfunding is a process in which individuals or groups pool money and other resources to fund projects initiated by other people or organizations "without standard financial intermediaries." Crowdfunded projects may include creative works, products, nonprofit organizations, supporting entrepreneurship, businesses, or donations for a specific purpose. Crowdfunding usually takes place via an online portal that handles the financial transactions involved and may also provide services such as media hosting, social networking, and facilitating contact with contributors. It has increased since the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FundRazr</span> Canadian crowdfunding site

FundRazr is a free crowdfunding and online fundraising platform released in 2009. FundRazr operates internationally in 35+ counties with the largest markets being United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. It allows users to run a wide-range of crowdfunding campaigns by creating fundraising pages and sharing it via social media, messaging apps, email and more to raise money for over 100 types of causes such as nonprofit, medical care, education, community help, poverty alleviation, arts, memorials, and animal rescue causes. FundRazr also works with more than 4000 nonprofits, charities and social enterprises with an advanced fundraising toolset for free. The digital fundraising platform provides 8 different campaign types. They include microproject fundraising, peer-to-peer campaigns, wishlist campaigns, recurring donations, branded sponsorship campaigns, DIY projects, sweepstake campaigns, and storefront campaigns.

YouCaring was a crowdfunding website for personal, medical, and charitable causes. The company was a Certified B corporation based in San Francisco, California. YouCaring did not take a percentage of funds raised on its site, or charge those raising funds a fee. The company relied on voluntary donations from donors to fund operations. YouCaring was acquired by GoFundMe in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tilt.com</span> American crowdfunding company

Tilt.com, Inc. was a crowdfunding company founded in 2012 that allowed for groups and communities to collect, fundraise, or pool money online. James Beshara and Khaled Hussein launched the platform under the name Crowdtilt out of Y Combinator.

CrowdFundEDU was a US-based private for-profit company founded in 2012 that provides a crowd funding website for education. People hold online fundraisers to get contributions for tuition, student loans, books and supplies, sports equipment, events and extracurricular activities. Student debt is recognized as a growing financial burden to young adults, but crowd funding brings an alternative to this form of lending and is considered by some to be one of the greatest financial creations of the digital age.

Blockchain.com is a cryptocurrency financial services company. The company began as the first Bitcoin blockchain explorer in 2011 and later created a cryptocurrency wallet that accounted for 28% of bitcoin transactions between 2012 and 2020. It also operates a cryptocurrency exchange and provides institutional markets lending business and data, charts, and analytics.

iStreet Giving was an online shopping platform set-up to help UK charities raise additional funds through online shopping. The firm's headquarters are located in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Venmo is an American mobile payment service founded in 2009 and owned by PayPal since 2013. Venmo is aimed at friends and family who wish to split bills, e.g., for movies, dinner, rent, or event tickets etc. Account holders can transfer funds to others via a mobile phone app; both the sender and receiver must live in the United States. Venmo also operates as a small social network, as users can observe other users’ public transactions with posts and emoticons. In 2021, the company handled $230 billion in transactions and generated $850 million in revenue.

@HopeMob was a not for profit crowdfunding site that raised money for direct aid to worthy causes. It was co-founded by Shaun King and Chad Kellough in 2012. People with specific needs apply to the site and are vetted. The vetting includes asking for references, conducting interviews, and researching on social media. Support is then given to approved projects to help them present a compelling case. Funds are then raised and used to purchase the specific items people need, such as a medical procedure; money is not given directly to those raising funds.

References

  1. "Triage: Sisters raise $29,000 on the Internet for a kidney transplant". newsblogs.chicagotribune.com.
  2. "Donate to help David Hartsock's Fundraiser today". GiveForward.com. Retrieved 2016-07-14.
  3. www.giveforward.com see "How it works".
  4. "Care2 is the world's largest social network for good, a community of over 40 million people standing together, starting petitions and sharing stories that inspire action".
  5. 1 2 "National Give Day: May 4th, 2010 - GiveForward". Archived from the original on 2013-04-14. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
  6. "How Gen-Y Startups Use Social Media to Shatter the Status Quo". Mashable . 29 July 2009.
  7. Holiday, Ryan. Skimming Off The Top: Social Giving Sites Take a Huge Cut Of The Check. Betabeat. May 27, 2014.