The creator of Givv.org was motivated by his own need to manage his contributions to a number of charities and non-profit organisations. The result is a website that lets you decide how much you want to donate each month to have it automatically divided between a number of causes you choose to support. There are many benefits to this. First of all it makes donations easy as they can all be arranged on the same website, and also there’s no risk of exceeding the budget you can allocate to charitable giving. Payments are made via Paypal, which also keeps it simple. Managing charitable donations in this way also makes it possible to keep accounts for tax purposes.

To get started users need to register and then choose the charities they want to support by searching for them and clicking a red button. If charities aren’t there they can be added so long as they are registered as charities or non-profits. Even small charitable projects can be added, such as local groups. The amount allocated to be paid will then be divided up among your chosen causes by Givv.org, and this works even if the amount for each becomes small as you add charities.

The ability to give small amounts to a large number of charities, or even to just one, makes Givv.org different to other methods of supporting by regular subscription. Usually supporters need to pay by credit card, which means it’s only worthwhile with a minimum amount. The Givv.org method could lead to charities getting more donations from a larger number of people, which would add up even if the individual amounts are small. Being able to add charities also means that some of the lesser known causes could increase their support.

With Givv.org it’s also easier to stop subscribing than it would be by direct contact with the charity, which could encourage supporters. It takes away some costs for the charity, and the website states that the whole donation goes to the cause, apart from the fee charged by Paypal. As the donations are aggregated from a number of subscribers they can be made in a single payment by Givv.org to keep the transaction fee low. Donating in this way cuts out the emails and circular letters that charities send out, and will save the charities that expense too, for those of us who set aside a regular amount to donate and don’t need to be included in mailings. Donations can be anonymous, unless they are for causes such as political campaigns where transparency is required.