Givealittle Generosity Report FY2022

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Givealittle's first Generosity Report has been published for the 2022 financial year and we think it's pretty beautiful. The report is a collection of stats and case studies that try to capture the amazing Kiwi generosity that we are so proud to be a part of.

Press Release 19/4/2023
Even the seasoned team at Givealittle, accustomed to remarkable acts of care and thoughtfulness, is astonished by the level and consistency of giving by Kiwis in the 12 months to 30 June 2022. The online fundraising platform’s annual generosity report shows New Zealanders have been digging deeper than ever to support individuals, families, communities and causes, with the $36.6 million donated through the platform in the last financial year representing a stunning 38.1 percent increase on donations in FY2021 ($26.5 million).

Key FY2022 results include:
● $36.6 million in giving, from more than 464,400 separate donations – compared with $26.5 million in FY2021 and $23.7 million in FY2020.
● 10,799 pages created (1,299 more pages than in FY2021), including 1,828 pages by charities and 233 school fundraiser pages.
● $11.6 million was donated to charitable organisations listed on the platform, meaning 30 percent of all funds raised on Givealittle were charitable donations in FY2022. This is up from $8.4 million in FY2021 and $7.7 million in FY2020.
● There is a noticeable trend towards businesses being more active on the platform and fundraising on behalf of other charitable causes or individuals in need.
● The $24.6 million donated to individuals and groups in FY2022 outstripped FY2021 by 42.2 percent ($17.3 million).
● And schools have seen an enormous increase in giving since FY2020, up 378.9 percent to FY2022 ($76,000 to $364,000). This trend indicates schools are increasingly seeing the platform as a useful and transparent tool for generating community support and physically bringing people together; much school-generated fundraising is through ‘a-thons’ and fun runs.

Kiwis have donated readily to general crisis causes, such as COVID relief in India and the aftermath of flooding in the Philippines, and to specific pages. One of the spaces in which Givealittle shines is in peer-to-peer fundraising for charity, which allows any user to create a fundraiser page to support up to three organisations they love the most.

The top five charities people fundraised for in FY2022 are Key to Life, whose supporters created a whopping 344 pages, including for the annual Gumboot Friday campaign*; Good Neighbour Trust (282 pages); KidsCan Charitable Trust (181 pages); Diabetes New Zealand (150 pages); and Kind Hands Charitable Trust (113 pages).

A successful FY2022 initiative was the Generosity Generator pilot, which ran from February to April. More than 30 charities received training on how to run an online campaign and use Givealittle tools, then took part in a two-week crowdfunding campaign to test their new skills. The pilot raised $193,000 via Givealittle, and $241,000 in total, including from 30+ matched giving campaigns using the platform’s Matching Feature. The Generosity Generator was the recipient of an award for Excellence in Innovation from The Fundraising Institute of New Zealand (FINZ). The third Generosity Generator kicks off on May 1st and lasts for 12 days. Over 30 charities will be participating.

Givealittle’s General Manager, Mel Steel, says, “Part of the key to our steady growth is trust. People are more familiar with the platform and trusting of its security, privacy and transparency, and they like the community it creates – you can see immediately how many others are backing the same cause or page and sending messages of support. Among the key trends, we have seen a rise in general charitable giving, which may be attributable to our increase in product offering for charities as well as the fact that charities have had to be more creative in their fundraising practices, both to draw attention and to navigate lockdown restrictions through 2020 and 2021.”

Since joining the Perpetual Guardian Group in 2020 Givealittle has focused on website optimisation and a suite of user-facing improvements and features. Alongside a website revamp there is now streamlined fundraiser page creation, improvements to event page viewing and creation, QR codes, exercise and activity tracking, teams for events, donation tags, dollar handles and tangibles, Google Pay and Apple Pay and Charity Hub.

The team itself is a fundamental part of the platform, Ms Steel says. “There is sometimes the perception that robots or technology do everything, but it’s actually humans running Givealittle. To work here requires high levels of empathy, with an emphasis on caring and patience, because we are interacting every day with people who could be having a really rough time.

“Our customer care team reads every one of the more than 10,000 pages that are created, and our tech team is responsible for overseeing the development and effectiveness of every new tool we create on the site to benefit the user as well as security and stability. Our team recently grew by two people, in web development and customer care.”

Ms Steel says empathy is a shared quality among her team and those who use Givealittle, which partly accounts for the platform’s record FY2022 figures. “Even though every New Zealander has been through some kind of hardship, disruption, or difficulty in the past three years, we have seen a steady increase in giving through this period and into 2022, when there has been a lot of cost-of-living pressure. In some ways it seems Kiwis’ empathy has increased and we are hyper-aware of who is doing it toughest, and we want to help how we can.”

*Case Study
Key to Life Charitable Trust and Gumboot Friday supporters created 344 fundraising campaigns in the 2022 financial year. The high volume of fundraisers for Key to Life can be attributed to several factors. First, the ambassadors who travel around the country spreading awareness about the need for free mental health services for tamariki. Some of these individuals are high-profile New Zealanders, including its most active ambassador, also the founder of Key to Life, Mike King. Key to Life also provides clear guidance: if an individual, group, or business expresses interest in fundraising, they are provided with direction and support from the charity.

Key to Life is active on social media and gives kudos to fundraisers, which creates confidence and spreads the word to a targeted audience who might want to do something cool for a good cause.

A good example was the Marathon Innings page where a group of uni mates ran a marathon while playing an overnight game of non-stop backyard cricket to raise awareness and funds for I Am Hope. They raised $45,000 and got a lot of media attention, which helped spread the word.

One of the participants in the game was George Glover, who has had two fundraisers to date for Key to Life Charitable Trust. George raised $64,000 from ‘Black Dog Swim’, where he swam 100km+ over 10 days in June 2020, and his third fundraiser, ‘Black Dog Freshwater’, a 300km swim in 20km loops around Lake Rotoiti, raised $131,000 for I Am Hope on a $100,000 goal.

Fact Sheet
● Some of the new functionality and initiatives introduced since Givealittle joined the Perpetual Guardian Group include:
o QR Codes - these shorten the online donor journey for in-person fundraising events.
o Exercise Activity Tracking – users can link their Givealittle page to their Strava or Fitbit to automatically enter their activity. This is mostly used by people fundraising for charity or as part of an event where they might be doing a physical activity towards a certain goal (such as walking or running a kilometre target) to raise funds.
o Teams for Events – Givealittle team pages allow groups of people to fundraise collectively as part of an event. Teams are most often used by businesses or friend groups.
o Donation Tags – this is an extra field that can be added to the donation screen, prompting the donor to choose an option from a pre-defined drop-down list. This functionality is most often used by schools, who will add students' names to the dropdown menu. It can also be used by charities which are fundraising for several programmes simultaneously.
o Dollar Handles and Tangibles – these allow charities to add a prepopulated donation amount in line with their campaign, or an average donation amount. A tangible statement can also be added which gives the donor a real-world example of what their donation will be doing.
o Google Pay and Apple Pay – these were added in 2021 to streamline the donation flow for users who are already signed into these payment tools.
o Regular Giving – this existed on Givealittle before 2020, but the team has more recently streamlined the process to become a default option for charities and schools when they create an organisation page. At present, there are close to 500 donors who are donating regularly (which has grown from 144 since implementing this feature).
o Charity Hub – a page on the Givealittle site dedicated to everything Givealittle, including how-tos, tips for success, and more. It was created during the first lockdown in 2020 when charities were scrambling to fundraise in the new environment and there was an urgent need for a tool like Charity Hub. It has proven to be extremely useful for the Givealittle team and for charities registered on the platform.

ends

For more information:
Laura Air
Alexander PR
+64 (0)21 259 3242
laura@alexanderpr.co.nz

About Givealittle
Givealittle is an online fundraising platform for all of New Zealand. We’re dedicated to connecting New Zealand causes with generous online donors. We’ve been connecting people in need with people who care since 2008 and have been part of the Perpetual Guardian Group since April 2020.

As a registered charity Givealittle files an annual financial report with Charities Services. Givealittle’s operating costs currently amount to approximately 5 percent of donations, with any surplus monies reinvested in the platform to maintain the charity’s sustainability, stability, and compliance.

https://givealittle.co.nz/

About Perpetual Guardian
The Perpetual Guardian Group is New Zealand's largest statutory trust company and leading fiduciary services business.

With 17 branches nationwide, we’ve been a trusted adviser to Kiwis for over 135 years, helping families protect and grow their wealth, plan for the future, and successfully pass those legacies to their children and favourite philanthropic causes.