An Initial Investigation into GlobalGiving's Impact on Nonprofit Organizations

GlobalGiving, the first and largest global crowdfunding platform for nonprofits around the world, seeks to explore whether it significantly increases the capacity, and therefore effectiveness, of its nonprofit partner organizations. We examine 67 nonprofit organizations based in India, all of which have been vetted by GlobalGiving, in a two-year study using the Organizational Performance Index (OPI) framework developed at Pact. Within this cohort of organizations, we identify a control group that did not reach and maintain full partner status and therefore does not have access to the benefits offered to full partners as well as a treatment group of organizations that have earned a permanent spot on the GlobalGiving website and remain active partners in the community. We find encouraging initial evidence in support of GlobalGiving's positive impact on its partners’ implementation of community leadership and feedback practices. We do not yet find evidence of a significant change in other areas of programmatic focus for GlobalGiving, including learning, results, and delivery. More research will be needed to definitively confirm or reject these findings, but the process of exploring its impact through its first formalized investigation has been an useful and instructive milestone for GlobalGiving as it continues to 'Listen, Act, Learn. Repeat' on behalf of its partner community