Brands are always looking for new ways to highlight corporate social responsibility initiatives, engage with consumers, and ultimately increase sales. Givz is the eCommerce tool that provides unique ways for brands to integrate social-impact solutions into everyday online shopping. Instead of using discounts to incentivize customers to make purchases, brands partner with Givz (its platform connects with over 1.6M+ charities) to allow consumers to make a purchase and then donate a portion of the purchase to the charity of the consumer’s choice; the entire donation process takes 15 seconds. Recently, H&M leveraged Givz to encourage loyalty members to make a purchase of $60+ by incentivizing them with a seamless, no additional cost avenue to donate to COVID relief efforts. As a result, H&M experienced a 7x fold in customer engagement. Other brands that have used Givz include TB12 (Tom Brady’s brand), wagmo, and Sakara Life.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Andrew Forman to learn more about how Givz drives social impact, benefits charities, and drives revenue for brands.
Tell us about the product or service that Givz offers.
Givz is a shared value marketing platform that improves marketing ROI by incentivizing customers with donations to their favorite charities and organizations that help those in need.
How is Givz different?
Givz creates benefits companies, customers, and charities:
- Companies improve their marketing outcomes
- Customers support causes they care about – on our platform they can choose from any of 1.6M+ charities
- Charities receive more donations
What inspired the start of Givz?
After an early career in investment banking and a Harvard MBA, I launched Givz in 2017 with my cofounder Jay Henderson. Our mission was achieving shared value – a company that made profits by doing good things.
Givz began as a D2C app allowing users to donate to any one of the 1.6M+ registered charities in the US, but we quickly realized a much larger mission and opportunity: using social impact to improve marketing outcomes for companies, while supporting charities.
Today, Givz provides a SaaS-based, social impact marketing platform and has worked with blue-chip clients ranging from sports leagues to major clothing retailers and beverage companies.
What market does Givz target and how big is it?
Givz targets the sales promotion market ($85B+) alongside loyalty programs, social/ad spend, email/SMS, and digital ad spend – for a total addressable market of over $275B.
What is the business model?
Givz has a flexible pricing model that is based on the success of the brand – (i.e. the ability for the brand to convert consumers to make qualifying purchases).
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
Givz is the right idea in the right place at the right time. During these turbulent times, Givz has seen the silver lining of many brands wanting to step up and give back while still keeping doors open themselves.
Several long-term, macro-trends drive Givz’ success.
First, more people are shopping online, and companies need innovative ways to market their products.
Second, social issues are increasingly important to all demographic groups.
Third, consumers not only want to engage with brands that reflect their values, they will reject companies based only on value perception.
While companies need to show corporate social responsibility in an authentic way that engages their communities, they also need to support financial growth and improvement. That’s where Givz comes in.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
Givz has a robust pipeline of enterprise clients. For us, the key metric is the number of campaigns run by clients. The more clients use the Givz platform, the more it proves the concept, allows us to scale up our client list, and ultimately connect with more people and raise more money for charities.
The more clients use the Givz platform, the more it proves the concept, allows us to scale up our client list, and ultimately connect with more people and raise more money for charities.
What is the one piece of startup advice that you never got?
They are not glamorous – but human resources and bookkeeping assistance are critical.
If you could be put in touch with anyone in the New York community who would it be and why?
Michael Bloomberg – he understands public health, philanthropy, business, and how the government works. Givz is at the nexus of all that. Also, he built one of the world’s most successful businesses – from scratch.
Why did you launch in New York?
To me, NYC is ground zero for investors, employee talent pool, networking and meetups, charities, and most of all – I knew in my personal life I would end up here, it’s close to where my wife and I both grew up and where both of our support systems are.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
Since COVID-19 hit, I have not been back for any outdoor dining in NYC. That being said, I’m a huge fan of MEXICUE and Mighty Quinn’s BBQ; both restaurants are doing a lot of takeout and online ordering.
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