Who Are We?
GiveShop Inc. is new and headquartered in Ottawa with a mission to help Canadians support their charities and schools of choice. The GiveShop online marketplace allows donors and buyers to negotiate the sale and purchase of gently used items benefiting charities and schools across Canada.
How Does GiveShop Support Charities and Schools?
Although many Canadians continue to support charitable organizations by making donations, the frequency and amount of donations are steadily declining in Canada over the past few years. For the most part, donors want to give more; however, they simply cannot afford it. The result is that charities suffer. Charities and schools are looking for new ways to raise funds in order to maintain essential services to communities.
The second-hand economy in Canada continues to aggressively grow by tens of billions of dollars. This is where GiveShop comes in – providing a link between these two opportunities. Canadians can help their charities, schools, and communities simply by donating or purchasing gently-used items that end up in the basement, garage or storage unit. The simple use of the GiveShop marketplace is free for users while the proceeds from all sales are instantly transferred to the charity or school of choice. Donors and buyers together negotiate the sale of items, and charities and schools handle monetary donations. This is the mandate of GiveShop.
How Does GiveShop Support Canadians?
GiveShop allows Canadians to support charities and schools that are important to them simply by making a donation or purchasing gently-used items on our marketplace. Studies show that many Canadians like to give to charities, and GiveShop offers an innovative way to do it. In addition, donors of items sold on the marketplace in benefit of charities receive a tax receipt for the full value of the sale. Those buyers can purchase valuable items with the knowledge that the money is going to charitable organizations.
Our Business Model
GiveShop has invested significant time and money in developing an innovative marketplace that offers our charitable partners a risk-free, performance-based fundraising channel. It’s free for our charity and school partners to sign up on the GiveShop platform. When an item sells, GiveShop collects platform fees which are deducted from the profit of the sale. We are a for-profit company that aims to positively maximize the social impact of our market by highlighting the power capacity of business and entrepreneurship.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Why not just donate my items directly to the charity?
A. Due to the cost and complications of processing non-monetary donations, many charities have a policy of not accepting such donations.
Q. What payment methods can be used on GiveShop?
A. GiveShop uses the Stripe payment platform which accepts all major credit cards as well as Visa/Mastercard branded debit cards.
Q. How do charities receive the funds and information needed to issue a tax receipt?
A. Payments issued through GiveShop go directly to the designated charity along with the name and address donors provide when setting up their GiveShop account.
Q. What type of business is GiveShop, and how is it remunerated?
A. GiveShop is a for-profit fundraising company serving charities and schools in Canada. You may know of other fundraising companies, including auction vendors, telemarketers, direct mail companies, and event directors who work with pay for charities across the country to help raise funds which they badly need. The costs of the different services vary between 15 and 50% of the harvested product. Imagine Canada (imaginecanada.ca) has released a research paper titled “Charities and the COVID-19 Pandemic”. The “Results of a National Survey of Fundraising Practices of Canadian Charities” reveal that the average cost of a dollar capitalized using various fundraising initiatives was 26 cents or 26% of proceeds. GiveShop charged a standardized platform fee of 15% of the proceeds from the sale of items sold in its marketplace. Our charitable partners appreciate that our fee structure is 100% performance-based and presents them with a risk-free, performance-based fundraising channel.
Q. Is there a minimum amount for a charitable tax receipt? Is it a paper or electronic receipt? How long before receiving it?
A. The three answers vary from one charity to another because each sets a monetary minimum for the issuance of a charity tax receipt. Each charity has different time frames for issuing electronic or paper receipts.
Q. How do charities calculate the amount of the tax receipt they issue?
A. The amount on which donors and buyers agree to sell the item is the amount used by charities to issue the receipt for tax purposes.
Q. Is GiveShop available across Canada?
A. The GiveShop platform is currently available in Ottawa and Toronto markets, but we have the goal of rolling it out nationwide in the coming months. Stay tuned!