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Time to donate direct
Technology
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INSIGHT Charity
Time to donate direct Tech start-ups are role models for charities, finds Rachel Nuwer CHASE ADAM, a Peace Corps volunteer, was bumping along a road near the Panama-Costa Rica border when a woman boarded his bus. Clutching her son’s medical records, she asked each passenger for a small donation to help fund his treatment, which she couldn’t afford. To Adam’s surprise, nearly every passenger donated. The woman was essentially crowdfunding her son’s treatment, Adam realised, but she was restricted to asking only those around her for help. What if there was a way to expand that approach by tapping into the global community?
Inspired, Adam co-founded Watsi, a non-profit organisation named after the town where the woman boarded the bus. He describes it as “Kickstarter for healthcare around the world” as it uses crowdfunding to pay for treatments for those in need, identified by hospitals that work with Watsi. Since launching in 2012, Watsi has funded healthcare for nearly 3000 people in 19 countries. Earlier this month, it launched the Universal Fund, a recurring monthly donation system that distributes funds to those who need it most. So far, nearly 700 donors have signed up.
traditional non-profits remains to be seen. “There’s almost a cult of innovation here,” says Lucy Bernholz at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. “So even if something is working and has been around for a long time, the zeitgeist is almost ‘If it works, break it’. ” The crowdfunding model is best suited to charity work that delivers an instant reward, she says – a patient healed, a life saved – rather than projects tacking things like poverty and inequality, or ones that require
Watsi isn’t the only non-profit modelling itself on technology startups rather than traditional charities. Donors Choose enables backers to fund US school projects; Kiva allows you to lend small amounts of money to individuals in developing countries and Omakase handpicks charities for “People don’t just want to donors to support each month. know where their money “We’re different to traditional nongoes – they expect to meet profits that have long cycles of grants the people who benefit” and projects, and feedback that happens over years rather than days scientific research, which may take or weeks,” says Shivani Garg Patel, co-founder of Samahope, which raises years to come to fruition. “The downside is that we start loving funds to support individual doctors in developing countries, especially those things that allow us to check off boxes and give us instant gratification,” who are treating women and children. Bernholz says. “Finding long-term After raising more than $1 million support for structural changes is the from Silicon Valley philanthropists to bigger question.” get Watsi off the ground, the team Grace Garey, Watsi’s co-founder, behind the project is now supported acknowledges that crowdfunding isn’t by optional tips from the site’s users, the only business model for charities. which account for 8 per cent of all “But I do think that every non-profit donations. Samahope donors can will have to fall in line with this idea also give part of the sum to the that technology is making the world organisation, which keeps the site smaller,” she says. “People don’t just going alongside funds from want to know where their money foundations and businesses. goes – they expect to meet the people Whether these approaches will be on the other end.” n sustainable or more effective than
Statistical and causal approaches to machine learning 2014 Milner Award Lecture given by Professor Bernhard Schölkopf, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Thursday 27 November, 6.30pm The Royal Society 6 – 9 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG Free admission – doors open at 6pm
Registered Charity No 207043. DES3569
26 | NewScientist | 22 November 2014
redsnapper/Alamy
For more information visit royalsociety.org/events
–No longer needed?–
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
INSIGHT Charity
Time to donate direct Tech start-ups are role models for charities, finds Rachel Nuwer CHASE ADAM, a Peace Corps volunteer, was bumping along a road near the Panama-Costa Rica border when a woman boarded his bus. Clutching her son’s medical records, she asked each passenger for a small donation to help fund his treatment, which she couldn’t afford. To Adam’s surprise, nearly every passenger donated. The woman was essentially crowdfunding her son’s treatment, Adam realised, but she was restricted to asking only those around her for help. What if there was a way to expand that approach by tapping into the global community?
Inspired, Adam co-founded Watsi, a non-profit organisation named after the town where the woman boarded the bus. He describes it as “Kickstarter for healthcare around the world” as it uses crowdfunding to pay for treatments for those in need, identified by hospitals that work with Watsi. Since launching in 2012, Watsi has funded healthcare for nearly 3000 people in 19 countries. Earlier this month, it launched the Universal Fund, a recurring monthly donation system that distributes funds to those who need it most. So far, nearly 700 donors have signed up.
traditional non-profits remains to be seen. “There’s almost a cult of innovation here,” says Lucy Bernholz at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. “So even if something is working and has been around for a long time, the zeitgeist is almost ‘If it works, break it’. ” The crowdfunding model is best suited to charity work that delivers an instant reward, she says – a patient healed, a life saved – rather than projects tacking things like poverty and inequality, or ones that require
Watsi isn’t the only non-profit modelling itself on technology startups rather than traditional charities. Donors Choose enables backers to fund US school projects; Kiva allows you to lend small amounts of money to individuals in developing countries and Omakase handpicks charities for “People don’t just want to donors to support each month. know where their money “We’re different to traditional nongoes – they expect to meet profits that have long cycles of grants the people who benefit” and projects, and feedback that happens over years rather than days scientific research, which may take or weeks,” says Shivani Garg Patel, co-founder of Samahope, which raises years to come to fruition. “The downside is that we start loving funds to support individual doctors in developing countries, especially those things that allow us to check off boxes and give us instant gratification,” who are treating women and children. Bernholz says. “Finding long-term After raising more than $1 million support for structural changes is the from Silicon Valley philanthropists to bigger question.” get Watsi off the ground, the team Grace Garey, Watsi’s co-founder, behind the project is now supported acknowledges that crowdfunding isn’t by optional tips from the site’s users, the only business model for charities. which account for 8 per cent of all “But I do think that every non-profit donations. Samahope donors can will have to fall in line with this idea also give part of the sum to the that technology is making the world organisation, which keeps the site smaller,” she says. “People don’t just going alongside funds from want to know where their money foundations and businesses. goes – they expect to meet the people Whether these approaches will be on the other end.” n sustainable or more effective than
Statistical and causal approaches to machine learning 2014 Milner Award Lecture given by Professor Bernhard Schölkopf, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Thursday 27 November, 6.30pm The Royal Society 6 – 9 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG Free admission – doors open at 6pm
Registered Charity No 207043. DES3569
26 | NewScientist | 22 November 2014
redsnapper/Alamy
For more information visit royalsociety.org/events
–No longer needed?–