Donors can now make an additional voluntary contribution to Give Lively when they donate to their favorite Give Lively member nonprofits. In doing so, they join forces with our founder-funders in extending the reach and capability of Give Lively. 

We call this donor-powered generosity “paying free forward.” 

When one person responds to another’s kindness by being kind to a third person, it's called “paying it forward.” Similarly, when donors make voluntary contributions to Give Lively to help us build and support powerful and practical fundraising solutions that are free for nonprofits, they are, by extension, improving nonprofits’ ability to devote more resources to their work, not to for-profit fundraising software.

Why are we doing this?

At Give Lively, we believe that nonprofits, no matter their size, should not sacrifice their means to satisfy their missions. We build and support fundraising solutions that are free for nonprofits and intuitive for donors. These free products and service are, in essence, a sizable charitable gift to the nonprofit community – worth millions of dollars that nonprofits might otherwise have spent on digital fundraising software redirected toward their critical work instead. 

But our community expands every day. Our reach now extends to hundreds of thousands of nonprofits through our ever-increasing membership base and game-changing partnerships like the Giving Basket, which we power for Charity Navigator, the world’s largest and most trusted nonprofit evaluator.

As we evolve, we have a chance to further reimagine the future of digital fundraising for nonprofits, just as our community expects. However, to pursue more ambitious opportunities – to use our benefactors' annual generosity as a springboard for pushing bigger – we need additional sources of operating revenue.

Now donors can voluntarily contribute to this development. Because just like donors and our founder-funders, we’re in it for nonprofits, not for profit.

"We at Give Lively marvel at the unprecedented generosity of the donor community, which hasn't shied away from contributing directly to our growth," commented Matt Connelly, Vice President of Product. "Their partnership continues to validate our existence and free platform – both of which certainly defy convention. We aim to be good stewards of their generosity and are excited to accelerate the value it can bring to the nonprofit community."

Notably, each voluntary contribution is in addition to the donation being made to a nonprofit, with no effect on the final donation amount the nonprofit receives.

Learn more about voluntary contributions here and here.