Posted on May 21, 2009 - by Justin Hartman
GivenGain: Hidden South African Giants
Today I stumbled across an amazing initiative called GivenGain which is run by a bunch of South Africans. Here’s a quick excerpt from their About page.
We call our service GivenGain because we believe that we are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse and keep.
GivenGain has an established reputation as a service provider to the non-profit sector. We provide a web-based platform to non-profit and support-based organizations with a complete electronic payment, donor management, online publishing, and communication solution.
We have offices in London (UK), Stellenbosch (South Africa), and further represented by partners across the world.
Why this site has interested me considerably is largely due to the fact that fund-raising online is a model that doesn’t really generate that much cash for the organisations in question. Well not in South Africa that is. Unlike other initiatives GivenGain is a model that appears to be working very successfully.
According to the site they’ve generated a total of $37,5 million donated by more than 32,000 individuals and this has directly benefited 1,626 projects. This is stagerring if you think about. It means that on average each individual donates $1,143 and each non-profit project receives $23,118. Granted this is an average and others have donated more/less while other projects have benefited more than others but it’s a massive average at that.
The team behind this initiative deserve to be commended. More often than not people in this industry only ever focus on the players who make the most noise but these giants in the online space are not only doing a whole lot more but making a success of it at the same time.
I am the MD and co-founder of 
Visit My Website
May 21, 2009
Permalink
Autism Western Cape subscribed to the basic package (R69.99)in the beginning of the year. We still have to receive any funding from this income stream.
Visit My Website
May 21, 2009
Permalink
Yeah look I guess the problem in this is that when you have 1600+ projects all looking for funding some will get neglected along the way which is not a good thing.
Visit My Website
May 22, 2009
Permalink
Looking at their stats everyone should be benefiting, or either only one or 2 NPO’s are making a killing?
I wonder if the full version will drive more funding? But that costs R18000 mmm thats alot to put towards something that might work..
Still looks like a nice idea, so will maybe give the smaller package a try and see what happens.
Unless maybe a nice local firm wants to get behind Ama Wheelies – The Wheelchair farmers of Thabachweu and sponsor us the full version? Now that would be great.
Visit My Website
May 22, 2009
Permalink
The web site states the full version costs R459.95 per month and not R18,000 as Ama Wheelies stated (maybe a typo).
It seems like their system is not the proverbial “beggar’s corner” where your main focus is to receive funding, but more of a tool you can use to get and manage your own funding from your own contacts / database. I wonder what effort Jail4Bail put in to receive donations or is he maybe waiting for a miracle.
Visit My Website
May 22, 2009
Permalink
@Kian du Preez
A direct quote from the GivenGain website:
“GivenGain
Full ZAR 459.95
Database ZAR 17,500.00
Total: ZAR 17,959.95
Am I misunderstanding something here?
We also emailed Givengain directly asking about the R18000 price and they did not contest it. In fact they stated “The fee as calculated when choosing your required version of the database space size will be monthly”
If there is a misunderstanding please help clear this up.
I do agree that there are no miracles to raise funds and hard work is always required.
Visit My Website
May 22, 2009
Permalink
I see the price you refer to is when you go for their maximum database size of 250,000 to 500,000 records. If you have that many records, you will hopefully be able to afford to pay that fee. If you have a more realistic database size of 1,000 to 5,000 records, they will charge you R634.95 per month. It looks like 500 database records are included in the base price of the lite version (R69.99 per month) and the full version (R459.95 per month).
Visit My Website
May 22, 2009
Permalink
Seems I misunderstood what the data base means. You are not buying a data base of users, you are buying space to house your own data base. Now I understand more clearly. But yes If u have a large data base then you will pay R18000. I suppose the idea would be to grow the data base slowly. We will give this a try and see how it works.
Visit My Website
June 23, 2009
Permalink
When an email arrived from GivenGain this morning I was immediately hooked on the idea. As I had previously donated to the Democratic Alliance and received a receipt from GivenGain, I assumed that they were/are linked. However – I started looking for the ‘but’when I saw the fee schedule. I always look for the ‘but’ when I see a fee schedule. At the risk of sounding too sceptical I am wondering if good intentions and a desire to help is not also very profitable for some people. Given the amount of causes floating around Facebook and the exposure Facebook has, I am wondering if the money wouldnt be better spent on your own website using Facebook to promote it. This is not a criticism, just an observation and a thought.
Visit My Website
July 19, 2009
Permalink
Thanks for the post, Justin. Keryn asks whether “good intentions and a desire to help is not also very profitable for some people”. Well, looking at all the commercial entities out there providing online donation services, I would guess that it most certainly is… and that is what makes GivenGain different, as all donations made on the GivenGain platform are processed by the GivenGain Foundation, a not-for-profit organization.
In other words, unlike most other services, GivenGain does not make money from the processing of donations. That said, we do not believe that other for-profit services should not charge the fees they charge – we just felt that not profiting from donations was the right thing to do for us.