Chloe Roberson - March 31st , 2022

From work experience to trustee: my Givto journey

Givto is managed by the Better Giving Partnership, a registered charity run entirely by volunteers and overseen by our Board of Trustees. We asked Scott McKinney, one of our Trustees, to tell us how he got involved with Givto and why he thinks the service is so special.

I started my final year at the University of Leeds in October 2020. As part of our consultancy module, we were tasked with joining a local start-up business or charity and providing a road map of ideas that they could use to promote growth. My group was assigned to work with Better Giving Partnership on the Givto service. Although I didn’t know it at the start, 7 months later I would become a trustee!

Getting to know Givto

Givto is a new online donations service that enables you to give to a different charity each month with a single Direct Debit. Once you’ve registered with us, you’ll be given three different charities to choose from each month, from large national organisations to smaller, local causes. 

I was immediately drawn to the unique concept of Givto, and was impressed by the team at the Better Giving Partnership. We had weekly meetings to discuss ideas, gather feedback, and develop our roadmap. Ultimately we agreed on 3 ideas that would go into our final report: web design development, changing the business model, and creating a plan for expanding into new areas of the country. 

Growth and expansion

We worked on expanding into new areas by engaging in donor research and creating marketing campaign ideas that Givto could use to attract new donors and charities. Through surveys and existing research, we analysed the giving habits of donors based on age and gender. We found that women are the most engaged in charitable giving and that early retirees make the largest donations overall. We also found out that 56% of people do not believe that charities are trustworthy, showing us that building a credible and honest brand would be critical to the success of Givto.

We used the findings from the surveys and data to create a plan to engage with potential donors in these specific groups and to attract new charities. We recommended that Givto build trust with new and existing donors by including regulatory imagery in social media posts and engaging with Facebook community groups to gain a presence in new communities before expansion.

A key strength of Givto is the ability to appeal to the users’ sense of community through partnerships with smaller charities that are doing great work in local areas. We wanted to make sure this continued as Givto expands into new areas, and we agreed that the best way to do this was to engage with local community groups whenever we onboarded a new charity. 

University of Leeds students present their final report to Better Giving Partnership trustees and volunteers.

Becoming a trustee

The time I spent with Givto as part of my studies was a fantastic learning experience. I gained practical experience in new areas and worked alongside volunteers who were experts in their fields. The team were brilliant to work with and so open to our ideas and feedback.

After the project came to an end, I decided to continue my involvement with Givto by becoming a trustee. I’ve been a trustee for just over a year now. I love keeping in touch with the team, hearing about how Givto is progressing, and helping to make decisions about the charity’s future. 

I believe that Givto offers an innovative and flexible approach to charitable giving and will have an immensely positive impact on communities in Yorkshire and beyond. With so many charities struggling with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Givto provides a unique opportunity to spread support much further and across many more causes than traditional donation services. 

Check out the Leeds University case study: https://cees.leeds.ac.uk/casestudies/behind-the-scenes-look-at-the-leeds-enterprise-consultancy-project/ 

Scott McKinney is a Trustee with Better Giving Partnership. Read more about Scott and the rest of the team in our Meet the Team.

Read more about the Better Giving Partnership here: https://bettergivingpartnership.org/