On a recent weekday morning, Chase Mattison was walking his dog when he spotted an injured bird on the Magazine Street sidewalk. It appears he jumped into a nearby window and was injured.
It didn’t feel right to just walk it, so Mattison scooped up the bird and took it home, then called a veterinarian friend for advice.
“I put it in a box,” Mattison said. “Then, slowly but surely, it started moving. After a while, it suddenly started moving. I opened the window and it flew away.”
Like a metaphor, this bird’s resilience doesn’t hurt to describe what’s going on at Fields, a three-year-old startup venture led by Mattison and his wife and business partner, Caitlin Knoop. .
Feels is a web app that allows businesses and individuals to donate money to others and create their own charitable gifts. The pitch details are as follows: This holiday season, instead of sending Aunt May a $25 Starbucks gift card and hoping she still has the latte habit, send her $25 via Fields. Aunt May can then choose to donate it to one of several organizations. 1 million registered nonprofit organizations?
After launching the first version of their business about a year ago, Mattison and Knoepp realized that their physical gift card system wasn’t efficient enough and needed to change in order to survive. I bumped into it.
This month, they rolled out a new version of the platform, a web app that solicits donations, and are now hoping to make it a reality.
Treatment for “gift fatigue”
Knoop and Mattison conceived Fields from their Lower Garden District apartment during the pandemic.
Feels co-founder Caitlin Knoepp shares one of the causes they promote with their ‘giving’ platform. (Photo by Chris Granger, Times-Picayune)
Prior to the closure, many of their friends were getting married or having babies, so they were attending a lot of events that required gifts. After a while, the process of selecting pots and pans from the registry started to feel mechanical.
They recalled a family that had a tradition of making a charitable donation every Christmas. For years, she made donations in her family’s names, printed out the receipts, rolled them up, tied them with a ribbon and placed them under the tree.
“We started thinking about what would happen if people could choose the charity they donate to,” Knoop said.
Knoop and Mattison began brainstorming a platform that would allow individuals and businesses to make gifts that have a meaningful impact on their communities, while also allowing gift recipients to choose the causes that matter most to them. did.
They see their startup as a cure for “gift fatigue.”
“In this world of constant events, people don’t know what to get,” Mattison says. “That’s why Visa gift cards and Starbucks gift cards are so popular. And we thought, why not put some of that money into the nonprofit space?”
structure
The first version of Feels, released last year, involved selling physical cards printed with QR codes linked to an app that allowed users to browse and donate to charities. However, they soon learned that the logistics and costs of distributing cards made it difficult to grow the business.
“We had to decide whether to pivot quickly,” Knoop said. “It was painful, but it was the best decision.”
Entrepreneurs took their ideas back to the drawing board and restarted them in a new, online-only format.
Users feel they can send gifts via email or text. To do so, create an account online, decide on the amount you want to give, add the gift recipient’s name and contact information, and choose whether to send it now or later. You can also create a personalized message and choose from a variety of digital gift card templates.
This is a process Knoop and Mattison refer to as “donation.”
Gift recipients click through the platform to choose from approximately 1.5 million U.S. nonprofit organizations that accept charitable donations. These organizations are vetted by Givinga, a partner of Feels, a platform that supports workplace giving programs.
Search for specific organizations by name or browse categories like Furry Friends, Art for Everyone, and Save the Planet.
By default, gifts expire after three months. If the funds are unused at that time, they will be returned to the sender.
“This is zero waste in many ways,” Mattison said. “It’s invisible, so it doesn’t go to the landfill, but it also saves you money, because if you send this and no one takes it, it goes back to your account and you can give it to someone else. Because you can give it to someone else.” It’s your chosen charity. ”
Donors, whether individuals or businesses, receive a donation receipt at the time of payment and feel entitled to a tax deduction. All you have to do is select the recipient of your donation. Feels charges a 10% fee on each transaction.
It’s still early days. The Feels founders currently have several customers signed up and are expecting more as the holidays approach. A ribbon cutting will be held at the Common House on December 5th in collaboration with the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce.
“Maximum traction possible”
So far, Knoop and Mattison have self-funded the startup, which operates in the same world as organizations like Thisbest, a Seattle-based nonprofit that offers a charitable gift card program. .
They receive coaching and support from the Idea Village and participate in a one-year mentorship program run by the Tulane Innovation Institute.
They said launching Feels just before the holiday season is an opportunity to see how early adopters use the platform. The first donations went to New Orleans animal nonprofits Sierra Club and Zeus Rescues.
They’ve already made some changes, including switching out the thumbnail photo for each charity listing with an illustration by a New Orleans artist.
In the new year, they plan to continue improving the product. That means making the process of choosing a charity as intuitive and enjoyable as possible.
“We’re finding that people already have nonprofits in mind,” Mattison said. “People just want to type in their charity name and make sure it’s there.”
Knoop and Mattison see an opportunity to grow their business by persuading companies to do charity work in lieu of gift baskets and other physical gifts. According to the National Philanthropic Trust, companies donated $36.55 billion to charity in 2023. This represents 6% of total philanthropy in the United States. Meanwhile, corporate gifting is worth $250 billion annually across the industry, according to Coresight Research.
“We’re targeting corporate customers with an emphasis on scalability,” Mattison said. “When you give a gift to your wife, it’s one transaction, but one company is giving a feel to 100 recipients. We hope to get the most traction possible. ”
