Introducing Mieux Donner: A new effective giving initiative in France

By Jennifer Stretton, Romain Barbe @ 2024-07-23T16:56 (+143)

TL;DR

Announcing the launch of Mieux Donner - a fundraising organisation focused on informing and inspiring individuals in France and French speaking Switzerland to donate effectively, directing their contributions towards charities with the greatest impact.

Who are we?

Mieux Donner was co-founded by Jennifer Stretton and Romain Barbe. We completed AIM’s effective giving charity incubator program in July 2024. 

Key objectives for year one

• Charity registration and launch our effective giving platform (Done) 
• Our ambitious goal: Securing €1,000,000 in donations from at least 300 donors
• Our minimal goal: Raise more in counterfactual donations than we raised in seed funding
  • We have been given funding of $95,000 to get the project started.
  • We would like to raise at least this in counterfactual donations in year one
  • Ideally, we would like to achieve a giving multiplier of at least two by raising  $180,000 in year one
• Launch a pilot project of the 🔸10% Pledge and aim for 20 pledgers
• Confirm our most effective audiences and outreach tactics to enable cost-effective scale-up in Y2-3

Why launch a new effective giving initiative?

• Effective charities have significant room to absorb more funding.
• Effective charities are reliant on the donations of a few large donors.
• Effective Giving Initiatives, such as Giving What We Can and Effektiv Spenden, have raised over $500 million collectively and established a proven strategy for engaging donors. 
• Leveraging their best practices and insights, Mieux Donner hopes to achieve high rates of growth.

Why France?

• French people have the lowest English proficiency in Northern Europe. This limits their access to EA and effective giving ideas.
• Compared to other major European countries, France raises more money from private donors.
• By reaching out to a broad audience, these donors will be exposed to effective giving for the first time.
• France has the third-highest number of millionaires in the world.
• We have first mover advantage for SEO optimisation

Why French speaking Switzerland?

• There is huge donation potential to be unlocked in Switzerland.
• In year one, Effektiv Spenden raised just €350K in Germany compared to €1.2M in Switzerland.
• In 2021 48% of Effektiv Spenden’s donations came from Switzerland.
• Effektiv Spenden are partnering with us to target French speakers in Switzerland (22% of Swiss population). They have provided us with their donation platform to enable tax deductible donations to all of our recommended charities for Swiss Tax Residents. 
• Geneva has the second highest concentration of millionaires in the world and one of our founders, Jennifer, is based just one hour from Geneva. 

Isn’t there already an Effective Giving Initiative in France?

There is one other effective giving initiative in France called Don Efficace and we are working collaboratively with them. The reason that AIM decided to research and launch another effective giving initiative in France is because:

• Don Efficace aims to increase the tax-deductible portfolio of effective charities and is a research focused organisation. Their strategy to increase donations to effective charities is to find effective charities within France that qualify for tax deduction*. They plan to help effective EU/EEA charities obtain fiscal agreements so that they can also become tax deductible in France.
• Mieux Donner is an outreach focused organisation. Our strategy to increase donations to effective charities is to market the most effective charities, regardless of their tax deductibility status in France.

As Don Efficace’s research finds more effective charities within France, we expect that we will recommend them if they are on par with the effectiveness of our other global charities. 

*A note on tax deductibility in France: 
French residents get a tax deduction of 66% of the amount they donate, up to a maximum of 20% of their taxable income. Only donations to charities registered in France or in the EU/EEA are tax-deductible. For now, the only effective charity that qualifies for tax deduction in France is AMF because they have an office in France. Mieux Donner can offer tax deductibility for AMF. 

How you can help! 

• Check out our website and send us your feedback to info@mieuxdonner.org
• Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook

Interested in volunteering?

We are moving as fast as we can to get Mieux Donner established before Giving Season (November and December), which is when charities raise 40% of their donations.

If you are motivated to have a huge impact, work with likeminded people and shape a new EA organisation. We’re looking for volunteers with some of the following skills; 

• Enthusiastic generalists!
• Web development
• Copywriting skills
• Social media marketing 
• BOTEC calculation of charity impact
• Event volunteers 
• French language proficiency

Connections

If you know any people who live in France or Switzerland who would be interested in donating to effective charities, being an ambassador on social media or volunteering with us. Please put them in touch.  

Get in contact

If you’re interested in following what we’re up to, you can subscribe to our newsletter. If you have any questions, advice or feedback, we’d love to hear from you!

Thank you for your support!

Jennifer and Romain
Co-founders of Mieux Donner
info@mieuxdonner.org