Givebutter

EQUIPPING CHANGEMAKERS WITH BUTTER TOOLS FOR SUCCESS💰

We live in a more generous society than ever before. The past few years have seen unprecedented levels of giving across the US, with $471B donated in 2020 alone, making it the most charitable year on record. Despite this philanthropic surge and the continued momentum building for social change, inequality persists, burnout is rampant, and most nonprofits close their doors within the first 3-5 years, largely due to a lack of sustainable funding. It’s these organizations that Givebutter is designed to help succeed. In today’s progressive but uncertain climate, having low-cost, effective fundraising tools to empower digitally-native changemakers has never been more important. Our platform is free, user-friendly, and highly responsive to changes and trends in the nonprofit landscape.

CHURNING OUT CHANGE WITH OUR VALUES🙌

We are an increasingly diverse and distributed team, unified by a shared mission, vision, and unique set of values that guide every decision we make, from the people we hire and the things we build to the ways we evaluate, celebrate, and strive to improve our work.

1. Be Awesome

Excellence🤩 When people think of our team, our product, and our mission – one simple word should always come to mind: “Awesome.”

In practice, being awesome means:

• We go above and beyond to surprise and delight our customers.
• We raise the bar by setting ambitious goals and striving to exceed them.
• We hold ourselves to a high standard. High standards are only as good as the accountability systems that uphold them. Accountability starts with you.
• We consistently push ourselves to level up and expect the same from others. Growth should be our default state. If we aren’t growing, we’re stagnating (or worse, declining).
• We foster a culture of high performance and surround ourselves with high performers both in and out of the workplace.

2. Be Butter

Culture🧈 Being butter is about being your best, most authentic self. Being yourself is the best way to form meaningful relationships, which are integral to happiness in life and work.

In practice, being butter means:

• We view diversity as an asset. Having diverse voices at the table drives innovation, strengthens decision-making, improves collaboration, and fosters empathy for our users.
• We lead with kindness and empathy.
• We build trust with transparency & reliability.
• We ask for feedback and assume positive intent.
• We like to have fun! And bring the puns. Seriously, we’re always bready.

3. Be Changemakers

Impact💛 Changemakers have a bias towards action and proactively work to improve the environment around them.

In practice, being changemakers means:

• We seek out and embrace change. It’s what we do!
• We make our impact felt – globally, locally, personally, and professionally.
• We move fast and believe in progress over perfection. Done is better than perfect.
• We leverage collective genius and let the best ideas win. Work is a multi-player game. 1+1=3 🚀

BREADER TOGETHER: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION 💪🏾🌈👨🏻‍🦽🤎

Diversity, equity, and inclusion isn’t just something we issued a statement about in 2020 and then moved along. As an organization founded by cis white men, it is imperative that our formal policies and informal practices foster a culture in which all of our employees can thrive. We work to ensure that these values are baked into the Givebutter ethos, along with the knowledge that we will sometimes get it wrong and that there is always room for growth and improvement.

Celebrating Diversity 🎉

We believe that diversity makes Givebutter stronger, and that customers from diverse backgrounds have greater trust in our platform when they see those differences reflected in the product and in the team that creates it.

Our commitment to diversity at Givebutter means intentionally hiring, developing, and retaining team members with different life experiences, all of which impact the way we show up every day, and ultimately shape the course of Givebutter’s product and culture. We celebrate differences based on race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, religion, education, physical ability, neurodiversity, and age. Especially in a remote setting, diversity tends to default to differences that can be visually identified, so our inclusive definition is intended to be a reminder that what makes us diverse is more than what can be seen on a Zoom call.

To walk the talk when it comes to diversity at Givebutter, we’ve taken the following steps:

• Posting all new roles on job boards that serve historically marginalized people
• Monitoring and sharing Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) data across the company
• Requiring annual trainings for all staff on diversity and managing biases
• Lifting up campaigns and success stories from diverse users in our content creation
• Planning programs that feature diverse voices (and not just in February 👀)

 

Thinking and Giving Equitably ⚖️

Equity at Givebutter means creating an environment in which everyone has the same chance as their peers to make an impact on the team, our product, and ultimately the growth of our business. In our efforts to become a more equitable company, we default to transparency—in our hiring process, our product roadmap, our compensation philosophy, and our employee handbook. We recognize that inequity within a team results in far less innovation and growth, and we believe that a healthy team, with equal access to resources, is more empowered to contribute to the progress of the company and their own professional development.

Equity is the driving factor behind these Givebutter policies and practices:

• All candidates, whether internal or external, follow the same interview process.
• Screening applicants in our ATS does not rely on AI automation—all applicants are screened by our People team and the hiring committee.
• An average of 7-8 people (25% of the company) are required to review candidates throughout the hiring process.
• Our interview processes are standardized, and we share questions and documentation of notes from every interview.
• Our employee handbook is intentionally written to be easily read and free of legal jargon, and we share it with candidates during the interview process.
• We highlight inequities in philanthropic giving in our programs and content, and we create and promote active ways to make change. For example, during Black Philanthropy Month, Givebutter donated $20K to Black-led nonprofits and helped raise over $350K for Black-led campaigns.

 

Practicing Inclusion 🌍

At Givebutter, inclusion means that everyone feels represented in the policies of our company and the progress of our product. Inclusion is critical to fostering a culture that encourages collaboration and camaraderie, which in turn lead to greater communication and more innovative ideas.

We’re proud of the following efforts we’ve made toward becoming a more inclusive workplace:

• Benefits that are written with modern definitions of demographics, such as primary and secondary caregivers in our parental leave policy.
• A default toward sharing information in public channels across our various communication platforms.
• Two additional floating holidays for employees to use for celebrations that are not represented in the current 11 federally recognized holidays (all of which we take off).
• Work events that are nondenominational and accessible for people of all ability levels.

BREADWINNERS: KEY SAFETY & LEADERSHIP PRACTICES ✨

Givebutter strives to challenge the stereotype that tech startups are only focused on growth and don’t foster healthy work environments. In fact, Givebutter established a People Team much earlier than most tech startups because our founders were committed to building the infrastructure and processes that would promote a healthy and equitable environment for their employees from the beginning.

Additionally, Givebutter applies our company values to every decision, from hiring processes and employee performance reviews to product direction. And we’re proud to put our money where our mouth is by creating initiatives like Givebutter Gives Back, which recently donated $20K for Black Philanthropy Month.

Here are a few more ways that Givebutter’s leadership is committed to taking care of our people:

• Givebutter requires annual training in Harassment and Discrimination Prevention, Diversity and Inclusion in the Modern Workplace, and Managing Bias for all of its employees.
• Givebutter provides several different channels for employees to provide feedback anonymously including eNPS surveys and Great Place to Work.
• Givebutter offers learning and education reimbursements for employees that apply, and to date we have a 100% acceptance and fee coverage rate.
• Givebutter offers sick days that are to be used for both physical and mental health needs. We also offer additional leave for bereavement.
• Givebutter’s leadership team encourages and actively takes part in calendar time blocking that includes daily time blocks for lunch or mental breaks, and we encourage the rest of the team to do the same.
• Givebutter offers and encourages shadowing sessions for employees from different departments to learn more about the day to day work of their peers.
• Givebutter believes that functional SaaS tools are critical for the success of remote work, and leadership consistently provides access to modern platforms that foster collaboration and better documentation.

GIVEBUTTER’S SAFETY PRACTICES & LEADERSHIP ACTIONS🦸🏽‍♀️

• Givebutter requires annual training in Harassment and Discrimination Prevention, Diversity and Inclusion in the Modern Workplace, and Managing Bias for all of its employees.
• Givebutter provides several, different, channels for employees to provide feedback anonymously and disclosed including eNPS surveys and Great Place to Work.
• Givebutter offers learning and education reimbursements for employees that apply, to date we have a 100% acceptance and fee coverage rate.
• Givebutter offers Sick days that are to be used for both physical and mental health needs. We also offer additional leave for Bereavement.
• Leadership encourages and actively takes part in calendar time blocking that includes daily time blocks for lunch or mental breaks, we encourage the rest of the team to do the same.
• Givebutter offers and encourages shadowing sessions for employees from different departments to learn more about the day to day work of their peers.
• Givebutter believes that functional SaaS tools are critical to remote success and is constantly providing access to modern platforms to foster collaboration and documentation.

Givebutter strives to challenge the stereotype that tech startups are only focused on growth and don’t foster healthy work environments. First, Givebutter established a People team much earlier than most tech startups. The founders prioritized building the infrastructure and processes that would promote a healthy and equitable environment for its employees from the beginning. Second, Givebutter uses its company values in every decision that is made at Givebutter, from hiring processes to employee performance reviews, to product direction. Third, Givebutter puts its money where its mouth is by creating initiatives like Givebutter Gives Back and recently donating $20,000 to Black Philanthropy.

 

OPEN ROLLS: THE SPREAD ON OUR INTERVIEW PROCESS✍️

Step 1: Recruiter Screen

Givebutter’s People Team screens all candidates in a ‘get to know you’ style phone conversation for both parties. In the first half of the interview, applicants are asked to walk through their career journey to date, speak to their working and communication style, and share what they’re looking for in their next role. In the second half of the interview, the recruiter gives an overview of Givebutter—its products, history, funding, customer base, team, as well as the responsibilities and requirements for the open role.

Step 2: Hiring Manager Screen

The person to whom the prospective candidate will report to if hired is designated as the hiring manager in our interview process. This Zoom conversation takes a deeper dive into the candidate’s experience that is relevant to Givebuter and the specifically the open role. The hiring manager may ask hypothetical or situational questions in addition to relevant technical questions such as use cases for a certain tool.

Step 3: Technical Assessment

All of our open roles require some sort of technical assessment. This is either a project we ask applicants to complete at home within a certain number of days or a scheduled exercise that is completed live.

Step 4: Values Interview

The interview process ends with a less formal Values Assessment Zoom call in in which two staff members whom the candidate hasn’t yet met talk through a series of questions (12 in total) each aligning with Givebutter’s 3 core values. Questions are open-ended, such as: “You are faced with making a decision you would normally run by a supervisor but no one is available and the decision can’t wait—what do you do?” We assess candidates for alignment and overall fit to the operating principles associated with our values.

 

THE UPPER CRUST: EMPLOYEE BENEFITS🤩

Fully Remote Work: Work from anywhere in the United States.

Health Insurance: We offer Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance covered 100% for employees

Mental Health: Givebutter health insurance plans come with access to a TalkSpace membership.

401(k): We offer access to a retirement planning account for all full time employees.

Vacation and Holidays: Take up to 15 days of paid vacation time per year plus additional days per year with the company. We also take off all 11 Federal Holidays and provide 2 additional floating holidays.

Parental Leave: We offer 12 weeks paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers.

Team Retreats: Participate in team trips each year to meet and work in person.

Home Office Stipend: Upgrade your home office with company-sponsored expenses including high-quality laptops, monitors, and modern technology.

Charitable Giving: Employees are encouraged to donate up to $50/month to any verified nonprofit they wish to support on Givebutter.

Professional Development: We offer learning and development reimbursement opportunities.

Love What You Do: We are a mission-driven company serving the charitable sector. Feel good about the work you’re doing and the company you work for.