Would-be donors, at one point or another, are faced with the challenge of where to invest their hard-earned dollars. For many, this uncertainty leads to poor giving decisions, or worse, choosing not to give at all.
That’s where Chimp comes in: it’s a platform that allows individuals the ability to create and maintain their own charitable savings accounts, for free. This puts full control into the hands of donors, who can then deposit money into their account as they see fit—and donate money when they’ve picked a charity they care about.
“Donors can be more thoughtful…and more importantly, we’ve separated the act of giving from the act of donating,” explains Ashleah Wilson, Director of Marketing at Chimp. “People can collect a pool of funds, then appropriate those giving dollars when they’re ready,” he elaborates.
The social component of giving
Through Chimp, individual donors can also create ‘giving groups.’ These groups simplify—and indeed strengthen—the act of giving by tacking on a social component. As Wilson explains, “people can throw a dinner party and instead of bringing a bottle of wine, they can donate $20 through their giving group.” So far, 5234 people have given $1,121,676 through Chimp’s giving groups.
“A lot of sweat goes into fundraising. Chimp gets rid of barriers so that fundraising goals become much more achievable,” says Wilson.
Chimp also boasts the lowest transaction processing fee in the country at just 1 per cent—a fee that’s only triggered when a donation is made. Social media platform Hootsuite covers the cost of transactions, so donors can rest assured that 100 per cent of every donation goes to support the charity.
Chimp for charities
Chimp goes beyond working at the individual level—charities can also create accounts and take advantage of a full suite of services aimed at bolstering support.
Chimp for charities offers services such as matching campaigns, crowdfunding, and peer-to-peer fundraising. Automatic tax receipting is built in to all transactions. Customizable thank you notes are generated automatically. In other words, transactions become as seamless as possible.
Perhaps best of all, Chimp provides the tools necessary to collect and access essential donor information. In this way, charities can gauge where Chimp dollars are coming from and enhance fundraising efforts accordingly.
The Love Lives On campaign
In the beginning of March, a matching campaign called Love Lives On was launched through Chimp. The goal of the campaign was to match a $100,000 anonymous donation made in support of pregnancy centres across Canada.
In total, 44 centres from the Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services participated in the campaign and helped spread the word—all through Chimp.
“These are older, more traditional pregnancy centres. They raised over $100,000 in less than a week and that's never been done before. They leveraged Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and their websites for the first time in a tangible way for raising money,” says Darian Kovacs, Principal Consultant at Jelly Marketing.
The ability to analyze results in real time is another advantage that charities can explore.
“It [Chimp] allowed us to monitor progress, compare results and allowed charities to easily transfer money. It's an amazing dashboard, tool and resource for charities to raise matching funds,” concludes Kovacs.
Michelle Jondreau is a communications professional with an avid interest in all things HR. On top of that, she hails from the nonprofit world and as such has a keen understanding of sector trends and issues. Follow her @majondreau.
