No all the donations come from the SBD that I earn from posting. But that is only my part of it....the initiative is to encourage more Steemians to hopefully do the same or similar. It doesn't matter to me if 'Giving Steem' grows into something else or is superseded by something better organised or more effective. The only way it can currently scale is if other accounts do what I'm doing. I like the idea of that because it feels like accountable, transparent, decentralised, direct giving.