Givingtrax helps companies match your donations dollar for dollar

Givingtrax was born when one pizza company wanted to be charitable but wound up spending more than it had.

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“Givingtrax initially began due to a problem in my husband’s business,” co-founder Karrie Hungerford told VentureBeat in an email. “We are inundated with donation requests. After creating a focus group, we quickly learned that every business we interviewed was in the same boat, regardless of size.”

She and her husband worked for RoundTable Pizza, and when the economy took a downturn, their giving wound up being more than their bottom line. They needed a way to organize, and their customers wanted to see where the cash was going.

Givingtrax is a network that helps businesses more easily keep track of charitable donations, and employee-matching programs. According to the company, non-profits also have trouble keeping up with corporate-giving, keeping companies accountable.

The company provides a dashboard that shows businesses how much they donate and who they donate to and allows them to receive thanks from the community. Businesses can also create employee-matching programs and challenge employees to give on their own.

Givingtrax showed off its service onstage at the DEMO Fall 2012 conference in Santa Clara today.

“I was unclear on how you would do all the integration into the larger companies to get that donation matching,” said Tracey Isacke of Telefonica Digital of the company’s demo. “But it looks like a good idea.”

Givingtrax announced its first partner today as well, Global Impact, which organizes “workplace giving campaigns to Fortune 500 companies.” It also has a number of partnerships with universities.

The Washington-based company is currently self funded and is looking for funding to build out its mobile application (I wonder if they take donations). Givingtrax was founded in 2010 and opened its beta testing period today.

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Photo credit: Stephen Brashear