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HIPGive is a digital platform that makes it possible to mobilize resources for social impact projects throughout the Americas. Through our suite of innovative tools including crowdfunding, permanent digital campaigns, peer to peer giving and giving circles, people and organizations come together to create community and bring positive change to our world. 

Since April 2014 we have brought together over 1,000 nonprofit organizations and 30,000 individual funders, resulting in  more than $3.3 million dollars in contributions to social impact projects. 

HIPGive is part of Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP), a nonprofit organization that strengthens social justice and shared prosperity across the Americas. 

Crowdfunding is a fundraising strategy in which a large number of people are asked to make a financial contribution to ensure the realization of a specific project or activity. Although each contribution is relatively small, together they add up to significant amounts of money.

Crowdfunding campaigns are typically carried out in a short period of time and make use of digital platforms so that people can make their contribution by credit or debit card, or other digital payment methods, from anywhere in the world.

HIPGive is an open platform through which: 

• Nonprofits can raise funds and gain unparalleled visibility for their projects, access expert resources and tools to run effective campaigns, and participate in special initiatives to double the funds raised through matching dollars and prizes. 
• Individuals can donate to a cause they believe in, read and share stories about social impact throughout the Americas, and join a larger community of social-good champions. 
• Foundations and businesses can partner with us to show their support and multiply their impact in Latinx communities through targeted campaigns, special initiatives, matching funds, customized landing pages and more.

A HIPGiver is any person who makes a financial contribution to a project on HIPGive.  In literal terms, it is a person who gives through HIPGive. We prefer to say “giver” instead of “donor”.

Yes. The system is tested manually and automatically every day to guarantee each and every operation is secure. The payment processors that we use are certified as Level 1 Service Providers within the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which requires an independent annual audit of their processes and systems.

HIPGive is part of Hispanics in Philanthropy, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to further social justice and shared prosperity across the Americas by leveraging Latinx leadership and philanthropic resources. Therefore, HIPGive is a not-for-profit platform that is funded by our philanthropic allies and by the generosity of the HIPGivers who leave a “TipHIP” when they give.

Matching funds are special funds that HIPGive contributes to a particular campaign; they are typically used to double the contributions that participating organizations receive in a specific period of time. Their purpose is to inspire people to contribute generously and motivate organizations to do their best. The amount and application of matching funds varies, so please consult the “rules” tab in each special campaign.

HIPGive is open to any person, anywhere in the world, that wishes to make a financial contribution to a social impact project.

Giving to a project on HIPGive is a quick and easy process. You can follow these steps: 

• Find the project you wish to support and select “Give to this project”. 
• Choose the currency and the amount you wish to contribute.
• Insert your details and a a short message for the nonprofit organisation (if you wish). 
• Select your payment method and, if required, your card number and details. 

Immediately after completing your donation, you will receive a confirmation of the transaction; this will be sent to the email address you provided. Shortly after, you will also receive a formal thank you email to the same email address.

HIPGive accepts payment from all major credit cards and donations are processed in US dollars. Payment by debit card depends on the authorization granted by the issuing bank regarding online payments.

When you choose to give to a project on HIPGive, you will be given a choice of making your donation in either US dollars or Mexican pesos. If your card or payment method is in dollars or pesos, and you select the same currency, your contribution will be processed at exactly the amount you indicate. 

If your card is linked to an account in a different currency, you can also give; the only difference is that while you will select the amount to give in either dollars or pesos, the payment processor will carry out the conversion and you will be charged the equivalent amount in your own currency.

As a nonprofit organization ourselves, we aim to maintain the provision of high-quality services at the lowest possible cost. By choosing to “TipHIP”, funders make a small additional donation that helps us cover our operations and means we can avoid passing on extra fees to the nonprofits we serve. 

Nonprofits on HIPGive currently take away between 96% and 97% of the funds they raise, meaning our commission structure is significantly lower than many other similar platforms.

When you give to a project, you can choose whether to make your contribution anonymous or not. 

• If you leave the box blank, your name will be included in the list of HIPGivers that is published on the project’s page, together with the message you include. No other information relating to you or your contribution will be shared.
• If you choose to select the box, your name will not be published. If you leave a message it will be published from an Anonymous giver. 

Irrespective of the above, the project coordinator: 

• Will have access to your name, email and amount given. 
• Will not have access to your card details; these are handed only by the payment processor.

Yes. As soon as you complete a donation, we send a confirmation of the transaction to your email. Shortly after we also send an official receipt to the same email address. Hispanics in Philanthropy is a not-for-profit 501c3 organization and all contributions are tax deductible in the US.

Hispanics in Philanthropy is a not-for-profit 501c3 organization and all contributions are tax deductible in the US. Our tax ID number is 94-3040607. The confirmation email acts as an official receipt. HIP issues tax receipts to donors and is responsible for disbursing funds to the organizations that use HIPGive, meaning that organizations are not required to create receipts for individual donors.

You can upload a project to HIPGive for free. Once your project is published and you begin to receive contributions, you will cover the direct transaction processing fees which are approximately 3.5%. The exact fee varies according to the method of payment used by each HIPGiver; you can consult the complete list of payment methods and fees here.

Any nonprofit organization that works with Latinx communities either in the US or in Latin America can publish a project. The majority of the people who participate or benefit from the project should be Latinx.

For legal reasons, we ask every organization to prove their status as an officially recognised nonprofit organization before we publish the project. To do this, organizations can upload a letter from the IRS confirming their  501(c)(3) status (in the US) or their articles of incorporation (Latin America).

HIPGive provides you with a secure, friendly and cost-effective platform to mobilise resources for your social impact projects. The features that nonprofits and HIPGivers value most are: 

• 100% bilingual. All projects can be published in English and Spanish. 
• Low cost. Thanks to TipHIP, we don’t charge an administrative fee; nonprofits cover only the direct commissions relating to payment processing. 
• It’s secure. The platform complies with international data protection standards and our security tests are run daily. 
• Guidance. We’re with you each step of the way with training courses, personalised feedback and responses to all your crowdfunding questions. 
• Donor data. You have access to donor contact information and transaction records. 
• Special campaigns. You can take part in campaigns with matching funds and generous incentives.

HIPGive’s special campaigns offer nonprofits a unique opportunity to develop their crowdfunding skills and put them into practice in a high profile crowdfunding campaign. 

Direct benefits include: 

• Access to training and support to strengthen your digital marketing skills.
• Promotion of the overall, shared campaign may raise the profile of your work among new audiences.
• Easy-to-use international payments help diversify your income and encourage local, national and international individual donors.
• Opportunity to compete for matching funds and other special incentives.

In addition to providing an accessible, bilingual platform, HIPGive trains and guides nonprofits to help them fulfil their crowdfunding goals. We also promote our special campaigns in the media and social networks.

We are not able to promote your individual campaign directly. We recommend that you participate fully in the training courses and take advantage of the feedback opportunities to optimize your own ability to promote your campaign, as its success depends on the work you and your team do to communicate, share and inspire people to make their donations.

HIPGive is based on a system of voluntary contributions, so each nonprofit organization will receive the funds generated by their campaign irrespective of whether they have reached their stated goal or not. The total amount raised will be transferred minus the payment processing fees. If your nonprofit raises less than $75 (or $1,000 Mexican pesos), we will invite you to carry out a future campaign and carry the funds over to that campaign, as it is not financially viable to transfer smaller amounts.

If your organization is an authorized tax exempt organization in Mexico and you choose to activate this on the platform, you will benefit in two ways: 

• Availability of additional payment methods. In addition to credit and debit cards and PayPal, individuals will also be able to give to your project via bank transfers (SPEI) and payments in convenience stores. 
• Tax deductible receipts in Mexico. If an individual chooses to receive a receipt and includes his or her fiscal information, they will receive a fully compliant  tax deductible receipt (CFDI) via email. 

To access these benefits, you must select the box marked “Donataria Autorizada” in the “Legal Information” tab in the Organization section of your dashboard. It is also important to upload your “Certificate of Fiscal Authorization” (the letter that SAT sends to confirm your status as an authorized tax exempt organization) in the tab marked “Files.”

As a digital platform, we do not rely on traditional contracts. Instead, when you register for HIPGive, you accept our terms of use. You can consult the terms of use at any time.

An exception to the above is when the nonprofit is an authorized tax exempt organization in Mexico. In this case, in addition to accepting the general terms of use, we will send an additional contract that is required to fulfil Mexican fiscal requirements.

There are no fixed criteria to determine how many campaigns you can run, but we definitely recommend only running one campaign at a time and spacing them out throughout the year so as not to tire your team and your potential donors.

There are no fixed rules and on HIPGive you can set a start and end date according to your preferences. In our experience, 4-6 week campaigns work best as they give you enough time to coordinate a strong communications campaign and reach a large number of potential HIPGivers, but at the same time they are not so long that your team and your audience tire of the campaign.

Each organization should establish their goal according to their specific objectives, experience in crowdfunding campaigns and communications’ reach. To validate your goal, we always suggest doing the math: multiply the number of people you expect to contribute by the amount of a typical contribution. Here are some numbers to guide you: 

• Typical donations on HIPGive range from $10, $20, and up to $50.
• Successful campaigns typically have 20 to 80 HIPGivers. In some cases, organizations manage to attract more than 100 or 200 HIPGivers, but these are organizations that already have a strong communication base and invest a lot of time on the campaign.

It’s easy to create your project. The first thing to do is register on the platform so that you can log in to your personalized space with your username and password. 

In this space, called the dashboard, you can select “New project” or continue to edit a project created in an earlier session. Each project should include the following: 

• General information, including the title, a short description and a financial goal. 
• Banners, which can be a video (via a link to YouTube or Vimeo), images or photos. 
• Content in English or Spanish, in the form of a narrative text. 

You can add content and edit the project over several sessions, and invite other people from your team to have access and share in the editing of the project. 
Once your project is ready to publish, check that you have uploaded your articles of incorporation (acta constitutiva) or the letter from the IRS showing your status as an authorized 501(c)(3) organization. Finally, select “Request validation” so that the HIPGive team can review your project and prepare it for publication.

No, it’s not obligatory; each organization can choose in which language(s) to share their project. We recommend that you prioritise your audience’s language, that is the first language of your potential donors. If you are able to translate it into a second language, then do!  You never know who will end up seeing your project! Unfortunately HIPGive cannot support you directly in the translation process, so if you don’t have in-house translation capacity we suggest you ask for volunteer help or at least use an automatic digital translator.

Once your campaign is underway, we ask that you upload the following documents to help us complete your file and, when the campaign concludes, initiate the transfer of funds: 

• List of Board Members 
• Financial statements from the previous fiscal year (or IRS 990 Form for US-based organizations) 
• Budget for the current fiscal year 
• Bank account and details for international transfers (or full postal address for US-based organizations) 

If you have opted to use the platform as an authorized tax exempt organization in Mexico, you will also need to upload the following documents as per requirements issued by the Mexican authorities: 

• Front page of your bank statement 
• Power of attorney for the legal representative 
• Official ID of the legal representative 

If your organization is not incorporated as a nonprofit organization, you can publish your project with the support of a fiscal sponsor, that is a legally established nonprofit organization that can vouch for your project and provide the documents listed above. The fiscal sponsor will receive the funds raised on HIPGive and will commit to ensuring they are used to implement the project.

To change the information regarding your organization, go to the Organization section and select “Information” from the menu. Select the pencil icon to edit and you will be able to change the information on each tab, including “General information”, “Address”, “Legal Information”, “Files” or “Bank Information”.

On HIPGive you can publish your crowdfunding campaign goal in US dollars or in Mexican pesos. This means that even as individuals make their contributions in other currencies, your progress towards your goal will always be displayed in the currency you selected.  There are no fixed rules, so we suggest that you choose the currency which makes most sense to your audience of potential givers.

The images that you upload to the “Banners” tab will adjust in size automatically depending on the device used by the viewer. We recommend you use images that are 670 x 492 pixels and each file should be no more than 1Mb.

A video is essential to explain your project and motivate people to give. You won’t upload your video directly to the HIPGive platform; instead you should insert a link to a video which has already been uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo. 

To do this, go to the “Banners” tab in the form to create a project, then select the plus icon and fill in the small form. You will have to select “Video”, choose YouTube or Vimeo and then paste in the link.

Perks enable you to establish giving levels as a means of encouraging people to give a specific amount, often more than they might otherwise consider giving. They are an optional element of your project, but when well used can inspire donors to give more. 

There are two main ways in which perks can be used: 

1. To establish “thank yous” or acknowledgements. You can describe the type of “thank you” that each person will receive according to the amount they give. This could be something you send in the post, or a message, video or other content that you send digitally after the person gives at this level. 
2. To establish levels of impact. For each amount, you describe how those funds can generate a specific action or impact. For example, “With $20 a girl will receive a package of books” or “$100 enables us to rent a classroom.”

The thank you message that you include in the “Content” tab of your project will become part of the automatic thank you email sent to each person that contributes to your project. We recommend that you include a short text (one to three phrases) that communicate your appreciation in a sincere way and explain briefly how this contribution will help generate a positive impact for those involved in the project.

After a person contributes to your project, they can decide whether they want to share it on social media. The message that you include will appear as a suggested message for them to share.

You can add more people and enable them to access the project, edit the project and/or administrate your campaign. To add more people, go to the Organization section in your control panel, select “Members” and you’ll see a list of people in your organization who already have an account on HIPGive. To add a new person, select “Create user” and fill in the form. Remember to select the appropriate level of access for each user.

At HIPGive we review all projects personally before publication to ensure they are complete and to give nonprofits the best chance to reach their goal. After you select “Request Validation”, your project is sent to the HIPGive team for review and you will no longer be able to edit it. 

If your project is incomplete, or if we identify opportunities to improve it, we will send you an email with some suggestions and return your project to “draft” status so that you can make any changes you consider important. 

If your project is complete and ready to publish, you will receive an email confirming the date of publication and the unique URL that will link to your project on the platform.

You can now add individuals as ambassadors or individual crowdfunders within your main crowdfunding campaign so that they can carry out peer-to-peer crowdfunding on your behalf. 

Each person that you add will be able to create a URL and individual page that is linked to your overall project. In this way, the funds they raise will be added to the sum of money of your project and included in the progress bar.

This means that you can work with a group of people and encourage them to use their own network of personal contacts to raise more funds for your campaign. At the same time, the administrator of your project will be able to trace and segment the contributions generated by each individual, as part of their access to the overall campaign transactions.

Yes. Throughout the campaign you are always able to consult and/or download the list of people who have made contributions to your project. This list includes the date and time of the contribution, the name of the person and their email address, as well as the amount, currency and payment method. To access this report, go to the Transactions section in your dashboard.

Updates are short pieces of text that you can upload to the platform and which will be sent via email to all the people that have contributed to your project. They will also be published on your project page on the tab marked “Updates”. We recommend you send one or two updates throughout the campaign and afterwards so that people feel connected to your work and the impact you are creating.

Once you have received the funds and are implementing the project, it is important to communicate with your HIPGivers to share the progress you’ve made and the impact you’re creating together. 

In the “Results” section you can share information about the number of people who are participating, the activities you’re carrying out and, above all, the way in which the project is changing people’s lives for the better. The content that you upload will be sent to your HIPGivers and will stay on the site as evidence of the project’s results, which will generate confidence in your work moving forward.

In order to be able to transfer the funds you’ve raised, we require certain documents that verify your nonprofit status and the work of your organization. Your funds cannot be transferred until they are complete. 

To upload the documents to the platform, go to the Organization, Information section in your dashboard. In the tab marked “Files”, select the pencil icon to edit and you will be able to upload each document in the corresponding square. Don’t forget to save the information before leaving the page. 

The documents that you should upload are: 

• List of Board Members 
• Financial statements from the previous fiscal year (or IRS 990 Form for US-based organizations) 
• Budget for the current fiscal year 
• Bank account and details for international transfers (or full postal address for US-based organizations) 

If you are working with a fiscal sponsor, these documents should be those of your fiscal sponsor, not of your own organization.

The funds you generate through HIPGive will be sent by check to your address (United States only) or through a bank transfer (for Latin American and United States organizations), depending on the verification documents you have uploaded to the platform. We ask that you provide Hispanics in Philanthropy with a valid fiscal receipt for the funds received or, in the case of Latin American organizations, a letter confirming their receipt.

If your organization is an authorized tax exempt organization in Mexico, you must issue a tax deductible CFDI.

The administrative process begins once you have concluded your campaign and when we have received all the verification documents via the platform. If you have not uploaded all the documents, including your bank account information, your full address, or if you have not checked the box that the information is correct, we will not be able to start the process.

The payment process takes 4 to 6 weeks, as it involves a reconciliation of all the different contributions and commissions; this can be a detailed process given the different currencies involved and especially if a chargeback or refund request has been submitted.