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Anyone who has donated or volunteered for a charity knows how hard organizations work to raise money. Through grant writing, annual appeals, fundraising events, raffles, auctions, engaging volunteers for action and more, the work is tireless, costly and a distraction from the mission of helping make the world a better place through their cause.
What charities and donors experience are fundraising rollercoasters, end-capped in a race to facilitate tax deductions.
What charities and donors experience are fundraising rollercoasters, end-capped in a race to facilitate tax deductions. Communication research for those who donate or volunteer for causes report lower levels of stress, feelings of selflessness, feelings of altruism when in groups and higher life satisfaction. Equally, charities who can spread out their donations over multiple "events" or channels are healthier because they can spread out the risk and take action on missed fundraising projections.
If giving has so many health benefits, why is the only place to do it during distracting networking events and stressful times like tax season? If giving more frequently has so many organizational benefits, why are we waiting to plan events in order to ask? We can solve this and we need to do so in a way that compliments our habitual routines.
Just like exercise and eating right, what if we started each day focusing on our mental health by donating to a cause we believed in?
Just like exercise and eating right, what if we started each day focusing on our mental health by donating to a cause we believe in? For donors, it has to be easy, affordable and engaging so that it remains habitual. For charities, it needs to flatten out the fundraising rollercoaster with a smooth one of continuous new donors.
The solution: ChariPick, a dream of Chicago Entrepreneur Stephen Lee. In a former life Stephen had a very successful career in Food and Finance, but his passion lies in helping charities and charitable giving. The Eight Bit team was lucky enough to help carry his dream to fruition.
It's curated, absurdly easy and it helps charities get back to doing what we need them to do!
I still do my annual giving. I still donate to my friends running for causes. I still go to networking events for charity. But in those other 325 days out of the year, when I wake up in the morning I don't start my day without first donating a $1. It feels great and I'll bet you'll feel the same. It's curated, absurdly easy and it helps charities get back to doing what we need them to do!
More Info ChariPick.org or download for Android | iOS
Do you know about another app or website making an impact for charities? I'd love to hear about them (and I bet others would too). Post them in the comments below!
About the author
John W Ostler (@seahostler) is Co-Founder and Principal of UX & UI at Eight Bit Studios (@eightbitstudios), an award winning mobile strategy, design and development studio that focuses on strategizing and executing the visions of Chicago's most promising startups. He has helped lead and produce technical and interaction design engagements with brands like Cadbury Adams, Burger King, Motorola, Career Builder, Groupon, Exelon, Sidley Austin, and HSBC. His studios work has been featured in Advertising Age, USA Today, Brandweek, The Daily Beast, NewYork Times Tech blog, Mashable.com, featured on multiple CSS design blogs, and had multiple apps reach in the Top 25 and receive a "New and Noteworthy" nod from Apple. He is also Co-Founder of Bughouse (@bughousekids) a kids app, toy, game, books startup dedicated to learning through creativity.
