Over the past several months, we have been hard at work constantly improving and enhancing the Givinga platform based on the feedback that our users have provided. I wanted to take a minute to tell you about a few significant enhancements to the platform that we have recently launch based on feedback we received.
Charity Access
One of our biggest improvements was related to the number of charities accessible from our platform. We launched earlier in the year with roughly 1,200 of the largest charities in the United States. We are proud to announce that we have increased our charity database to over 1.2 million charities. Our list now includes every registered 501(c)3 in the United States. You can access, research, and donate directly to these charities by logging into your account or visiting our Charity Research page.
We also understand that there will still be instances where finding the exact charity you are looking for is difficult. In some cases, charities may have similar names or market themselves with one name but file with the IRS under a different legal name. When you can’t find the right charity, or you just want guidance, we have a link, Don’t See Your Charity?, at the bottom of the Charity Research page. This link opens a page where you can populate a form with the information that you know about the charity and send it along to us. We’ll do the research for you, then reach out to ensure you are able to access the exact charity you are looking for.
Simplified Donation Instructions
Another area we received feedback on, was the donation instructions page where there were several questions designed to help us understand what personal information you wanted to be passed along to the charity with your donation. Admittedly, this page was too complex with too many questions and not enough instruction. We took this feedback and rebuilt a very simple page that now has only two parts.
1) Transparency – In this section, we want to know how much of your personal information you want to pass along to the charity with your donation. You are presented with three options:
- Full Transparency – We provide the charity with the name of your Account, your full name, address, and email.
- Partial Transparency – We provide the charity with the name of your Account and your zip code.
- Complete Anonymity – We provide the charity with only your zip code.
2) Note to Charity – This is a space where you can write whatever you would like to have sent to the charity with your donation. This can be used to identify an honoree, indicate specific uses or restrictions on your donation, or just simply to pass along a friendly note.
We hope that these enhancements benefit you as a user. We are always looking for feedback and we are constantly improving every day. We will keep you updated as we deploy future enhancements to the system.
