New Trinity Business School graduates use tech to help charities collect spare change in the social distancing era

Tackling the issues around collecting coins in a time of social distancing, graduates of @TCDBusiness’ MBA programme are helping charities collect donations through their start-up.

‘Change Donations’ is a start-up that harnesses technology to change the way people give to charity, enabling them to make donating part of their everyday spending.

Set up by graduates of Trinity Business School’s MBA programme, the start-up gives donors the option to round up their purchases and donate their spare change to the causes that they care about most.

By creating an account and linking their card to a specific charity of their choice, when account holders make everyday purchases, through Change Donations’ ‘Round-up’ process, the difference between their payment and the next euro is given to charity.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Change Donation’s charity base has grown by 54% and now the organisation helps close to 40 different non-profits in Ireland among multiple causes.

This is because, as bucket collections and cash donations have quickly been forced to stop, Change Donations has made it easy to safely and securely help those in need with their digital spare change.

Lizzy Hayashida, co-founder of Change Donations and Trinity Business School MBA Graduate, says:

We started with a simple mission – to make giving easy. Our goal has always been to remove hurdles for donors, allowing giving to become part of your daily routine. Trinity gave us the support we needed to turn our mission into a reality and help people change the world through everyday spending.

William Conaghan, co-founder of Change Donations and Trinity Business School MBA Graduate, says:

Our whole ethos revolves around building a community of everyday philanthropists. We all want to make a difference, but COVID-19 has made us rethink how that’s possible. Our growing community is working together to turn small change into meaningful change.

Matt Conaghan, Head of Marketing at Change Donations and Trinity Business School alumnus, says:

“Everyone wants to help, but making that large donation can be a bit daunting. We offer donors an easy way to give to their favorite charities in smaller amounts and give every purchase a purpose.”