Doing good shouldn’t be complicated!

With 1.5% of charities receiving 70% of the £73bn annual sector income, tech start up whatCharity.com is set to level the playing field₁. This innovative platform launched March 15th in a special What (London) Charity initiative, with nationwide roll out following a few weeks later. Answering the strong public demand to find new charities to work with, improve transparency and engagement, and meet the rising interest in social impact - the fully mobile responsive site will provide efficiency, improve trust and deliver a smarter solution to charitable giving.

The initiative will bring together grassroot charities and local SMEs, allowing donors and volunteers to see exactly the support the charities need, whether it be time, money or goods & services. A combination of an online directory and social media platform, the site will provide charities of all sizes better visibility by providing them with a profile searchable by location, mission, impact, causes, donor and beneficiary reviews, resources needed, size and much more. The national charity upload process will start in May and eventually all England and Wales charities will be represented on the site.

The platform’s mission is to tackle the sector’s missed opportunities and harness technology to tap into a potential £665million additional revenue in donations₂. whatCharity.com is also confronting the decline of volunteering, utilising the fact that 30% of London-based employees would volunteer more if they had better access to charities and could find more local opportunities more easily₃.

Each registered charity registered will have a free, automatically generated profile with their Charity Commission data, which they can then easily claim and fill with their relevant content including their mission, projects and the impact they intend to make. They can request any resources from the public or companies, whether it is skill-based volunteering, trustees, monetary or product donations from companies, or promotion of their shops and services.

Peer-to-peer reviews and star ratings will also allow donors, volunteers and beneficiaries to evaluate their experiences with the charity. It is the first platform to show charity ratings and encourage positive feedback to help instil better trust and transparency amongst the public.

Tiia Sammallahti, founder and CEO of whatCharity.com says: “The decade long sector conversation about increasing transparency, focus on impact and donor engagement has not yet materialised through the creation of accessible digital consumer products, nor has seen a dramatic shift in the sector’s mindset. This leads to the fact that 93% of the UK public believe charities to be important but hard to navigate, lacking transparency and are perceived as financially inefficient₄”.

She continues, “We offer a digital solution to a sector which is currently five years behind other markets in terms of its utilisation of technology and how it can be used to improve engagement with the public and deliver more resources to the sector.”

For more information, watch our introductory video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VOJjDxMXs8&t=3s

Visit www.whatcharity.com and follow whatCharity on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube
₁. Information calculated using December 2017 figures as featured by Charity Commission data http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/showcharity/registerofc...
₂. Money For Good: Understanding Donor Motivation and Behaviour commissioned by New Philanthropy Capital by Sally Bagwell, Lucy de Las Casas, Matt van Poortvliet, Rob Abercrombie, March 2013
₃. More to Give: London Millennials Working Towards A Better World Report commissioned by City Philanthropy by Professor Cathy Pharoah and Doctor Catherine Walker for CGAP, March 2015 http://www.cityphilanthropy.org.uk/sites/default/files/user-...
4. 93% of the UK public find charities important but hard to navigate, lacking transparency and often financially inefficient - Charity Commission UK, Public Trust and Confidence Report 2016 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

For more information, images, interviews please contact:
Kristel Valaydon KV Communications
Tel: 07884 3357334 (preferred)/ 0203 239 7959
Email: kristel@kvcomms.com

Notes To Editors:
About whatCharity - whatCharity.com is run by a charitytech start-up Dobook Limited registered in England and Wales – 10236472. The company is a social impact venture with strong ethos (www.whatcharity.com). The company is founded by the CEO Tiia Sammallahti and the COO Sam Laakkonen and is based in London.