GiveWise
Millions need help right now, but finding them takes time. GiveWise's AI agent Pip searches the web and social media like X and Instagram for urgent needs and pays them via PayPal, within your limit.
The problem
People want to help, but they don’t know which charities are real, whether their money did anything, or how to keep giving every month without it getting out of hand. Small and local causes, especially in places like Nigeria, are the hardest to check. And when someone needs help right now, finding them in time is hard.
What GiveWise does
Pip, a small water-droplet character, is the agent. Pip suggests; you decide.
- You tell Pip what you care about and pick a monthly budget. That budget becomes a hard limit.
- Pip researches on the live web. It searches web pages, news, fundraisers and public social media posts, then reads them. Every claim comes with a link and a label: Verified, Partly verified or Couldn’t verify.
- You connect PayPal once. PayPal saves your approval. Connecting doesn’t charge anything.
- You approve a monthly split between the charities Pip found.
- You press “Run payment day now” on My plan. GiveWise creates one PayPal payment per charity, from your PayPal straight to the charity. GiveWise never holds the money.
- Pip finds urgent needs: current appeals and people in need (for example someone who needs surgery). Each one shows its sources, and you can give once with one click. Pip never approves anything for you.
Safety rules, enforced in code (not just on screen)
- Your limit is checked on the server before every payment (
lib/payments.ts). Each payment is reserved first, then checked, so two payments at the same moment can’t both slip under the limit. If a payment would go over, it’s stopped and PayPal is never called.
- Pip can’t make up sources (
lib/pip-search.ts). A link only counts if that exact page came back from the web search. The label is worked out again from the links that are left, and the AI can only lower it, never raise it.
- Social media posts can’t count as proof on their own. A finding backed only by social posts or fundraiser pages is marked with a warning, and a person in need with no valid link is dropped.
- Each charity is paid once a month. A payment that never hears back from PayPal stops counting against your limit after 10 minutes.
How it uses PayPal and AI
| Part | What it does | Code |
|---|
| PayPal Vault (setup token → payment token) | Saves your PayPal without paying, approved on PayPal’s own page | lib/paypal.ts, app/api/paypal/vault/* |
PayPal Orders v2 with vault_id and payee | One payment per charity on payment day, and one-off gifts | lib/paypal.ts, lib/payments.ts |
| PayPal webhooks | Failed, reversed or refunded payments, and cancelled approvals | app/api/paypal/webhook/route.ts |
| Log in with PayPal | Optional sign-in | lib/auth.ts |
| Tavily search + Claude (Haiku 5.5) | Tavily finds web pages, news, fundraisers and public posts on X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, TikTok and GoFundMe. Claude reads them and sends back charities, current appeals and people in need, each with proof links, as they’re found | lib/pip-search.ts, app/api/pip/search/route.ts |
Try it
On the live demo
- Open the live demo and sign up with any email (password: at least 10 characters, with a number) or with Google.
- Go through Pip’s setup. Pick $25 a month so there’s room for an extra gift later.
- At Connect PayPal, log in with the PayPal sandbox test buyer below. This is fake money.
- Approve the split. On My plan, press Run payment day now. You’ll see a PayPal order ID for each charity.
- In Settings → Budget & limits, raise the limit to $50 and save.
- Open Urgent needs. Pip fills it with live appeals and people in need as soon as it opens (or type another need and press Look for this). Give $10 once: it goes through. Then try $25: the server stops it because it’s over your limit.
- On Discover, type a cause (for example “dog rescue in Lagos”) and press Search the web. Add a charity Pip found, press Share my $…, then Approve this plan.
- History & receipts lists every payment with its PayPal order ID. Impact shows how much went to each charity.
Test logins
| What | Login |
|---|
| PayPal sandbox buyer (fake money) | Email: [email protected] · Password: c$h2JwP/ |
| GiveWise | Sign up with any email or Google |
The sandbox buyer login is also shown in the app on the Connect PayPal step.
Test mode note: right now every gift is paid to one PayPal sandbox test account, not to the real charity Pip found. No real money moves. To pay real charities, each one needs its own verified PayPal account (see “What’s next”).
Run it yourself
You need: Node.js 22.13 or newer (it uses the built-in node:sqlite), and a free PayPal developer account.
git clone https://github.com/Eragbai2001/Givewise-.git
cd Givewise-
npm install
cp .env.local.example .env.local # then fill it in (see below)
npm run dev
Open http://localhost:3000. The database is created automatically: a local SQLite file (givewise.db), or Postgres if you set DATABASE_URL.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
