The season of giving is upon us — particularly today on #GivingTuesday. And though holiday shopping may have your wallet feeling a little light, according to Denver-based nonprofit Jeengle — named after the sound coins make in your pocket — even a little bit of change can make a big noise.
Launched in June of this year, Jeengle provides a “giving gateway” that makes donating to charitable causes easier for the average donor. Rather than targeting those who can afford to give large, $1,000-plus donations, Jeengle focuses on those who can give $20, $5 or even $1 a month. Through these small, incremental donations — 100 percent of which is divided evenly among a pool of 20 vetted charities — Jeengle hopes to make a multi-billion dollar impact on the organizations it supports.
According to Jeengle’s Executive Director Julia Baker Hansen, charitable giving reached an all-time high last year, bringing in around $410 billion in donations. And although $286 billion of that came from individual donations, charitable giving still only accounts for two percent of disposable income.
In other words, there are still a whole lot of people out there who aren’t giving — and not because they can’t afford to.
“It’s vogue and very in style to give,” Baker Hansen said. “But what we’re finding is the very wealthy are doing their part and they’re giving massive amounts of money to charity, but middle class giving is steadily declining. Jeengle is here to fill that void.”
According to Baker Hansen, a 0.3 percent increase in donations from average Americans could have a $2.1 billion effect on charities. But because most charities’ resources are spent chasing wealthy benefactors, these low-dollar donors are largely ignored.
“There’s kind of a standard nonprofit fundraising pyramid, where the general rule of thumb is that any given nonprofit is going to get 88 percent of its revenue fulfilled by donations over $1,000,” Baker Hansen said. “There’s nothing wrong with that pyramid. It’s a pyramid that has to exist for any nonprofit to stay alive. But because we are a giving gateway and our overhead is next to nothing, we have the opportunity to flip that pyramid upside down. We have the ability for the first time to really focus on these people who can give $5, $10, or $20 a month.”
We have the ability for the first time to really focus on these people who can give $5, $10, or $20 a month.”
As for the donors themselves, Jeengle offers a simple, transparent way to give. They do the legwork of vetting charities, ensuring each organization meets a strict set of guidelines regarding how and where donors’ contributions are used. Users can then make one-time or monthly donations that go to a spectrum of causes, ranging from health and human services to international affairs and the environment.
Best of all? Thanks to having next to no overhead and the financial support of its founder, Jeengle is able to pass along 100 percent of donations to the organizations they partner with.
“We deeply believe that a small shift can make a big difference,” said Charlie Willhoit, Jeengle’s founder and board member in a statement. “Our intention is to move the charitable needle in individual giving within America. In a world of time-starved people, we believe making giving easier can be a catalyst to making more good happen for all of humanity — $2, $4, $6 at a time.”
