Two longtime tech leaders in Seattle are pairing up to help people donate to charities in a smarter, smoother way. Giving Compass presents information about all sorts of donation-worthy causes in one place and helps people decide where to give.
The effort is the brainchild of Jeff Raikes, the former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Luis Salazar, a serial-startup entrepreneur in Seattle. The pair worked together at Microsoft for several years before splitting off to their separate philanthropic and tech endeavors.
Giving Compass brings those two areas together — acting somewhat like a Google search engine specifically for quality nonprofits and charities, Salazar said.
The website and app display information about different types of causes, pulling in articles, local trainings and events, so people can quickly find information about issues they’re interested in supporting.
Quality information about nonprofits and charities is hard to find and piece together, especially if you are new to giving, the pair said. Giving Compass seeks to bring it all to one place, bolstered by machine-learning technology that can pick out helpful and legitimate information.
“We started to explore how to get the philanthropy community informed and connected for great impact,” Raikes, who now runs a foundation with his wife, said in an email. “And focused on a mission to organizing the world’s information to make it easier to give well.”
The site launched in a beta mode recently to people in the U.S., and the team plans to launch more features in the fall.
Giving Compass partners with various organizations, such as Global Giving, to make sure all the information it presents is for vetted nonprofits. It also deploys its own software and team of experts to make sure the information is legitimate.
“There are so many things technology can do to help the sector,” said Salazar, who is the CEO. “This is just one of the many little things it can help with.”
Total giving in the U.S. reached $373.25 billion in 2015, according to Giving USA, and more than 70 percent came directly from individuals.
Soon, Giving Compass will also suggest West Coast volunteer opportunities to people who search for causes.
Giving Compass, itself a nonprofit, doesn’t actually collect donations. Instead, it points people to organizations and specific funding sites where they can donate.
Eventually, the nonprofit will license its technology to nonprofits to help them run their websites, Salazar said. It will cost a “fraction” of what current technology does, in the hopes of bringing the power of tech to the charitable industry.
Salazar has hired a team of five software developers in Seattle. Giving Compass was co-founded by Salazar, Jeff Raikes and his wife, Tricia; Stephanie Gillis of the Raikes Foundation and Paul Shoemaker, founding president of Social Venture Partners International.
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