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New startup ideas · Direct giving, without the middlemen · After the federal money

startup concept

Steadygive

Converts a defunded nonprofit's mailing list into recurring direct ACH donors

Steadygive is replacement-revenue software for nonprofits that lost government funding: it runs campaigns pitched around the new $1,000 non-itemizer deduction, signs supporters up for monthly ACH gifts straight to the nonprofit's bank account, and issues the acknowledgment letters and year-end tax summaries.

0

similar startups, last 2 years (0 all-time)

no

no public money matching the concept's terms

Test it before you build it

$400 · 3 weeks · 20 prospects

For $400 and 3 weeks, prove that 5 of 20 defunded nonprofits will prepay $450 for a flat-fee monthly ACH giving campaign built around the 2026 $1,000 deduction.

Riskiest assumption · A development director at a defunded nonprofit will pay a visible flat $150 a month invoice to replace a percentage fee their donors cover invisibly - if the invisible fee always wins the budget argument, the flat-fee model is dead.

1Focus group: who and where

The executive or development director of a nonprofit with 5-50 staff that publicly lost federal funding in 2025, holds a mailing list of 2,000 or more supporters, and is planning its 2026 year-end campaign right now - the first season the $1,000 non-itemizer deduction exists and the number they must replace is written in their board minutes.

where to find 20 · The public AmeriCorps grant termination lists and Urban Institute coverage of nonprofits losing federal funds, which name the organizations directly; the r/nonprofit subreddit and NTEN's online community, where these development directors ask tooling questions; local Association of Fundraising Professionals chapter meetings and state nonprofit association newsletters as the channel into year-end campaign planning.

2Sell first, build later

A founding-member year-end package sold before the product exists: campaign setup by November 1, monthly ACH enrollment pages that deposit straight into the nonprofit's own bank account, and acknowledgment letters plus 2026 year-end tax summaries formatted for the new $1,000 non-itemizer deduction, live through the December giving season.

the ask · $150 per month flat plus pass-through ACH cost; founding members prepay 3 months, $450.

a real yes · A real yes is the $450 invoice paid. Not a yes: a demo request, 'send this to our board', or an offer to try it free in December.

3Small experiments

The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.

  1. 1. Defunded-list discovery calls

    $150 · 10 days

    Assemble 40 nonprofits from the AmeriCorps termination lists and Urban Institute coverage, prioritizing those with visible email newsletters as a proxy for a list worth converting. Book 20 calls with the executive or development director via email and AFP chapter connections, and ask two things: what they pay their current giving platform per gift, and whether a $1,000-deduction campaign is on their year-end calendar.

    keep going if · 12 of 20 are planning a deduction-centered year-end campaign, and 8 of 20 cannot name their current per-gift fee.

  2. 2. Founding-member prepay

    $100 · 7 days

    Pitch the founding-member offer at the end of each call and send the invoice the same day: $450 prepays 3 months, with campaign setup guaranteed by November 1. The invoice is deliberate - the test is whether a visible flat fee survives against percentage fees donors cover invisibly.

    keep going if · 5 of 20 pay the $450 invoice within 7 days of the call.

  3. 3. Priced page to the wider pool

    $150 · 7 days

    Put the three-line landing copy on a one-page site showing the $450 founding-member invoice request form, not a waitlist, and share it with the non-bookers plus the NTEN community and one AFP chapter newsletter. Count invoice requests from organizations never called.

    keep going if · 20 or more unique nonprofit visitors and 3 invoice requests from prospects who never took a call.

4Collect a deposit up front

Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.

$450

per prospect, refundable

how · Three months prepaid on an invoice payable by ACH, with a signed one-page order form - an invoice matches how these nonprofits already buy software, and it makes the flat fee visible on purpose, since that visibility is exactly the assumption under test. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗

what it reserves · Campaign setup before November 1, the $150 flat rate locked through 2027, and a place in the first cohort for the December 2026 giving season.

refund · Full refund on request any time before the campaign page goes live, expected by November 1; monthly cancellation after that.

target · 5 prepaid $450 founding memberships from 20 conversations by September 30, 2026.

before taking money · Collect only the subscription fee during the test and do not run ACH debits or touch donor funds until counsel confirms a processor-of-record setup that keeps the company outside money-transmitter licensing.

Go: build it if

5 of 20 prospects prepay $450 by September 30 ($2,250 collected) and at least 3 landing-page invoice requests arrive from organizations never called.

Kill: stop if

Fewer than 2 of 20 prepay, or 10 or more of 20 say that because donors cover their current platform's fee, a flat invoice is a budget line they will not add.

5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open

outreach message

Your federal funding was cut and this year-end campaign has to replace part of it. Tax year 2026 is the first year every donor can deduct up to $1,000 in cash gifts without itemizing, and most giving tools don't produce documentation to that standard. Steadygive signs your mailing list up for monthly ACH gifts straight to your bank account and issues the receipts and year-end summaries: flat $150 a month, no percentage, no tip screen. Do you have 20 minutes this week to walk through your December plan?

landing page

Turn your mailing list into monthly ACH donors before December $150 a month flat: monthly ACH giving to your own bank account, receipts, and 2026 $1,000-deduction paperwork - no percentage, no tip screen. Prepay 3 months ($450) to lock founding-member setup by November 1.

deposit terms

Founding members prepay 3 months, $450, by ACH invoice. It reserves your campaign setup before November 1, locks the $150 flat rate through 2027, and includes acknowledgment and year-end summary templates for the 2026 $1,000 deduction. Full refund any time before your campaign goes live; cancel monthly after that.

Would you run this test?

One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.

Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.

Scorecard

Ranked against every idea in the catalog: trend, demand and 100x potential from the corpus, competition relative to the other ideas. A generated concept has no judges or swipes yet, so its pillars use the data signals only.

46

Idea Score, 0-100 (partial) · raw 27.8 x 1.64

Open

competition: more crowded than 12% of ideas · headwind x0.94

+0.0

government priorities, secondary (0 matching grants)

Trend

35

Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.

  • Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)21
  • Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector33
  • Sector direction (live batch)50

Demand

15

Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.

  • YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)30
  • Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)0

100x potential

50

Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.

  • no signal yet, taken as 50

Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 382 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were converts, defunded, nonprofit, mailing, list, recurring, direct, ach.

The concept in full

What
Steadygive is replacement-revenue software for nonprofits that lost government funding: it runs campaigns pitched around the new $1,000 non-itemizer deduction, signs supporters up for monthly ACH gifts straight to the nonprofit's bank account, and issues the acknowledgment letters and year-end tax summaries. No platform percentage, no tip screen, no held balances.
Grounded in (2025-2026 signals)
'The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, lets standard-deduction filers, about 86% of taxpayers in 2026, deduct up to $1,000 of cash gifts ($2,000 joint) starting with tax year 2026.' 'One in three community-serving nonprofits lost government funding in early 2025.' Tax Foundation puts the non-itemizer deduction at $74 billion over 2025-2034.
What it rides
Rides 'Universal charitable deduction from 2026': for the first time the 86% of filers who never itemized have a tax reason to give up to $1,000, exactly when grant-dependent nonprofits need household donors to replace federal dollars.
Why now
Tax year 2026 is the first year the deduction exists, so the 2026 year-end giving season is the one moment every nonprofit will run its first '$1,000 deductible' campaign, and most have no tooling that documents cash gifts to the new standard.
Wedge: first customer and entry point
AmeriCorps-affiliated and Urban Institute-profile nonprofits that publicly lost funding in 2025: they have donor lists, urgency, and a concrete number to replace. Flat $150 a month plus ACH cost; the skipped costs are the platform fee and the tip.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
Metal (Super intelligence for fundraising) does fundraising intelligence, not payment rails or receipts; Steadygive is the boring pipe that moves the monthly gift and produces the tax paper. No 2025-2026 cohort company tracked here processes direct nonprofit ACH giving.
Main risk
Nonprofits already pay Fundraise Up-class vendors, and a percentage fee they never see line-itemed may beat a flat invoice they do.

Similar startups in the directory

Companies whose pitch matches most of the concept's terms (converts, defunded, nonprofit, mailing, list, recurring, direct, ach).

Nothing in the directory matches this concept's terms.

Public money in this direction

US federal grants and open opportunities matched to the concept's terms.

No matching grants or programs tracked; 2 startup-relevant grants exist in Fintech overall.

Other concepts in this collection

Fictional concept generated 2026-08-26 by claude-fable-5 from the collection's brief and MarkosWeb data. Treat it as a research prompt, not a plan.