Give Your Product or Services Without Stretching Your Team

[Alicia_Schmidt]

Give Your Product or Services Without Stretching Your Team

Five models — one of them fits your business right now.

📍 Where you are

You’ve defined what you’re donating, who can receive it, and what your capacity is. Now you need to decide the structure for how the donation actually works. The right model depends on your product type, your team’s capacity, and what nonprofits actually need. Start with what’s sustainable today.

There’s no single right model for a product pledge. What works depends on your product type, team capacity, and what nonprofits actually need. Most programs evolve over time. Pick a model that your company can sustain.

The 5 Product Donation Models

Model	How It Works	Best For
Free donation	Full access at no cost. Highest impact, most scalable for digital products where marginal cost is near zero.	SaaS, tech, services
Discounted access	Significant nonprofit pricing tier — typically 50–80% off. Balances impact with sustainability for products with real delivery costs.	SaaS, subscriptions
Combo model	First X units/hours/seats free, then discounted rate for additional usage. Leads with generosity, stays sustainable.	All types
New product / hackathon	Build a tool specifically for nonprofits — often via an internal hackathon. Engages employees, creates visible impact.	Tech companies
Buy one / donate one	Every customer purchase triggers a product donation to someone in need. Ties giving to revenue, builds customer-facing story.	B2C, consumer goods

Get Help: If you have a software or tech product, several vendors will verify nonprofit eligibility, handle distribution, and have relationships with hundreds of thousands of nonprofits globally. Don’t build what already exists. Check out Deed, Goodstack, and TechSoup.

🤖 AI DRAFT PROMPT

Help me choose the right product donation model

Describe your product and situation in a few sentences and get a plain-language recommendation — takes 2 minutes to fill in.

Copy this prompt into your preferred AI assistant (like Claude or Gemini), then fill in the [brackets]:

I'm a founder at an early-stage company joining Pledge 1% and need to choose a product donation model.

My company: [describe in 2–3 sentences — what your product is, how it works, approximate team size].
What we're considering donating: [e.g., free software access / pro bono hours / discounted subscriptions].
Our marginal cost to deliver the product to one more user: [near zero / some cost / significant cost].
Do we sell to consumers, businesses, or both? [B2C / B2B / both]
How much team capacity do we have to support nonprofit users? [very little / a few hours/month / dedicated resource]

Based on this, please recommend:
1. The best donation model for us and why — one short paragraph.
2. Whether we should build our own process or use TechSoup / Taproot.
3. One thing to watch out for with this model.

Keep the whole answer under 200 words. No jargon.

Combining Models — Product + Time

Combining your product pledge with your time pledge is one of the highest-value moves a small company can make. The same employee hours count toward both.

Product Pledge Element	Time Pledge Element
Free software access to a nonprofit	Employee onboarding and training hours
Discounted SaaS subscription	Pro bono implementation support
Pro bono design or legal hours	Small annual grant to the same nonprofit

💡 PRO TIP

Pro bono tip: An employee doing a 10-hour pro bono design project counts toward both their time pledge AND your product pledge. Double impact, same hours.

Your model is chosen. Now let’s build the process nonprofits will actually move through.

Next: Build Your Product or Services Donation Process →