July 2025 marks a big double-digit milestone for Give Lively: a DECADE of dedication to democratizing digital fundraising. 

From our earliest days in July 2015 as a small, visionary "incubator for business ideas that promote social good," we first blossomed into a values-driven start-up with a handful of nonprofit collaborators. Now, 10 years later, we have matured into a transformative force, with a national presence, empowering thousands of organizations to raise over $1.25 billion and save an estimated $120 million in tech expenses.

This journey of innovation and collaboration, anchored in a guiding ethos that technology can amplify social impact, has shaped our game-changing platform, all while keeping it free for nonprofits. Because we work for nonprofits, not for profit.

Voices of Give Lively: A 10th-anniversary video

Give Lively is its people; they are our heart and our mind. The one-minute video below captures the dedication of former and current employees who built our platform. It is these incredible people that we are recognizing!

View it directly below but we'd also love to hear what you think. See this video on Instagram and leave a comment there!

10 years of Give Lively history

The genesis of a movement (2015-2017)

Give Lively was founded by philanthropists on a pioneering premise: that nonprofit fundraising technology should be accessible to all – easy to use and without exorbitant fees. From the start, our founders pledged to fund our operations, ensuring the core platform would always be free for nonprofits. 

Early experiments focused on tech for donors with now-discontinued products like Small Token and Swearjar, but the first real breakthrough came with our original free tech for nonprofits, called Text-to-Donate, our still-popular mobile-first method for capturing contributions from donors on the go.

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With this success, but faced with the challenging political climate of 2016, we gave voice to our belief in using tech to amplify social impact and published progressive values statements that continue to serve as a keystone membership criterion. 

By 2017, through an "Innovation Series" of workshops with nonprofits, we deepened our understanding of the gaps and challenges in fundraising tech, especially the financial hardships and access barriers faced by smaller organizations. This motivated the launch of our free, first-generation, ground-breaking Smart Donations Campaign Pages – customizable, streamlined and user-friendly fundraising pages.

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Expanding horizons and responding to crises (2018-2020)

The years 2018 and 2019 were defined by intense collaboration and product development. Working closely with nonprofit partners, such as the Malala Fund (see video below), we continued to round out our core platform with Peer-to-Peer Fundraising, Event Ticketing and the Simple Donation Widget. Pioneering digital wallet payments for fundraising platforms further underscored our innovative spirit. 

During this period, our founder-funders reaffirmed their commitment – with a "forever free pledge" – to keeping our core platform free for nonprofits.

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And then the world turned upside-down. As everyone grappled with the unprecedented health and justice crises of 2020, we doubled down on our mission. The launch of Team Fundraising completed our core platform. A series of Nonprofit Success Stories featured proven fundraising strategies, helpful resources and lots of inspiration. We commenced efforts to ensure Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level AA conformance across all web properties, reflecting our inclusivity resolve.

We at the OUT Foundation are incredibly happy and proud to have partnered with Give Lively for 8 years now. The entire Give Lively team has been a crucial part of our fundraising success, especially given all of the changes that have happened in the world over those years.
To us, walking this journey with Give Lively has meant having a collaborator that cares about our success and our needs, is open to listening to us and always ready to help when we need support. We look forward to the next 10 years of partnership – what Give Lively will help us achieve and what we will help the Give Lively team achieve.
‍-- Karina Damiani, Senior Director, Community and Partner Engagement, The OUT Foundation

Refinement, partnerships and core upgrades (2021-2023)

The momentum continued into 2021 with important partnerships and platform enhancements. In collaboration with Charity Navigator, the world's largest and most trusted nonprofit evaluator, we launched the new and improved Giving Basket donation tool, seamlessly integrated into Charity Navigator's platform.

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Closer to home, a refreshed, easily navigated Give Lively website and reconfigured Support Center enhanced the user experience and we completed a top-to-bottom upgrade of the free, five-star, NPSP-compatible, native Salesforce integration with automatic hourly data syncing.

The year 2022 saw a comprehensive rebuild of the core engines that power our tech, guaranteeing a state-of-the-art platform for years to come. This included a new donation payment form and major improvements to data reports. We also opened the door to voluntary donor tips, allowing the community to join our founder-funders in extending our reach and capability. 

The focus on refinement didn’t slow in 2023, with significantly expanded donor data management and reporting tools, and the start of many improvements to the Nonprofit Admin Portal. We also strengthened our ethical stance by expanding our progressive values statements. Communications were energized with this Give Lively blog (now with nearly 150 articles) and a new collection of profiles featuring our member nonprofits.

Major milestones and a vision for the future (2024-2025)

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2024 brought a quartet of notable achievements:

• An estimated $100 million saved by the nonprofit community on the tech costs of raising $1 billion through our platform (increased today to $120 million saved on $1.25 billion raised).
• The 1,000th member nonprofit registered to use our free Salesforce integration.
• The customer experience team’s completion of its 100,000th "conversation".
• Expanded Give Lively membership eligibility to more 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations.

On the feature front, we released expanded Custom Questions and new payment methods alongside a comprehensive refresh of fundraising page templates. Despite renewed political turmoil, we continued to champion sustainability, accessibility and diversity, equity and inclusion. Significant progress was made on transparency and accountability systems in compliance with California's new and deeply frustrating laws. We continued to spotlight dozens of member nonprofits each month, including those aligned with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

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The next chapter: 2025 and beyond

Now, in 2025, with 10 years behind us and even more ahead, our journey of innovation continues. We will soon roll out a new payment processor integration with Shift4 that promises even lower transaction fees and simplified onboarding.

Through all the ups and downs, our first decade has been one of inspiration, innovation and impact – a testament to the power of purpose-driven technology and a community united by generosity, all in keeping with our ethos and values. Here's to the next decade of powering nonprofit missions!