
Show HN: Humanity Box – Ads that change lives - nicksergeant
http://humanitybox.com/
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dfgonzalez
Nice initiative, please consider adopting IAB standard ad sizes like 300x250,
728x90, 468x60, etc so you can access to more remnant inventory.

Right now many ad companies use Greenpeace or Red Cross for serving
_something_ when they run out of ads. It shouldn't be hard to get some
impressions from them, but the standard ad sizes will be a common requirement.

Good luck!

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atacrawl
I get the impression this is more geared towards sites that would run the
Deck, Fusion, et al. In other words, sites that tend to have very limited
advertising and don't subscribe to the IAB's definition of size standards.

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omphalos
"No money ever changes hands with Humanity Box", but their partner,
GiveForward, a for-profit company, seems to charge fees:
[http://www.giveforward.com/learn#fees](http://www.giveforward.com/learn#fees).

GiveForward's remarks defending why they are for-profit:
[http://help.giveforward.com/customer/portal/articles/757696-...](http://help.giveforward.com/customer/portal/articles/757696-why-
isn%E2%80%99t-giveforward-a-non-profit-)

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eli
> _" Many non-profits spend up to 40% of their resources fundraising...At
> GiveForward, almost all donations go directly to a person or family."_

I might be misunderstanding, but this seems disingenuous. Presumably as a
nonprofit, they could continue to raise money through the exact same fee
structure they have now. This would not require any additional fundraising
resources. Plenty of nonprofits have models that do not require fundraising.

Do they post financials online? Voluntarily disclosing the same information
that nonprofits are required to disclose would certainly help their argument.

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notahacker
The point they're making is essentially " _since we raise funds for charities
at a vastly lower cost to them than virtually any other fundraising effort
they make, why shouldn 't we make a profit if we can?_". A point they could
also have made is that a large proportion of charities' (often much higher per
dollar raise) fundraising costs go directly or indirectly to profit-making
companies anyway.

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unclebucknasty
> _why shouldn 't we make a profit if we can?_

I guess it comes down to the definition of "if we can". Because, if they
don't, then more people they are presuming to save might be saved.

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jellicle
How about one that only runs ads for a true universal healthcare system in
America?

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GrinningFool
Give me a means to host this on my site so that I don't share my users' data
and browsing habits with you, and I've got a couple places I'll be happy set
it up. For example, a similar drop-in chunk of code and script to host
locally, along with a cron that I run once daily to fetch the day's updates.

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nicksergeant
You can easily copy our code and do this:
[https://github.com/nicksergeant/humanitybox](https://github.com/nicksergeant/humanitybox).

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nicksergeant
Actually I stand corrected. You'd need an API key with GiveForward. I could
see if they'd let me host the day's campaigns at an API endpoint for custom
solutions.

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GrinningFool
That would be cool if they allow it.

~~~
nicksergeant
Will let you know.

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cenhyperion
This is really great. If you're ever interested in expanding into the
environmental sector we're at the intersection of both environment and
community development and would love to chat.

luke@rainforestpartnership.org

~~~
nicksergeant
Thanks so much! I'll drop you a note.

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jasonlbaptiste
This is great. You should work to get publishers to donate x% of ad inventory
to charity of their choosing. They can then write off the inventory's value
for tax purposes too.

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minimaxir
Project Wonderful has been doing a similar thing for a very long time:
[https://www.projectwonderful.com](https://www.projectwonderful.com)

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nicksergeant
Awesome! I had no idea about this. I'm a little confused as to what kind of
ads it serves after reading the site, though.

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DiabloD3
Anyone's. I used to run it for awhile, its mostly been semi-targeted corporate
ads.

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chinloops
I think you site is just mock piece for GiveForward. Sort of shill but smart
way.

Why not mention in direct and bold words that GiveForward is going to charge
money to donors ?

Free ads is good thing but there goes hidden agenda of making money from
people's emotion stress.

Also why someone should go to giveforward if there are many other alternatives
charging less commission.

Amount of people encashing on people's stress, emotions are increasing
dramatically which is not a good thing.

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downandout
Given that many charities that pay up to 95% of the funds they raise to third
party marketing companies, I don't think it would be out of line at all to
give the sites hosting these ads a cut of the funds they raise. There's
nothing wrong with offering a win-win proposition, and it would get you more
traction.

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miles_matthias
Awesome! I just added it be the separator between blog posts on
[http://dojo4.com/blog](http://dojo4.com/blog).

Can I see how much our blog helps these causes? It would be cool to get some
analytics.

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arjie
Are the underlines on the ad intentional? Maybe it shouldn't be on the longer
description text at least? Makes it look tacky.

Then again, maybe it's good for conversion.

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miles_matthias
Do you mean the dotted or solid line?

I made the dotted section breakers to break up the ads and blog posts.

Nick did the solid lines within the ad so this might be a better question for
him.

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arjie
Thanks, I meant the solid text underlines on the advertisements themselves. I
should've addressed my question to him.

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desireco42
I can't express how much I love this idea. This is excellent way to go about
it. I hope you will grow as a platform and this can be standard way to be
charitable.

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nicksergeant
Thanks so much! We hope it grows, too.

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justplay
it is very inspiring to see that how people are really contributing to pushing
humanity forward.

Kudos for your work.

