Giving Back

Over the past decade we have seen the rise of giving back in a variety of ways. Crowdrise and GoFundMe (now a combined company) is a platform that helps people raise money for charitable donations. You can raise awareness among friends or if you do a really good job you can raise awareness amongst people that like what you are doing and want to give back to your cause. Of course Facebook copied the model and is doing it now too which is a whole other conversation.

Then there is Kickstarter, a place where you can use their platform to raise capital for creative projects from films to knives. What I like about Kickstarter vs Indiegogo is that at Kickstarter you don’t get the amount you raised unless you hit your goal. The chance of that project being made is probably higher that way and it teaches the people behind the campaign early stage fundraising skills. In transparency we are investors in Kickstarter.

These platforms were part of the different cycles of growth and change and how we are connecting and selling through the Internet. Donors Choose, lets people give money to teachers and students. Perhaps a band-aid for an underfunded Education system but the impact has been and continues to be absolutely incredible.

Someone sent me a gift for the holidays through OxFamGifts. He supported a female entrepreneur in my honor. This woman is in an African village that is starting a village savings group. The group provides a safe place to save and lend where banks are few and far between. Members can use their loans to launch or grow small businesses and when women prosper and of course, their entire families benefit. What an awesome gift.

I don’t know the exact numbers for any of these companies. Are they growing, are they flat, are they making money and continuing to come up with new ideas and products. They all stumbled on something that hit a nerve in different ways at roughly the same time. In many ways, they have all captured philanthrophy for all.

As the Internet evolves and companies start to ebb, I do hope that the companies of this particular wave continue to do what they do.

Comments (Archived):

  1. Hershberg

    A related company I’m particularly excited about at the moment is GVNG (https://www.gvng.com), which allows companies/people to create and launch their own 501(c)(3) nonprofit in a matter of minutes. The process of creating a nonprofit is typically slow (6+ months to get an IRS exemption), expensive (legal, accounting, insurance, etc), and generally painful to manage. GVNG instantly handles all of these steps in exchange for a small monthly management fee and a % of donations made through the platform. Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth and others created the Malibu Foundation through GVNG in an effort to help people impacted by last years’s Woolsey Fire (https://malibufoundation.gv…). A good example of how this works.I’m hoping this category continues to grow.*Disclosure: I’m an investor.

    1. Gotham Gal

      Very cool. The 5013C process is a bit torturous.

  2. Pointsandfigures

    Have you seen Magatte? https://www.youtube.com/wat… You will have at least a new thought about companies like Tom’s.

    1. Gotham Gal

      Interesting.

  3. awaldstein

    So important, complex and convoluted process.Doing a presentation (maybe panel) on Reimagining Philanthropy through NFTs and after a week of talking to projects, pundits, academics i feel right back at the beginning of circle at the start.So much possibilities, with such baby steps of progress.

  4. mrbalick

    This Video is example for “Giving back” in real:https://www.youtube.com/wat…DOLANHA.Com – thiết kế biệt thự hiện đại