In 2024, we hit a major milestone: That September, we celebrated helping the nonprofit community save at least $100 million in tech expenses on $1 billion raised since our start in 2015. This followed on a more detailed look, immediately after GivingTuesday 2023, at how we make our calculations.

Today, in the aftermath of the incredible totals raised by nonprofits just in December 2024, we wanted to revisit that with you, using our soaring new numbers:

The motivation

We believe that nonprofits should be able to satisfy their missions without sacrificing their means. Our part in helping nonprofits achieve this goal is not to charge them for use of our powerful and practical fundraising platform – no setup fees, no platform fees, no membership or subscription fees, no annual or monthly fees, no hidden Give Lively fees. 

The nonprofits that benefit from use of our technology put the millions of dollars saved toward essential operations and services, not filling the coffers of for-profit service providers like Blackbaud, Bonterra, Classy, Eventbrite and more.

Because we’re in it for nonprofits, not for profit.

The calculus

The figures we share below are estimates; however, they are anchored in the real costs associated with other fundraising platforms. Here are four of those platforms, based on our best understanding of what they charge:

Using these numbers as the basis for our formulas, we calculated the fees that nonprofits would have paid if they raised an amount equivalent to what we saw in December 2024 through a different platform. 

For example, here are the contrasting costs for four other platforms, using their fees (see the chart above) and the Give Lively volume in December 2024 of $67,306,038 raised through 337,005 donations.

Chart of December 2024 costs to nonprofits using each platform’s fees and Give Lively volume

The big takeaway: Nonprofits saved between $471,142 and $3,022,041 on tech expenses just in December 2024 by using the Give Lively fundraising platform.

Here’s another chart, focusing just on December 31, 2024, the largest one-day total ever processed by Give Lively technology.

Chart of December 31, 2024, costs to nonprofits using each platform’s fees and Give Lively volume

Comparative chart of December 2024 costs (and savings) to nonprofits using Give Lively volume but fees charged by Give Lively, Classy, Network for Good, FundraiseUp and Givebutter.

Of note, our math includes savings for our 9,000+ active member nonprofits and over 45,000 nonprofits that have received donations through Charity Navigator’s Giving Basket, powered by Give Lively.

The importance

Completing an exercise like this for overall savings since our start in 2015 is how we estimated that nonprofits saved $100 million in tech expenses on $1 billion raised through our technology. That was back in September and the total is growing.

We think this is a conservative view of how much money for-profit fundraising platforms collect from nonprofits. The complexity of their pricing models often masks additional charges such as service fees, monthly or annual fees, hidden fees, upcharges and more – all beyond the math shown here. (Of particular note, these often include considerable payments for Salesforce support, for which we do not charge.) 

The savings we pass along to nonprofits is our superpower, one we like to call the Give Lively Effect: a proven way of democratizing and leveling the digital fundraising playing field, helping nonprofits hit their fundraising goals, maximize their donors’ generosity and free them to devote more resources to their critical work.

The values

While delivering savings to nonprofits is mission critical to us, we also place a special emphasis on staying true to our progressive values. Our values are a powerful motivator for our team and a decisive part of our membership criteria. We support (and are inspired by) nonprofits that tackle tough challenges and complex issues such as gender and racial equality, reproductive health and LGBTQ+ rights, social and environmental justice, education, domestic violence, immigrant services and more. We personally review every membership application to ensure each nonprofit member aligns with our values.