JustGiving is a global online social platform for giving. The firm's headquarters are located in Bankside, London.
History
In 2000, Zarine Kharas and Anne-Marie Huby founded JustGiving, a company to provide online tools and processing services to enable the collection of charitable donations. 2006 was the firm's first profitable year. In June 2011, the firm claimed that it had provided its service for more than 9,000 UK registered charities and 1.9 million fundraising pages for users, collecting over £770 million since launch. The cumulative total passed £1 billion in March 2012. The cumulative total passed £4 billion in June 2016.
Fees
JustGiving charged a 5% fee on donations to cover the cost of running the business until March 2019, when the fee was made voluntary. Card processing fees are deducted separately.
Notable fundraisers
In 2010 Charlie Simpson, aged 7, raised over £210,000 via his JustGiving page for the 2010 Haiti earthquake relief programme by UNICEF. In April 2012, Claire Squires, who collapsed and died whilst running the London Marathon, posthumously raised in excess of £925,000 for Samaritans through JustGiving. JustGiving were to receive £26,000 but agreed to waive their 5% administration fee and donate it to Samaritans. In March 2014, Christian Smith was killed in a crash with a car during a 24-hour charity bike ride for Mind. Donations via his JustGiving page rose to more than £68,000 after his death was covered in the media. In April 2014, Stephen Sutton raised over £4.5 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust, after help from celebrity backers including Jason Manford. In April 2020 Captain Tom Moore has raised £32,794,865.23 thus far on a walking initiative to complete 100, 25-metre laps of his garden in Bedfordshire to raise funds for the National Health Service, United Kingdom to aid the COVID-19 pandemic for the NationalHealth Service, United Kingdom, and to mark his 100th birthday on 30 April 2020. The initial £1,000 goal was realised on Friday 10, April and the target was increased to £100,000 and then to £500,000 as more people around the world donated. Moore has now said he will not stop and aims to do a second 100 laps.
Reception
In 2002, JustGiving won the New Media Awards Grand Prix award and also Best Use of the Web award. In 2004, JustGiving was recognised in the 2004 Charity Times annual Awards in their Fundraising & IT Services category. Charity Times claimed the company had "transformed the face of donating in the UK".
Corporate affairs
Ownership
JustGiving was acquired by U.S.-based Blackbaud, Inc. for £95 million in October 2017.
International expansion
In 2003, JustGiving launched in the United States, changing its name to FirstGiving in 2005. FirstGiving is located in Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts. In 2010 the New York Times reported that FirstGiving.com was "among the best known" online fund-raising sites.
Criticism and controversies
In 2008, The Guardian reported Kharas as acknowledging that "the commission charged by justgiving.com is controversial". In justifying their 5% fee, JustGiving states that profits are reinvested in new tools. In February 2017, JustGiving was reported of taking more than £20 million from fundraisers while paying staff up to £200,000. It takes a cut from most donations and while some of the money is used for maintenance, product development and charity training, accounts show that more than £10 million was spent on staff costs in 2016. This includes an average salary of more than £60,000 for some directors, sales and administration workers, with the head of the firm having earned approximately £198,000. A charity chief executive had accused JustGiving of being greedy, saying the fees were 'hard to stomach' and fundraisers had expressed their anger, labelling the site 'JustTaking'.
