

YC nonprofit One Degree (YC W14) is breaking the cycle of poverty - reyf
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/20/yc-backed-one-degree-is-a-yelp-for-social-services-that-helps-low-income-families/

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samiur1204
Hey Rey,

Fantastic idea! Absolutely love it, as I see it as something very necessary
for the vast array of social services available. That said, I'd like to make a
small critique, mostly inconsequential and probably more of an indication of
my absurd cynicism, but nevertheless, here it is: when I first read the title
of the post, my thoughts were "oh brother, another user-privileged guy
purporting to know how to solve the worlds problems." The title implied to me
that you guys were claiming to do a lot more than you actually are doing (like
I thought you guys were claiming to magically solve income disparity across
the world). I obviously did, however, read the article, so take this with a
grain of salt.

Anyway, love the idea and will be forwarding it on to all my friends!

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lukasm
Very interesting, but I think the website doesn't explain it enough(I got the
idea after reading TC). Do I really need to sign in? If I were homeless I
would be ashamed of using it with my real identity.

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reyf
Hi there, Rey from One Degree here. Thanks for your feedback. We're always
working on improving our homepage, so I appreciate that. If you have any
suggestions for what to add, please let me know.

You don't need to sign up to search and browse for services on 1deg.org.
However, we're not just about giving people information about services. We
actually help people manage the services they use (saving lists of services
and also creating goals), we enable them to have a voice in the nonprofit
system (through ratings/reviews), and we give people curated recommendations
of services that fit their profile (so they don't have to waste time searching
for what they're eligible for). All this is for free, and you can sign up
anonymously.

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keeptrying
Love IT!

This was something I had wanted to build after I tried finding services for 2
kids who live with their Grandma. It so hard to find social services. I made
like 20 calls and got nowhere. Didn't find 1 useful service. In the end we
gave their grandmom a subscription to foodOnTheTable.com so she could save
money on meals.

This site really needs some UI love though. It has to be super easy to use
which its not right now.

Maybe some designers on here can help out?

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BvS
Are you planning to open source some or all of the code of your site etc.? Was
thinking about a similar service in my country (Germany) and that would
obviously help a lot.

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judk
? It's a CRUD website. The work is in the data collection, not the software.

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ericisaiah
I agree. It's the content and community that makes what we do worthwhile, not
the code. We've got an API that anyone can build on: data.1deg.org (that
documentation is not fully up to date, but when I catch my breath after YC
I'll update it).

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BTC_BruceWillis
Cool idea. All .gov websites should look like this ;)

What's the future product roadmap look like?

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reyf
Thanks, Rey from One Degree here. Right now we're focused on improving our
site and adding some great features so that our users (low-income families in
San Francisco), can easily find what they need. Who knows exactly what the
future holds? We're intently listening to our One Degree members, so they will
likely help us shape what our product looks like in the future.

I can tell you that there's a growing trend that low-income families are using
smartphones, so we'll be aggressively expanding in that direction. We'd love
to create the best-in-class nationwide platform to access and use nonprofit
and social services.

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judk
I would guess that social services step #1 is don't piss away money on a cell
phone and data plan...

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bmajz
That's simply not true. A lot of people need cell phones, especially if
they're transient and job-hunting. Increasingly, you need the Internet too -
at least email access. Going to the local library doesn't cut it if you need
to get a quick response to an interview request.

~~~
reyf
Thank you! You took the words right out of my mouth.

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dalerus
This look great.

One thing, as someone who represents organizations, I can't really tell what
the benefits are for an organization from the homepage. Do you have more
information for partners other than the 3 points on the homepage?

~~~
reyf
Thanks for asking about that. We are in the nascent stages of rolling out
deeper features for nonprofits on 1deg.org. We're piloting that with 5 San
Francisco nonprofits now, and hope to roll it out more widely in the near
future.

In the meantime, if you're part of an SF nonprofit organization, contact me
(rey at 1deg dot org), and I can see about getting you in on this pilot as
well. Essentially we want to build features based on what our pilot partners
say they want, so we're starting with the 3 bullet points, but don't want to
get carried away just yet!

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namenotrequired
The title will probably be reverted to the original, but the current one [1]
is much clearer.

[1] "YC nonprofit One Degree (YC W14) is breaking the cycle of poverty"

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reyf
Hey there, it's Rey from One Degree. Can you clarify what you mean? Thanks!

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namenotrequired
Hi Rey! Thanks a lot for responding. I didn't realise it was you who submitted
it, I simply noticed that the title under which you submitted it is different
- and much better - than that of the article. Usually in cases like this, an
HN admin will change the title to that of the original. I don't know if they
will do that even if it was you who submitted it, however.

Keep up the great work, I really hope you will succeed!

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reyf
Thanks for the encouragement, Bart! We hope so too...

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joshdance
Love the idea. How will you make money? Or at least pay for operations?

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rideltrain
Bravo to your work and to YC for supporting nonprofit forces!

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brandonb
Super cool concept! Wishing you folks luck with it.

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jchung
Awesome to see another great nonprofit in YC!

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reyf
Thanks! We're excited to be part of the amazing YC community.

