Empower Project is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that provides an app that enables other nonprofits to organize voters based on networks of friends and family. In the last 10 years, the Empower Project has supported over 1,500 organizations across all 50 states. The Empower App equips organizers with mobile tools for recruiting, mobilizing, and fundraising to support civic engagement.
Turnkey embedded payouts API for nonprofits
The Empower App uses the Dots API to seamlessly pay the thousands of Community Mobilizers who encourage civic participation in their sphere of influence. In 2024, Empower Project paid out millions of dollars to Community Mobilizers using Dots’ turnkey embedded payouts API.
Reducing payouts fraud
Dots created Dots Control for payout fraud management partly in response to fraud targeting platforms that scale rapidly during election cycles. Prior to Empower implementing Dots Control, Dots identified that Empower Project had 1.5% of their payout volume going to fraudulent actors. Empower is deeply invested in bringing the fraudulent payout volume to zero. Together, Dots and Empower have further reduced payout fraud further by over 50%.
"We take stewardship of our donors’ funds seriously and want to ensure the credibility of our programs by only paying people who complete the work. While we’ve been doing much of that work internally since 2023, Dots is helping us take our work to the next level by helping us monitor metrics we could not otherwise check for on our own." – Amanda Brink, Executive Director, Empower Project
Customizable fraud management
Empower Project uses Dots Control in tandem with internal systems to mitigate the risk of payout fraud. Empower’s ability to rapidly scale to networks of organizers and volunteers introduced recipient fraud risk from foreign nationals that pretend to be in the US and foreigners that buy US accounts. Dots enables Empower Project to customize risk signals and tolerances, and based on those signals, have Dots intelligently approve payouts or route them for manual review.
Seamless payout experience for volunteers and organizers
Dots helps Empower Project ensure that legitimate end users are effortlessly paid out while preventing bad actors from siphoning donor funds. By allowing customers to dictate the fraud signals Dots takes in, what rules are based on those signals, and what actions can be taken on them, Empower offers end users an uninterrupted experience.
"Dots has proven an invaluable partner in fraud prevention. Their next flagship product, Dots Control will give us a more universal picture of each recipient and allow us to operationalize more quality control restrictions procedures. This will help us make our operations more efficient and our users’ experience even more seamless for cycles to come." – Amanda Brink, Executive Director, Empower Project
Minimizing payout fraud to maximize the value of donors’ money
With the Dots payouts API and Dots Control on the back end, nonprofits can use the Empower App to seamlessly pay organizers and volunteers at scale while ensuring that payouts go only to legitimate recipients. Dots and Empower are incredibly excited to work together to ensure that donor funds are protected and used efficiently.