Small Token: A Charity Startup To Help You Give To A Cause Of Your Choice This Holiday Season

Every year when the holiday season comes around, good cheer and the festive spirit takes over and while a number of gifts are given and received, many people who are financially able choose it as the time to help out those less fortunate and contribute to charities they feel strongly about.

Individual contributions make a big difference to those causes, but if you feel really strongly about something, you can do more than just your own giving. You can also have your relatives and friends, who would make you Christmas gifts, give to the causes of your choice instead.

One of the ways you could do that is by using a website like Small Token. A New York City nonprofit started by tech incubator Give Lively, it allows you to pick from about 1.5 million 501(c)(3) nonprofits registered in the United States, many of which benefit causes outside the country as well. While you can choose to directly contribute to the charity (one or more), you can also set up a registry of charities to which your relatives and friends can contribute.

The company has also partnered with various nonprofits, who for the sake of easy navigation, have been categorized into 12 different groups on its registry website. You can contribute to other non-partner organizations too, but the process of the actual money transfer differs.

According to a support page, Give Lively will disburse the money collected every month to designated charities within 30 days of the month getting over, provided the total collection toward any given recipient was upward of $50. However, nonprofits that have partnered with Give Lively will be sent the money irrespective of the amount contributed toward them in any month.

With the tradition of Secret Santa becoming more popular, the service can also be used by organizations and employers to make gifting at the workplace more meaningful.

Brooke Currence of Give Lively told International Business Times: “The Small Token Gift Registry allows you to create a personalized “wish list” of causes you care about. You can then share your charitable wish list link with your work network to request a charitable gift rather than a less meaningful one. The tool eliminates the stress of giving impersonal workplace holiday gifts by providing an easy opportunity to exchange something heartfelt and tailored to the causes closest to your co-worker or boss’s heart.”

Give Lively says it does not charge any fees, except the payment it has to make to its payment processor Stripe, details of which can be found on this page.

So are you in a giving mood?