Fintech for philanthropy
a platform that helps donors to create and manage giving portfolios
Giveback Social — CEO & Co-founder
APR 2021 - FEB 2023 • USA (remote)
giveback
philanthropy made easy: giveback is a tech-enabled platform that helps donors create and manage giving portfolios. 💛
With over $485B in donations and 1.8M+ nonprofits just in the US, it can be hard to find the right organizations to support, measure the impact of their work, and have access to efficient ways to give, and this is what giveback solves. Through giveback's platform, it suggests a giving portfolio based on donors' giving goals with reliable nonprofits, facilitating access to impact data and donations receipts and connecting donors to tax-advantageous ways to give.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Built the company's strategy, team, and tech platform from scratch, including branding, business strategy, OKRs, positioning, and competitive analysis.
• Executed the customer development and validation process with ultra-high-net-worth donors, wealth managers, and nonprofits.
• Strategized business development, fundraising, investor relations, and partnerships with donor-advised funds (DAFs) and charities.
• Led a diverse, remote team across 3 countries and 5 time zones.
• Built a scoring algorithm to vet charities and launched with 140 evaluated and scored nonprofits, including notable organizations worldwide.
• Developed the matching algorithm to recommend a “giving portfolio” based on donor's values, causes, and giving preferences.
• Developed the product roadmap, platform design (UX/UI), and led the software development team (internal and contractors) and QA testing, managing the launch and update versioning.
• Raised $290k, launched the platform on December/22, processing over $500k in contributions.
As co-founder and CEO of giveback, I built the company's strategy, team, and tech platform from scratch. From branding, business strategy, positioning, and competitive analysis, as well as hiring, onboarding, and leading diverse, remote, and international teams (we were from 3 countries, 7 cities, and 5 time zones), to business development, OKRs, accountability, partnerships, fundraising, investor relations, and software development, taking care also of design (UX/UI), product management, QA testing, and developing the scoring algorithm to vet nonprofits and match with donor's values and causes. I started to develop and validate the business idea in September/2021, hired the first team members on Jan/22, and kick-off the development of the platform on March/22 with 2 developers.
I am a big believer in the opportunity to transform the philanthropy market and inspire people to give more and more efficiently. Committed to build a company to bring transparency and information for donors to properly evaluate nonprofits, and to provide an intuitive and engaging tech platform to create and manage giving portfolios, we successfully went live on December/22 with 140 evaluated and scored nonprofits (including notable organizations worldwide such as Malala Fund, USA for UNFPA, Girls Who Code, Pencils Of Promise, MAPS, World Food Program USA, CDC Foundation, Good Sports, The Marine Mammal Center, WaterAid, New Story, UnidosUS, BuildOn), and processed over $500k in contributions to date.
As a result of our hard work, we got featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and Kitces Advisory Map and were awarded on People’s Choice Award at Harvard SoCal 2nd Annual Pitch Event and recognized as the most innovative charity companies of 2022.
CEO role performed for 18 months, where performed the main functions:
- Business model definition
- Coordination of the operation
- Recruiting and onboarding of team members
- Development of the company’s culture
- Management of international and remote teams, working in five different timezones (USA (PST, CST, EST), Brazil, and India) and 3 different cultures
- Process of creating branding and business positioning
- Product specification
- Coordination of product development
- Design UX/UI of the platform
- Product validation with ultra-high-net-worth donors and wealth managers
- Analysis and relationship with suppliers and business partners (such as donor-advised funds and charitable tools)
- Analysis and relationship with nonprofits
- Development of scoring algorithm and vetting process for nonprofits
Development of the platform with main features:
- Onboarding to understand donor’s values and favorite causes using the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Match-making to suggest a giving portfolio based on donor’s giving preferences
- Creation and customization of giving portfolio
- Possibility to calculate the tangible impact that a difference can have for each nonprofit organization
- Explore nonprofits searching by themes, size, rating
- Match/unmatch with nonprofits when customizing giving portfolio
- Management of giving portfolio
- Nonprofit profiles with score and vetting process information
- Docs & statements page with tax-receipts
- Access for donors and wealth managers
- Management of client’s accounts for wealth managers
- Invite users to the platform
- Email communication for donors
- Donation process via donor-advised funds (DAFs), using DAFs sponsor Charityvest and ImpactAssets
Content and branding strategy to gain recognition in the space, leveraging channels focusing on startups, fintech, and philanthropy to register about giveback and what we were building.
I’m very proud that as a result of our hard work, we got featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, and Kitces Advisory Map and were awarded the People's Choice Award at Harvard SoCal 2nd Annual Pitch Event and recognized as the most innovative charity companies of 2022.
