Charitable wedding registry Heartful.ly has been growing at a steady clip since launching last year. Now, it’s headed for more expansion thanks to a partnership with crowdfunding nonprofit GlobalGiving.
Heartful.ly will add hundreds of projects to its wedding registry platform through the deal, taking its total number of offerings from less than 100 projects to more than 1,000. The nonprofit already onboarded about 75 new projects in the past year, but that number is “a drop in the bucket in the nonprofit ecosystem,” Heartful.ly CEO Kate Glantz said.
A partnership with GlobalGiving allows Heartful.ly to provide more choices to couples looking to build a charitable registry.
The deal also helps the organization maintain relationships on both sides of the market more easily, which could ultimately improve scale.
“We believe GlobalGiving is the top in recruiting and vetting global nonprofits. It made sense to use what they’re doing so well to help us focus on what we’re doing well,” Glantz said. “Now that we’re not balancing demands and relationships on both sides, we can focus on growing in the industry.”
Glantz has been working hard since launching Heartful.ly in 2015. Last fall, she joined the Halcyon Incubator, which helped kickstart business. The Tory Burch Foundation Fellow credits Kate Spade and her time working with Peace Corps for inspiring her work, but Halcyon helped her to get Heartful.ly to a whole new level.
Eventually, Glantz wants Heartful.ly's platform to encompass all of life’s milestones. The organization’s next focus after weddings will be birthdays, Glantz told DC Inno. After that, additional occasions may follow.
Meanwhile, a partnership with GlobalGiving could give Heartful.ly more clout in the nonprofit space among other potential partners. The deal “really legitimizes us,” Glantz said. “Aligning with GlobalGiving and their projects will alleviate a lot of potential concern about quality control.”
