Highest Rated Comments


twep_dwep12 karma

What were you taught about Columbus as an elementary school kid?

I attended public school in the 90's in a liberal state. We absolutely learned that he was an "intrepid explorer" who "discovered" America through his exceptional curiosity and intelligence. We learned that Pilgrims and "the Indians" celebrated Thanksgiving together like a big happy family and we dressed up in headdresses and face paint for cute class photos for our parents. Other than Sacagawea, we didn't learn the name of a single Native American. We didn't learn anything about Native American history or culture.

Was your education substantially different?

twep_dwep11 karma

no, that's not what I mean. you use exactly the same charities with exactly the same swag boxes as you currently have, but just rotate the cause area by month if customers select more than one.

twep_dwep10 karma

I think your heart is in the right place, but after reading through your business model and the comments, I'm just not convinced that this is a good idea.

Your model seems to be based on a faulty understanding of what motivates people to donate to charity. Donors typically care about:

  • a specific charity's record of success
  • charity has low overhead costs
  • they have a personal attachment to the charity
  • tax benefits

You don't offer any of this with this model. Donors don't get to know which charity they'll be supporting ahead of time, you don't offer a list of clear criteria for how you're selecting partners, the 40% fee is in addition to the charity's own overhead costs which makes this a much less cost-effective donation than other options, and donors don't get a tax benefit.

What you do offer is the "subscription box", but I also don't think you're quite understanding what motivates people to buy subscription boxes. When people buy these, it's usually because they're paying for what they get in the box. It might be a new makeup line to try out, or meals that they've pre-selected from a menu. The point is that they know what they're getting ahead of time, and they're paying for specifically that. This is also true for Kickstarter or Patreon, where you're promised a gift in exchange for your donation. In those cases, you know exactly what you'll be getting, whether it's your name in the movie credits or an early-release version of a product.

But your subscription box is a mystery. Unless these small, cash-strapped nonprofits are able to provide genuinely cool and weird goodies, I don't think people will remain interested. It's more likely that the organizations will be giving out cheap cotton t-shirts with the nonprofit name, and maybe some stickers, yeah? Do you think people will pay the equivalent of $18 every month for a random org's swag that they could get for free at an event? ($18 comes from the 40% fee, the cost of the products themselves, and shipping).

Do you disagree?

twep_dwep9 karma

The entire point of the business is that people are giving to one random, different charity every month, right? So why not allow people to sign up for multiple issue areas? It would work the same way as your current business, but with multiple causes selected, not just one.

twep_dwep8 karma

What do you think of the Campaign Zero platform? They want to increase accountability in police misconduct cases by:

  • Establish a permanent Special Prosecutor's Office at the State levelĀ for cases of police violence
  • Require independent investigations of allĀ cases where police kill or seriously injure civilians
  • Use federal funds to encourage independent investigations and prosecutions
  • Lower the standard of proof for Department of Justice civil rights investigations of police officers