Giving Group is a nonprofit organization that formed as a direct result of an Alliance affiliated giving circle and their need for a simple solution. The result is an all-volunteer organization that runs a fully automated system to support giving circles and their online donation collections. It requires no maintenance on both their end and yours.
Giving Group is only available in the United States. However, it was developed with an open source code, so if you are interested in creating this in your country, please contact them directly via their website.
Here is how it works:
- Create your giving circle on their platform. Once done, Giving Group will provide you with a signup form to send to your members. Members join your group and enter their credit card information. Members are automatically charged at whatever interval you configure for your group (quarterly, 3x/year, annual, etc.). One-time donation collection is not an option at this time, however if enough demand exists they’re open to supporting that in the future.
- Three days prior to your meeting, Giving Group sends an email out to your donors reminding them that their donation will be made. Members have an opportunity to skip or cancel their donation at that time. If their payment fails (or their credit card needs to be updated, etc.), they will retry up to three times in the subsequent weeks. You are notified on the dashboard that the payment was made, or if the member canceled or skipped their donation.
- After your meeting, you specify the nonprofit(s) chosen via your administrator’s dashboard and Giving Group sends them a check with the available funds.
- They support new membership recruiting at your meetings: any new members that sign up within 30 days of the quarterly donation date will have a chance to have their first donation applied to that non-profit as well.
- Giving Group is a registered 501(c)(3). Therefore, donations are made to, and receipted from, Giving Group. Donations are tax deductible and qualify for corporate matching funds.
- Giving Group charges a 3% fee. It is broken up as follows: 2.5% to cover credit card transaction fees and .5% to cover Giving Group’s administrative costs. Ask members to contribute $103 per quarter to cover these costs and to ensure the nonprofit receives the full $100 donation.
- Giving Group supports giving to multiple nonprofits each quarter. So, for those giving circles that give a nominal $500 gift to each of the two nonprofits that were presented but not selected, this can be done, but done so as a percentage of the overall donation as opposed to an exact dollar amount.
More information can be found on Giving Group’s FAQ page. Or, feel free to email them directly.