- 💰 What is a donation pool? How much should my company include in it?
- 🙋 Can employees add their own money to the pool?
- 🎟 Can we run a "pay to play" or entry-fee bracket?
- 📅 Can we use Giving Madness to give away our remaining annual budget?
- 👔 What happens if votes are split 50/50 between nonprofits?
- 📊 How is the donation pool distributed among nonprofits?
- Champion: 50%
- Runner-up: 26%
- Final Four (non-advancing): 4% each
- Elite Eight (non-advancing): 2% each
- First-round exits: 1% each
- 💲 How much does Giving Madness cost?
- 🧾 Will my company receive a tax-deductible receipt for Giving Madness donations?
- 💌 How do I invite a nonprofit that isn’t already in the Giving Madness database?
- ⏱️ Is there an optimal bracket run time?
A donation pool is the initial amount of money your company contributes to kick off your Giving Madness bracket. We recommend contributing 5–15 per employee.
You bet! 🙌 Employees never have to donate to vote, but they're welcome to add their own donations to the pool while the bracket is live. Employee contributions join the total and are split among all the nonprofits using the same distribution formula, so every gift helps every team. If matching is turned on for the bracket, employee donations are approved automatically. 💜 See How to Vote in Giving Madness for employee steps.
Yes, and it's a crowd favorite! 🎉 Encourage a suggested contribution (for example, $5 to join) that goes into the pool. For brackets hosted outside Millie, like a World Cup ⚽ or fantasy football 🏈 bracket, you can create a Millie donation campaign as the entry fee instead. See Setting Up a Giving Madness Bracket for both formats.
Absolutely! 🎁 A year-end bracket is a fun way to let your team decide where unused giving or match funds go. Check your remaining budget with the Record matches unused at end-of-year report in Analytics, then use that amount to fund the donation pool. Ending the year with a winner? We love to see it! 🏆
In the case of a tie, the platform will randomly select one of the nonprofits to move forward to the next round.
At the end of your bracket, donations are split across participating nonprofits based on how far they advance:
Giving Madness is free for companies with 25 employees or fewer. For companies with more than 25 employees, pricing is based on employee count. Check out our Giving Madness pricing page for more information.
Yes. Donations made through Giving Madness are processed through our donor-advised fund partner, Percent Impact Foundation (EIN: 87-3165286), making them tax-deductible.
You can invite nonprofits to join by sending them this link to claim their profile on Millie. You can also use this customizable email copy to help with outreach.
Yes! We recommend running your bracket Monday through Thursday, with one round per day. That makes a 16-nonprofit bracket a 4-day campaign.
To maximize excitement, try ending the final round right before a company-wide meeting so you can announce the winner live!