This guest post from Hatch Incubator graduate Micah Leitch explores the corporate social responsibility landscape, and how his business Donup is offering a new method of creating real impact through community-led giving.
Micah is a keen advocate for community-powered change and moved from his role in consultancy to start the new social impact initiative, Donup. Inspired by the personal challenges to donate effectively and backed by a small team of change-makers, Micah and partners are building the go-to tool for individuals and small businesses to create rapid and regular impact.
Why Bother? Removing Barriers to Simple Impact
Giving today is confusing, but it’s changing. The journey from inspiration to impact is littered with subtle, long-standing barriers that deter some individuals and small businesses from engaging in opportunities for positive change. Can a £10 donation really make an impact, and can you trust a charity to use the funds effectively? For many, the challenges, skepticism, and lack of validation can outweigh the satisfaction of making an impact.
A modern approach to simple and impactful giving offers frictionless funding and feedback. To change the culture of giving, Donup aims to demonstrate the unrealised opportunity of achievable impact through ‘micro-donations’ and community-powered initiatives. A new tool is coming to provide non-profits with a route to donors without consuming their time and resources.
Pre & Post Giving Uncertainty
Before making a donation, have you wondered if your contribution would make a difference? With so many issues in today’s world, the overwhelming feeling of selection anxiety can lead to avoiding the process, or abandoning intentions altogether from the time it can take to research and verify options. While supporting a friend’s fundraiser is straightforward, many individuals find it challenging to contribute to the causes that matter to them.
If you donate, and just over half of people in the UK do so at least once a year (58% in 2023), did you ever hear about the outcome afterward? For many, knowing you have backed a friend’s half-marathon is enough, but repeated contributions demand more of a connection. Donors are inherently generous; some give anonymously or casually, with an understanding that the causes are often short on time and resources and therefore may not provide detailed feedback. Donup intends on providing the tools to strengthen this relationship and encourage a more sustainable, fulfilling cycle of impact.
Managing several donations, to multiple causes, through different channels can be cumbersome. This also means that the uplifting feedback that many enjoy receiving can be fragmented, and pride in the collective accomplishments cannot build momentum for continued support. It can be difficult to track or view what has been achieved, or how much you give over a year, especially across different channels. Similarly, today’s culture can often question the motivation of celebrated impact, which can unintentionally detract from the original action. Instead, generosity should be inspiring, contagious and shared widely for celebration regardless of reach. Embracing and promoting the act of giving can help cultivate a more generous society, which Donup aims to support from the ground up.
Can Businesses Help?
Small businesses face many of the same giving challenges as individuals. The belief that a small donation is worthwhile is a common hesitation, particularly when compared to larger businesses that appear to make significant donations through a structured Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. The fear of being perceived as engaging in vanity giving or virtue signalling can also weigh on the decision to act, with many companies struggling to navigate post-donation communication, viewing tangible impact or raising awareness as potentially counterproductive and opening questions of transparency.
A business that offers a well-rounded CSR, including volunteering incentives and employee engagement through payroll or matched giving, can significantly power change. But how can a small business engage in this level of commitment? Like personal giving, the process of planning, verifying and executing can be cumbersome for small businesses. Neil Heslop, Chief Executive at Charities Aid Foundation, identified this in the 2024 Report by CAF, saying, “We need to foster a more widespread and sustainable culture of giving”. Again, this requires a new approach to enable anyone to access, create, or contribute to change.
A Sweet Escape
Donup offers a fresh method of community-led giving for local people and small businesses to support local initiatives. Through many small contributions, we can build trust that impact is achievable using pooled resources, and transparent using simple routes of validation.
Community-powered funding of small, local projects can create meaningful and sustainable change. Aggregating bite-sized amounts, operating with transparent expectations, clearly delivered validation, and simplified processes removes barriers to giving and democratises access for all. This local-first approach maximises impact, fostering a sustainable culture of giving that can be widely celebrated.
Some of the least affluent areas in the UK are the most generous, but understanding and encouraging this behaviour throughout the UK requires support. Without a frictionless method, we will not progress to a state where hurdles of trust, transparency, alignment, time, and validation do not deter people from taking the first step or being the inspiration for someone else to do the same.
Empowering donors with the tools to find, fund, and receive feedback on local charitable projects quickly is a challenge we intend to solve. Every donation counts and the collective strength of a community will drive widespread change. It takes a village to create lasting impact. Community involvement is essential to a sustainable culture that creates thriving communities. Local residents, businesses, schools, and others need a vehicle for change. Together, we can fund an uprising. Donup is working on the recipe.
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