

Catching up with Watsi: Y Combinator’s first non-profit graduate - immad
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/06/catching-up-with-watsi-y-combinators-first-non-profit-graduate/?fromcat=all

======
conroy
I'm a huge fan of Watsi, but looking over their transparency document has me
worried. The funds for 47% of funded treatments haven't made it to their
medical partners. On average, the unsent funds have been waiting for 43 days,
with the longest wait being 160 days (!!). I'd love if someone from Watsi
could explain why it takes so long to send funds to medical partners after
successful funding.

    
    
        Funded treatments: 261
        Treatments waiting for funds to transfer: 124
        Average wait for funds: 43 days
    

Data and script for calculations can be found here:
<https://gist.github.com/kyleconroy/5332776>

~~~
chaseadam17
We go into detail about that in our FAQ here: [https://watsi.org/faq#why-
doesn-t-watsi-transfer-funds-befor...](https://watsi.org/faq#why-doesn-t-
watsi-transfer-funds-before-medical-care-is-provided)

But in short, it's for two reasons. 1) We transfer funds after care is
provided (details in the FAQ) and 2) It takes an average of six weeks for care
to be provided, which IMO is actually extremely fast considering the context
in which our medical partners operate.

If you still have questions after reading the FAQ and associated blog post,
happy to answer them here. That said, I really appreciate the analysis of our
transparency doc. Crowdsourcing operational feedback is exactly why we make
our data public.

~~~
conroy
Chase, thanks for the reply. It makes perfect sense that your providers would
perform the treatment before getting your funds, as you operate as an (almost)
insurance provider. I was worried they were waiting for funds to proceed, but
it's obvious that is not the case.

The only other thing that stuck out looking over the document were patient
updates. There are a few patients, specifically Madeline[1], whose treatment
is still in progress but haven't seen an update in over five months. It would
be great if you could ensure that no patient would go without an update for
more than two months.

[1]: <http://eepurl.com/p25Jb>

~~~
gracegarey
We do our best to make sure no patient goes without an update for too long,
but are a bit constrained by our operational capacity right now (part of the
reason we're fundraising).

In Madeline's case, the surgery is taking longer than anticipated because she
had some unanticipated dental issues that her doctors wanted to take care of
before they operated.

Because of limited resources, we usually prioritize sending "final" updates
over "preliminary" ones, but you're right that in Madeline's case we
definitely need to prioritize keeping her donors posted on the reason for the
delay.

As Chase mentioned, this kind of crowdsourced spot checking is exactly why we
make all of our records public. Thanks for bringing this up!

~~~
conroy
No problem Grace, thanks for the update. I don't want to come off as negative,
I love what Watsi is doing and wish you best.

~~~
gracegarey
No worries! Not at all. Thanks again :)

------
Samuel_Michon
This is the most interesting part of the article, IMO:

 _“[Watsi’s] goal is to become the largest crowdfunding medical treatment
platform. This is way down the line, but we could move into providing social
medical insurance. As soon as we have large enough dollars coming through the
platform, we could even treat patients in the USA.”_

The first time I visited the Watsi site, seeing all those photos and reading
the stories of people in need of medical care, I thought of the many people I
know in the US who have little or no health insurance. Well educated, hard
working people who can't afford medication and common medical procedures,
people who haven't been to a dentist in years, and so on.

I understand that in developing countries more can be done for more people
with the same funds, but I'd be very happy if this project took off in such a
way that it would let the world help the US population in need. It might be
more realistic than waiting for the implementation of a healthcare system
deserving of a first world nation.

------
ryanmolden
I've really like Watsi since the first time I saw it on HN (before you were in
YC). I was thinking about it yesterday and I think the satisfying part is the
ability to see a case actually get funded. A lot of charities you give money
but it is for a somewhat amorphous problem, to "fight hunger" or "help fund
education" or "research a cure for cancer". These are all noble causes but it
is somehow less personally fulfilling because you can't see any near term
changes and just have to tell yourself perhaps your donation helped in some
small way. With Watsi you can actually see that you and some other anonymous
strangers paid for an actual procedure, and it got done, and it is pretty easy
to see the direct connection between your donation and a real, positive
difference in someone's life, even if you don't know / will never meet that
someone.

It is the same with that IndieGoGo fund the other day to help the Kenyan
hacker trying to get to NYC for Hacker School. There is something fulfilling
about refreshing that page and seeing the goal met and then exceeded and
knowing it will impact their life in a way that is greater than I could have
impacted my own by spending the same money on something for myself (or,
perhaps, something more directly for myself, since clearly this kind of thing
gives me some personal satisfaction or I wouldn't do it, selfish altruism and
all :))

------
soneca
I think they have a huge opportunity to create a habit for these first donors.
Big donations from big VC people certainly is an opportunity for fundraise,
but not for learning. As a early stage social network site is all about
engagement, not traffic, they should focus on engagement for small, regular
donors. Impulse donations are used and abused all over the social sector, but
they won't be the base for a game changer nonprofit, as I imagine Watsi is
trying to be.

Even more important is engagement because nonprofit usually have multiple
missions. Watsi shouldn't just "get the money to the people" as a business
oriented mind would think about their model. Engage donors to give money _and_
understand the situation of the people receiving the money, and the situation
of their city, the public health system in their country, how their families
and neighborhoods deal with health issues. These are the things that will make
the world smaller and the humans closer. A big VC writing a check of 100,000
dollars won't acomplish anything on that, 10,000 people giving 10 bucks each
month, a reading their newsletter, understanding more about the world. That is
an accomplishment.

------
michael_fine
With YCombinators investment in Watsi, is it a charity investment, or do they
actually intend to make money off Watsi, and if so, how?

~~~
immad
It's a charity donation

------
bm1362
I've been following Watsi for a while now and was excited to hear they made it
into YC. I've always had a bit of a crisis trying to find a balance between
humanitarian work and our craft as programmers. As a programmer, the odds are
likely that your impact is localized to corporate or consumer products that
have little to no effect on the quality of life of others. I'm tempted to go
the Peace Corps route when I graduate, but I feel the opportunity cost is too
high and that my skill set would not be useful.

Watsi seems like an amazing opportunity to resolve these issues- are you guys
looking for interns or volunteers?

~~~
gracegarey
Absolutely! We don't have a formal internship or volunteer program yet. But
we'd love to connect and see if there's a way we can get you involved. Feel
free to email connect@watsi.org and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

------
Samuel_Michon
Just an idea: how about adding gamification to the mix, linking Watsi accounts
to social network profiles? You can take some pages from Zynga's evil playbook
and use it for good.

<https://www.coursera.org/course/gamification>

------
kingkawn
I think it'd be awesome if they used vine-style short video clips of the
people rather than the present photographs. i know there may be insurmountable
barriers of access, but still.

~~~
gracegarey
We're really excited about using video down the line. Right now, you're right.
There are some tough barriers. But we hope to overcome them in the not-too-
distant future!

