5 Go-to-Market Lessons from Givz’s Journey in Reimagining Retail Incentives

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Andrew Forman shared how Givz is transforming retail discounting through donation incentives. Here are the key go-to-market lessons from their journey:

1. Solve an Acute Enterprise Pain Point Rather than building a generic charitable giving platform, Givz gained traction by solving a specific problem for large enterprises. When H&M faced backlash over their Pride Month charitable giving, Givz offered a solution. As Andrew explains: “They had done a Pride Month initiative where they donated $3 million, a million dollars to three different charities. And they got a ton of pushback from the LGBTQ community saying, why did you choose these three charities?” By letting customers choose their preferred charities, Givz solved this pain point while driving better business results.
2. Reframe the Value Proposition Many potential customers initially dismissed Givz as “charity stuff” rather than a business tool. Andrew’s response reveals their strategic positioning: “My nightmare scenario is, hey, I don’t have time to deal with charity stuff. I need to lift my average order value. I’m like, this is the best way to lift your average order value. It just happens to do some good in the world.” This reframing helped overcome objections by emphasizing business outcomes over social impact.
3. Start with a Compelling Test Case Givz made it easy for brands to validate their solution through simple A/B tests. “Use a coupon code for 20% off. Use a different coupon code for 15% off plus 15% to give to charity. See which one wins,” Andrew explains. This low-risk approach let brands quickly prove the model’s effectiveness before broader implementation.
4. Build for Platform Expansion Rather than limiting themselves to ecommerce, Givz built an API-first platform that could power donation incentives across any customer action. Andrew shares: “We’re already extending outside of Ecommerce into brick and mortar, but also into incentivizing anybody to do anything.” This architectural decision enabled expansion into new verticals like financial services, where Betterment uses Givz to incentivize recurring deposits.
5. Create a New Category Instead of competing in the crowded cause marketing space, Givz is defining a new category of “purpose-driven marketing.” As Andrew notes, “Previously it had been like, okay, 10% of sales goes to this one charity that the brand chose that the customer could, may or may not care about.” By giving customers choice while delivering measurable business results, they’ve created a distinctive approach that transcends traditional charitable giving.

The success of this strategy is evident in their results. When brands implement Givz’s donation incentives above certain purchase thresholds, “Average order value goes from 67 to 84 within a couple of weeks and it stays there for the rest of the year.” More importantly, these gains come without training customers to expect deep discounts that erode long-term value.

For B2B founders, Givz’s journey offers valuable lessons in category creation, enterprise sales, and platform thinking. By solving acute pain points while building for expansion, they’ve created a scalable approach to purpose-driven growth that benefits both brands and their customers.