iBuy2Give to set up online marketplace to raise funds for charities
Howard Lake | 30 November 2017 | News
IBuy2Give is building an online marketing place full of items that will generate a donation to a charity or good cause of the buyer’s choice.
The site, which is expected to go live in February 2018, will be available to a wide range of organisations to use for fundraising, including charities, schools, societies, and Scouts, Guides and football clubs.
The marketplace is expected to feature thousands of discounted items from toys to car insurance.
Kevin Turner from iBuy2Give says that the model is different to standard affiliate marketing platforms, some of which have been used by charities to raise funds from their supporters’ online shopping for over a decade. The purchase happens on the iBuy2Give site, rather than on the retailer’s.
A promotional video for the site, fronted by TV presenter Chris Tarrant, explains: “Other sites that let you fundraise when a product is purchased send your supporters off to the retailer’s website and they get a smaller affiliate commission. But when you buy an item from our shop… we charge the retailer a fee which is comparable to those of eBay and Amazon. This means we can give you up to 600% more on every product sold”.
It is from this fee that iBuy2Give makes a donation to the good cause or charity chosen by the shopper.
Online donations
The platform will also handle online donations for participating charities, offering a card and transaction fee of just 1.8%. Turner contrasts this the fees charged by some online giving platforms.
Specifically the fee is 1.8% of the donated sum plus 20p. The money is handled by payment service Mangopay. This helps ensure that iBuy2Give never have access to the charitable donation: only the recipient charity can access it via its Mangopay Wallet. Mangopay charge 45p when you make a withdrawal from your Mangopay Wallet.
The money from a direct donation is available immediately for withdrawal by the charity. Donations generated through a purchase are available for withdrawal after 30 days. This is to ensure that the item has been delivered and that there are no return issues.
The company plans to automate Gift Aid reclaims on behalf of charities for donations it handles.
IBuy2Give is currently inviting charities and good causes to register with the site. There is no fee to do so.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.