New Pricing & Projects – Effective February 1st, 2020 (Jan 1st, 2020 for Benevity donors)

Important news!  This page is still being updated, please check back in the coming weeks for additional information…

Updated Pricing

  • Effective February 1st 2020, pricing will be US$15.00 per tonne, with projects receiving US$13.50 per tonne.  COTAP’s margin will be 10% instead of 9.09%.
  • For online donations and checks received on or before January 31st, 2020 – existing pricing, margins, monthly/€/£ options, and project allocations will remain in effect until then. If, after January 31st, out-of-date portions of our website result in funds received at our old pricing, your acknowledgement will reflect the new pricing.  If that is not acceptable to you, email us at donate at cotap dot org and your donation will be refunded.
  • This new pricing is effective for funds received by COTAP on or after February 1st.  For indirect channels where COTAP receives donations from an intermediary in the month following the month in which the donation was actually made, this price change is effective January 1, 2020.  For Benevity, our largest indirect channel, COTAP receives donations 3 weeks after the end of the month during which donations are made.  This means that COTAP’s updated pricing will be applied to donations made via Benevity beginning December 1st.
  • For recurring monthly plans, existing plans will be discontinued and monthly Cotappers will need to sign up for the new plan after February 1st.
  • There will be minimum offsetting levels (which are to be determined) for both one-time and monthly donations.
  • Updated pricing in € and £ is to be determined.  As before, €/£ pricing is subject to change and is more “padded” in terms of margins to allow for fluctuations in currency exchange rates.  Projects will still receive US$13.50 per tonne.

Updated Project Portfolio

  • We’re in the process of adding at least 3 projects effective February 1st, at which time offsetting to “all projects” will be evenly allocated across the updated project portfolio, even if the new projects’ profile pages are still under construction at that time.
  • Similar to pricing, this new portfolio allocation applies to funds received by COTAP on or after February 1st, and thus applies to donations made through intermediary channels (primarily Benevity) beginning January 1st.
  • All new projects will be registered under the Plan Vivo Carbon Standard, which requires that project organizers share at least 60% of carbon revenues with local communities.
  • These projects will also have their own donation pages for Cotappers who wish to support a specific project.

What’s NOT Changing

  • COTAP is still 100% tax-deductible for U.S. residents.
  • Cotappers are still creating the world’s highest percentage of community income per dollar.  Specifically, that’s 54%+.  This is the $13.50 projects will receive from COTAP multiplied by Plan Vivo’s 60%+ carbon revenue sharing requirement, divided by COTAP’s overall price of $15.00.  $13.50 x 60% = $8.10.  $8.10/$15.00 = 54%.
  • 100% of employer matching funds still goes towards COTAP’s operations and expansion.
  • COTAP’s margin still covers PayPal and Stripe processing fees.
  • Donations which are 1) anonymous and 2) have no explicit offsetting designation also go towards COTAP’s operations and expansion.

Rationale for Updated Pricing, and Other Thoughts…

  • It’s about time!  We haven’t touched our overall pricing, also referred to as our donation rate per tonne, since we launched in 2011.  To put this in perspective, if we had increased prices by a modest 5.33% each year, $9.90 per tonne would now be $15.00 per tonne.  Finance nerds out there refer to this 5.33% as the compound annual growth rate or “CAGR.”
  • Many projects which we support also have other buyers, and they are frequently able to command US$13.50 per tonne, or higher.  Projects have finite supply and they choose whom they do business with, and when… and so COTAP needs to increase its pricing in order to be a competitive source of funding.
  • Even after the increase, COTAP still has “middle of the road” pricing.  We’ve never sought to be the cheapest option out there, nor the most expensive.  Our goal is income creation for the poor through substantial and direct sharing of carbon revenues.  We continue to strive to be the best option worldwide for those who are interested in maximizing poverty alleviation per tonne and/or poverty alleviation per dollar.
  • Yes, Cotappers will technically be offsetting fewer tonnes for the same dollar amount… but they’ll also be creating more income and alleviating more poverty for every tonne that they offset!
  • Demand for offsets in general is going up!

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