Start-up offers easy way to donate your digital change to charities
Change Donations has raised €800,00 in last year and will launch app in next few months
The increased use of cashless payments may be handy for consumers, but it’s a headache for charities. Loose coins that can be dropped into collection boxes are fast becoming a thing of the past and this is putting traditional fundraising methods under real pressure. What’s needed is a new way of donating that dovetails with how people now manage their money and this is exactly what the founders of Change Donations, Lizzy Hayashida and William Conaghan, have set out to do.
“Change Donations is the only Irish-based micro-donation company helping charities and non-profits connect with a younger generation of donors,” Hayashida says. “Our platform allows donors to link their debit card, round up their transactions to the next euro and donate their digital change to causes they care about. The average age of donors in Ireland is 62 and while millennials make up 40 percent of the working population they only account for 11 percent of overall donations. This isn’t just a local problem, it’s a problem for charities worldwide.”
