The vision is to revolutionize the process of charitable giving. With the tools we have at our disposal, it seems obvious to me there has to be a better way for these groups to raise money more efficiently, and use funds more effectively.
Every time my emotional connection to the vision wanes, something external shows up and rejuvenates. This time, it was Seth Godin’s blog post about his $80K Squidoo give-away.
Rather than keep the idea to myself, I’m going to let it breathe here, and hope that the sparks will ignite into a healthy fire. The non-profit fund-raising model is broken. Things need to change. Again, we have the tools…we just need some entity to come along and execute the plan.
Here are the major points:
1. We need to make sure that the field-work is the fundraising. Rather than having groups spend money on advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, let’s set up a platform where the work that is done in the field can speak for itself. By efficiently letting potential donators know what is going on in the field, groups can spend less on advertising and more on programs.
2. “Committed Giving” – this is not “automated”, it is committed. Automated giving implies a disconnect. In “automated giving”, every month, money comes out of my bank account and goes to a charity. Not much of an emotional connection there, and, as a result, I don’t get the same benefit of giving as I do when I give spontaneously. With committed giving, the user allocates a certain amount of money each month to go into their Giving Account. Then, the user goes online, logs in to the system, and actively choses what group to give the money to, based on reviews from other users, reports from the groups themselves, and other collaborative filtering and research tools that we put in place in our giving community. In any given month, you can donate portions of your committed amount to different causes, either by dollar amount, or percentage.
3. Winning money for your cause – On the Squidoo give-away, there was money in a pool, and users got to vote to determine where the $80K went. Great idea. Let’s take it one step further now. What if I have $100 in my give account for the month, and you have $150, and we decide to play a game of scrabble or chess for $10. If I win, I get $10 of your money in my account, so now I get to choose where that money goes. Remember, the money is already committed, and is not to be withdrawn. Rather, the winner simply gets to choose which non-profit the funds go to. The more you win, the more you can raise for your pet cause. But, you’re at risk to lose too. Poker, chess, hearts, any games of skill can be included. Oh, and what about games of chance? What about a “lottery”? What if we have 100,000 users who agree to allocate $1 of their commitment per month to the lottery. At the end of the month, $100K is in the pool, and one winner gets to choose which group gets the funds.
4. More visibility for non-profits. Rather than spending money on advertising and fundraising, a more efficient way to raise funds would be for a group to have somebody within their organization interface with the community on our site. Reporting on work that’s being done in the field, pictures, videos from people that are being helped, those are the kinds of things that will get attention from our committed donors to allocate money to your cause. Show us that annual report, more transparency will result in more funds being allocated. We can use the Woot.com model, and highlight one non-profit group a day.
There are so many other ideas to include, but this post is already quite long. What we need is a group to decide to create this platform. Facebook has some of the elements, Network For Good has others, Woot has others, Amazon has others, gambling websites have others. We need to create a single platform, integrated, and designed to remove so much of this friction in the non-profit marketplace.
If we do, the long tail will grow. The most efficient and effective charities will be rewarded with more funds, while the others will see their funding diminish, forcing them to die, or change and become better.
The vision is clear….the question is: how do we make it happen?
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