With the rising popularity on the internet and the adoption of secure online payment channels in the mid 1990’s, the online donation market began to make its entrance on the world stage around 2000. Much of the increase in giving after 1994 was attributable to early donation offerings. The earliest offerings were simple donate buttons for a website that linked the web page to a payment provider. These early offerings had no donor management features and offered little to no internal security. Shortly after the donation buttons started appearing, Personal Fundraising through donation portals started showing up. Again these early offerings had very limited donor management and security features. Around 2003, generalized online donation portals began showing up in limited numbers. These portals offered basic donor management and linked to the payment processor in a more secure fashion.

By late 2006 social media was on the scene and it didn’t take long for the donation and social media world to collaborate. For the first time there was an effective way to promote a fundraising event or cause with like-minded donors. By 2009 cross-platform donation portability and project based donation websites began popping up on the internet and the “Proliferation” phase of the market cycle began. The vast majority of these offerings were created by “Tech” industry individuals that wanted to “Make a Positive Difference”. Although the offerings became much more secure and robust from an IT standpoint, many lacked in form of financial best practices. Sites that “comingled” funds and held funds for long periods (up to a month) were standard and common place. Additionally, most of these sites were designed like a “tech” offering and involved the purchase of expensive software, high maintenance fees, monthly fees, annual contracts and ridiculous transaction fees (7% – 13%). By 2014 many of the earliest offerings were gone as the “Consolidation” phase of the market cycle began.

It was during this “Consolidation” phase of the market that donasity was developed. Finally, there is a cloud based offering that combines the online donation and crowdfunding markets and provide donors and charities a robust bilingual (initially) and potential multi-lingual platform that features donor management, ease of use and ultra-low cost.

What is truly impressive about the charitable donation market is that a full 72% of all donations or $258.51 billion is donated by private individuals. Additionally, individual giving as a percentage of disposable personal income has remain rather flat over the last forty years indicating that this is a stable growth market.