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I don’t assume I used to be unhealthy at making donations to environmental charities, but it surely did really feel like one thing was missing. I constructed PennyLoafer to assist fill this hole.
Despite our greatest intentions, loads of issues get in the way in which of our charitable giving. Maybe we don’t know the place to begin, or we don’t have time to do the analysis. We’re busy with faculty, jobs, youngsters — with life. We could also be skeptical that our giving will actually make a distinction, particularly on huge points like climate change and the psychological well being disaster. This was actually the case for me.
In the summer time of 2020, amidst a worldwide pandemic and racial justice motion, I took inventory of my giving habits. They appeared disjointed and infrequently reactive. I’d donate when crises occurred, or requests got here my means: a pal’s charity run; a drive for my cousin’s classroom provides; or supporting a neighborhood meals pantry throughout the pandemic. To ensure, it at all times felt good within the second, however my donations as an entire, they felt impulsive and it was exhausting to infer what I truly valued.
If you possibly can relate to this, know that it’s human. In truth, donors rarely give as much as they intend to and infrequently have hassle explaining a constant strategy to the charities they select. One research from the Center for Advanced Hindsight discovered that, on common, people want to give 2.5 times more than they actually do. This distinction between intention and motion obtained me curious.
I thought of what it might imply to have a giving technique: What did I care about most? And how may I do extra about it strategically and on an ongoing foundation?
From that got here the thought for PennyLoafer, a platform that makes charitable giving easy and extra strategic. We do that by creating ongoing giving methods round choose causes like climate change, with the objective of getting extra folks donating often to causes they care about and studying alongside the way in which.
Impact Made Easy – Eliminating Barriers to Charitable Giving
PennyLoafer is designed to handle a number of frequent limitations to giving:
- Choice overload. There are greater than 1,000,000 nonprofits within the U.S. alone. Decision paralysis is a standard pitfall. PennyLoafer helps you out by researching and vetting a various assortment of nonprofits so you possibly can merely begin giving based mostly in your priorities, and have one much less facet of your life overwhelmed by decisions.
- Time. Responsible giving requires time to analysis points and charities. People are busy. PennyLoafer builds giving into your life, taking good care of logistics and holding you knowledgeable alongside the way in which.
- Feeling overwhelmed by points. We’ve all been there: What can one individual do to make a distinction, particularly for complicated points just like the local weather disaster? With PennyLoafer, our members be a part of different like-minded donors in a giving technique. Ten {dollars} a month won’t look like loads but it surely rapidly provides up after we mix donations.
- Unclear influence. You’re not giving right into a black gap with PennyLoafer. We maintain you up to date on the influence of your giving and engaged within the trigger by way of our month-to-month publication.
Keeping Donors Informed About Issues
Perhaps a very powerful facet of PennyLoafer is the month-to-month publication. I didn’t need this to be one other fund that individuals can donate to and by no means actually hear something once more. It’s necessary to me that individuals really feel impactful with their giving, study completely different nonprofits and the assorted methods employed to handle points like local weather change.
Donors obtain constant suggestions each month. The publication highlights the chosen nonprofit, together with its management, strategy, and why it was chosen. It additionally shares related information and details about the trigger. For occasion, our local weather change publication may cowl a chunk of local weather laws transferring via Washington or attention-grabbing information about renewable energy developments.
Since our launch in fall 2021, PennyLoafer donors have despatched 1000’s of {dollars} to charities preventing local weather change throughout the nation. In the method, they’ve realized about a wide range of organizations and other ways to handle the problem. From nationwide NGOs, reminiscent of Carbon180, which works on federal insurance policies that improve funding for carbon removal, to smaller, grassroots nonprofits like Native Renewables, which is bringing solar energy to the Navajo Nation.
The Social Venture Model
We made an intentional effort to be accessible and reasonably priced. PennyLoafer doesn’t take a share of donations or cost platform charges. We accomplice with a 501(c)(3) charity, Charityvest, so that every one donations via the platform are tax deductible.
Donors can begin by giving as little as $5 a month, and alter their common donation or cancel at any time. Donors even have the choice to go away a tip to assist PennyLoafer cowl our working bills. At its core, PennyLoafer is constructed to get extra particular person donors meaningfully related to causes they care about, studying and feeling the distinction they make — irrespective of the quantity they can provide.
To study extra or begin giving often to causes that handle local weather change and different points, try pennyloafer.org.
About the Author
Andi Thieman is the founding father of PennyLoafer. Her background is in nonprofit consulting and human companies. Her profession has targeted on strategic planning, capacity-building, grant writing, and greatest observe analysis for nonprofits and public companies. She is a Pittsburgh native, at the moment residing in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
