Google To Shut Down Nonprofit Donation App

Google’s One Today donation app is being dropped in seven days after launching almost seven years ago, according to reports on Wednesday (Jan. 29). 

The app made it simple for users to give money to nonprofits across numerous causes. Users were able to donate as little as $1 to different charities while also getting information on how their donation would be used. 

In an email to its users that Android Police saw, the search giant said One Today has been losing users.

“In the last few years, we have seen donors choose other products to fundraise for their favorite nonprofits. As a result, we will shut down One Today on February 6, 2020,” the email indicated.

The email also said that new nonprofits could no longer sign up and the app “will be turned off, and any open projects will be deleted.” 

Google said that 100 percent of donations made before Feb. 6 would be given to the associated charities.

Aside from being a donation pipeline, the One Today app also shared photos and videos depicting donations at work. Users were also provided with a year-end receipt for tax deduction purposes. 

The app will be listed in the Google Graveyard called Killed by Google, an open-source list of discontinued Google services, products, devices and apps.

The One Today app launched in 2013 for Android users first. One of the features allowed users to set a cap and match donations to a cause made by their friends as a way of crowdsourcing donations. 

The app was populated with charities that Google for Nonprofits worked with. Organizations Google did not have a relationship with could also register to be included. As users donated, the app recommended other causes.

Last year Google Assistant — Google’s proprietary voice-activated artificial intelligence (AI) assistant — added a donation feature enabling users to give money to charities via voice from any smart device using the company’s software. 

Users can also say the name of a specific charity organization, such as “Okay Google, donate $10 to the Red Cross,” but money doesn’t go directly to the nonprofit. Instead, donations go to Network for Good (NFG), a U.S. nonprofit donor-advised fund, which makes grants to recommended charities.