Kimbia CEO to Forfeit Salary in Plan to Address Give Local America Debacle

When nonprofits from around the country watched their websites crash 10 hours into Give Local America (GLA), a one-day, nationwide crowdfunding initiative to raise money for local organizations, dreams of meeting and exceeding goals were dashed. Perhaps worse yet, nonprofits grew concerned about the impression the debacle would leave on their donors.

While Kimbia, the technology platform and solution provider for GLA, was able to dedicate its resources to fixing the issue, get the sites back online by that evening, and help organizations raise more than $50 million nationwide, many participating organizations were left unimpressed and disappointed.

Now, in an effort to make good with participating nonprofits and repair its own reputation, Kimbia has announced in a press release a multi-phase plan to help nonprofits achieve their goals and mitigate any loss brought about by the technological snafu.

The plan includes four notable steps.

1. Kimbia will waive approximately $370,000 in fees. For most organizations, this will result in fee reductions from 2.99 percent to 1.99 percent of funds raised.
2. Kimbia’s online-fundraising technology will be available to each participating nonprofit for free for the rest of the year. For each organization, this will include a customizable donation page, a donation form that can be embedded on its website, automatic donation receipts and donor reports.
3. At the end of June, Kimbia’s fundraising strategy team will provide free, online fundraising workshops each month, so nonprofits can run successful year-round campaigns.
4. Daniel A. Gillett, CEO of Kimbia, will forfeit his salary for the next three months. That money will be given to organizations that participated in GLA.

The company also plans to put exhaustive resources into determining the cause of the problem and ensuring it doesn’t happen again.

“Give Local America is an annual event that our 44 employees look forward to throughout the year, sharing in our community partners’ anticipation and excitement,” said Gillet. “We will work diligently to identify the specific causes of the issues we encountered and take every step necessary to ensure robust safeguards are in place to prevent a reoccurrence.”

Kimbia also stressed that donors’ personal information was not compromised.