# 2022 Year in Review & 2023 Look Ahead | Grapevine - Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/feed/161064 - Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:161064 - Published at: 2023-02-05 15:08:07 UTC - Updated at: 2025-07-09 03:22:53 UTC ## Author Emily Rasmussen ## Subject Grapevine ## Content What a year it’s been! On behalf of the Grapevine team, I’d like to thank you for being a part of something truly meaningful. I’m incredibly proud of all the impact we’ve had together as part of the growing giving circle movement this year.I’m excited to share our big moments from 2022, and provide a glimpse into what is coming up in 2023. Grapevine Total Impact to Date:$20 Million donated2,100+ Nonprofits supported40,000+ Grapevine members800+ Giving Circles on Grapevine   Grapevine's Year in Review January:We started the year having moved over $9 million in donations to 1,200+ nonprofits from 10,000+ members since our launch in early 2020. In January 2022, we started our efforts to help grow the giving circle movement by launching a Giving Circle Coaches program with our partner, Philanthropy Together and many of our incredible community members.We also launched a vote-on-nonprofits and a matching funds reward feature.  February:This month, we activated more groups than any previous month, including kicking off an exciting partnership with The States Project, with a plan to expand the Grapevine platform to be able to onboard their network of 80+ giving circles by Q2. (This would turn into over 300 circles with over $2M in donations in 2022!) March:In March, we hit our $10M milestone in donations moved to nonprofits from our community! We also launched our first giving circle without a community leader to initiate it - Cleveland Women in Business for Good. This began an exciting new approach to growing the movement, whereby we help to jumpstart new groups and then invite founding members and community leaders to take them forward.  April:This month, we joined our friends at the 100 Who Care Alliance for their conference in Nashville! We met many Grapevine community members for the first time, passed out new swag, participated in panels, and hosted a dinner for our community members.We also continued our donation matching campaigns with funds we raised from generous members of our community to help new giving circles get started and others to grow. From these efforts, we were able to turn every $1 in matching funds into $40+ from our community! May:Through teamwork, partnerships, and supportive community members, we were able to reach our highest month-over-month growth goal to date (over 30%!), doubling our donors from the start of the year.     June:We successfully launched a new product flow to more easily pick nonprofits, upgrading our granting experience for our giving circle leaders. We also launched a new events feature to help our leaders improve event attendance and new member recruitment from events. We hit a new milestone of 25,000 giving circle members! July:We launched donation credits to support new members in joining a giving circle for the first time and expanded our platform’s capacity to handle the growth of all our new giving circles and members. August:We welcomed our new community manager Gaby Leith to the team! This month, we were excited to launch the most requested new feature from our community - member-to-member connections - allowing members to better connect and network on our platform while making a bigger difference together.By the end of August, we had over 650 circles on Grapevine and had helped them raise over $14M for nonprofits.  September:The giving circle movement hit the mainstage! The TED Talk on the importance of giving circles from our partner, Sara Lomelin at Philanthropy Together was released on video this month. This signified a special moment for us all to recognize the power of our collective work (read more and watch the video here).We also launched the ability for leaders and members to direct message each other on Grapevine and to import contacts to more easily invite friends into the movement. Our community team launched our 1:1 coffee chat matching to provide members more ways to meet and get to know each other.  October:For the many new groups kicking off each month, we launched founding member certificates for inaugural members to share their participation with their networks. Our community team launched Leader Peer Learning Cohorts and a workshop series to better support new leaders in their early stages. We also launched Member Mixers for members across all of our groups and platform to connect! November:By the close of the month, we had over 700 groups on our platform, with $19M donated. We launched a new event RSVP feature, which our leaders and members alike immediately loved.We celebrated Giving Tuesday and National Philanthropy Day with our communities!  December:We’re closing this year by officially transitioning to the newly launched, Grapevine Giving Foundation (GGF) to better support our community and facilitate even more funding & opportunities for the movement. We’re excited to expand our work with all of our great partners through GGF.We’re also excited to announce the close of our seed fundraise led by some incredible impact investors, philanthropists, and partners that will enable us to continue our work in 2023 and beyond. Thank you all for helping us to power the movement! 2022 Product Highlights Upcoming Events & RSVPsNominate and Vote on NonprofitsRedesigned Picking Nonprofits for a Donation CycleFounding Member CertificatesReferral & Invite Features with Subscription CreditsMember-to-Member Connections & Messaging 2022 Mentions & Press Highlights Johnson Center of PhilanthropyMashableNonprofit TimesTED TalkWhat the Fundraising PodcastFounder Stories PodcastPositive Impact Philanthropy PodcastWe’re proud of our incredible community of changemakers and our work to facilitate their impact, community & connection – in their words… “This is a great opportunity for all of us to collectively pool our resources and support worthy local nonprofits, of which we have many here in the Hampton Roads community and in Virginia Beach.”— Amy Walton, Virginia Beach Women for Good  “On Thursday [...] we held our first ever non-profit Grant Award! As representatives of the entire membership of Metro Louisville Women in Business for Good, a Grapevine giving circle, we were honored to present UP for Women and Children an $8,000 donation from our 2022 Fall Giving Cycle. It was a terrific evening of networking and celebration.” — Meg Rush, Metro Louisville Women in Business for Good “Grapevine has made administering our 300+ group so much easier. We've only used it for three quarters and there's definitely a learning curve but it's been so worth it! This year we've given $136,500 to our community. Our members were moved (and more joined) when we announced the monetary gifts we earned from GV from the promotion to reward groups who signed up the most members. We split the extra money from Grapevine between the two nonprofits who pitched but didn't win the most votes from the members.”— Iola Young, 100+ Women Who Care Juneau “What a fabulous night of connecting, sharing and kicking off this Giving Circle adventure we had last night! We are looking forward to our next time together already and to welcoming everyone who couldn’t make it last night - we have only just begun!”— Lynda Bishop, Corpus Christi Professional Women for Good How we plan to take on 2023Growing our team & expanding our community! Rolling out new product features, including –--Adding more payment options including Paypal and ApplePay--Facilitating more 1-1 interactions with members--Giving nonprofits more opportunities to interact with members--Increasing transparency of where funds are in the granting processSupporting giving circle leaders to get started & grow – continuing to provide donation matching funds and support to our leaders in growing and engaging their groups.Expanding the giving circle movement through partnerships – keep an eye on our channels for exciting updates and ways your organization can get involved.To achieve all that we’re hoping for in the new year, we’d love your help!We’re looking to connect with companies that want to build culture and community with their teams through giving back. We’d love to get on a 20 minute call with them to learn about their 2023 goals and see how we might help.We’re hiring for a Customer Support and Experience Manager & a Lead Engineer! If you know anyone great that's looking for an exciting opportunity to join a fast-growing social impact startup, please send them our way. You can find the link to the job descriptions here. Interested in getting involved in another way? We’d love to hear from you! Please email partnerships@grapevine.org with how you’d like to get involved and we’ll set up a time to chat.Again, thank you so much for your collaboration and support this past year. We’re looking forward to an even bigger and more impactful year to come together!Emily & the Grapevine teamThe Grapevine team celebrating the holidays together by making gingerbread houses! We hope you found some holiday fun, too!Sending a special thanks to our biggest Grapevine supporters and partners over the past year, including: Sara Lomelin & Isis Krause @ Philanthropy Together and the entire Philanthropy Together Braintrust community, Laurie Richter, Traci Richards, Emily Schneller, Sally Wiarda, Kim Tarnopolski, and Colette Robicheau @ 100 Who Care Alliance, Melissa Walker, Nasrene Haj, and Mandara Meyers @ The States Project, Joy Webb @ Community Investment Network, Susan Benford and Maggie Glasgow @ Philanos, Hali Lee @ Asian Womens Giving Circle, Michael Pace @ Social Good Fund, Eli Marsh and Linda Wagner @ Chicago Foundation for Women, Ami Dar and Matthew Schwartz @ Idealist, Hannah Yang @ TheShareWay, Aisha Alexander-Young @ GivingGap, Iara Peng @ JustFund, Michael Thatcher @ Charity Navigator, Jina Heverley and Megan Bell @ Giving Compass, Scott Jackson @ Global Impact, Dante Plush and Asha Curran @ GivingTuesday, Sarah Shannon and Melissa Pawlak @ Brooklyn Community Foundation, Danielle Meshorer @ Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, Mitch Stein @ ThePond, Tory Martin and Michael Layton @ Johnson Center for Philanthropy, Mesh Lakhani @ Founder Stories Podcast, Lori Kranczer @ Positive Impact Philanthropy Podcast, Mallory Erickson @ What the Fundraising Podcast, Christopher Garrels @ Gibson Dunn, Miriam Rivera @ Ulu Ventures, Matt Hayes @ PJC, Alex Lines @ Notation Capital, Eric Klose @ Ground Squirrel Ventures, Kelly Miller and Michael Nogen @ Overton Capital, Riley Rodgers @ Valia Ventures, Matt Yalowitz and Nakul Patel @ Diagram Capital, Geng Wang @ CivicChamps, JD Beebe @ ThankView/Evertrue, Dave Heath @ Bombas, Alex Chung @ GIPHY, Lynn Taliento @ McKinsey Social Impact, Stefan Nandzik, Eric Cantor, Paul Sawaya, Jason Yeh, Gaingels, Danielle Schiffman, Jonah Nigh, Clive Chang, Steve Schlafman, Stephanie Silverline, Jessan Hutchision-Quillian, Emily Schaefer, Chloe Moon, Jay Love, Bridget Conway-Taylor @ Black Trans Lives Thrive, Corinn Ploessl @ Madison Professional Women for Good, Lisa LaTrovato @ Fifty Fabulous Women, Zenaida Cranford @ Fayetteville Women for Good, Lynne Kelleher @ 100 Women Who Care Bucks County, and all of our Giving Circle Coaches, Leaders, and Members who are active parts of our community and especially those who have volunteered their time and expertise to speak at events, mentor others, share learnings in peer cohorts, provide feedback in our Kitchen Cabinet, and more. And anyone else we may have missed on this list, of which we’re sure there are many, thank you!