Help to build Trust in the Nonprofit Sector: new tool for your Fundraising Transparency Layer

Author Bridget Doran, Founder/CEO of Traceport.IO

Advisor: Eva Pascoe (Cybersalon.org)

In today’s world, charitable organisations are essential. They tackle urgent local and global challenges. Yet the very sector built on doing good faces an increasingly uphill battle: maintaining donor trust. The hard truth is, many charities – especially those doing meaningful work at the grassroots level – struggle to consistently and credibly demonstrate their impact to funders. Not for lack of effort, but due to a lack of infrastructure.
When a charity crosses a certain threshold, roughly £8 to £10 million in annual budget, it needs to set up internal audit teams, enterprise-grade financial tools, and granular donor stewardship systems. Below that level, infrastructure is often underfunded or manually maintained. This isn’t just anecdotal, research from McKinsey and the Bridgespan Group suggests that even charities with budgets over $10 million (USD) often lack the funding or support needed to invest in the systems and infrastructure required for sophisticated donor engagement and impact verification.

In the UK, the Charity Commission requires full audits for charities over £1 million, but having to report is not the same as having the infrastructure to report well. The paradox is clear: the need for trust exists at every level, but the tools to earn it aren’t evenly distributed.

This puts smaller and mid-sized charities at a systemic disadvantage. These organisations are often doing high-impact, community-focused work but lack the capacity to translate that into verified outcomes for donors. Meanwhile, the entire sector is forced to navigate a climate of skepticism – one driven more by headline-making scandals than the everyday stories of integrity and impact we rarely hear.

That’s the problem we’re addressing with Traceport.

Introducing a Trust Layer for the Giving Economy

Traceport is a verification platform that offers nonprofits a simple, secure way to connect their internal records to an external, tamper-proof layer of proof, based on blockchain. Think of it as a public notary for impact: an immutable record of charitable activity that can’t be altered – not by the charity, not by Traceport, and certainly not by bad actors.

Charities use Traceport to create verifiable records for incoming funds, linking each donation or grant to its intended purpose, essential metadata, and supporting documentation. This creates an audit-ready, blockchain-verified trail that demonstrates accountability and builds trust. The system works alongside existing tools without requiring expensive overhauls or complex integrations. As we grow, we’ll expand functionality to include expenditure tracking and outcome measurement, creating a complete picture of impact from donation to delivery.

The result is not just compliance. It’s trust, codified. It’s giving donors and stakeholders the confidence that their support is being used exactly as intended, and it’s giving nonprofits a way to tell their story with proof.

Who We’re Looking to Meet

We’re at an exciting point in our journey, and we’re inviting two key communities to join us:
Charities – especially those who want to participate in our upcoming pilot. If your organisation has been seeking a better way to demonstrate transparency, connect with funders, and reduce reporting burdens, we’d love to speak with you. We’re prioritising UK-based organisations with a desire to lead in ethical innovation.

Funders – including philanthropists, foundations, trusts, and socially-driven investors. Your role in driving transparency is crucial. We understand that nonprofits may not always have the resources to adopt new technology on their own. But through sponsorship, recommendations, and strategic partnerships, you can help scale a new standard of accountability that serves the entire sector.

As we continue building Traceport into the trust engine for giving, we’re also building a community. A network of doers, believers, and changemakers who see transparency not as a burden, but as a catalyst for more effective philanthropy.

If you’d like to follow our journey, sign up for updates here, or connect with us on LinkedIn. If you’d like to speak with Bridget, the founder, directly she can be reached at [email protected].

Together, we can build the systems trust deserves.

Contact [email protected] and [email protected]