Uplift Nigeria Wants transparency to donations

Written By: Flipbz.org

Over the past decade, Antonia Davies has worked as a business analyst across the private sector and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), focusing on solving systemic issues—particularly those related to government clients. This experience revealed a major challenge: tracking the impact of social programs was often unreliable and unmeasurable. That realization pushed her to build a solution.

Her wake-up call came after reading a UNICEF report that revealed 1 in 3 children suffer from severe food poverty. Motivated to take action, she teamed up with a small group to launch Uplift Nigeria—a for-profit tech startup aimed at fixing the broken link between donors and beneficiaries. The platform enables secure, traceable giving, making donations both measurable and meaningful.

To validate the idea, Uplift first needed to see whether people in need would be willing to undergo a verification process. They manually collected data using forms, photos, and ID documents. At the same time, the team interviewed potential donors to determine if they would prefer to donate through a platform offering verified recipients. Uplift initially targeted underserved women and children in local communities.

Today, the startup has developed a robust identity verification system, including facial recognition, liveness checks, and bank account matching. Because many of their target users lack smartphones, Uplift relies on community agents who are paid to collect data in person—photos, IDs, and other proof.

Despite Nigeria’s heavy reliance on cash, Uplift encourages all users to open bank accounts, even helping them do so when necessary. This approach is helping drive financial inclusion, especially among rural women who previously had little incentive to enter the formal banking system.

Uplift also provides a solution for organizations looking to fulfill Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations without incurring high administrative costs. Businesses and NGOs pay an 8% service fee, while individual donors pay 5%. These fees go toward maintaining the platform’s infrastructure, including biometric and AI-powered fraud detection systems.

While the original plan was to focus on institutional donors, most early adoption has come from individuals, many of whom discovered the platform on social media and prefer to give anonymously. Donors—whether giving ₦5,000 or ₦5 million—can track every transaction, view recipient profiles, and see how funds are used.

So far, Uplift has verified 2,000 users and disbursed around ₦500,000 to 20 recipients, all without paid marketing or even a mobile app.

Uplift is also addressing fraud, a major issue in Nigeria’s financial space. Tiered account systems restrict unverified users from receiving large sums. Donations are often tied to specific goals—such as education or vocational training—and recipients receive vouchers instead of cash. Unusual requests, like a ₦5 million tailoring business proposal from a rural applicant, trigger AI alerts and manual reviews.

Due diligence is also applied to donors, particularly institutions and high-value givers, in compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) regulations, via partnerships with banks.

Looking ahead, Uplift wants to track the post-donation impact using agents. However, maintaining a wide agent network is costly, so they’re exploring a partnership with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to recruit young Nigerians as local agents.

With ambitions to scale, Uplift is working on an offline-compatible mobile app and expanding to underserved areas in other countries. The tech is suitable for communities with limited internet, high poverty, and low documentation.

Although currently bootstrapped, Uplift is open to funding that aligns with its mission. It is building partnerships with vocational training centers, CSR units, and diaspora donors—bridging the gap between those who want to give and those in need.

In Davies’ words, “As long as you want to help, we’ll help you help the people you want to help.”