Daymaker is a giving platform that allows donors and teams nationwide to support specific children from local nonprofits. We run seasonal giving campaigns that enable givers to contribute holistically to a child’s development by purchasing from a variety of items and experiences, uniquely tailored for that child. Daymaker is a better way to give in-kind than in-office toy drives, which are typically difficult to manage for both companies and nonprofits, and less personalized or effective.
Our mission is to share the joy of creating possibilities for children. The two parts of this mission, “sharing the joy” and “creating possibilities for children,” form our core ethos behind everything we do.
Sharing the joy: We believe anyone can make a difference and anyone can be a Daymaker. The act of giving contributes to our individual and collective wellness, and we want to invite more people to share in that joy.
Creating possibilities for children: All giving on our platform is dedicated to improving the lives of children by increasing access to resources and opportunities. Our seasonal campaigns such as back-to-school and holidays equip children with culturally relevant and age-appropriate books, toys, learning tools, and activities and field trips.
Combined, these two components of our mission are what makes Daymaker special: our one-to-one giving model supports specific children and their specific needs and creates more opportunities for connection.
Daymaker is a for-profit company proud to have a dedication to triple bottom line impact. Rather than being on a grow-to-sell trajectory, we are ultimately working to become a completely 100% employee-owned company with a profit-sharing model. All donations made on our giving platform are tax-deductible in-kind donations made to the specific nonprofit supported.
From the founding days, we said we did not want to charge a donor to give or a nonprofit to receive. We are funded by the sale of items on the Daymaker platform and our agreements with company partners. We buy all gifts wholesale and sell them at retail price, allowing us to cover our warehouse costs. In essence, instead of donors shopping at Walmart, Amazon, or Target and donating them to nonprofits, we serve as a partner to source, sort, and ship all in-kind donations. This model works to make giving easier and more connected for both donors and nonprofits.
The margin from the items on our platform allows us to continue doing the good we aim for without having to charge donors, nonprofits, or solicit charitable contributions. In many cases, the pricing of the items you see on Daymaker will be the same as another retail platform such as Target. There are times you may find items are cheaper on Amazon as a seller there may be violating a manufacturer's retail price policy (there is a larger conversation to be had around Amazon and what it means for small, intentionally crafted brands).
During campaigns, it’s easy to sponsor a child through! If you are with a company that is running a campaign through Daymaker, you’ll give through your company page.
The steps are simple:
1. Visit your company page or daymaker.com/give and read through profiles of children uploaded by our high-impact nonprofit partners.
2. Choose an item from a child’s wishlist or choose to sponsor their entire wishlist. Wishlists are based on the interests of each child, specific nonprofit requests, and the needs of the time.
3. Check out using your credit card or PayPal account through our secure, PCI-compliant, payment processing system.
4. Send a message of encouragement alongside your gift.
5. Receive your tax-deductible donation receipt and track as your donation is shipped in the Giving History section of your Daymaker account.
6. Spread the word of your generosity and encourage others to be a Daymaker by sharing on social media or forwarding to a teammate!
Yes - donations are in-kind tax-deductible donations to the specific nonprofit you supported through our giving platform. You can find your tax receipt in your Daymaker account under "Giving History.”
Daymaker works with local chapters of some of the most reputable nonprofits around the country as well as grassroots community organizations that understand the unique needs in their communities. We rely on these 501c3 organizations - with the most favorable ratings from nonprofit auditing groups - to identify children in need.
Our model best suits nonprofits who have consistent, ongoing relationships with the children they support, as drop-in or one-time services make it harder to provide children with consistent, personalized, and ongoing in-kind resources.
Our system automatically converts children’s names to randomized pseudonyms, which both protects privacy and helps counter bias.
We review all profiles submitted by nonprofits to ensure no identifying information is included.
Further, we do not include pictures of the individual children - both to protect privacy and promote equity in the giving process.
We partner with educators and experts to select gifts that enrich and inspire, and our nonprofit partners frequently share that the most thoughtful and anticipated in-kind donations are always from Daymaker. About 38% of the products on our platform come from Black-owned businesses, and we prioritize small and woman-owned businesses as well. Some of our favorite vendors include Beautiful, Curly Me, Bellen’s More than Peach, Small Bites Adventure Club, and Brown Toy Box. We review every product to make sure it meets our criteria of being inspiring, engaging, and good for the world.
We guarantee all children on our platform will receive gifts, regardless of whether they are covered by donors. We do this by taking on that liability ourselves and shipping a minimum number of gifts (usually 3-4) per child before they are sponsored.
We guarantee all children on our platform receive four gifts in time for the holiday season (unless our nonprofits have requested another amount). To ensure gifts arrive on time, we ship these items in November or early December, sometimes before they are actually purchased. Following the campaign in the new year we ship all the remaining purchased gifts.
100% of sponsored gifts go to the nonprofit you supported and are tax-deductible in-kind donations. Children receive four items during December, and any additional purchased items in the new year. Every item goes to the child you purchased it for, except in instances where gifts are redistributed to ensure equity during our second shipment (so that one child doesn’t receive multiple items while a sibling or classmate doesn’t receive anything).
Our nonprofit partners choose how to position the gifts to the children they serve based on their own knowledge of their community’s needs. Most host distribution events to give to their children or hand out gifts during set program hours. Some choose to pass along the presents to the parent/guardian to give directly to the child. All messages of encouragement that donors share are sent to nonprofits, and they choose how to distribute those messages as well.
Shipping is included as a $2.50 flat fee within the product price. Nothing additional is added beyond what you see in the product price. We would love to make shipping free, but in reality this would not allow our model to work as we are not Amazon and do not have access to unlimited capital to subsidize shipping. We have worked hard for givers to minimize the cost through bundling items 25-30 per box and equipping our NP partners for seamless distribution.
Yes! We are always looking for now company partners to join us in leading with generosity. If your company is already partnering with Daymaker, we are delighted to work directly with smaller subsets of your company that are looking for engagement support and/or want to explore deeper activations. Contact us.
Checkout is hosted through Braintree (a PayPal company) and Stripe. Credit Card information never touches our servers, instead processing directly through Stripe. Both processors are validated Level 1 PCI DSS compliant service providers.
We're always looking for high-impact organizations with which to partner, especially in new or underrepresented locations. Contact us.