2023-09-08 08:05:07
Charity in the age of Uber? Two years and $250,000 later, a Web platform created by a Quebec SME wants to convince businesses, event and festival organizers and even schools in the province to be more generous with community organizations and social causes in their locality.
Called Nooé, the web platform which until then was called the Team Forward project became a foundation in its own right this summer. The project in question saw the light of day before the pandemic, but it is only in the last two years that the model has really taken shape.
Its technology lets the user choose which organization they wish to donate money to, from a non-exhaustive list of some 3,000 hand-picked causes. This takes the form of a properly registered donation, which may be provided by the user’s employer, or which may be part of the price of entry to any event.
Nooé’s mission has not changed since the beginning: to simplify personal or corporate charitable giving to enhance the place of philanthropy in Quebec. His argument is simple: the average charitable donation in Quebec was $249 per person last year, which is far below the Canadian average of $340.
“We believe that we can help people to be more generous,” assures the general director of Nooé Sarah-Maude Joly.
Raising awareness among all ages
The main leader of Nooé hopes to convince other organizations across the province to join her movement. Its platform can be used for free, so all money donated to a cause goes to its destination.
Its offering targets three use cases: companies that want to mobilize their employees by asking them to choose to whom they will donate, events that want to include in the price of their tickets an amount that will be given to the local community, and schools that want to raise awareness among young people of the importance of getting involved — by only giving their time — to activities that are important to them.
“We have realized since 2019 to what extent there are many organizations in Quebec that need help from the public,” explains Florence Petit-Gagnon, co-founder of Nooé. “We also see that people really care regarding these causes. We therefore decided to use technology to shake things up a little and facilitate charitable aid. »
Nooé doesn’t want to leave any dollar lying on the table: his site will soon allow individuals to make donations directly to the organizations of their choice, whether they are already registered on the platform or not. “We will do the usual checks first” to ensure that everything is legal, assures Mmes Joly and Petit-Gagnon.
Officials, these donations allow us to obtain a receipt which can then be deducted from our tax return…
Pay It Forward 2.0
When Nooé was born in 2019 under the name Project Team Forward, the idea was to create a web platform through which Mirego, the company within which the project was born, might let its employees decide his philanthropic activities.
The SME quickly decided to make its platform public and accessible to other companies. The agricultural technology giant Premier Tech, from Rivière-du-Loup, which acquired Mirego in 2021, subsequently adopted the project.
As Premier Tech and Mirego are commercial entities in their own right, it seemed logical for the platform to become autonomous. “We can concentrate on our activities. We are independent, which will also allow us to talk to other companies in the technology and communications sectors,” says Florence Petit-Gagnon.
Nooé also hopes to change the very widespread idea in Quebec, according to which the State and the Church are there to take care of philanthropy. “That’s not entirely the case,” says Sarah-Maude Joly. “Besides, we know very few people who still go to church. Let’s say that the next generation is not very present…”
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