If you shop online, you would have come across sites that offer discounts, cashbacks and coupons. Such incentives are usually small, and would not make a major difference to the lives of shoppers. Couple this with the knowledge that we in India do not donate to charities and causes readily, beyond some giving for tax and religious reasons.
GiveIndia (GI), a leading online donation and fundraising platform, sees an opportunity here. In partnership with CashKaro, GI launched a new service on April 13 which allows shoppers to donate these incentives to vetted charities and causes.
GI has, over 17 years, collected more than ₹330 crore to fund over 200 NGOs and non-profits. In December, with a revamped brand identity and web site, it launched several innovations, including monthly subscription models, contextual give buttons pointing to relevant charities, and reliability badges (reported by The Hindu , 21 December [link for online version: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/in-a-first-giveindia-unveils-monthly-subscription-model/article22102641.ece ]). The new initiative is one more tool aiming to make donations, even of small amounts, easy and a habit.
“We and Cashkaro have been partners for a while,” Atul Satija, GiveIndia’s CEO wrote in response to emailed questions. “In the Cashkaro site, there is an option where customers can donate their cashback to charities, and several NGOs are listed, including GiveIndia. However, we wanted to do something that allows a choice from a large number of causes and non-profits.” He said the new service was the result of six months of talks with Cashkaro.
“We believe in incorporating our values in our business model,” said Swati Bhargava, CashKaro’s co-founder. “Our association with GiveIndia has made it easier for individuals to give more seamlessly, as everyday online purchases are being transformed to everyday donations.”
How it works
The partnership brings in GI’s 200-plus ‘GiveAssured’ nonprofits, which it certifies as being trustworthy. To get a GiveAssured rating, an NGO must meet three non-negotiable requirements: legal status and documents must be clean, the financials must be in order, and there must be compliance with the ‘donor promise’ (using funds in exactly the way it says it will). Over that, there is a rating, which is based on how the NGO does systems and processes (on paper vs. computers vs. online), governance (for example, if board members are related to each other, that would be a lower rating), and the quality of reporting (the quality of the messaging to donors). To arrive at these ratings, GI has an 11-person Credibility Assurance team that regularly visits all the NGOs, and verifies and audits their work.
CK manages the merchant relationships.
A shopper who would like to donate would need to go to shop.giveindia.org, where she would need to first select a cause — say disability — then pick an NGO working within that area, and then click through to a page that has offers from various online merchants, which include the majors, Amazon and Flipkart, as well as several fashion, groceries, food and electronics sellers. There, after selecting an e-merchant and activating a donation coupon, she is then redirected to the merchant site to shop as usual. After the shopping transaction is complete, the back-end transfers the donation amount from CK to GI, which then transfers it to the NGO the customer has chosen.
“Our overall goal is to service customers who may not be attracted to cashbacks but would be very keen on the give-while-you-shop model and indirectly donating to trustworthy non-profits and causes they care about,” Mr. Satija said.
Soft launch
GI launched the service via social media channels and WhatsApp groups, and is now monitoring feedback from users before widening its outreach.
“It isn’t terribly simple, but still, given the benefit, one can do the additional work, like clicking through from their page [instead of from the merchant site],” says Hanisha Vaswani, a Mumbai resident who is a product manager at an e-merchant. Ms. Vaswani says she would like to see more information upfront about NGOs who are comparatively unknown and may get overlooked. “Also, I may not use it for urgent purchases, such as during a flash sale.”
Another shopper, Gopi Venkataraman, who works with NGOs on outreach, said that she tried out the service after hearing about it via a WhatsApp message from an acquaintance in GiveIndia; it didn’t strike her immediately that selecting a beneficiary had to be done in the same session as she made her purchases, but now, she says, “This is really an effortless and costless way to do a little bit of good. I’m certainly going to spread the word.”
“The response has been great,” Ms. Bhargava said. “The positive feedback has given us motivation to initiate collaborations like these, [and] stay relevant to new generations who want to help people around in need.”
Mr. Satija said that GI was looking to scale up the initiative and will continue to explore others, “to allow customers to participate in giving while they’re shopping, especially during special days and events.”
