BBB Wise Giving Alliance (Give.org) has launched AskGive, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool intended to provide donors with trusted information about charities and giving in real-time.
The tool ties together thousands of Give.org documents, including giving tips, detailed charity reports, organizations’ BBB accreditation status, videos and advisories. Users can ask specific questions about charities, explore giving strategies, and receive guidance tailored to their philanthropic interests and concerns, said Bennett Weiner, president & CEO at BBB Wise Giving Alliance.
AskGive was developed through a collaboration between the BBB Wise Giving Alliance and Handshake. It has been beta tested for a year and is intended to be more intuitive than a routine web search for charity data, said Weiner. “It is vetted information, not an outside web search. It’s information from our website, report information” and information gleaned from back and forth with charities, Weiner explained.
The organization conducts charity evaluations based on 20 comprehensive standards that examine governance, results reporting, finances, fundraising practices, appeal accuracy, and other critical factors.
The concept is to give donors correct information and let them decide, rather than have AI suggest the best answer. “With AI, there is so much taking decision off people’s hands, abdicating responsibility,” said Ezra Vazquez-D’Amico, Give.org’s director of digital partnership and strategy. “The answers will be in a conversational style,” said Vazquez-D’Amico.
Developers were mindful of the tone and language in the answers, making them understandable for average donors, rather than sector jargon, to make the donor comfortable with platform,” said Weiner. The site will allow donors to ask for information regarding a specific charity by name and also for a type of charity, say, cancer for example.
“Our vision for AskGive is simple: empower individuals to give confidently and help them connect with trusted charities,” said Weiner. “We built this technology not just to encourage wise giving, but to ensure trust and transparency remain central to philanthropy in our increasingly digital world.” While the Give.org data is available now, the plan is to have data from all BBB offices from around the country in the system by the end of the year.
Donors can begin using AskGive by visiting Give.org/AskGive/ or any page on Give.org.
