# Our Story + Mission + Values

## **Our story**

After a stint in philanthropic consulting, we saw an opportunity:

1. We believe giving is good for humanity.
2. We believe[ intentional giving](/about-our-venture/our-giving-philosophy.md) is an unlock for giving more and giving better.
3. [Donor-advised funds](/about-donor-advised-funds.md) (DAFs) enable intentional giving.
4. **No one who was creating a DAF experience we felt was serving donors and charities well. And technology was the gap.**

**We believe everyone should have access to premier tools and resources to engage in intentional giving**, so we built Charityvest leveraging modern financial technology.

Read more of our story [here](https://www.charityvest.org/blog/our-story).

## Mission

**Our mission is to catalyze generosity.**

We do this by creating modern technology to enable people to engage more in philanthropy—to give, to give more, and to give better.

Today we focus on giving through DAFs, but in the future that could mean any technology for better, simpler philanthropy.

Our vision is to empower every household with the tools to be generous—that we would engage every household in the U.S. with an appropriate giving tool for them.

## Values

We make decisions employing the following values in our work, endeavoring to live them out as an institution:

* **Generous** – We have a giving orientation towards the world—we want to create and share value with people in every area of our operation, with partners large and small, financial and non-financial.
* **Responsible** – Our motivations come from a deep conviction about what’s needed in the world, what’s possible, and what we can do about it. We work not because of mere attractive opportunity, but because of a felt responsibility to act.
* **Excellent** – We commit ourselves to furnish solutions that are noticeably higher quality than the rest of the industry.
* **Egalitarian** – We invite *everyone* to participate in giving generously.
* **Easy** – Our solutions reduce hassle, giving donors and recipients an experience that’s simple and streamlined.


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