Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about The Good App, how it works, and why we built it.
So, what is The Good App?
The Good App wants to bring retail philanthropy into the 21st century for the average private donator. At its core, it exists to make those supporting charities and causes they care about feel easier, more natural, and within their control.
Why, what's wrong with the charity donation model today?
For many people, supporting good charities and causes can feel fragmented, unclear, or harder than it should be. You want to help, but you may be apprehensive about being locked into a monthly donation that is difficult to stop. You may want to support more than one charity, but have to navigate each of their platforms individually. There are some key friction points that discourage people who want to donate from actually doing so.
So how does The Good App solve that?
The Good App is an intuitive platform that does two things. First, it allows you to bring your favourite charities into a single portfolio under one monthly donation, split however you choose. Second, it offers specifically selected Causes for people who care about an issue, but do not know how to translate that concern into action.
Causes, what do you mean by that?
Think of Causes as a bit like an ETF, but for high-impact charities working across a particular theme, such as environmental conservation, disease research, or emergency aid. Each Cause is made up of a number of individual charities.
So who chooses the charities for each Cause?
We do! In future, we would like to make that process more transparent and ideally hand selection over to a committee of sector experts. For now, we do our best to ensure that each Cause is made up of charities we believe are among the best in the field.
OK, but who are you?
Good question. The Good App was founded by Alex, who has worked in international NGOs since 2014. Over the years, he kept seeing the same issues and hearing the same questions. Charity fundraising had not meaningfully evolved, and people who cared about important causes often did not have the time, knowledge, or headspace to turn that concern into action. That is what led him to create The Good App.
You keep talking about the donor's perspective, who is the app really designed for?
We do, because we see the main friction points on the user side, not the charity side. The app is designed to improve the experience of giving by removing those friction points. While charities benefit, the app is ultimately built for the user.
So is The Good App mainly for people who already donate, or also for people who care but have not yet found an easy way to start?
The Good App can be used by anyone, but we believe it will be adopted most quickly by people who already use technology and apps intuitively in their daily lives; people who want donating to feel as simple and manageable as a Netflix subscription; and people who care about causes, but do not know how to turn that into action. That said, we expect to learn from our early adopters and will work to make the app as inclusive and accessible as possible over time.
Does that mean The Good App is only built for a specific country, or do you see this as something for a wider market?
Both. For now, The Good App is focused on the United Kingdom. But we definitely see the potential for it in other markets too — and, we hope, sooner rather than later.
OK, so is The Good App a business, a charity, or something in between?
This is a very important question, and we want to be completely transparent about this. The Good App is currently structured as a Limited Company (Ltd), not a charity.
Why have you chosen to set it up as a Limited Company rather than a charity?
Even with tools like AI making it easier for small teams to build on a shoestring (we are using our AI to interview us for this FAQ), The Good App still requires resources to build, grow, and maintain. Structuring the company as a Limited Company (Ltd) gives us more flexibility and more options when it comes to raising funding. In the United Kingdom, it is possible to move from a Limited Company (Ltd) to a Community Interest Company (CIC), but not the other way around. For us, starting as a Ltd is about keeping our options open while we build.
Does that mean The Good App needs to make money?
Yes. Even if The Good App were a CIC, it would still need to generate income to pay for itself and keep operating.
How are you planning to make money?
At the beginning, very simply, The Good App will take a percentage of the payments made to charities. Over time, we have other ideas for how to generate revenue too (none of them involve selling people's data). Initially, we plan to charge 9.5% of the total transaction.
9.5%! That seems very high
At first glance, yes, but hear us out. To begin with, we will be using an off-the-shelf payment system, which is likely to charge us around 5% per transaction anyway. Over time, we do plan to reduce our fee, but when we do, we want that reduction to be permanent. In other words, 9.5% is the highest it should ever be.
And what does the user get in return for that fee?
The user is not charged an additional fee on top of their donation. Instead, The Good App deducts its fee from the total transaction before the remainder is passed on to the charity.
So why would someone use The Good App instead of giving directly to a charity for free?
Because in many cases, giving directly is not actually free either. Unless someone is donating by cash or bank transfer, charities are usually paying processing fees on card payments, PayPal, Google Pay, and similar methods anyway. And then there are traditional fundraising models. Street fundraisers, for example (the people you may or may not do your best to avoid eye contact with), do not work for free. Their agencies often charge charities significant up-front costs, and in some cases this can amount to 20% or more of a fundraising target. Sometimes, unlucky charities do not even break even. The Good App exists to remove friction from donating. Our belief is that by making giving easier, more flexible, and more intuitive, we can encourage more people to donate and increase the overall volume of donations, without charities needing to invest anything themselves. Many charities will want to support a platform that offers this.
Which charities can people actually find on The Good App?
All charities regulated by the England and Wales Charity Commission or the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator can have profiles on The Good App. The Causes will only be made up of these charities.
Does that mean you accept any registered charity, or is there still some sort of selection process?
We verify all applications before a charity is registered on The Good App.
So do these demos represent the final version of The Good App, or do you see it growing into something bigger?
We have many ideas for new features and for how The Good App could grow over time. This is just the start, so you will have to stay tuned to see where it goes next.