harrisonmgordon

Feedback received :D

That service sounds awesome! Definitely a better option in the UK :)

Thanks! We link with Bank of America (and they're also my bank).

If you have connections with them, I'd love to talk about how we could work more closely together.

Swipegood was shut down in late 2011 unfortunately :( Give A Dime is most similar to this one.

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!

We do once-a-month transactions to help with the micro-transaction issues. We're also looking into ACH transactions to get rid of the 2.9% + 0.30 fee.

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!

That's really great feedback - I will update our FAQ to clearly state where the data is going and some basic information on the security protocol.

Thanks!

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.

You get to choose from our charity list which one you'd like to donate to - Let me know if I need to make that more clear on the website :)

100% agree - I highly recommend donating even if it's not on Give A Dime.

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.

We asked a lawyer if we could be classified as a 501c3, but it didn't seem possible given what we do :-/. Instead, we're looking to be classified as a B-Corp in the future.

That's a very good point! We actually try to focus on smaller, more local charities that don't have large marketing budgets (there are some exceptions) - for instance, Rocket Dog Rescue doesn't even pay a staff, they are entirely volunteer-run. Their entire marketing strategy is unpaid, and we LOVE that, since every dollar they get is spent on helping amazing animals find homes.

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.

I emailed stripe 2 days ago for access :)

We do get access to the transaction info via Plaid, but we immediately delete it once we have summed all of the round up change. All that is stored on our servers is the round up change amounts.

We also provide standard monthly donations if anyone is uncomfortable with bank account linking.

Thanks for the feedback!

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!

Exactly!

I would rather shut the company down than inspect and store bank transactions. Risk of lawsuit is also a pretty good deterrent, since lawyers are expensive.

Thanks!

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.

I should also note that we never store cc transaction data - we request then delete it, only keeping the sum of the round up change.

We are happy users of Plaid :)

What makes change special is how small it seems on a day-to-day basis. We toyed with $x/mo vs. change, and feedback showed people were more likely to give if you describe it as change. I believe a part of that is knowing that what you give is tied a bit to what you spend.

If you buy a coffee at $2.85, the round-up charge would be $0.15 (to the nearest dollar).

Would love feedback on this price point!

Server costs will certainly go down as Give A Dime reaches scale, but will always be necessary per user to account for bank transaction requests and other services. I will update the FAQ to be more clear on how we use this fee. We also intend to use those funds to continue growing and vetting charities in other communities.

I'd love feedback on this project - it's been a labor of love for a year trying to find the best charities in the bay area and making it easy for anyone to donate what they can without a lot of effort. Thanks!