(Courtesy of Jgive) The future is now for Israeli charities.

The future is Jgive.

The Jerusalem-based nonprofit startup currently hosts more than 600 Israeli nonprofits that crowdfund without paying fees or commissions.

CEO Ori Ben Shlomo designed Jgive.com to become the central location for those who want to support Israel’s nonprofit community.

“A few years ago I was looking for a website that allowed me to compare a large number of Israeli charities, and it simply didn’t exist,” said Ben Shlomo. “So I went to a friend and we brainstormed. What would the ideal site contain? What are the main things keeping people from giving charity and how can we fix them?”

The result is Jgive.com, a platform created to strengthen and encourage a “culture of giving” in Israel. In the three years since its founding, Jgive has raised almost $15 million from more than 100,000 donors, most of whom are under age 35.

Now it is setting its sights on North America.

According to a study conducted by Jgive, in 2015 approximately 65 percent of donations to Israeli charities came from the Diaspora, as opposed to only 18 percent of those using Jgive.com.

Ben Shlomo sees Jgive as a way to allow North American Jews to participate in Israeli civil society through charity.

“I have no doubt that American Jews have a deep love for Israel, but there have definitely been some rough patches as of late,” Ben Shlomo explained. “Jgive can help bridge that perceived gap. It can be a way for American Jews to have a major impact on Israeli civil society without having to cast a vote.”

Jgive also hopes to actively encourage charitable giving through educational and cultural events across Israel and the United States. All of this fits into Jgive’s philosophy of creating active givers.

“It can be very easy to just give around the holidays when we are asked to give, and that’s fine,” Ben Shlomo said. “But we need to be trying to create a system in which people are actively looking to support and engage in Israeli society both in Israel and beyond.”

Ben Shlomo sees his nonprofit as more than just a platform. He believes it can be an antidote to weak millennial charitable giving by emphasizing the individual over major institutions. Much like other startups that have challenged the establishment, Jgive promotes a sharing economy by creating a marketplace where charities can “sell” their cause at no cost and donors can easily compare different charities based on criteria such as transparency and project size.

Entering into Jgive’s offices, though, you’d think you were in your typical Israeli for-profit startup. The office is situated in a Jerusalem tech campus with a number of other promising young companies. Employees problem-solve collaboratively and hold regular discussions as to how they can expand their services.

The model seems to be working and could not come at a better time. The Israeli government has decreased spending on welfare, leaving the nonprofit sector to fill in the gaps.

Jgive’s platform has successfully attracted a difficult demographic for charitable groups, 24- to 35-year-olds. According to the site, 50 percent of all contributions come from young adults, even while most studies on charity suggest that older people give more.

“We believe young people are just as willing to give, but are looking for different paths other than the older traditional models,” Ben Shlomo said. “Our emphasis on choice, transparency and direct connections speaks to them.”

Charities on the site range from mental health to environmental protection to coexistence. The only criteria for using the site is maintaining article 46 certification (equivalent to 501(c)(3)). While this limits the amount of charities Jgive can potentially host, it ensures the money is only going to institutions that submit to oversight of their financials. Similarly, charities on Jgive.com provide donors with information such as the number of volunteers and salaried workers on staff and how much of each donation goes to overhead. The goal is to create a space where donors can comfortably donate without worrying about a charity misusing their money.

Jgive also does its best to encourage donors to take advantage of its tax refund system. Israelis can apply online from their profiles while Americans and Canadians can keep all their receipts in one place.

Ben Shlomo feels this is important because “too many people fail to take advantage of tax refunds after they donate. Within Israel, more than one billion shekels are left unclaimed every year. We thought if we can make it easier for people to get refunds then they would give more enthusiastically. The more we strengthen the culture of giving within Israel the better off the country will be.”

Whether Jgive can succeed is no longer a question. What remains to be seen is whether it will replace the existing Jewish charitable institutions. By bringing a high-tech ethos to the world of Israeli nonprofits, Jgive is offering a new way to give. One that may change the way that Israel’s third sector interacts with Jews everywhere.

For more information about Jgive, visit Jgive.com.