Expense management startup Expensify is including charitable donations as a perk for its corporate cards. The product, which launched in beta in October, became available to the public this week. It allows employees to make donations to different causes for every purchase they make.

“Most people who have a rewards card lose more money through extra interest and annual fees than they earn through rewards. There’s a huge fraction of rewards that don’t even go redeemed,” said David Barrett, founder and CEO of Expensify.
“Think of it in terms of an employee perk. You can be part of a company that just pays you well, or you can be part of a company that pays you well and is doing good in the world.”
With its charitable donation-based rewards, Expensify is appealing to businesses that claim to have a social conscience. According to the company, Expensify has 85,000 company clients and 8 million users. Many of its clients are large tech companies and direct-to-consumer startups, including Square, Stripe, Snapchat, Pinterest, Xero and Warby Parker.
Other financial institutions are appealing to consumers’ desires to do good, including Bank of the West, which is launching a new checking account that donates a percentage of revenue to environmental causes.
Expensify’s platform uses AI-based tools to categorize and file business expenses for companies. With the corporate card, Expensify will donate 10% of the interchange revenue to charitable categories depending on the type of purchase. The initiative, called “Karma Points,” splits donations into five categories: fighting hunger, housing initiatives, helping foster youth, prisoner re-entry and combating climate change.
For example, if an employee uses the Expensify card for a meal, Expensify will donate to fighting hunger through an avenue chosen by Expensify employees. The donations go to Expensify’s new charitable arm, Expensify.org, which Barrett said is still developing best practices.
The nonprofit staff currently consists solely of Expensify employees who are internal champions of the various causes. The employee volunteers make all the decisions on how the money is spent. Barrett said the nonprofit arm is actively recruiting new volunteers and is open to new ideas.
Customers using the Expensify card currently see the cause their donation is supporting, but in the future, Barrett wants customers to see personalized stories on the results of the contributions. If a donation helped fight climate change, for example, Barrett wants customers to see the tree a volunteer planted and track its growth over the years.
Expensify was established in 2008. According to Barrett, about 10,000 companies signed up for the card during the first week of the limited rollout of the Expensify card in October.
In addition to interchange fees, Expensify generates revenue through a $5 monthly subscription fee charged to companies per active user. The company has raised more than $38 million between venture capital and debt financing, and investors include Travis Kalanick, CIBC and Redpoint Ventures.
Barrett said he hopes the real motivation of the product will go beyond marketing. “I kind of bristle a bit against the framing of corporate social responsibility because that implies that it’s a sacrifice,” he said. “We’ve worked very hard to get to the position that we’re in now, and it enables us to do something like this.”
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