

Philanthroper - donate $1 a day to awesome NPOs - bschaefer
https://philanthroper.com

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bschaefer
Hey! I'm the developer behind Philanthroper.com, and would love to see some
discussion here and answer any questions you have.

We've gotten some good press so far [1], and we're completely thrilled to
finally be live.

Today's featured NPO is particularly great; Computer Aid International
refurbishes the computers you would have thrown out -- or, at least recycled
-- and distributes them throughout Africa and Latin America (over 175,000
since they started in 1998).

Seems like just the sort of thing HN would be interested in!

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/01/philanthroper-
hopes-...](http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2011/01/philanthroper-hopes-to-
boost-charity-of-the-day-1-at-a-time.ars)

~~~
drats
Your page doesn't function well as a landing page or give enough information
straight away about how it all works. The comment from Ben Thacker (facebook
comment) is the kind of thing you need to get to the user quickly:

"For US bank-account-holders only, an interesting idea. Choose whether or not
to donate $1 per day to a variety of charities pre-vetted by Philanthroper.
Religious/personal appeals are excluded, and the website makes its money from
ads, not by taking a cut. The only fee is a 1% charge for the payment
processing."

<https://www.banksimple.com/> has a pretty epic page/intro, open source too.
Do some testing anyway, but it's a good idea you have got going there.
Congratulations on your launch.

~~~
bschaefer
Thanks for the feedback. We'll definitely be thinking about the best way to
draw in new visitors and give them a clear understanding of what the site's
about.

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rms
What do you think about Give Well's analysis of charities?
<http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities>

~~~
MarkWilson
Hey, this is Mark Wilson, Founder of Philanthroper.

I truly respect their approach in that they're really going after impact
measurement and tangible metrics. But if we all listened to GiveWell, there
would be 10 charities in business. Literally. That's how many they've deemed
worthy of your support.

GiveWell is kind of like that kid you knew in grade school who said he'd only
marry a supermodel. Standards are great, until you realize that sleeping alone
for your entire life might not be the best way to actually live.

~~~
HoldenKarnofsky
This is Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of GiveWell. Mark, we're glad to see your
new project, and we appreciate the kind words re: respect for what we do. A
couple points of clarification:

1\. We don't claim (and have never claimed) that our recommended charities are
the only ones worthy of support. Our goal is to identify, and drive money to,
outstanding charities; our audience is donors who want to do as much good as
possible, but don't have the time/resources to research charities on their
own. We recognize that our methodology is not the only way to identify
promising groups (though we believe it is most efficient for serving our
audience). Think of us as investors: we work to find outstanding
opportunities, but don't claim that all non-recommended opportunities are bad
ones.

You can see more about how we think about this issue at
[http://blog.givewell.org/2009/05/07/small-unproven-
charities...](http://blog.givewell.org/2009/05/07/small-unproven-charities/)

2\. In your analogy, it seems to me that the problem with "that kid's"
behavior is that you can't unilaterally decide whom to marry. But you pretty
much have your pick of where to give - there aren't any major charities that
will turn you down as a donor. Given that situation, why not give to the best
charity/charities you can find? We don't encourage anyone to "sleep alone,"
i.e., not give to charity.

Our recommendations aren't for everyone. We recognize the value of
Philanthroper as a way to hopefully get people to give more than they would
otherwise, and wish you the best with this mission. We hope that you'll
consider featuring our top charities among others, because - like the others
you plan on featuring - they are organizations with something special to
offer.

~~~
MarkWilson
Holden, this is a pretty fair response - and I of all people know the
difficulty of digging through the noise of the industry. I do think that,
intrinsically, there's an implication that comes with that pie chart on your
front page and a choice of 10.

There are a lot of NPOs, but there is just as much fear-mongering that
justifies that little voice in peoples' head, tipping the scales as to whether
they donate or not. This voice stops people from donating to anyone, lest
their dollar be the dollar that buys an office supply rather than an air-
dropped meal. In this economic climate, the impact of that voice is far worse
than the consequence donating to an inefficient charity.

I think that this is something you could deal with by simply rebranding that
idea a bit. 'The 10 Best Charities' is such a better sell than "There Are Only
10 Worthy Charities We've Found So Far." I really feel like that pie graph
says the latter.

Again, it's not your mission - I'm sincere in saying that. I think it's the
presentation. And that presentation alone would never be enough for me to
exclude your top picks.

But clearly, we should chat more in another venue. I'm
markATphilanthroper.com.

~~~
HoldenKarnofsky
Mark, thanks for the feedback. I think you raise a fair point. We always have
a little bit of a balancing act with "headline" communications (i.e.,
introductory/"hook" content as opposed to pages deep on our site). No
headline/chart can capture everything we're trying to say (and not say) while
still being simple and intuitive. We're always discussing the tradeoffs and
would be happy to speak further with you; I'll shoot you an email.

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Loic
My company is part of One Percent for the Planet. When you are part of it, you
give 1% of your turnover to accredited environmental organisations. I like
these kind of "give something no matter what to help the others/the Planet".
The more people will be part of these actions, the better we will be.

<http://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org/>

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ookblah
just some feedback...

i would drop the registration process for new donors, or at least make it
optional (ie put it at the end of the donation process where all they do is
just enter a password or something).

i really dislike these things on shopping carts and moreso on donation sites.
great idea!

~~~
amstrad464
I agree with ookblah above. Also, letting people donate with PayPal would
decrease the friction of making one. Best of luck!

