Show HN: Give a Dime – Donate change from credit card purchases
giveadime.org
giveadime.org
Are you storing bank credentials?
Since you posted on HN:
Besides the marketing fluff "state of the art encryption" what are you actually doing to ensure my credentials are secure?
What prevents you from updating your TOS to be more ominous and adding a clause buried that allows you to inspect & store our bank transactions?
We use Plaid as our bank connection API. We actually never see your bank account, so we can't store it.
We also use Stripe for cc processing, and similarly do not store credentials, instead opting for Stripe to do it for us.
You are responsible for your partners. Saying you won't do something isn't completely honest if you turn around and outsource that exact same activity to a partner.
Are customers that buy from companies that integrate with Stripe aware that it is Stripe that stores credit card information when prompted? I don't know if the average person can make that abstraction.
Feedback: Let users pick their own charities. I can tell by your FAQ you want to curate but people need to know their efforts are going to what they care about. I have personal experience with exactly this on a current startup, email me [in profile] if you want to chat more on it.
Congrats on launching something that matters to you!
Yes - this is definitely a big philosophical discussion we are having.
(Time for some sausage making) in California it is actually illegal for us to give money to a charity without having a signed contract in place (this is to protect consumers and guarantee that the money we promise is actually going to charities). This puts a bit of a hamper on enabling donations to all charities. We've opted for curated charities to keep compliant and also to help those new to charity donating make a big impact immediately.
With that said, we want to expand the number of charities we support and would love to hear about great charities!
I've been through some various business types in the space, the worst was a registered Commercial Fundraiser where yes I had to setup bonds and the fees were ridiculous with individual filing between charity and state. But for you (and me actually) it doesn't seem as big of a deal until it hits scale. If you're referring to registrations for "Charitable Solicitation", we've been through that too. I quickly asked my legal and he responded with: as long as you're not specifically targeting persons in any state nor do you supply names and contact info for donors to the charities so they can't send thank you notes it's not an issue. YMMV and don't hold me to that, but it may not be a big issue for you and open up a new avenue.
[1]: https://www.dymocks.com.au/childrens-charities/round-up
By using Plaid to determine transactions, I assume you then do a once-a-month transaction that is the sum of all the round-ups? Or do you do a separate transaction every time someone does a transaction?
If you're doing a separate transaction, you're paying some ridiculous Stripe fees for the micro transactions.
I think the ideal solution would be to set up your own debit card. It's not significantly hard to get a branded debit card solution through Bancorp. Then you can control thins a lot more easily.
When a customer makes a $12.10 charge, you can actually charge them $13 and just keep the 0.90 on the backend and the processing fee is only paid once.
Technically you're absolutely right - setting up our own debit card would be a great way to efficiently generate donations.
We weren't sure how likely people would be to get a new debit card though, and many people favor credit cards so they get points. This is definitely a route we could consider in the future though!
These are the kind of charities we want to make sure are getting funded - the ones that make the biggest impact/dollar in a local community.
Give A Dime is just a way to get people who are less comfortable with giving to do so in a way that doesn't break the bank and feels manageable.
If you have connections with them, I'd love to talk about how we could work more closely together.
swipegood.com/ https://ca.changeit.com/ www.rounditupamerica.org/
Maybe partner with them?
changeit.com doesn't support a lot of the popular banks/cards here in the US, and rounditupamerica.org focuses on getting businesses on board - but you're right, they'd be great partners!
But I don't know why that's a suitable figure to donate to charity, over any other.
> Give A Dime links to your bank and monitors the round-up change from your transactions (but not the transactions themselves).
So where does the "round up" come from if you can't see my transactions? Do bank provide you with a list of "round ups" so you see 5c, 10c, 85c rather than 2.95, 9.90, 1000.15?
We also provide standard monthly donations if anyone is uncomfortable with bank account linking.
Ah, that puts a different spin on it. You do have access to all transactions - but you claim not to store them.
It's an interesting idea - and I hope you can convince people to donate more to charity - but I would feel uncomfortable giving you access (albeit read-only) to every transaction I make.
Perhaps this is a model which is best suited to selling directly to banks?
Would you consider a standard monthly donation that doesn't link to your bank account?
Yes - we're definitely interested in connecting directly with banks - we'd just need to grow a bit before doing so since we only support 1 community right now.
I can give a monthly amount in a manner which is tax efficient for me and the charities I support.