Ann Arbor-based Give and Take Inc. today announced its knowledge collaboration platform Givitas is available for widespread use in enterprises. As Give and Take’s flagship product, Givitas is a technology platform designed to assist organizations apply and scale the concepts of giving and reciprocity that are shared in Adam Grant’s bestseller book, Give and Take.
Give and Take uses Givitas to bring both generalized reciprocity and social capital to enterprises in an accessible, scalable, and measurable technology platform. By using the platform to enhance a giving culture, companies and organizations can encourage positive business outcomes such as increased employee efficiency, productivity, retention, and engagement.
“Years ago, Wayne and Cheryl Baker introduced me to the ideas behind Givitas,” says Grant, co-founder of Give and Take. “I started running the exercise with students, and they said it had a transformative impact on the culture of generosity I was trying to build in the classroom. Then I tried it with executives, who called it life-changing. Since then, I’ve been asked thousands of times whether there’s a platform or app to facilitate it virtually. I’m thrilled that Givitas is here to solve that problem, and make it easier for people to give and receive help.”
As Give and Take’s proprietary technology platform, Givitas places focus on ease of use, efficiency, analytics, and integrations. In 2017, the company raised $2.2 million from investors such as RPM Ventures, Grand Ventures, Invest Michigan, strategic angel investors, and Give and Take Inc. president and CEO Larry Freed.
“Extensive research in academic and business settings shows that when team members truly feel like they are part of a generous, giving culture that supports them and allows them to support other people, they are more engaged, efficient, and effective,” says Freed. “Givitas is specifically designed for people to request and offer help in less than five minutes a day and integrates with other collaboration platforms like Slack and Yammer.”
Givitas emerges from cutting-edge academic research from the University of Michigan that reflected that positive business outcomes can be encouraged from a giving culture.
The founding team for Givitas includes Cheryl Baker, co-creator of the Reciprocity Ring and social capital and social science innovator; Wayne Baker, network science pioneer, University of Michigan Ross School of Business professor, and author of Achieving Success Through Social Capital; and Grant, organizational psychologist, Wharton professor, and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, The Originals, and Option B.
“The teachings of Wayne Baker and Adam Grant have greatly influenced how I think about the concepts of reciprocity, generosity, and networking in my workplace, with my team, and in my personal life,” says Gail Campanella, managing director at the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. “Givitas is the logical conclusion of the amazing scholarship that’s been done in this field. It’s leveraging technology to help both employees and employers reap the benefits of a giving culture.”
Givitas is being used in business, academic, and nonprofit settings around the country.
