Downloadable white paper: WishWell White Paper
A Simple and Engaging Community Fundraiser
The OneGift Foundation
8/21/2024
Table of Contents
Connect your bank account to WishWell
Getting your donors into WishWell
The Donor Marketing Program (DMP)
12. WishWell’s Fundraising Potential
Background Information on the Nonprofit Organization and its Fundraising Efforts
Details of the Nonprofit Organization's Current Fundraising Methods and Challenges
How does WishWell Help Achieve Fundraising Goals?
18. Additional Testimonials and Use Cases
Churches, Temples, and other Places of Worship
21. Comparison with Other Products
I don’t have my donor’s birthdays
My team and I don’t have the time to add a new fundraiser
We don’t have the budget to pay for a new tool
I don’t want to piss of my membership with another donation request
My donors don't know each other, so won't wish each other well
How to get started with WishWell?
The OneGift Foundation was established in 2024. It was founded on the principle of democratizing donations and driving philanthropy towards a more community-centered approach. Our mission is to grow global charitable giving and community by connecting people with the causes that resonate with them the most and by building the products that drive stronger engagement with those causes. We believe this will revolutionize charitable giving through the use of advanced technology. Our core objective is to connect donors with causes they deeply care about. It is time for philanthropy to be more accessible and impactful! Our vision is a world where artificial intelligence (AI) fosters meaningful connections between individuals, communities, and causes.
To date, through WishWell, The OneGift Foundation has successfully raised over $1,104,690.00 for nonprofits internationally and is generating more than $1,000 a day in donations. Our innovative giving platform, features tools like WishWell, that empowers donors to support causes they care about. We are deeply committed to amplifying the voices of under-resourced and underserved communities throughout all of our initiatives. That is why our mission is centered around uplifting the people behind the causes.
WishWell is a new, simple and engaging community fundraiser.
This white paper presents a detailed overview and case study on the development and impact of WishWell, one of our most groundbreaking fundraising products that drives stronger engagement with charitable causes through simple well-wishes, like happy birthday, anniversary, holiday cards, and more. WishWell engages communities while driving donations. Through the generosity of community members, we facilitate meaningful giving to their chosen organizations while engaging with community members. Sending simple and compassionate wishes like “happy birthday” and “happy anniversary” for just a dollar donation has led to organizations receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Organizations have the option to choose their own minimum amount of giving, starting from contributions of even just $1.
We understand just how far relationship building can go for community organizations. That’s why WishWell uses the power of community to facilitate charitable giving on a personalized level online. Our successful organizations, like The PAP Corps, South Florida's Largest Volunteer Cancer Fundraising Organization, use this tool to foster stronger connections among their members. This ranges from volunteers, employees, and other stakeholders. We support a wide range of charitable causes and look forward to bringing on even more opportunities to engage communities within the next year. Currently, each birthday wish efficiently increases top-line donations, while increasing community engagement. We believe that valuable hours of volunteers and staff should be spent to furthering their mission, not being weighed down by fundraising.
Since our founding, our product WishWell has gained traction with more than 100 clients across the globe who have been able to fundraise hundreds of thousands of dollars without any direct costs associated! This has demonstrated significant potential for growth for future organizations looking to engage in meaningful giving. We believe in keeping overhead costs low and the room for community growth limitless!
Our fundraising platform has proven to be an effective and fun way for organizations to increase their charitable contributions. We proudly also have been able to decrease the amount of effort (approximately by 8% of staff time) to raise the same amount of money by using our automation for WishWell. Through integrating a seamless and enjoyable giving experience for donors and members, WishWell contributes to both community spirit and social impact.
Our detailed case study of The PAP Corps, will explore WishWell's unique features, powerful technology, and measurable benefits that help organizations everyday on our platform. This white paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how WishWell can transform the fundraising industry for giving by staying community focused.
To gain insight into the impact of WishWell by The OneGift Foundation, we conducted interviews from some of our most valued partners. Cheryl Ferrazza, an Information Technology Manager from The PAP Corps, has been instrumental in implementing the WishWell program at her organization. Cheryl shared, "The WishWell program has been a key contributor to our annual donations, and the app built by OneGift makes it easier than ever!" She emphasized that the simplicity and user-friendliness of the app have significantly increased donor engagement and participation. Cheryl also noted that automated reminders and the ability to personalize donations have made the process enjoyable for both donors and recipients. We’re thrilled we’re able to create a sense of community and shared purpose for The PAP Corps. This is one of many happy reviews that demonstrates the power of our innovative product.
Additionally, Steina Walter, a dedicated volunteer from the Cascade Lakes Chapter of The PAP Corps added, "The WishWell program is so important to our community's fundraising efforts, and the WishWell app makes it so easy to do!" We are proud to see our technology put to work for social good!
Nonprofits constantly face the challenge of raising funds for their causes while working off of limited resources. Decreasing numbers of volunteers, tight budgets and restricted funding all prevent organizations from achieving their goals. We see organizations struggling daily with traditional fundraising methods. Events, campaigns, and direct appeals require significant time, effort, and financial investment from already overburdened staff members. That is one of the reasons why we designed a fundraiser and supporting product that could provide relief to staff while fundraising from an equitable and community-centered approach. With the growing need for new fundraising solutions, we believe that nonprofits should be able to generate steady revenue without taking away from their already limited time.
WishWell addresses this need by providing a fundraising product that is both risk-free and self-sustaining for all organizations. By integrating automation for fundraising, such as birthday well-wishes, WishWell eliminates the need for extensive planning and execution typically associated with traditional methodologies. Our approach ensures a consistent flow of donations throughout the year with minimal effort. We believe nonprofits should be able focus more on their mission and less on the logistics of fundraising.
The development of giving technology like WishWell is a significant advancement for the nonprofit and fundraising industry. The WishWell fundraiser provides a unique and engaging way for organizations to raise funds through meaningful gestures that build community, and our software product facilitates the fundraiser so that the donations and engagement are almost automatic. For example, we help organizations market their fundraiser through beautiful cards, marketing emails (Donor Marketing Program (DMP)), automated order reminders, birthday reminders, and regular reports. These act as thoughtful reminders for people of how much their community members care about them!
While the traditional fundraising industry remains highly competitive and siloed, it continues to present challenges for nonprofits to receive equitable sources of philanthropy. WishWell's innovative approach not only simplifies the donation process, but also encourages donor engagement both online and in-person and empowers smaller donors to work together for greater impact.
WishWell is designed to scale with the growing needs of nonprofits. We offer a best-in-class solution that can be customized to fit various organizational contexts. With a low administrative fee of 5% and an additional ~3% processing fee for credit card transactions, WishWell ensures that the overwhelming majority of donations directly support the chosen causes. This transparent and efficient model empowers trust and confidence among donors and aligns incentives. Our fundraising software is carefully curated to motivate more consistent and meaningful contributions fueled by generosity. WishWell has the potential to transform how nonprofits and community organizations approach fundraising, making it more sustainable and impactful. We are excited to see how your organization can grow with us.
The OneGift Foundation's relationship with WishWell was driven by its mission to use technology for increasing charitable giving. Upon filing our IRS 501c3 forms, The OneGift Foundation formalized our mission of democratizing giving and providing nonprofits with the tools and resources to further bring resources to under advocated for communities in addition to the large scale organizations who are doing vital community work. We recognized the needs of valuable community organizations doing the hard work to increase the quality of life for others. WishWell provides a tool to mitigate the limitations of traditional fundraising methods that can be extremely laborious for organizations of all sizes. This has helped inform the foundations of The OneGift Foundation and how we can continue to create innovative solutions.
Through market research and pilot programs with our partners, OneGift identified the potential of integrating social interactions, like birthday celebrations, with charitable giving. This led to the development of WishWell. We are proud to offer a product designed to bring communities closer. Our initial pilot program demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach. Our partnering organizations all reported high levels of satisfaction and increased donation rates. Additional benefits also included decreased operational expenses, and time spent on fundraising.
Our current platform provides an easy and fun giving experience, combined with low operational requirements and minimal start up time. It is made to provide an ideal solution for communities looking to increase their fundraising efforts. We continuously refine and expand the capabilities of WishWell, through updating our software with changes in technology. The OneGift Foundation perpetuates this sentiment by aiming to set a new standard for how nonprofits should have the power to maintain their resources and sustain their missions.
WishWell is an innovative concept that is powered by a software product designed to fit into the everyday schedule of the Executive Director or Community Leader. Through easy to set up automated giving moments, we can create even larger community impact. Specifically through celebrations, like birthdays, we have been able to decrease the amount of time nonprofits spend on tasks associated with fundraising, while driving grassroots engagement and donations that add up to big impact.
Through our platform we continue to provide solutions to the intersectional needs of nonprofit organizations. The tight confines for funding should not be the reason why communities continue to go underserved. Our user-friendly platform makes participation effortless and enjoyable.
Our features are designed to keep your community engaged. We offer features such as automated notifications, personalized giving options, and the choice between virtual and physical birthday cards. These elements ensure a user experience that will consistently lead to more engagement among members, with a personalized touch!
We are excited to bring this form of giving to more nonprofits and community organizations! We all know that charitable giving needs to be a routine part of running a community-based org. That’s why we are committed to making the lift even lighter for the people who run their organizations. Through real relationship building, we hope to strengthen connections among members and amplify the collective impact of small donations.
The efficiency and cost-effectiveness of WishWell are what makes fundraising more accessible than ever! We understand how organizations are run by busy schedules and a lack of time that stretches organizational resources. WishWell helps nonprofit staff to focus on their core mission rather than the complexities of fundraising management.
With the recurring nature of community events like birthday wishes, our automated giving keeps donors engaged and builds their interest and loyalty with their beloved organization. Additionally, the customized automated system reduces the administrative burden on nonprofits. We want communities to re-invest time back into their mission-driven activities. We strive to meet the critical needs of community organizations.
Through WishWell, The OneGift Foundation contributes to helping nonprofits and community groups increase their capacity. We look forward to continuing to a world transformed by newer more innovative fundraising practices.
Below is a more detailed overview of how WishWell works.
Sign-up for WishWell
Simply to go wishwell.ai/signup and fill out the form to register.
From here, you will be assigned a dedicated Customer Advocate who will get your account set-up, and assist with marketing the fundraiser to ensure you gain the initial traction necessary to continue generating meaningful donations in perpetuity. The Customer Advocate’s single goal is to ensure that you successfully raise as much as possible through the innovative WishWell fundraiser.
Set Up Your Payouts
This is where you pick the cause to support. You can either:
WishWell integrates with Stripe and provides payment support for both donations and payouts in 42 countries: https://onegift.ai/resources/payouts
🇦🇺 Australia 🇦🇹 Austria 🇧🇪 Belgium 🇧🇬 Bulgaria 🇨🇦 Canada 🇭🇷 Croatia 🇨🇾 Cyprus 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 🇩🇰 Denmark 🇪🇪 Estonia 🇫🇮 Finland 🇫🇷 France 🇩🇪 Germany 🇬🇮 Gibraltar 🇬🇷 Greece 🇭🇰 Hong Kong SAR China 🇭🇺 Hungary 🇮🇪 Ireland 🇮🇹 Italy 🇯🇵 Japan 🇱🇻 Latvia 🇱🇮 Liechtenstein 🇱🇹 Lithuania 🇱🇺 Luxembourg 🇲🇹 Malta 🇲🇽 Mexico 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🇳🇴 Norway 🇵🇱 Poland 🇵🇹 Portugal 🇷🇴 Romania 🇸🇬 Singapore 🇸🇰 Slovakia 🇸🇮 Slovenia 🇪🇸 Spain 🇸🇪 Sweden 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🇹🇭 Thailand 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates 🇬🇧 United Kingdom 🇺🇸 United States
Invite Donor Communities (Optional):
Invite or import donors individually or as a group to support your cause. This can be found in your dashboard and uploaded as an excel document.
Customers can add their donors to WishWell in a variety of ways:
Market WishWell to your donor communities:
WishWell provides a fully automated Donor Marketing Program (DMP) that educates your donors about your new fundraising mechanism, so that they will start using it as soon as possible.Add your donors or have our team of exports format your data for success.
Here’s an example email from the DMP:
Note that the email will come from whatever email you want (not a WishWell address) and will be personalized to your community.
Seamless automated celebrations to engage your community
Automatically generate a birthday fundraiser page for each of your donors and send them the page link to share with friends, family, and colleagues a month before their birthday. They receive a nice card from friends while raising more for charity! More information here.
Bring your community together with simple birthday wishes and small donations for your shared causes. We are happy to customize events for you to engage your community further.
Using customer data, we estimate that organizations will be able to raise approximately $50/member/year and grow the WishWell fundraiser proceeds by around 20% Year over Year. For example, if you have 100 members in your community, we'd expect you to raise an extra $5,000/year!
Review Data and Donations Instantly in a Minimalist Format
Get quarterly automated reports and even draft social media posts!
The PAP Corps generates more than $350k USD/year in donations with WishWell
The PAP Corps, Champions for Cancer Research (https://www.thepapcorps.org/), which was founded in 1952, is one of the largest all-volunteer fundraising organizations in South Florida. Dedicated to supporting research for all types of cancer at University of Miami's Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
They are a group of around 50 communities or chapters with a total of 20,000 members that donate approximately $6,780,000USD per year. About 5% of that income comes from WishWell. The funding from WishWell is growing at around 20% per year across all chapters.
The PAP Corps raises around $6,780,000USD per year across all fundraising activities. Approximately 5% comes from WishWell. The remainder comes from a combination of events (60%), contributions (20%), membership fees (10%), and other miscellaneous fundraisers (5%).
During Covid, The PAP Corps’ ability to raise funding via events, their largest source was severely diminished, and fundraisers like WishWell became even more important. Additionally, events are costly and labor intensive to manage, and the PAP Corps benefits greatly by supplementing their income with more passive recurring fundraisers like WishWell and Tribute Cards.
Furthermore, The PAP Corps’ main source of funding, hosting events across 50 communities is extremely labor intensive and relies on dozens of committed volunteers to facilitate everything from scheduling a venue to ordering food, drink, and entertainment. Reliance on volunteers is always a risk for nonprofit organizations, and WishWell can operate effectively with very little admin hours per month.
WishWell has been pivotal in helping The PAP Corps achieve their fundraising goals by addressing several key needs. First, it provides a reliable and steady stream of revenue that is resilient to many environmental factors. With birthdays always being celebrated, wishes ensure donations are spread throughout the year. This leads to reduced financial volatility. A relief for any nonprofit. This consistency of revenue from supportive members allows The PAP Corps to plan and allocate resources more effectively.
Second, WishWell has significantly increased donor engagement. The personalized and automated nature of the platform keeps donors actively involved with the nonprofit and its other fundraising activities that contribute another ~3.5M/year in donations. We believe in making all donors feel valued and connected to their causes. We know this has a higher likelihood of increasing their continued support in the future.
Lastly, the efficiency and easy user experience of WishWell have been crucial for helping keep The PAP Corps staff engaged in matters that require their attention. The automated system reduces the need to utilize the capacity of staff and volunteers. This frees time in their schedule and facilitates focused efforts on their programmatic work, while WishWell handles the fundraising. This case study has shown that WishWell is not only proven to help organizational operational efficiency, but also increased the overall impact of the foundation’s initiatives.
Since integrating WishWell into their fundraising strategy, thousands of members of The OneGift Foundation’s partners have seen remarkable results. Our platform has facilitated consistent and meaningful donations. Community organizations deserve to stay focused on what means the most to them, not on the stressors of fundraising.
WishWell has engaged 100+ diverse communities with over 20,000 members from different organizations to work together to raise money for causes like cancer research, children’s health outcomes, food security and more! These causes powered by our fundraising software demonstrates the wide-reaching impact of automation with community caring. One of our most successful clients who we mentioned earlier, The PAP Corps, has raised $350,000 in recurring donations per year using WishWell. Additionally, donations for their cause have increased by double digits, with a +20% year-over-year growth rate since implementing the WishWell fundraiser.
Wanda Warsaw, President of the Cascade Lakes Chapter, noted, "I used to lose sleep, worrying if our old system would even work! With the new WishWell app, donations are up and I can spend much less time administering the [fundraising] program!"
The impact of WishWell extends beyond bringing financial gain to the organization. Our members appreciate how easy it is to use and love the personal touch of receiving birthday and other well-wishes. This approach has strengthened relationships within the organization and aligned members with the foundation’s mission.
Communities large and small, organized and decentralized, can use WishWell to remember community-members’ important events (birthdays, anniversaries). Community-members wish each other well and donate to a cause that the group chooses. It could be a nonprofit, a local cause, or even just adding funds to the annual block party. The community picks, and WishWell facilitates!
Churchgoers can wish their fellow parisioners happy birthday and donate a dollar to the Church or a shared cause of the group.
Each graduating year can use WishWell to stay in touch and wish each other well regardless of if they live in the same city, all while donating back to the school that gave them their leg up!
Neighbors want to feel connected. WishWell gives you a small way to stay connected and in contact with your neighbors (without overdoing it 🙂), while donating to a shared cause, nonprofit, or even back to the annual block party slush fund!
Social clubs, professional/networking clubs, sports clubs, hobby clubs, cultural clubs, and every club in between can use WishWell to connect and engage with fellow club members, while donating back to the club, a shared and meaningful cause, a nonprofit, or whatever the group chooses.
Retirement communities can stay connected with neighbors and friends via well-wishes through WishWell, while donating to important causes for the group or back to the community itself.
Bring your family or friends’ What’sApp group onto WishWell to remember birthdays, anniversaries, and other big days of your group. Wish them well, and donate a small amount to a charity that the receiver individually or the group as a whole selects. A great way to spice things up in your social circles.
Use WishWell at work to wish your co-workers well on their special day and donate to a corporate nonprofit partner or to a charity that each co-worker chooses. Bring the office closer (especially with the emergence of remote working) behind well-wishes and a shared contribution to something close to everyone’s hearts.
The WishWell fundraising product stands out from other nonprofit fundraising software due to our efforts of being community-centered. As well as our core belief in equitable paths of giving. To understand our product’s unique position, it’s essential to understand and compare it with other prominent fundraising and donor management tools available in the market.
Bloomerang focuses on donor retention by offering comprehensive donor management features, such as interactive dashboards, engagement tracking, and communication tools. Bloomerang’s emphasis on high-powered automation allows nonprofits to maintain continuous engagement with their donors. However, it does not provide the same level of personal and routine integration into giving activities as WishWell. We believe in continuous participation through simple acts like birthday wishes (CauseVox).
DonorPerfect is another comprehensive solution that offers gift management, donor relationships, communications, and receipting tools. It is widely used for managing complex fundraising campaigns and donor databases. However, it lacks the specific community-building aspect that WishWell provides through its personalized card-focused and low maintenance giving model (Software Advice).
Double the Donation excels in matching gifts, helping nonprofits maximize corporate matching opportunities. This tool is invaluable for increasing donations through employer matches but is not designed to help organizations drive donor engagement and peer to peer opportunities in the same way that WishWell does (CauseVox).
WishWell differentiates itself by keeping fundraising meaningful in the lives of donors and a community’s members. Our one of a kind approach ensures continuous engagement and a steady stream of donations throughout all parts of the year. Not just one off events. Lastly, unlike most common fundraising software WishWell does not require an organization to fit the stringent criteria of being a 501c3. While we do work with plenty of IRS-registered nonprofits, we understand that harsh criteria limits community organizations from receiving this status thus limits their funding opportunities. WishWell is a product meant to work to support all communities and causes.
This is a very common and easily surmountable situation. There are two ways to handle this:
We get that you’re busy. The giving space is renowned for having limited resources to deliver on your mission and programs.
This is why we’ve designed WishWell to be super light-weight and simple to implement. It will literally take your team less than an hour to setup and then 10-20 hours to market it to you donors (optional, but yields better results). We can guarantee that this will be the best return on investment (both in time and money) that you’ve ever seen for a fundraiser, because once you’ve made the initial effort to get it up and running, it passively generates you recurring, unrestricted income.
Most of the marketing is done automatically by WishWell, but it’s good for you to communicate about the new fundraiser directly to your community via your normal channels. But don’t worry, we’ll provide plenty of copyright, graphics, and other marketing materials that you can cherry pick based on your needs.
WishWell doesn’t have a fixed fee. We charge either a percentage of donations coming in or via tips from your donors that can choose to leave us a bit extra when they’re checking out. It costs nothing to get it up and running, and we only earn when you earn.
We understand that you’ve worked hard to build a community of support around your mission and cause. You don’t want to piss people off and lose valuable donors that may be regular givers via other fundraisers by testing out a new fundraiser on them.
But aren’t your donors supporting you because they believe in your cause? And isn’t a big part of delivering on that mission fundraising? Wouldn’t they be more bothered that you’re not innovating and pushing with new ways to raise more money so you can have a bigger impact, faster?
It’s easy to opt-out of WishWell when people don’t want to participate, or you can make it an opt-in program, where you just mention it in your newsletters and other regular community communications, and individual donors can choose if they want to register.
If someone decides they’re never giving to you again because you asked them politely to try a new fundraiser that could drive up to a 30% increase in annual donations for your cause, were they really going to stay around anyways? If we’re being honest, probably not.
This makes sense. Who's going to wish a stranger a happy birthday? There are two options here:
The integration of WishWell into The PAP Corps’ fundraising strategy has significantly transformed how they can approach philanthropy. Other outcomes like: 35% reduced volunteer hours spent on fundraising and an 8% reduced program costs are some of the other benefits we’re proud of!
Let’s review all of the benefits of WishWell:
The success of WishWell and The OneGift Foundation serves as a compelling case for other nonprofit organizations to consider adopting our innovative fundraising tool. WishWell offers a sustainable and engaging way to increase fundraising efforts that grow with the organization. Nonprofits and community organizations looking to increase donor engagement, can utilize WishWell to streamline their fundraising operations and continue providing personalized engagement to their members. It is simple to implement, takes very little ongoing effort to maintain, generates consistent and growing unrestricted passive recurring donations, and is entirely risk free to try. Signup today at WishWell.ai!
Nonprofit organizations interested in utilizing WishWell can learn more and sign up online at wishwell.ai.
Interested in upcoming features, information, and implementation support? Say hi by contacting info@onegift.ai or sign up for our newsletter.
We look forward to helping more organizations and communities bring our new fundraising solutions to increase their philanthropic impact.