

Watsi (YC W13) and the Future of Patronage - dmor
http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/watsi-and-the-future-of-patronage/

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lincolnq
Watsi is doing great stuff.

One related thing I would recommend, if you're interested in charity &
philanthropy, is to check out GiveWell (<http://givewell.org>). They have very
well-studied recommendations of charities, and they recommend them on the
basis of "most good for your dollar". Some of the most efficient treatments on
Watsi are on the order of thousands of dollars per child's life saved. That's
pretty damn good as "good for your dollar" goes, but GiveWell's
recommendations are often a factor of 2-10 better, and the evidence base to
support their recommendations is quite strong.

~~~
citizenkeys
I'm working on a blog post right now about YC-funded charity and philanthropy
companies. Watsi is the only official non-profit, but YC has funded at least 5
companies that focus on social good. Charity is giving. Philanthropy is doing.

[http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-
companies?market=charity+a...](http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-
companies?market=charity+and+philanthropy#market)

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rdl
I think there would be nothing but good coming from "lightweight", ad hoc
charities, instead of enduring NGOs and other institutions.

The problem with conventional charities is that if they're successful, they
put themselves out of business. Even if a funder supports that idea, it's
entirely possible the organization will become an "institution" in its own
right, and find other problems to solve -- and when you have a huge pool of
money looking for problems to solve, there's no incentive for it to be
efficient at all.

Charities, especially in Africa and other parts of the developing world, have
institutional biases toward ongoing involvement -- the people involved don't
want to create dependency, but the pressures on the organization lead it in
that direction.

I prefer preventive medicine and economic development to paying for medical
treatments (more effective for each dollar invested), but I support Watsi's
methods, and if they can use those same methods of transparency and direct,
small-dollar donor involvement to solve other problems (or, better, if other
organizations copy their methods to solve other problems), they will dwarf the
impact of any other YC company to date.

~~~
randall
(Thanks for this! And thanks for staying around HN after comments have gotten
crazy. Gems like this help a lot.)

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gamblor956
I support Watsi's goals but a cursory overview of their financial statements
suggests that they are anything but "lightweight." For their current size
(measured in terms of personnel), I would expect _at least 5x_ the charitable
activity and _20x_ the fundraising compared to similarly situated NGOs.

Yes, I know that 100% of their "fundraising" will go to their charitable
activity. But that is "fundraising" in the Groupon sense--it is a redefinition
of a commonly used term that excludes their fundraising activities that
actually support their non-charitable operations. Small donors may not care
much about that, but for institutional donors (i.e., foundations), operational
costs are a significant factor in the grant-making decision process.

~~~
jessriedel
Could you give some more detail about your first paragraph?

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jotaass
I wish all the best to the team at Watsi. They have an amazing concept. It's
captivating how straightforward it really is. They offer the possibility for
anyone to make a difference to the lives of real people, and watch that
happen, in almost real time.

I don't know what these kinds of projects will do to the "future of patronage"
but it gets people aware of the problems, gets them involved and brings in
real results, with little effort. That can't be a bad thing.

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capdiz
Am jealous. Why the fuck didn't i think of this before. Am from Africa.
Everyone needs help up in this bitch. Guess what? I got caught up with these
30 under 30 posts and how i made n amount of $$ in n amount of years. Thank
you Watsi. I don't i have to make a profit to a make difference. Thank you.

~~~
rdl
There's no reason you couldn't do "Watsi for local entrepreneurship" or
something. Essentially Kiva-like.

~~~
capdiz
Thank you for pointing me to Kiva. Checking it out and its definitely
something i could work on. Thanks again.

~~~
rdl
The weird thing about Kiva is they "lie" as an efficiency optimization -- it's
not direct payment from donor to the identified recipient, but to the
organization which helped the recipient in the past. This isn't really worse
from a moral perspective (and is actually more efficient!), but might make
some donors unhappy. A Kiva which operated fully on the Watsi model of
identifying/funding specific things in realtime would be popular with at least
some existing Kiva donors.

