How GiveStar is engaging the next generation

The new fundraising platform shaking up the sector: how GiveStar is engaging the next generation.

Alex Coleridge and Tom Montague, Founders of GiveStar, discuss the latest tools in GiveStar’s platform for fundraisers, donors and volunteers, with UK Fundraising’s Howard Lake.

Many in the sector know GiveStar as an innovative provider of fundraising technology to some of the UK’s best-known charities: contactless donation devices, ticket pages, online giving campaigns, even custom microsites designed for large scale events and corporate fundraising.

But it’s GiveStar’s latest offering that has been causing a stir recently - a sparkling new fundraising platform aimed at the next generation.

As their new platform and app go into live beta this month, and with a rapidly growing waitlist, UK Fundraising sat down with Founders Alex Coleridge and Tom Montague to learn more.

In a nutshell, what’s new?

Picture LinkedIn meets GoFundMe - a vertical social network specifically designed for people looking to support some of the world’s best causes: fundraise, give, volunteer and connect with friends, charities and influencers.?

People have LinkedIn for work, Instagram for photos, Strava for running and Twitter for arguing - but there’s no space purpose built for the millions of people looking to make an impact. Every year, 1 billion people are moved to make a donation - our aim is to give these people a home and that’s where GiveStar’s new platform comes in.

This is a big step forward for us. The sector knows us as a B2B provider of fundraising tools like giving pages and contactless donation devices, but now we are opening up our software to any individual to raise for over 100,000 charities (and counting).

More excitingly we’ve applied all the charity sector learnings of the last several years, so we’re confident that we’re on the right path to enabling a dramatically improved experience! For example, the new GiveStar platform comes complete with both a website and app from launch for supporters, back end reporting tools for charity data teams, and will soon be packed with content and social features.

Tell me more about Split Donations

We’re excited about this one! Often fundraisers want to raise money for two (or more) different causes from one campaign page, but when Virgin Money Giving closed, this functionality disappeared as an option. Charities kept asking us whether it was something we could look at, and in the end we knew we had to make it happen.

It’s surprisingly complicated to build as you have to take into account reporting and Gift Aid, but we are delighted to say we have resurrected Split Donations and seeing great results from fundraisers already. It’s just the first of hundreds of innovations that we have planned.

Who’s the new platform aimed at?

We welcome everyone to try out the GiveStar platform and we’ve had years of experience working with fundraisers of all ages across the country, but we believe it will particularly appeal to a younger demographic (20-40 years) given our app, the social innovations on our platform and our focus on in platform content.

Younger people grew up with social media, smartphones and instant connectivity - they (we!) have high expectations and short attention spans. In our view, platforms need to work harder to engage this demographic as the future of charitable giving depends on them!

The good news is they are just as passionate as any other group when it comes to making a positive impact - so there’s a lot of potential to unlock.

How has the sector reacted so far?

The response has been fantastic! We opened up the platform to early beta partners in August, including charities like Save the Children, Mind, the NSPCC and CRUK, and have already seen our waitlist filling up. At the moment, Split Donations have been a particular draw for charities, but we are nowhere near done - the next phase of innovation is where things get really exciting, in particular for the general public.?

We’ve got a busy development roadmap, allowing users to build a profile, follow the causes they care about, team up with friends, discover campaigns, as well as seamlessly take contactless donations via Tap-on-Phone.?

For charities, there are several new opportunities, from growing a community of supporters using groups, to streamlining registration for events through template campaigns, to real time reporting and optimisation tools.

What should our readers do if they want to get involved??

Get in touch with us! We would love to hear from you and happy to help you get started. You can email us directly at [email protected] or join our waitlist at this coming soon page: https://www.comingsoon.give-star.com/