Start Your Own Charitable Giving Foundation Through GiveBack

I just launched my own charitable giving foundation and so can you. And you. And you. And you.

That’s right, through GiveBack.org we all can start, fund and grow our own charitable giving foundations to benefit our favorite charities. Isn’t that cool!?!

GiveBack just launched in Beta a couple of weeks ago and it is founded by Stephen Paletta, winner of Oprah’s Big Give television show. Inspired by donating his $1million in winnings, he started the Give Back Foundation to a) help individuals start their own personal foundations and b) help them get more money to give back to the charities and causes that are near and dear to their hearts.

GiveBack.org allows you to set up a centralized personal account. You select the charities that are important to you (any charity in good standing with the IRS). You fund your foundation with your own money, donations or through shopping. That’s right! They have set it up so that anytime you shop online through your account (at 400 different online merchants) at GiveBack up to 15% of your purchase (though my favorite retailers only donate between 2 and 5%) will be deposited in your personal foundation’s account soon thereafter.

If you’re like me and are on a constant quest to simplify process and procedure, GiveBack is great since all giving is done from one account and that means there’s just one tax receipt at year’s end.

I was able to try out how GiveBack works since the GiveBack Foundation was kind enough to fund my personal foundation with $500 to benefit to my favorite charities. I have to say that the system is easy-peasy to use. Finding the organizations to which I regularly donate was super simple and then actually donating money from my foundation (I love writing that– so empowering!) to them was akin to using electronic banking.

Here are some screenshots of how it works:

I’m really looking forward to the list of shopping affiliates growing (though, 400 retailers is already great). And even though my online go-to shops like Boden and J. Crew are partners already, Land’s End clothing (where I buy my son’s uniform) isn’t yet. And, I hope GiveBack can help raise the contribution levels by the majority of their shopping partners from the single digits.

Also, according to GiveBack, “soon you’ll be able to create campaigns on behalf of your favorite charity, so you can manage local fundraisers” which will be great if you are planning on fundraising while running a race or participating in a walk-a-thon, like many of my friends do.

And even though it’s not listed on the website, I understand that soon you’ll be able to open sub-accounts for your kids to help them start their own personal foundations, which I find even coolest of all.

So, since holiday shopping is around the corner, just think of all the wonderful money you can get rebated straight back into your personal foundation to benefit your favorite charities just in time to give back to others during the holiday season.

If you decide to start your own personal foundation, please let me know, I would love to hear your thoughts on GiveBack.