In July 2011, Charles Village-based startup GiveCorps launched with a bold idea: take the crowdfunding model of Kickstarter and apply it to charitable giving.
It was for folks who want to donate directly to projects, in small dollar amounts, as opposed to cutting checks to big organizations and never finding out how their money was used.
One year later, more than 200 nonprofits have used GiveCorps to raise money from more than 3,000 Baltimoreans. To celebrate, GiveCorps is holding an anniversary party tonight at Union Mill in Hampden.
Similar to Kickstarter, GiveCorps allows nonprofits to upload videos and descriptions of projects for which they need funding. Nonprofits are also able to offer Groupon-style deals to donors: for instance, a $20 restaurant gift certificate for a $40 donation. But, as co-founder Jamie McDonald explained to?Urbanite magazine, the difference between Kickstarter and GiveCorps is that GiveCorps uses an e-mail list of subscribers to promote different projects.
GiveCorps promotes itself at events such as Hampdenfest and Ignite Baltimore, signing people up to receive emails about daily fundraising causes called the ?Big Give.? These appeals usually include a video about the effort and always have a clear fundraising goal and line-item breakdown of exactly how the money will be used. ??unlike Kickstarter, which does very little to promote appeals, GiveCorps uses its growing email list to spread the word. [more]
For this, however, GiveCorps retains seven percent of all donations as a marketing fee, in addition to the three percent it takes for credit card processing.
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