It was founded at Harvard University in 2020 by psychologists Joshua Greene and Lucius Caviola.

[5] This innovation combines donors' seemingly conflicting preferences, namely, that they have their own favorite charities,[6] and they simultaneously care about effectiveness.

[5][8] The original design by Caviola and Greene integrated donation bundling with a new technique called micro-matching.

Individual donors support the matching system to encourage others to donate, creating a "supply and demand" cycle of charitable giving.

The authors suggested that favorite-effective donation splits satisfies donors' dual motivations of supporting causes meaningful to them and effective organizations that have a big impact.