Giving circle crash course: What it is & how to start your own

More than ever, people are waking up to the realization that you don’t have to be of a certain demographic, background, income, or culture to be a philanthropist. As collective giving continues to explode in popularity, more representative voices are engaging in philanthropy through giving circles.

Giving circles are a growing movement that is shifting the landscape of philanthropy, enabling everyday givers to amplify their community impact by joining with others. According to the Collective Giving Research Group, more than 150,000 people in the U.S. have engaged in giving circles over the past two decades, contributing more than $1.3 billion dollars to good causes!

We’ve got the answers to your most burning questions about giving circles, including:

• What is a giving circle?
• How do giving circles work? 
• What is the history of giving circles?
• What do giving circles look like today?
• Why start a giving circle?
• Top ways to get involved?
• How to start a giving circle?
• And more! 

What is a giving circle, exactly? 🤨

Put simply, a giving circle is a group of individuals who come together to support the causes they care about. 

A collaborative, participatory approach to philanthropy, giving circles bring together people with common interests, concerns, or backgrounds to support causes that matter to them.

People join giving circles with like-minded people in their community to maximize group donations to nonprofits and other community-based groups. By pooling together their knowledge, money, and other resources, giving circle members can make a much greater impact on the issues they care about than they ever could as individuals. 

Far beyond the scope of mainstream philanthropy, giving circles are multi-dimensional vehicles that create community, bridge divides, promote viewpoint diversity, and create opportunities for civic engagement. They provide a setting in which anyone, regardless of who they are or how much they have to give, can hone the skills to effectively participate in a robust and diverse democracy. 

How do giving circles work? 🤝

Giving circles come in all shapes and sizes with countless different ways of operating. Members come together and intentionally develop the group’s culture, requirements, and preferences. With complete flexibility, these parameters include how often they meet and how many organizations they’ll give to.  

Giving circles can be formed by friends, family, community members or coworkers making pooled donations of any amount. More formal giving circles tend to have more structure, usually, with minimum donation requirements, a vetting process, and voting systems. 

Others are much more informal. Members don’t have a required donation amount, and, instead of grants being issued, individual checks are collected and sent to an organization as a lump sum.

But the value of giving circles often extends well beyond its cash donations. Members frequently organize group volunteer activities, events, and actions to raise awareness about various issues within their community in partnership with the organizations they support. 

Giving circles promote more thoughtful, intentional, informed, and ethical giving and are infinitely customizable and adaptable to givers’ diverse philanthropic interests, geographies, and giving levels. 

Powered by the people who contribute what they can, giving circles have the potential to open the doors of philanthropy to millions of people—indeed, they already have.

The rich history of giving circles 🌍

While the term “giving circle” is relatively new, the practice of collective giving has been around for centuries, taking on different forms throughout the course of human history. 

🤝 Susu, for example, is a longstanding system of group economics popular throughout West Africa and the Caribbean, in which community members contribute and distribute funds (known as a "hand") to the wider collective. 

💸 Here in the United States, the communal giving models of mutual aid societies, credit unions, and even self-help groups have benefited a wide range of individuals since the 1700s. 

🚀 By the 1990s, the giving circle movement was on the rise. According to Philanthropy Together, what was only about 50 small collective giving groups in 1995 grew to more than 2,000 giving circles by 2020, tripling between 2007 and 2016 alone. 

To date, giving circles have rallied hundreds of thousands of people to contribute billions of dollars to good causes—and they’re just getting started. 

What giving circles look like today ✊

Today, the membership of giving circles is most often rooted in individual donors' identities, interests, and geographical location. 

The Collective Giving Research Group found that 84% of giving circles offer grants directly to causes in their local community, whereas only a small number contribute to international or even state-wide organizations. 

Giving circles are often formed around race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religious or cultural background—particularly for groups that have been historically marginalized by mainstream philanthropy, including Jewish, Black, Latino, Asian-American and Pacific Islander, and LGBTQ+ people. Women make up the majority of giving circles, with 70% of groups reporting that females make up more than half of their membership. 

There are 2.5K+ giving circles around the world supporting a wide range of causes, including:

♻️ 1% For the Planet Individual Member Giving Circle: A giving circle with members committed to helping communities disproportionately affected by climate change.

🎨 Vital Little Plans: An artist collective and giving circle which supports arts-driven and community-led creative, equitable, and vital plans for neighborhoods and communities.

🌈 LGBTQ+ Latinx Giving Circle: A giving circle based in the San Francisco Bay Area and comprised of LGBTQ+ identifying members who pool their resources to support local nonprofits working with the LGBTQ+ Latinx community.

This tiny sample demonstrates the extraordinary diversity of the collective giving field and highlights giving circles’ unique abilities to directly impact the communities around them. 

Beyond “doing good” by supporting important issues or underfunded causes, giving circles promote philanthropic synergy, collective wisdom, networking opportunities, social connections with like-minded individuals, and informed decision-making, putting their members in touch, on a deeper level, of what’s going on in their community. 

Why start a giving circle?

More and more changemakers are embracing the giving circle movement because it reflects on the powerful idea that we can make a much deeper impact together than we can alone. Rather than a top-down approach, giving circles center community, collective agency, local impact, diverse viewpoints, and bridging differences.

For those who need a refresher, a giving circle is a group with shared values that gathers, builds community, and creates belonging. They discuss a common vision and engage in discourse and learning.

In a giving circle, everyone has a voice and decides together where to give their money, time, and talent—and give with trust at the root. In giving circles, the giving doesn’t end with a transaction. Circle members act in abundance and engage beyond their gift for amplified impact.

As Philanthropy Together CEO Sara Lomelin explains in her 2022 TED Talk, “Your Invitation to Disrupt Philanthropy,”

It’s not about the money or the amount of money given; it’s about the beloved communities that are created when a group comes together and builds relationships with each other and with the nonprofits they give to.

Giving circles uplift local communities to make change on their own terms, and their growth is sparking a sea change across philanthropy. When more diverse people become philanthropists, more diverse solutions and nonprofit leaders get funded.

Sounds amazing! How can I get involved? 🙌

You don't need a large group of people or plenty of capital to join in this growing movement to diversify and democratize philanthropy. All you need is a little structure and a desire to make an impact in your community.

 Here are the first few steps we'd recommend for gettings started:

1. Start your own giving circle

Follow this step-by-by step guide below to launch your own giving circle. Looking for additional support? Meet fellow changemakers and gain valuable tips and tools by joining Launchpad For You, a virtual training program for budding giving circle leaders.

2. Join an existing giving circle

To find a giving circle in your area or a point of contact, check out the first-ever global giving circle directory.

3. Spread the word

The collective giving movement is growing exponentially, but we need your help to tell others about this incredible form of philanthropy. 

Whether you’re a nonprofit looking to partner with giving circles in your community, or a giving circle looking to grow your membership, consider these options for reaching out to others who want to make a difference:

• Throw a BAF (bring-a-friend) night, where each member brings one guest 
• Create a peer-to-peer campaign for your next fundraising drive
• Host a webinar where you explain what your organization does and your community impact to-date

How to start your own giving circle in 4 simple steps

Ready to spark change in your community? Follow these steps to launch a thriving giving circle.

Step 1: Find your founding team 👋

A giving circle’s founding team is a group of 2–5 passionate individuals who come together to build a foundation together. This process includes co-creating your circle’s vision, mission, and values.

Creating community is the first (and most important!) step to starting a giving circle. Together, you can each hold one another accountable and turn ideas into action.

To get started, brainstorm a list of people you think would be interested in creating change. These can be friends, neighbors, colleagues, family members—anyone you believe would be a good fit.

Reach out and share your idea for starting a giving circle and invite them to collaborate with you. Engage in deep conversations to further explore their interest. Once you have even just one person excited, you can then use the power of their networks. Ask committed members to reach out to people in their lives who may be interested in being part of the founding team.

Step 2: Dig into your “why” and shared values 💛

The heart of a giving circle experience is understanding the values that motivate you and others to give. There are endless reasons why people engage in collective giving or work with others to create community change. Once you’ve gathered your founding team, dig into your “why” by discussing your shared values and what issues matter most to you.

Your giving circle’s values will act as a guide for all elements of its philanthropic journey. They will be the foundation of your group's culture, shaping how decisions are made, the circle's membership, what the circle does (and does not) stand for, which causes and organizations the group supports, and how members interact with grantees. By establishing your shared values, your team can create a shared vision for your giving circle.

Here’s a simple process you can follow to start the conversation about shared values:

1. Ask each member of the group to share two values that describe why and/or how they give.

2. Look at each person’s responses. Are some values coming up more often than others? Can clusters of similar values come together under one value or sentiment? The top 3-5 values move forward.

3. Make sure to give everyone the opportunity to have the floor and ask questions if necessary.

4. Once you’ve decided on your values, ask the group for ideas regarding how your giving circle will live these values.

Step 3: Decide on your circle vision and design 🔮

Every giving circle is designed uniquely. How often they meet, how much and how often they give, and how many members they have is all decided collaboratively as the founding team builds the foundation.

There is no right or wrong answer. It just has to be true to you.

When first getting started, you’ll want to determine some parameters based on your circle’s values. Some examples of parameters include:

• 👯 Size: How many members feels like the right fit for your circle?
• 🔎 Focus: What issue area (e.g., education or hunger) or specific community (e.g., LGBTQ+ or Black women) will your circle’s pooled funds support?
• 💸 Financial contributions: What will members’ minimum contribution be? How often will you collect donations? Will it be monthly, quarterly, or annually?
• 🔄 Giving cycle: How often will you make a gift?

One way to answer these questions is to put your vision at the forefront and work backward. What parameters do you need to put in place in order to achieve your shared vision?

Step 4: Launch your giving circle 🚀

Now that you have a vision for your giving circle, it’s time to launch more widely! Invite others to join your circle and grow your membership to begin the process of giving and making change collectively.

Free giving circle template and additional resources

Download this 10-page guide from Philanthropy Together to help you launch a successful giving circle. The prompts in this template will help you dive deeper into each of the steps outlined above. For even more inspiration, check out the Global Giving Circle Directory, a searchable and filterable database with giving circles from all over the world.

And remember Givebutter is here with hundreds of free fundraising and donor engagement tools as you plan your first cycles of giving. We can’t wait to see what kind of change your giving circle churns out this year! 🙌

Giving circles are changing philanthropy—you in? 😎

When it comes to collective giving, "the more the merrier," has never been more true. There is a home for everyone in this diverse, collaborative, and community-oriented space. 

Get out there and find the right community of changemakers for you!