By Susan E. Campbell
Knitt LLC, the entity that brings together nonprofit groups and companies having a common mission, is hoping its online match-making service about to go online will have a strong positive impact on helping people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The landscape for charitable giving and receiving changes every day as the COVID virus lingers,” said founder Lisa Munter, who has served on the boards of a number of local nonprofit organizations.
“Events the nonprofits hold to maintain funding are being cancelled or postponed,” she said. “They desperately need to reach out to offset these losses.”
On the giving end, companies all over the state are also facing financial constraints, hindering their ability to make donations.
“Businesses have been generous helping where they can,” she said. “They want to do good while being protective of themselves in this economic environment. The quandary now, and perhaps for six to 12 months or more, is that company donations are shrinking while nonprofits are starving,” she said.
Typically, nonprofit groups take the first step in reaching out for funding, she said. However, businesses also want to reach out to organizations “where they can see the impact of their donations.”
Knitt is the resource where both sides can meet and make “personal connections while reducing the noise of blind communications by mail or cold calling,” Munter said.
“After several months of beta testing, we are ready to go full steam ahead as that resource,” she said. “Users should think about starting over, starting fresh, to redefine and be more mindful about making these connections.”
Some 12 businesses and 14 nonprofits began testing the features of Knitt via an online beta site. After feedback, some features and functions were taken in a different direction to make them more user-friendly or to better match their needs as a result, she said.
“Feedback was very positive,” Munter said. “Comments were that it is intuitive, easy to navigate, and visually appealing. They see the value in what Knitt is providing.”
When New York first went “on pause,” because of the coronavirus, Munter said she saw that both sides of Knitt’s prospective user base “would need support … some businesses might not be able to open again.”
As companies shuttered or moved personnel to at-home workers, it became a challenge to reach business owners and spread the word about the value of using Knitt.
“Time is of the essence because of COVID-19,” Munter said. “Nonprofits and businesses will be in desperate need in the next year.”
Munter and her partners are talking about pricing their service with a focus on getting as many users as they can, as soon as they can.
“We will do promotions and incentives to get businesses to join us and to be a part of our journey,” she said. “The net of Knitt is filtering out and pairing a likely donor with a likely nonprofit,” she said. “Knitt will roll out to the Capital region, but its reach has the potential to go far beyond.”
Visit www.getknitt.org for more information.
