ShoppingGives with Head of Social Impact Molly Trerotola

The Give Back Model

Molly Trerotola is the Head of Social Impact at ShoppingGives, a certified B Corporation and an award-winning technology startup focused on building an economy of giving by creating a positive impact through everyday purchases. Today, Molly joins Christine to discuss giving back involving small businesses, shoppers, and nonprofits highlighting the potential roadblocks that may arise and how ShoppingGives can help overcome them.

Molly begins by discussing her passion for philanthropy work and fundraising, and the journey she has taken that has ignited this passion. She goes on to offer extensive details about the work that ShoppingGives does, how they do it, and the hugely beneficial impact is has, as well as her experiences working with Give Lively, a free fundraising platform for nonprofits. Molly concludes by sharing her wish to see more brand values front and center and actions taken by the companies to fulfill their commitments to nonprofits that their customers care about.

For more information and other episodes on companies and entrepreneurs who give back, please visit TheGiveBackModel.com. That's where you can also let Christine know about companies you've found that give back, and check out The Give Back Model merchandise, where $5 for every sale goes to charity. Thanks for listening!

Episode Highlights:

· Molly Trerotola is the Head of Social Impact at ShoppingGives.

· ShoppingGives is an e-commerce platform that powers brands to give donations to nonprofits.

· She has always been passionate about philanthropy work, fundraising, and giving.

· She started at a global public health nonprofit in Peru, where she worked in the communications department helping to develop digital stories around their initiatives to generate more fundraising support.

· Molly has committed wholeheartedly to social impact work, and when she moved to New York, she had the opportunity to dive headfirst into corporate social responsibility.

· ShoppingGives helps a small business accomplish corporate social responsibility of giving philanthropy fundraising by basically providing a tech solution for brands to scale their philanthropy efforts and embed social impact within their e-commerce journey

· It allows companies to give back to causes they're passionate about and lets customers choose a cause they're passionate about as part of their purchase.

· A critical core component of the platform is compliance and regulation. ShoppingGives covers brands from a compliance standpoint, and gives them access to a database of 1.8 million nonprofits.

· Brands donate to the ShoppingGives Foundation, a US-registered nonprofit, under section 501(c)(3), and then the foundation grants those funds to the organizations that the brands pledged the funds to.

· Nonprofit organizations have challenges where they get requests, and they want to be able to support them, but they need to focus on their programmatic work. Technology like ShoppingGives, or any other innovative third-party fundraising platforms that can alleviate some of those challenges, and streamline fundraising efforts for nonprofits, is necessary.

· ShoppingGives also plays a matchmaker role between brands and nonprofits.

· This is Molly's third social impact tech organization that provides technology to nonprofits at no cost.

· ShoppingGives is a certified B Corporation. These companies go through a rigorous assessment process to prove their positive impact in their external and external communities.

· ShoppingGives contributes to or answers recurring fundraising, subscription-based giving.

· Give Lively is an organization Molly worked with in the past where she helped launch the platform into the nonprofit space and worked for nonprofits to build out more technology that they could disperse to benefit from the rest of the nonprofit community.

· She has also worked with the Malala Fund, an organization whose mission is to empower girls worldwide with education and elevate the voices of young women around the world.

· Molly's most fulfilling part has been one-on-one conversations with nonprofits, hearing about their fundraising activities and initiatives, and providing a solution that will make their lives a little easier.

· Molly hopes for more brand values and companies’ actions to fulfill their commitments to nonprofits that their customers care about.

Quotes

"I love the intersection of technology and cross-sector partnerships, and leveraging resources innovatively to help nonprofits power their mission-critical work and coming up with unique and creative ways to do that either through online fundraising, partnerships, in-kind donations."

"Brands can integrate this innovative tech directly onto their websites and into their e-commerce journey to bring their values front and center and involve their customers in their giving back process."

"Social impact is a necessary part of a business's bottom line now."

"It's a beautiful thing to see companies stepping up and engaging with new initiatives and technology to power these efforts."

"We're democratizing philanthropy, giving small brands and nonprofits access to corporate dollars that they might not have otherwise had, and allowing brands to fundraise on a dime in a very turnkey fashion for nonprofits of all size regardless of their capacity."

"There are so many tech disparities within the nonprofit and profit sector, but then also within the nonprofit sector.”

"In terms of the technology solutions, nonprofits are looking for more features and products to help power the corporate partnerships and the individual fundraising."

"It's more evident that diversification of fundraising is super important to nonprofit success… they can't just fundraise with event tickets because events disappeared last year."

"Social impact tech is super fulfilling because every day I know that the hard work and the grinding we're doing is, in the end, raising more money for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes."

"My favorite part about this line of work is just being able to talk to nonprofits and provide a solution that will make their lives a little easier."

"I'd love for nonprofits to have access to the high tech in innovative and burgeoning fields of technology because there's always a delay in the nonprofit sector."

"The whole experience of giving needs to be quick and easy. We want to have in this day and age everything at our fingertips, we want to be able to click a button, and everything works in the background."

"Philanthropy is as natural as rising in the morning."

“There is no good time or no perfect time to integrate social impact and address corporate social responsibility. The best time is now, and brands of all sizes can do it."

Links:

The Give Back Model website TheGiveBackModel.com

Follow The Give Back Model on Instagram @thegivebackmodel

ShoppingGives

Give Lively