March 24, 2025 • 36 mins
What if a single life-changing moment inspired a platform that could revolutionize charitable giving? In this episode, we sit down with Dan Fitzgerald, the founder of Rosi Giving, to explore how his personal story led to a groundbreaking solution for local, transparent, and community-driven philanthropy.
After suffering a stroke in 2011, Dan experienced an outpouring of support from his local community, which opened his eyes to the true power of giving at the grassroots level. This transformative experience led him to create Rosi Giving, an app designed to make nonprofit donations easier, more personal, and more impactful.
💡 In This Episode, We Cover:
✅ The pivotal moment that led Dan Fitzgerald to rethink philanthropy
✅ The problems with traditional giving (and how Rosi Giving solves them)
✅ Why millennials and Gen Z prefer local nonprofits over big charities
✅ The power of collaboration between businesses, donors, and nonprofits
✅ How small nonprofits can increase visibility and boost donations with Rosi Giving
📲 Download Rosi Giving Today:
🔗 Rosi Giving Website
📱 Available on the App Store & Google Play
🎧 Listen now to learn how you can support the causes that matter most—on your terms!
Would you like some help creating the perfect narrative for your organization?
Book your Strategy Call
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Special Thanks to Stacy Daugherty for the beautiful wall artwork in the background. Socials: @artographybystacy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Baker (00:08):
Chris Baker, and each week we'll explore
incredible connections betweennonprofits, businesses and the
community.
This is a space where wehighlight inspiring partnerships
, uncover strategies forcreating meaningful impact and
share stories that show howworking together can make all
the difference.
Whether you're a nonprofitleader, a business owner or
(00:28):
someone just passionate aboutbuilding connections, this
podcast is for you.
Welcome back to Visual Eyes.
Today I have Dan Fitzgeraldfrom Rosi Giving.
I would love to hear a littlebit more about Rosi Giving, so
can you tell me about thatjourney and what inspired you to
(00:49):
make this company?
Dan Fitzgerald (00:50):
Yeah, I can actually remember to the day
where my journey all started,and that was on June 19th 2011,
when I had a terrible thinghappen to me.
I had a stroke, a very seriousstroke, and it really started to
inspire me, actually, becausefamily prepared food, took care
(01:12):
of the children and it reallyjust came together in just a
tremendous amount of support.
(01:32):
I was shopping a grocery storeand you know that typical
shopping and they always ask youon the way out do you want to
donate to charity?
And the charity they wantedthey were, you know, raising
money for.
Really, again, it's not a badcharity, by all means, but I had
no, you know no affiliation.
(01:54):
I had a devastating thinghappen to me.
It was the experience of beingaxed by a big corporation to
give my dollar to another hugecorporation that didn't have any
ties to the local community andthat just didn't sit right with
me.
Okay, right.
So you know, to me it's like ifyou're going to give, you
(02:16):
should have some connection backto the community or back to
some a cause that meanssomething for you If they're not
in your backyard.
If they're not in the backyard,yeah, and most instances where
they're called POS donations,they don't really have any local
nexus, it's usually like StJude's and that sort of thing.
(02:38):
Again, beautiful charities.
Other people have differentneeds and wants.
So that started me down thisrabbit hole.
I don't like to call it that,but it really was like a rabbit
hole because I had no idea whatI was going to uncover.
But I really started, and Istarted with POS and this
concept started to, you know,evolve in my mind.
(03:01):
So, yeah, so that was reallyhow it got.
It got got me inspired to dosomething, something that I can
give back, because, again, mycommunity was very, very, very
instrumental in in my recovery.
And then that whole ill feelingagain you get, you felt almost
bullied when you, when you, youknow, when you, um, you know,
(03:24):
are in that situation where theywant you to give to a charity.
Again, it's only a dollar, Iget that, but still it's like
doesn't really you should leavethere feeling inspired, not like
guilt-ridden, right?
Chris Baker (03:35):
if you're feeling guilt, guilt-ridden, that that
doesn't feel good and it's notgoing to help you or the
community.
So that's fair statement tohave.
So, yeah, you do want to makesure that you feel comfortable.
Um, and I would definitely saythat I, I know when I'm giving
back whether it's my time.
You know an, an item, like aservice, whatever we're giving
(04:00):
back, if it's in my backyard andI can see the impact that
they're having on the community,it's 10 100 times stronger.
Dan Fitzgerald (04:09):
It's so much different, all about yeah, yeah,
Rosi was built mainly as acommunity building platform.
I mean, it's it's, it's aplatform I was going to go into,
maybe in the next question justto kind of explain what Rosi is
, because I'm sure yourlisteners have no idea what.
Chris Baker (04:26):
No, and then actually right now is a perfect
segue.
So, yes, take it on yes.
Dan Fitzgerald (04:30):
Rosi is a.
It's a.
It's an app based platform forthe entire giving community your
donors and your volunteers,your nonprofit organizations and
also other organizations likecompanies or clubs or really
just a collection of people thatwant to do some good, and so
(04:53):
they all get together underneaththis platform and they have
equal weighting in the platformand it all comes together and it
provides a very valuable toolfor generally the smaller
nonprofits, but it's a wonderfultool for donors and volunteers
because they get everythingorganized in one place.
Chris Baker (05:15):
Explain how that works, can you?
Dan Fitzgerald (05:17):
Yeah, yeah, so we have this platform.
It's in the app stores now.
You can download it andeverybody download it.
So what you do is you havethree portals, so we call them
rosy givers.
Rosy givers, again, like peoplelike you and me.
We download the app or weregister online.
(05:39):
Either one is fine, and thenyou get access to all these
features.
One of the features is accessto the details of what we call
featured nonprofits.
They are featured becausethey've actually gone through
the process of registering withus.
We actually perform someverification just to make sure
(06:00):
they're who they say they are,to make sure their ratings that
they submitted and that themission that they've submitted
is consistent to the informationthat's out there.
Chris Baker (06:10):
So they're completely vetted.
Make sure they're a 501c3.
501c3.
Dan Fitzgerald (06:14):
We don't vet them.
We verify the information.
It's a higher level ofthreshold, because it's very
difficult to actually vet anorganization like that.
Okay, so ver that.
Chris Baker (06:25):
Okay, so verifying.
Dan Fitzgerald (06:26):
Right.
And the other one is the givingpartners, so the other
organizations, we call themgiving partners.
So rosy givers, nonprofits andgiving partners.
Those are our three ways thatyou can register.
Yeah, yeah, ways that you canregister, yeah, yeah.
Giving partners then can go outand solicit their members to
(06:48):
become involved in Rosi Givingand then also everything that
they're doing will roll underthat giving partner, so it
really gives them like an equalplace in the platform.
Right Right now we're focusedmore on nonprofits and the
givers, but we also built theportal for the giving partners
(07:09):
as well.
Chris Baker (07:10):
So if I'm hearing correctly and tell me if I'm
wrong but the giving partner ismore kind of like an affiliate.
Dan Fitzgerald (07:16):
Yeah, we call them like strategic partners,
that sort of thing, and they canbe sponsors, they can
participate in a variety ofdifferent ways.
Right, so they can do events.
They can do events and sponsorevents and promote those events
in their community and theirmembers.
(07:38):
All the donations that theymake to nonprofits would go
underneath their giving partner.
And then the giving partner cansay, well, we're going to match
donations or we're going tostructure our giving program or
something like that, just tomake sure that they are treating
their members with a lot ofrespect and honoring what they
(08:02):
think is an important nonprofit,instead of going off on their
own like a company that might gooff on its own and raise money
for a charity or two, butthere's no connection back to
their community.
Chris Baker (08:14):
Well, and actually, when you're talking about a
company, obviously the decisionmakers are the ones that are
choosing the nonprofit and,depending on the size of the
company, in this way, you'regetting all the employees to
choose how they want to workwith them yeah, it's like a
democratization of charitablegiving yeah, so it's a little
bit more.
(08:34):
You get to choose where you feelthe most comfortable, where you
can see the most value goingfor you and your backyard and
your community, versus thestakeholder or the decision
makers in the company, justchoosing the one or two.
Dan Fitzgerald (08:50):
I like that Basically, yeah, and some of the
benefits for the rosy giversagain the donors and volunteers
is one you can donate to severaldifferent charities at once to
make a donation.
You can generally get away withmaking a smaller donation, like
maybe it's like throwing 50cents in a tin, right, that's
(09:13):
really most people don't thinktwice about that, but you can't
really do that on an everydaybasis, right?
So we're like say, well, that'sfine, we got 10 tins in front
of you, throw 50 cents in each,or a dollar in each, 10 bucks,
and then you check out and thenyou're done and we handle the
rest.
And then bucks, and then youcheck out and then you're done
and we handle the rest.
And then also the way westructured it is there's a, we
(09:33):
have an, we have a 501c3 that wework with, so you're actually
making the donation to that501c3.
So now the benefit of that isyou get one receipt and you can
generate that receipt online.
Push a couple buttons and thereceipt comes up, you know.
So you can take that, send itto your accountant or file it
(09:53):
away for your own.
Uh, you know knowledge and uh,so you know, I don't know about
you, but whenever I give youknow to a charity, I lose the
receipts well, yeah, it's uh,depending on where you're
donating or you're giving timeum all of those receipts yeah
donating or you're giving time,um all of those receipts, yeah,
yeah, I remember.
Chris Baker (10:13):
Unless it can be digital, it's a little it can
get lost.
And then, yeah, you need it fortax purposes.
It's not right you?
Dan Fitzgerald (10:17):
just want to.
You know you just want to andfor the information, for the
knowledge that you gave that theinformation.
So, so, yeah, we can do it forany date range or for the entire
time on the platform.
There's a lot of cool thingslike that.
Also, giver has a dashboard, sothere's a lot of different
(10:38):
things on the dashboard.
One overall, how much they'vegiven over their life on the app
, which is cool because mostpeople don't know that, which is
cool because most people don'tknow that.
You know.
And so if you want to evaluateyour impact, you just look at oh
, I gave a thousand dollars overthe last two years.
That's awesome, right?
Um, also, you can set goalsannual goals and weekly or
(11:01):
monthly goals and if you hitthose goals, you get a badge.
And there's also a lot of othermetrics like engagement metrics
, like how many non-profits yousupported, how many friends you
can make rosy friends.
It's kind of really, you know,it encompasses a lot of
different things so it soundskind of like a.
Chris Baker (11:20):
I mean, besides the actual giving piece of it, it's
also like a community app aswell, because if you're actually
able to connect with otherpeople in the app, you get to
understand and find people thathave the same values of like
giving absolutely and I thinkthat's, that's in the connection
, uh, gift in itself and thesecan also a non-profit can set up
(11:42):
multiple.
Dan Fitzgerald (11:45):
We call them communities.
Community is throughout ouroffering.
We're all about the community.
For example, you're a mom or adad or a grandparent or an uncle
or whatever.
You want to support your nieces, nephews, kids, whatever, and
they have so much going on.
They have soccer, dance,baseball schools, different
schools because they'redifferent ages.
(12:06):
Because they're different ages,we thought, wow, wouldn't it be
an awesome experience to go inthe app and just pick all your
10 different nonprofits that youwant to support PTAs, what have
you, some health causes foryour aging parent and just go on
and once a month, 100 bucks,whatever, and you can allocate
(12:28):
different amounts to differentnonprofits.
So that was really empoweringfor us because, like, that is
just can't really get any easierthan that, because most people
they'll find is they'll say,yeah, I got to make that
donation and then, like theydon't do it.
Chris Baker (12:45):
A lot of the times it's.
It's not that they don't wantto.
I feel like either a they'rewaiting for the big event or we
get sidetracked.
Dan Fitzgerald (12:55):
Yeah, absolutely .
Chris Baker (12:56):
I mean right now.
We are living in a very fastpaced world and if you can do it
in, you know, a minute or two,it's easy to get done, it's easy
to get done If you wait 10minutes to a half an hour.
You're probably thinking aboutsomething else and you've
already moved on, so giving thisan opportunity to go.
(13:16):
Hey, you know what?
I just walked by that sign.
It reminded me of so-and-soorganization that I really want
to give to, and they aren't.
You already have it in your appand you can give $10 at that
minute.
That does make sense and it ishelpful.
That's awesome.
Dan Fitzgerald (13:34):
So back to the.
So in ROSA we have this conceptof a ROSA community.
So all nonprofits, they can setup one, two, five, whatever
they, however they're organized,and so they can set up the
community.
If it's a volunteer-heavynonprofit, they can set up a
volunteer community that theycan now engage with.
You could say, all right, well,the event's in three days,
(13:57):
here's the logistics, here's theinformation, here's what to
wear, here's you know whatever.
You can actually send that outto your community and as long as
the people have joined thatcommunity, they'll get the like
a, it's like a news feed andthey could send posts, they
could send pictures and smallshort videos, like a little
(14:17):
social media light.
It's not heavy, it's not meantto be like get this person
hooked, because we found thatmost, or if not all, social
media these days has gotten socongested.
It's got reels, it's got groups, it's got posts, it's got
political nonsense, it's goteverything.
And if you're a non-profit,you're getting mixed up in all
(14:41):
of this and chances are as muchas you you're loved.
They're just people are justgoing to go right by you.
You, you know, right by you inmany cases.
Chris Baker (14:53):
You brought up an excellent point, and that's
something that we're strugglingright now to you know make sure
that nonprofits are actuallyvisible, and the problem that
we've noticed is there's notenough nonprofits using video
right now, we've noticed isthere's not enough nonprofits
using video right now, and so tostand out in that entire ocean
(15:14):
of videos that are constantlyset out there, you have to start
competing at a higher level,and that's not so easy in a
nonprofit's budget.
It's something that's extremelydifficult.
I do like this idea of having aspace, a community space, that
is geared more towards what arethe nonprofits doing?
(15:34):
You can showcase your story,yeah.
Dan Fitzgerald (15:37):
I mean, you have to figure this out.
Now you have a place, an appright where you can pretty much
do everything related to anonprofit.
You can donate, you can followup with them, you can actually
find out what events they have.
There's a whole event module.
So if you're having an event,you put that in your community
and you can get that out intoyour community, and now you're
(15:57):
sharing your event and it's allshareable.
So I can just click a buttonand it gets shared to my
Facebook or whatever.
It's shared via a URL asopposed to a browser, not yet to
the app itself, but eventuallywe'll get there.
So yeah, everything is veryshareable, very, very shareable.
(16:19):
You can share your events, youcan share your profiles to a
nonprofit, you can share yourcommunities.
There's a ton of shareableinformation.
Chris Baker (16:28):
Cool, that's awesome.
Yeah, so one of our majorquestions that we have on the
show and specifically we want totalk about different
collaborations what are one ofyour stories that you have on
collaboration effort?
That was a success from whatyou've done.
Dan Fitzgerald (16:45):
Yeah, I mean the way we approach this right,
because we're a startup At theend of the day.
We're not, you know, anestablished business, yet we're
a startup.
We struggle, there's a lot of.
There's actually a parallelbetween, like, a newer nonprofit
and a startup.
They're really the same thing.
(17:06):
Right, you have a great idea ora mission.
You know you have inspiration.
You have a great idea or amission, you know you have
inspiration and have a need forfunding to set your programs in
motion.
So for, for Rosi the, the firstthing we did was we went out.
Uh well, first of all, let metake a step back, right, because
this is kind of a little bit ofa funny story right, when I had
(17:31):
this idea.
I had this idea.
It must have been about 10years ago, but it wasn't this
idea, it was like a related ideaspecific to the POS.
Okay, right, and I was goingthrough a lot of emotional
things at that time.
I was very secretive.
I thought I had the greatestidea in the world and basically
I didn't let.
And I come from a financebackground, so I'm like
(17:52):
everybody has to sign an NDA,and so what happens was there
was creativity was basicallystifled.
Chris Baker (17:58):
Yep.
Dan Fitzgerald (17:59):
Right, progress was not made Right and
roadblocks were up all over.
I probably took that approach.
I don't know for four or fiveyears Years.
Right, probably took thatapproach.
I don't know, for four or fiveyears years, right, yeah, it's a
long time.
And then, finally, I opened itup, I let other people in and we
, we had, we got.
I never forget this oneconversation I had with an old
(18:20):
friend of mine and I made himsign nda too at that point.
But, uh, you know, demonstratedto me like what it really truly
means to collaborate, and so itwas sort of like roll up your
sleeves.
It was at the beginning ofCOVID, and you know, we're on
the phone on a conference call,video conference call, and we're
(18:40):
just spitballing, we're just,you know.
And we took what was, again, itwas more of a transactional
idea that I had had in the POSspace.
Again, it was more of atransactional idea that I had
had in the POS space and it sortof morphed into this living,
breathing.
And so there's your first bitof collaboration.
(19:03):
But in order to take thisthrough the cycle of basically a
startup, you have to do some.
You have to find out what arethe pain points, right, and you
know we some.
You have to find out what arethe pain points.
Right, and you know we reallydidn't know where to start.
We actually were in a couple ofprograms that we had applied
for a startup program toincubators and accelerators and
all that.
The first part of the firstincubator was you just got to
(19:26):
get out there, you got to askquestions, you got to interview
people, collaborate, right, andso what we did was well, we
wanted to focus on the youngergenerations To find out what's
in their mindset, more focusedon, again, pos, because that was
the original idea.
But we had drafted ourquestionnaire to be broader than
(19:46):
that and we found and I havethem here.
I'm just going to highlightsome of the stuff.
We interviewed about 50 people,generally Gen Z and millennial.
They have a general distrust oflarge organizations.
Chris Baker (20:01):
I can see that.
Yep, that makes sense Okay.
Dan Fitzgerald (20:04):
They are frustrated with the lack of
transparency.
That's back to the trust factor.
They think that many cases thatthe money that they give
whether it's 50 cents or adollar that they give to Publix
is going to go into a Publixpocket, not the nonprofit
organization.
Chris Baker (20:21):
Not the ones that they're actually saying would
you like to increase this to thenearest dollar, whatever it
could be, anything?
Dan Fitzgerald (20:27):
right.
Also, we kind of just discussedthis a little bit earlier.
So the preference to give isI'm sorry there's a preference
to give where they can see theimpact, like you were saying
right.
By that, though, I mean they'llbe more inclined to give to a
homeless person because they cansee that they'll maybe, or
(20:50):
their food or something likethat, because they can see the
impact, but they're not reallyso inclined to give to a
homeless organization because,again, it's the organization
side of the equation that isunknown to them.
If I give a dollar and I cansee him buying something to eat,
then that makes me feel good,but if I give to a homeless
(21:12):
shelter, I don't know whathappens to anything.
The huge desire to spread theircontributions over time.
So, instead of giving like 500bucks every Christmas or around
the holidays, they'd rather give10 bucks, 15 bucks, 20 bucks a
month and spread it outGenerally for financial reasons.
(21:34):
But the biggest surprise we gotis this overwhelming desire to
give to community-basednonprofit organizations, the
ones in your backyard, in theirbackyard.
Chris Baker (21:47):
Yeah.
Dan Fitzgerald (21:47):
Because it's local, they can see it.
Chris Baker (21:49):
Yeah, nonprofit organizations, the ones in their
backyard, because it's local,they can see it.
Yeah, we can feel it and youcan see it.
Dan Fitzgerald (21:53):
It's a beautiful thing Then.
So we took all this informationand we digested it and then we
started talking to nonprofitorganizations and generally the
most consistent feedback we gotwas they're finding it very hard
to reach out to the youngergenerations.
So we're like we have all thisknowledge about their sentiments
(22:16):
and all that and how they viewcertain aspects of the giving
space.
And we've got nonprofitstelling us they're eager to
reach out to them.
So we said, well, wait a second, why don't we build a tool, ie
an app, that addresses all ofthese things?
And that was our first realpivot from again that POS
(22:41):
transactional model to somethingmuch bigger than that.
And that's how we came up with.
You know, partially and we havea ton of work to do as well on
new features and stuff like that, but for the most part, that's
what we've got.
They can engage, they cancommunicate with, they can
donate to, they can attendevents All that under one app.
(23:03):
They can get their employerinvolved as well.
Chris Baker (23:08):
Well, when you're a one to two-person nonprofit and
you're grass-rooted and you'rejust getting it off the ground,
it is all on you.
It's all on you, yep, and it'sa passion project.
The goal really is to get it toa business model where you can
start you know, seeing the wayto build and grow and scale, so
(23:32):
that you can add the extra moneyto have staff to help you get
these other pieces done.
I don't know exactly how muchstuff you have to do in Rosi In.
Dan Fitzgerald (23:43):
Rosi, if you're a nonprofit, you get access to a
dashboard, sure, and you manageeverything from the dashboard
whether you're communicatingwith your followers, whether
you're establishing yourcommunities, whether you're
establishing your events.
You have all the information onthe transactions that are done.
(24:06):
Another cool feature of Rosi isthat when you set up your
communities let's say, you setup five communities, donors and
program whatever you canactually people can donate to
that community.
So it's almost like a littlemini campaign.
So you set up that campaign andthen you go out, you get your
donations to that campaign andthen you shut it down and then
(24:27):
move on to the next and it's alot easier.
So all the money goes to thesame nonprofit.
It's just earmarked for aparticular reason.
Chris Baker (24:34):
Yeah, so I do see, like you were kind of mentioning
, right now, the nonprofits arenot utilizing it.
I think that's a challengebecause a lot of the times,
especially for the smallernonprofits, they're their own
marketing team and if that's nottheir expertise, that's already
another piece.
That's going to be a challenge,because I mean, if they could
(24:56):
obviously do it, you know theycould do a little bit on
Facebook or other places, butcreating ads, managing ads or
campaign, it's a lot of work.
Managing ads or campaign, it'sa lot of work.
Hopefully Rosi a little bitmore simple, simplified, so that
hopefully this could besomething that they can do in
like an hour a week.
Oh, for sure, versus, if you'rerunning ads, you need to check
(25:21):
this and that and everything, sothere's more into that.
Dan Fitzgerald (25:27):
But that was one of the administrative tasks
where it just kills them and itjust takes them away from their
mission Because all thedonations we collect for them we
hold on to them.
So we'll collect the money andthen we'll agree with the
nonprofit on when we pay it out.
Is it a time every month orwhen they need the money,
(25:52):
Because we don't want to bepaying them small amounts
because that adds to the cost?
Chris Baker (25:58):
Well, it's also a lot more difficult for billing
purposes, because now I've got$1 here and I've got $10 here
and I've got $100 here.
It might make more sense, canyou give it to me quarterly or
when you know.
When it hits five hundreddollars exactly, let me you know
, release the funds to us, andthen we can use it, and that's
(26:18):
very, uh, very valuable, becausenow they're not having to worry
about all of this comingthrough.
There's not additional, youknow, merchant fees that are
going to be associated right ontop of that.
So that makes sense.
I like that.
Dan Fitzgerald (26:34):
Yeah, we just tried to be super.
You know smart about things.
Make.
Make it's like, it's like anon-profit in a box, right?
I hate to use that term becauseit's like very old school and
everything else.
But okay, you, it really is.
You know, and the nice thingabout it is we're not saying all
your donations need to be runthrough.
You know, Rosi, right, ifyou've got big donors out there
(26:56):
that write you monster checks,yeah, don't come.
Yeah, come online, you know,but when the bigger donations
you, just you know that's more.
You've worked harder for thathuge donation.
You don't want to subject it to.
Chris Baker (27:11):
Where I see the real value can technically be
for Rosi is the everyday personthat, like you said, the
millennials, the Gen Zs.
They have $5 to give a month.
They can't write, they don'twant to write the 500 at
christmas, but you know, if it's5, 10, 15, 20 a month and they
(27:35):
can just easily throw it throughthe app.
This is a community app likeit's, allowing that space for
them to still continue to give,but at the right, at the way
that they need it.
Um, but honestly, if you thinkabout it, if you have a thousand
people in your community, allbackyard that's giving to
(28:00):
organizations, those add up.
$5 adds up.
Now you're looking at 5,000.
Every one of those, that's $5.
Dan Fitzgerald (28:08):
We do a $10 minimum, okay, okay, so you have
a ten dollar minimum, but stilleven even a ten dollar minimum.
Chris Baker (28:14):
you know ten dollars adds up and it adds up
fast, very fast, and if you haveenough users and you have the
non-profits ready to be in theapp and they're ready to receive
, I think there's some value inlooking at that long right now,
because we're going throughdifferent changes, with the
government freezing funds and wedon't know what that means for
(28:38):
future, where you know it's kindof one of those pieces where
we're still trying to navigatethat piece.
The strongest thing that we cando right now is tell your
nonprofit story to the community.
Some of those, the funds thatneed to be raised is going to
come from them, and this is anopportunity.
This is an app that can do thaton the scale that it needs to
(29:00):
be, and I think that that'sexactly something that's very
important.
So I'm glad that you'rebringing this out into the world
.
Dan Fitzgerald (29:08):
Yeah, yeah, me too.
I just simply love this app.
It takes a lot to get it out inthe market, you know.
But on the point ofcollaboration, so there were a
number of different nonprofitsthat we had met that said well,
when someone gives us a donation, we like to send a personal
note.
So we like to do that via email.
(29:29):
So this is a really terriblething.
Not so much, but they weren't abig buyer, they weren't fully
behind it right away.
Right, and so I said it'sinteresting.
So we took that feedback, wegave it to our developers and we
said we want to developsomething where the nonprofit at
their option sends a note tothe donor.
(29:52):
So they said okay.
So we put that functionality inso when they get their donation
they can just click a buttonand they can write whatever they
want, or they can just write alittle emoji.
I love that because that's hownowadays I tell my kids I've had
kids.
Oh yeah, emojis are everythingeverything right and I've told
(30:12):
them.
I'm like, historically, you know, you would write these official
looking letters and put them inthe mail and all that.
Then it went to email, butstill the same thing, just
emailed to people, and slowlybut surely it got down to
basically emoji, emoji, right.
So now nonprofits that want toappeal to and save loads of time
(30:33):
right, because it's a loteasier to just hit an emoji goes
into an app and then they'llremember that.
Right, more than an email, animpersonal email, because emails
are just not very personal,they're just like.
I would agree with that.
Yeah, I mean.
Chris Baker (30:50):
I would say most people at this point are texting
is kind of like where we're at.
I mean, even phone calls areless common, but yeah, okay.
Dan Fitzgerald (31:00):
So we have that functionality, then the
nonprofits can send a nice thankyou, you note, and that goes
into their app and on their sortof messaging module of the app.
Chris Baker (31:11):
it's, it's right there and then it's still look,
it's still like set up andformatted, like it's coming from
them yeah, it'll put thatlittle icon on there and then
it'll be like whatever it'll say, whatever they awesome yeah,
and it happens instantaneously,so it's not like there's no
delay.
Dan Fitzgerald (31:28):
What?
Chris Baker (31:28):
I like what I like from what I'm hearing from you
right now.
A lot is you're listening tothe non-profits, and that is so
valuable because a lot of thetimes, a lot of for-profit
companies come in.
They want to help the, thenonprofit, but they're not
listening to oh, this is what Ineed or this is how it would be
(31:50):
better.
And what I'm hearing is you'retaking that advice, you're
taking that time to go.
Okay, if we can make this onechange with the developers and
give them what they need, it'san extra win-win and everybody
is happy One.
You're going to have thatpotential giver longer because
(32:11):
they got a thank you note fromthe nonprofit and the nonprofit
is actually going oh, I havethis quick ability to leave that
note instantaneous.
Dan Fitzgerald (32:21):
Or you know when a certain time comes, because
one of the things historically,especially for smaller
nonprofits, is you go to theirwebsite and it says join our
community you know, and thatmeans sign up for a mailing list
and we'll reach out to you whenwe see fit, right, which is not
a really great way to be, Imean, you know, kind of at their
(32:43):
whim, right, and they'll reachout to you when they have an
event and I get all that.
But we've taken that and wesaid, well, let's internalize it
right, let's give them theability to set up that community
.
As I mentioned before, one ofthe communities could be
volunteers and all the messagingis in place for a volunteer
versus a program participant.
(33:04):
So it gives them more dynamicsin the, you know, join my
community, you know, so it'sanother way to you know, engage
with your communities.
Chris Baker (33:17):
So for people that are looking at this either as a
giver, as a nonprofit, or as acommunity partner Because a
giving partner Giving partnerwhen can they download the app
and how do they download the app?
Dan Fitzgerald (33:32):
Yeah, so just go on to one of the app stores you
know Apple or Google Play andjust search for Rosi Giving
R-O-S-I no E, no Z, it's R-O-S-IRosi Giving.
No Z is R-O-S-I Rosi Giving.
Download it, or you could justgo onto your browser and you can
(33:53):
sign up for it there as well,perfect.
Yeah.
Chris Baker (33:56):
What's the website so they can get more information
?
Rosi.
Dan Fitzgerald (33:59):
Rosi and if you go on their homepage it kind of
gives you instructions aboutlike if you're a Rosi Gver, if
you're a nonprofit and if you'rea giving partner, and it'll
send you to the rightregistration page.
Chris Baker (34:14):
Perfect, perfect.
So, as we wrap up, there's onefinal question.
I ask everybody that is on theshow what is the legacy you want
to leave for future generations?
Dan Fitzgerald (34:26):
What is the legacy you want to leave for
future generations?
Well, we have so much Like thefeatures, the benefits right now
.
They are what they are rightand, as I said before, a startup
is like a nonprofit, where youneed funding for adding
different features and programsand all that.
So there is just so much therethat we are very confident that
(34:46):
we'll be able to get funding forthe act of giving makes you
feel good.
Like it really does make youfeel good.
I'm in the Rotary and I mean wejust give a lot.
It's what we do and thevolunteer events we have so much
fun.
It's like I'm at a volunteerevent and I'm having fun.
Chris Baker (35:08):
I'm not supposed to be working.
Dan Fitzgerald (35:15):
No, because it really does have a positive
impact on your life.
So that's the legacy we reallywant is cultivating and being
involved in every stage of agiver's life.
Chris Baker (35:26):
I love that.
That's a really good.
It's a really beautiful way.
I really.
I love that.
That's that's a really good,it's a really beautiful way to
stand, so I love that.
Oh, dan, thank you so much forbeing on the show today.
I really appreciate it.
Check out Rosi giving and again, thank you.
Dan Fitzgerald (35:41):
Thank you.
Chris Baker (35:43):
Thank you for joining me on this episode of
Visual Eyes.
We hope that the inspirationand practical insights can help
you foster stronger connectionsand meaningful change.
Don't forget to subscribe,share the episode and leave us a
review.
To learn more about Visuals byMomo and how we support
collaboration and storytelling,visit visualsbymomo.
com.
(36:04):
A huge thank you to everyoneout there listening.
Until next time, remember,collaboration fuels change and
your connections can inspire theworld.
Chris Baker, and each week we'll explore
incredible connections betweennonprofits, businesses and the
community.
This is a space where wehighlight inspiring partnerships
, uncover strategies forcreating meaningful impact and
share stories that show howworking together can make all
the difference.
Whether you're a nonprofitleader, a business owner or
(00:28):
someone just passionate aboutbuilding connections, this
podcast is for you.
Welcome back to Visual Eyes.
Today I have Dan Fitzgeraldfrom Rosi Giving.
I would love to hear a littlebit more about Rosi Giving, so
can you tell me about thatjourney and what inspired you to
(00:49):
make this company?
Dan Fitzgerald (00:50):
Yeah, I can actually remember to the day
where my journey all started,and that was on June 19th 2011,
when I had a terrible thinghappen to me.
I had a stroke, a very seriousstroke, and it really started to
inspire me, actually, becausefamily prepared food, took care
(01:12):
of the children and it reallyjust came together in just a
tremendous amount of support.
(01:32):
I was shopping a grocery storeand you know that typical
shopping and they always ask youon the way out do you want to
donate to charity?
And the charity they wantedthey were, you know, raising
money for.
Really, again, it's not a badcharity, by all means, but I had
no, you know no affiliation.
(01:54):
I had a devastating thinghappen to me.
It was the experience of beingaxed by a big corporation to
give my dollar to another hugecorporation that didn't have any
ties to the local community andthat just didn't sit right with
me.
Okay, right.
So you know, to me it's like ifyou're going to give, you
(02:16):
should have some connection backto the community or back to
some a cause that meanssomething for you If they're not
in your backyard.
If they're not in the backyard,yeah, and most instances where
they're called POS donations,they don't really have any local
nexus, it's usually like StJude's and that sort of thing.
(02:38):
Again, beautiful charities.
Other people have differentneeds and wants.
So that started me down thisrabbit hole.
I don't like to call it that,but it really was like a rabbit
hole because I had no idea whatI was going to uncover.
But I really started, and Istarted with POS and this
concept started to, you know,evolve in my mind.
(03:01):
So, yeah, so that was reallyhow it got.
It got got me inspired to dosomething, something that I can
give back, because, again, mycommunity was very, very, very
instrumental in in my recovery.
And then that whole ill feelingagain you get, you felt almost
bullied when you, when you, youknow, when you, um, you know,
(03:24):
are in that situation where theywant you to give to a charity.
Again, it's only a dollar, Iget that, but still it's like
doesn't really you should leavethere feeling inspired, not like
guilt-ridden, right?
Chris Baker (03:35):
if you're feeling guilt, guilt-ridden, that that
doesn't feel good and it's notgoing to help you or the
community.
So that's fair statement tohave.
So, yeah, you do want to makesure that you feel comfortable.
Um, and I would definitely saythat I, I know when I'm giving
back whether it's my time.
You know an, an item, like aservice, whatever we're giving
(04:00):
back, if it's in my backyard andI can see the impact that
they're having on the community,it's 10 100 times stronger.
Dan Fitzgerald (04:09):
It's so much different, all about yeah, yeah,
Rosi was built mainly as acommunity building platform.
I mean, it's it's, it's aplatform I was going to go into,
maybe in the next question justto kind of explain what Rosi is
, because I'm sure yourlisteners have no idea what.
Chris Baker (04:26):
No, and then actually right now is a perfect
segue.
So, yes, take it on yes.
Dan Fitzgerald (04:30):
Rosi is a.
It's a.
It's an app based platform forthe entire giving community your
donors and your volunteers,your nonprofit organizations and
also other organizations likecompanies or clubs or really
just a collection of people thatwant to do some good, and so
(04:53):
they all get together underneaththis platform and they have
equal weighting in the platformand it all comes together and it
provides a very valuable toolfor generally the smaller
nonprofits, but it's a wonderfultool for donors and volunteers
because they get everythingorganized in one place.
Chris Baker (05:15):
Explain how that works, can you?
Dan Fitzgerald (05:17):
Yeah, yeah, so we have this platform.
It's in the app stores now.
You can download it andeverybody download it.
So what you do is you havethree portals, so we call them
rosy givers.
Rosy givers, again, like peoplelike you and me.
We download the app or weregister online.
(05:39):
Either one is fine, and thenyou get access to all these
features.
One of the features is accessto the details of what we call
featured nonprofits.
They are featured becausethey've actually gone through
the process of registering withus.
We actually perform someverification just to make sure
(06:00):
they're who they say they are,to make sure their ratings that
they submitted and that themission that they've submitted
is consistent to the informationthat's out there.
Chris Baker (06:10):
So they're completely vetted.
Make sure they're a 501c3.
501c3.
Dan Fitzgerald (06:14):
We don't vet them.
We verify the information.
It's a higher level ofthreshold, because it's very
difficult to actually vet anorganization like that.
Okay, so ver that.
Chris Baker (06:25):
Okay, so verifying.
Dan Fitzgerald (06:26):
Right.
And the other one is the givingpartners, so the other
organizations, we call themgiving partners.
So rosy givers, nonprofits andgiving partners.
Those are our three ways thatyou can register.
Yeah, yeah, ways that you canregister, yeah, yeah.
Giving partners then can go outand solicit their members to
(06:48):
become involved in Rosi Givingand then also everything that
they're doing will roll underthat giving partner, so it
really gives them like an equalplace in the platform.
Right Right now we're focusedmore on nonprofits and the
givers, but we also built theportal for the giving partners
(07:09):
as well.
Chris Baker (07:10):
So if I'm hearing correctly and tell me if I'm
wrong but the giving partner ismore kind of like an affiliate.
Dan Fitzgerald (07:16):
Yeah, we call them like strategic partners,
that sort of thing, and they canbe sponsors, they can
participate in a variety ofdifferent ways.
Right, so they can do events.
They can do events and sponsorevents and promote those events
in their community and theirmembers.
(07:38):
All the donations that theymake to nonprofits would go
underneath their giving partner.
And then the giving partner cansay, well, we're going to match
donations or we're going tostructure our giving program or
something like that, just tomake sure that they are treating
their members with a lot ofrespect and honoring what they
(08:02):
think is an important nonprofit,instead of going off on their
own like a company that might gooff on its own and raise money
for a charity or two, butthere's no connection back to
their community.
Chris Baker (08:14):
Well, and actually, when you're talking about a
company, obviously the decisionmakers are the ones that are
choosing the nonprofit and,depending on the size of the
company, in this way, you'regetting all the employees to
choose how they want to workwith them yeah, it's like a
democratization of charitablegiving yeah, so it's a little
bit more.
(08:34):
You get to choose where you feelthe most comfortable, where you
can see the most value goingfor you and your backyard and
your community, versus thestakeholder or the decision
makers in the company, justchoosing the one or two.
Dan Fitzgerald (08:50):
I like that Basically, yeah, and some of the
benefits for the rosy giversagain the donors and volunteers
is one you can donate to severaldifferent charities at once to
make a donation.
You can generally get away withmaking a smaller donation, like
maybe it's like throwing 50cents in a tin, right, that's
(09:13):
really most people don't thinktwice about that, but you can't
really do that on an everydaybasis, right?
So we're like say, well, that'sfine, we got 10 tins in front
of you, throw 50 cents in each,or a dollar in each, 10 bucks,
and then you check out and thenyou're done and we handle the
rest.
And then bucks, and then youcheck out and then you're done
and we handle the rest.
And then also the way westructured it is there's a, we
(09:33):
have an, we have a 501c3 that wework with, so you're actually
making the donation to that501c3.
So now the benefit of that isyou get one receipt and you can
generate that receipt online.
Push a couple buttons and thereceipt comes up, you know.
So you can take that, send itto your accountant or file it
(09:53):
away for your own.
Uh, you know knowledge and uh,so you know, I don't know about
you, but whenever I give youknow to a charity, I lose the
receipts well, yeah, it's uh,depending on where you're
donating or you're giving timeum all of those receipts yeah
donating or you're giving time,um all of those receipts, yeah,
yeah, I remember.
Chris Baker (10:13):
Unless it can be digital, it's a little it can
get lost.
And then, yeah, you need it fortax purposes.
It's not right you?
Dan Fitzgerald (10:17):
just want to.
You know you just want to andfor the information, for the
knowledge that you gave that theinformation.
So, so, yeah, we can do it forany date range or for the entire
time on the platform.
There's a lot of cool thingslike that.
Also, giver has a dashboard, sothere's a lot of different
(10:38):
things on the dashboard.
One overall, how much they'vegiven over their life on the app
, which is cool because mostpeople don't know that, which is
cool because most people don'tknow that.
You know.
And so if you want to evaluateyour impact, you just look at oh
, I gave a thousand dollars overthe last two years.
That's awesome, right?
Um, also, you can set goalsannual goals and weekly or
(11:01):
monthly goals and if you hitthose goals, you get a badge.
And there's also a lot of othermetrics like engagement metrics
, like how many non-profits yousupported, how many friends you
can make rosy friends.
It's kind of really, you know,it encompasses a lot of
different things so it soundskind of like a.
Chris Baker (11:20):
I mean, besides the actual giving piece of it, it's
also like a community app aswell, because if you're actually
able to connect with otherpeople in the app, you get to
understand and find people thathave the same values of like
giving absolutely and I thinkthat's, that's in the connection
, uh, gift in itself and thesecan also a non-profit can set up
(11:42):
multiple.
Dan Fitzgerald (11:45):
We call them communities.
Community is throughout ouroffering.
We're all about the community.
For example, you're a mom or adad or a grandparent or an uncle
or whatever.
You want to support your nieces, nephews, kids, whatever, and
they have so much going on.
They have soccer, dance,baseball schools, different
schools because they'redifferent ages.
(12:06):
Because they're different ages,we thought, wow, wouldn't it be
an awesome experience to go inthe app and just pick all your
10 different nonprofits that youwant to support PTAs, what have
you, some health causes foryour aging parent and just go on
and once a month, 100 bucks,whatever, and you can allocate
(12:28):
different amounts to differentnonprofits.
So that was really empoweringfor us because, like, that is
just can't really get any easierthan that, because most people
they'll find is they'll say,yeah, I got to make that
donation and then, like theydon't do it.
Chris Baker (12:45):
A lot of the times it's.
It's not that they don't wantto.
I feel like either a they'rewaiting for the big event or we
get sidetracked.
Dan Fitzgerald (12:55):
Yeah, absolutely .
Chris Baker (12:56):
I mean right now.
We are living in a very fastpaced world and if you can do it
in, you know, a minute or two,it's easy to get done, it's easy
to get done If you wait 10minutes to a half an hour.
You're probably thinking aboutsomething else and you've
already moved on, so giving thisan opportunity to go.
(13:16):
Hey, you know what?
I just walked by that sign.
It reminded me of so-and-soorganization that I really want
to give to, and they aren't.
You already have it in your appand you can give $10 at that
minute.
That does make sense and it ishelpful.
That's awesome.
Dan Fitzgerald (13:34):
So back to the.
So in ROSA we have this conceptof a ROSA community.
So all nonprofits, they can setup one, two, five, whatever
they, however they're organized,and so they can set up the
community.
If it's a volunteer-heavynonprofit, they can set up a
volunteer community that theycan now engage with.
You could say, all right, well,the event's in three days,
(13:57):
here's the logistics, here's theinformation, here's what to
wear, here's you know whatever.
You can actually send that outto your community and as long as
the people have joined thatcommunity, they'll get the like
a, it's like a news feed andthey could send posts, they
could send pictures and smallshort videos, like a little
(14:17):
social media light.
It's not heavy, it's not meantto be like get this person
hooked, because we found thatmost, or if not all, social
media these days has gotten socongested.
It's got reels, it's got groups, it's got posts, it's got
political nonsense, it's goteverything.
And if you're a non-profit,you're getting mixed up in all
(14:41):
of this and chances are as muchas you you're loved.
They're just people are justgoing to go right by you.
You, you know, right by you inmany cases.
Chris Baker (14:53):
You brought up an excellent point, and that's
something that we're strugglingright now to you know make sure
that nonprofits are actuallyvisible, and the problem that
we've noticed is there's notenough nonprofits using video
right now, we've noticed isthere's not enough nonprofits
using video right now, and so tostand out in that entire ocean
(15:14):
of videos that are constantlyset out there, you have to start
competing at a higher level,and that's not so easy in a
nonprofit's budget.
It's something that's extremelydifficult.
I do like this idea of having aspace, a community space, that
is geared more towards what arethe nonprofits doing?
(15:34):
You can showcase your story,yeah.
Dan Fitzgerald (15:37):
I mean, you have to figure this out.
Now you have a place, an appright where you can pretty much
do everything related to anonprofit.
You can donate, you can followup with them, you can actually
find out what events they have.
There's a whole event module.
So if you're having an event,you put that in your community
and you can get that out intoyour community, and now you're
(15:57):
sharing your event and it's allshareable.
So I can just click a buttonand it gets shared to my
Facebook or whatever.
It's shared via a URL asopposed to a browser, not yet to
the app itself, but eventuallywe'll get there.
So yeah, everything is veryshareable, very, very shareable.
(16:19):
You can share your events, youcan share your profiles to a
nonprofit, you can share yourcommunities.
There's a ton of shareableinformation.
Chris Baker (16:28):
Cool, that's awesome.
Yeah, so one of our majorquestions that we have on the
show and specifically we want totalk about different
collaborations what are one ofyour stories that you have on
collaboration effort?
That was a success from whatyou've done.
Dan Fitzgerald (16:45):
Yeah, I mean the way we approach this right,
because we're a startup At theend of the day.
We're not, you know, anestablished business, yet we're
a startup.
We struggle, there's a lot of.
There's actually a parallelbetween, like, a newer nonprofit
and a startup.
They're really the same thing.
(17:06):
Right, you have a great idea ora mission.
You know you have inspiration.
You have a great idea or amission, you know you have
inspiration and have a need forfunding to set your programs in
motion.
So for, for Rosi the, the firstthing we did was we went out.
Uh well, first of all, let metake a step back, right, because
this is kind of a little bit ofa funny story right, when I had
(17:31):
this idea.
I had this idea.
It must have been about 10years ago, but it wasn't this
idea, it was like a related ideaspecific to the POS.
Okay, right, and I was goingthrough a lot of emotional
things at that time.
I was very secretive.
I thought I had the greatestidea in the world and basically
I didn't let.
And I come from a financebackground, so I'm like
(17:52):
everybody has to sign an NDA,and so what happens was there
was creativity was basicallystifled.
Chris Baker (17:58):
Yep.
Dan Fitzgerald (17:59):
Right, progress was not made Right and
roadblocks were up all over.
I probably took that approach.
I don't know for four or fiveyears Years.
Right, probably took thatapproach.
I don't know, for four or fiveyears years, right, yeah, it's a
long time.
And then, finally, I opened itup, I let other people in and we
, we had, we got.
I never forget this oneconversation I had with an old
(18:20):
friend of mine and I made himsign nda too at that point.
But, uh, you know, demonstratedto me like what it really truly
means to collaborate, and so itwas sort of like roll up your
sleeves.
It was at the beginning ofCOVID, and you know, we're on
the phone on a conference call,video conference call, and we're
(18:40):
just spitballing, we're just,you know.
And we took what was, again, itwas more of a transactional
idea that I had had in the POSspace.
Again, it was more of atransactional idea that I had
had in the POS space and it sortof morphed into this living,
breathing.
And so there's your first bitof collaboration.
(19:03):
But in order to take thisthrough the cycle of basically a
startup, you have to do some.
You have to find out what arethe pain points, right, and you
know we some.
You have to find out what arethe pain points.
Right, and you know we reallydidn't know where to start.
We actually were in a couple ofprograms that we had applied
for a startup program toincubators and accelerators and
all that.
The first part of the firstincubator was you just got to
(19:26):
get out there, you got to askquestions, you got to interview
people, collaborate, right, andso what we did was well, we
wanted to focus on the youngergenerations To find out what's
in their mindset, more focusedon, again, pos, because that was
the original idea.
But we had drafted ourquestionnaire to be broader than
(19:46):
that and we found and I havethem here.
I'm just going to highlightsome of the stuff.
We interviewed about 50 people,generally Gen Z and millennial.
They have a general distrust oflarge organizations.
Chris Baker (20:01):
I can see that.
Yep, that makes sense Okay.
Dan Fitzgerald (20:04):
They are frustrated with the lack of
transparency.
That's back to the trust factor.
They think that many cases thatthe money that they give
whether it's 50 cents or adollar that they give to Publix
is going to go into a Publixpocket, not the nonprofit
organization.
Chris Baker (20:21):
Not the ones that they're actually saying would
you like to increase this to thenearest dollar, whatever it
could be, anything?
Dan Fitzgerald (20:27):
right.
Also, we kind of just discussedthis a little bit earlier.
So the preference to give isI'm sorry there's a preference
to give where they can see theimpact, like you were saying
right.
By that, though, I mean they'llbe more inclined to give to a
homeless person because they cansee that they'll maybe, or
(20:50):
their food or something likethat, because they can see the
impact, but they're not reallyso inclined to give to a
homeless organization because,again, it's the organization
side of the equation that isunknown to them.
If I give a dollar and I cansee him buying something to eat,
then that makes me feel good,but if I give to a homeless
(21:12):
shelter, I don't know whathappens to anything.
The huge desire to spread theircontributions over time.
So, instead of giving like 500bucks every Christmas or around
the holidays, they'd rather give10 bucks, 15 bucks, 20 bucks a
month and spread it outGenerally for financial reasons.
(21:34):
But the biggest surprise we gotis this overwhelming desire to
give to community-basednonprofit organizations, the
ones in your backyard, in theirbackyard.
Chris Baker (21:47):
Yeah.
Dan Fitzgerald (21:47):
Because it's local, they can see it.
Chris Baker (21:49):
Yeah, nonprofit organizations, the ones in their
backyard, because it's local,they can see it.
Yeah, we can feel it and youcan see it.
Dan Fitzgerald (21:53):
It's a beautiful thing Then.
So we took all this informationand we digested it and then we
started talking to nonprofitorganizations and generally the
most consistent feedback we gotwas they're finding it very hard
to reach out to the youngergenerations.
So we're like we have all thisknowledge about their sentiments
(22:16):
and all that and how they viewcertain aspects of the giving
space.
And we've got nonprofitstelling us they're eager to
reach out to them.
So we said, well, wait a second, why don't we build a tool, ie
an app, that addresses all ofthese things?
And that was our first realpivot from again that POS
(22:41):
transactional model to somethingmuch bigger than that.
And that's how we came up with.
You know, partially and we havea ton of work to do as well on
new features and stuff like that, but for the most part, that's
what we've got.
They can engage, they cancommunicate with, they can
donate to, they can attendevents All that under one app.
(23:03):
They can get their employerinvolved as well.
Chris Baker (23:08):
Well, when you're a one to two-person nonprofit and
you're grass-rooted and you'rejust getting it off the ground,
it is all on you.
It's all on you, yep, and it'sa passion project.
The goal really is to get it toa business model where you can
start you know, seeing the wayto build and grow and scale, so
(23:32):
that you can add the extra moneyto have staff to help you get
these other pieces done.
I don't know exactly how muchstuff you have to do in Rosi In.
Dan Fitzgerald (23:43):
Rosi, if you're a nonprofit, you get access to a
dashboard, sure, and you manageeverything from the dashboard
whether you're communicatingwith your followers, whether
you're establishing yourcommunities, whether you're
establishing your events.
You have all the information onthe transactions that are done.
(24:06):
Another cool feature of Rosi isthat when you set up your
communities let's say, you setup five communities, donors and
program whatever you canactually people can donate to
that community.
So it's almost like a littlemini campaign.
So you set up that campaign andthen you go out, you get your
donations to that campaign andthen you shut it down and then
(24:27):
move on to the next and it's alot easier.
So all the money goes to thesame nonprofit.
It's just earmarked for aparticular reason.
Chris Baker (24:34):
Yeah, so I do see, like you were kind of mentioning
, right now, the nonprofits arenot utilizing it.
I think that's a challengebecause a lot of the times,
especially for the smallernonprofits, they're their own
marketing team and if that's nottheir expertise, that's already
another piece.
That's going to be a challenge,because I mean, if they could
(24:56):
obviously do it, you know theycould do a little bit on
Facebook or other places, butcreating ads, managing ads or
campaign, it's a lot of work.
Managing ads or campaign, it'sa lot of work.
Hopefully Rosi a little bitmore simple, simplified, so that
hopefully this could besomething that they can do in
like an hour a week.
Oh, for sure, versus, if you'rerunning ads, you need to check
(25:21):
this and that and everything, sothere's more into that.
Dan Fitzgerald (25:27):
But that was one of the administrative tasks
where it just kills them and itjust takes them away from their
mission Because all thedonations we collect for them we
hold on to them.
So we'll collect the money andthen we'll agree with the
nonprofit on when we pay it out.
Is it a time every month orwhen they need the money,
(25:52):
Because we don't want to bepaying them small amounts
because that adds to the cost?
Chris Baker (25:58):
Well, it's also a lot more difficult for billing
purposes, because now I've got$1 here and I've got $10 here
and I've got $100 here.
It might make more sense, canyou give it to me quarterly or
when you know.
When it hits five hundreddollars exactly, let me you know
, release the funds to us, andthen we can use it, and that's
(26:18):
very, uh, very valuable, becausenow they're not having to worry
about all of this comingthrough.
There's not additional, youknow, merchant fees that are
going to be associated right ontop of that.
So that makes sense.
I like that.
Dan Fitzgerald (26:34):
Yeah, we just tried to be super.
You know smart about things.
Make.
Make it's like, it's like anon-profit in a box, right?
I hate to use that term becauseit's like very old school and
everything else.
But okay, you, it really is.
You know, and the nice thingabout it is we're not saying all
your donations need to be runthrough.
You know, Rosi, right, ifyou've got big donors out there
(26:56):
that write you monster checks,yeah, don't come.
Yeah, come online, you know,but when the bigger donations
you, just you know that's more.
You've worked harder for thathuge donation.
You don't want to subject it to.
Chris Baker (27:11):
Where I see the real value can technically be
for Rosi is the everyday personthat, like you said, the
millennials, the Gen Zs.
They have $5 to give a month.
They can't write, they don'twant to write the 500 at
christmas, but you know, if it's5, 10, 15, 20 a month and they
(27:35):
can just easily throw it throughthe app.
This is a community app likeit's, allowing that space for
them to still continue to give,but at the right, at the way
that they need it.
Um, but honestly, if you thinkabout it, if you have a thousand
people in your community, allbackyard that's giving to
(28:00):
organizations, those add up.
$5 adds up.
Now you're looking at 5,000.
Every one of those, that's $5.
Dan Fitzgerald (28:08):
We do a $10 minimum, okay, okay, so you have
a ten dollar minimum, but stilleven even a ten dollar minimum.
Chris Baker (28:14):
you know ten dollars adds up and it adds up
fast, very fast, and if you haveenough users and you have the
non-profits ready to be in theapp and they're ready to receive
, I think there's some value inlooking at that long right now,
because we're going throughdifferent changes, with the
government freezing funds and wedon't know what that means for
(28:38):
future, where you know it's kindof one of those pieces where
we're still trying to navigatethat piece.
The strongest thing that we cando right now is tell your
nonprofit story to the community.
Some of those, the funds thatneed to be raised is going to
come from them, and this is anopportunity.
This is an app that can do thaton the scale that it needs to
(29:00):
be, and I think that that'sexactly something that's very
important.
So I'm glad that you'rebringing this out into the world
.
Dan Fitzgerald (29:08):
Yeah, yeah, me too.
I just simply love this app.
It takes a lot to get it out inthe market, you know.
But on the point ofcollaboration, so there were a
number of different nonprofitsthat we had met that said well,
when someone gives us a donation, we like to send a personal
note.
So we like to do that via email.
(29:29):
So this is a really terriblething.
Not so much, but they weren't abig buyer, they weren't fully
behind it right away.
Right, and so I said it'sinteresting.
So we took that feedback, wegave it to our developers and we
said we want to developsomething where the nonprofit at
their option sends a note tothe donor.
(29:52):
So they said okay.
So we put that functionality inso when they get their donation
they can just click a buttonand they can write whatever they
want, or they can just write alittle emoji.
I love that because that's hownowadays I tell my kids I've had
kids.
Oh yeah, emojis are everythingeverything right and I've told
(30:12):
them.
I'm like, historically, you know, you would write these official
looking letters and put them inthe mail and all that.
Then it went to email, butstill the same thing, just
emailed to people, and slowlybut surely it got down to
basically emoji, emoji, right.
So now nonprofits that want toappeal to and save loads of time
(30:33):
right, because it's a loteasier to just hit an emoji goes
into an app and then they'llremember that.
Right, more than an email, animpersonal email, because emails
are just not very personal,they're just like.
I would agree with that.
Yeah, I mean.
Chris Baker (30:50):
I would say most people at this point are texting
is kind of like where we're at.
I mean, even phone calls areless common, but yeah, okay.
Dan Fitzgerald (31:00):
So we have that functionality, then the
nonprofits can send a nice thankyou, you note, and that goes
into their app and on their sortof messaging module of the app.
Chris Baker (31:11):
it's, it's right there and then it's still look,
it's still like set up andformatted, like it's coming from
them yeah, it'll put thatlittle icon on there and then
it'll be like whatever it'll say, whatever they awesome yeah,
and it happens instantaneously,so it's not like there's no
delay.
Dan Fitzgerald (31:28):
What?
Chris Baker (31:28):
I like what I like from what I'm hearing from you
right now.
A lot is you're listening tothe non-profits, and that is so
valuable because a lot of thetimes, a lot of for-profit
companies come in.
They want to help the, thenonprofit, but they're not
listening to oh, this is what Ineed or this is how it would be
(31:50):
better.
And what I'm hearing is you'retaking that advice, you're
taking that time to go.
Okay, if we can make this onechange with the developers and
give them what they need, it'san extra win-win and everybody
is happy One.
You're going to have thatpotential giver longer because
(32:11):
they got a thank you note fromthe nonprofit and the nonprofit
is actually going oh, I havethis quick ability to leave that
note instantaneous.
Dan Fitzgerald (32:21):
Or you know when a certain time comes, because
one of the things historically,especially for smaller
nonprofits, is you go to theirwebsite and it says join our
community you know, and thatmeans sign up for a mailing list
and we'll reach out to you whenwe see fit, right, which is not
a really great way to be, Imean, you know, kind of at their
(32:43):
whim, right, and they'll reachout to you when they have an
event and I get all that.
But we've taken that and wesaid, well, let's internalize it
right, let's give them theability to set up that community
.
As I mentioned before, one ofthe communities could be
volunteers and all the messagingis in place for a volunteer
versus a program participant.
(33:04):
So it gives them more dynamicsin the, you know, join my
community, you know, so it'sanother way to you know, engage
with your communities.
Chris Baker (33:17):
So for people that are looking at this either as a
giver, as a nonprofit, or as acommunity partner Because a
giving partner Giving partnerwhen can they download the app
and how do they download the app?
Dan Fitzgerald (33:32):
Yeah, so just go on to one of the app stores you
know Apple or Google Play andjust search for Rosi Giving
R-O-S-I no E, no Z, it's R-O-S-IRosi Giving.
No Z is R-O-S-I Rosi Giving.
Download it, or you could justgo onto your browser and you can
(33:53):
sign up for it there as well,perfect.
Yeah.
Chris Baker (33:56):
What's the website so they can get more information
?
Rosi.
Dan Fitzgerald (33:59):
Rosi and if you go on their homepage it kind of
gives you instructions aboutlike if you're a Rosi Gver, if
you're a nonprofit and if you'rea giving partner, and it'll
send you to the rightregistration page.
Chris Baker (34:14):
Perfect, perfect.
So, as we wrap up, there's onefinal question.
I ask everybody that is on theshow what is the legacy you want
to leave for future generations?
Dan Fitzgerald (34:26):
What is the legacy you want to leave for
future generations?
Well, we have so much Like thefeatures, the benefits right now
.
They are what they are rightand, as I said before, a startup
is like a nonprofit, where youneed funding for adding
different features and programsand all that.
So there is just so much therethat we are very confident that
(34:46):
we'll be able to get funding forthe act of giving makes you
feel good.
Like it really does make youfeel good.
I'm in the Rotary and I mean wejust give a lot.
It's what we do and thevolunteer events we have so much
fun.
It's like I'm at a volunteerevent and I'm having fun.
Chris Baker (35:08):
I'm not supposed to be working.
Dan Fitzgerald (35:15):
No, because it really does have a positive
impact on your life.
So that's the legacy we reallywant is cultivating and being
involved in every stage of agiver's life.
Chris Baker (35:26):
I love that.
That's a really good.
It's a really beautiful way.
I really.
I love that.
That's that's a really good,it's a really beautiful way to
stand, so I love that.
Oh, dan, thank you so much forbeing on the show today.
I really appreciate it.
Check out Rosi giving and again, thank you.
Dan Fitzgerald (35:41):
Thank you.
Chris Baker (35:43):
Thank you for joining me on this episode of
Visual Eyes.
We hope that the inspirationand practical insights can help
you foster stronger connectionsand meaningful change.
Don't forget to subscribe,share the episode and leave us a
review.
To learn more about Visuals byMomo and how we support
collaboration and storytelling,visit visualsbymomo.
com.
(36:04):
A huge thank you to everyoneout there listening.
Until next time, remember,collaboration fuels change and
your connections can inspire theworld.
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