Vancouver’s Weeve is the World’s First Crowdfunding Platform That Doesn’t Take a Cut

July 5, 2012

Crowdfunding is generating a lot of buzz these days.

Platforms enable entrepreneurs to raise money for projects and products for a small cut of the total funding, usually 5% or less. But what if they didn’t take a cut at all?

Vancouver-based startup Weeve claims to be the world’s first crowdfunding platform to utilize a freemium model that allows nonprofit organizations to raise money without transaction fees.

With Weeve, which is currently in beta, users are asked to “give smarter” by allowing their dollars to go directly into community projects in need of funding. Beta-launch partners include Seva Canada, YouthCo, SharkTruth, and BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. The latter is running a campaign raise $5,000 to help build a new hospital.

“Partners like the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation benefit from Weeve through a number of means. First of all, our website lets them keep every dollar that they raise,” says Trevor Loke, founder and COO of Weeve. “We equip nonprofits with the platform and tools needed to reach audiences they may never have tapped into before. We also give tech-savvy and socially-conscious citizens an easy way to give small amounts of money that add up to create real change right where they live – change they can see. Weeve empowers nonprofit organizations to reach these crowds.”

Weeve is a crowdfunding platform that allows nonprofit organizations to raise money and awareness for their cause 100% free. Features include social fundraising with integrated social media buttons, project management dashboard, downloadable donor list, blog updates, and community engagement tools. Founded on the values of social responsibility, transparency, and locality, Weeve addresses the fundraising challenges and inefficiencies affecting the nonprofit sector. Weeve aims to democratize giving by empowering individuals to give back to their communities in small amounts of donation.

“Individual giving in Canada peaked in 1991 when 30% of Canadians gave to charities,” notes founder and CEO Alex Chuang. “Today, that number hovers at less than one in four–an all-time low. Nonprofits worldwide are feeling the brunt of governments which are cutting their funding, making crowdfunding a tangible solution for the funding crisis in the nonprofit sector.”

Weeve founders consist of Alex Chuang, a graduate of the Master of Management program at the UBC Sauder School of Business; Trevor, a marketing, communications and fundraising professional who is also an elected official in the City of Vancouver; and CTO Vincent Chu, who has worked for companies including SAP and IBM. All three founders are 23 years old.