Undeniably the case that it works really well, however, especially given how easy it is to arrange for the people holding the fundraiser. Broadcasting a matching fund is news, adds an extra touch to potential donors, inspires people to donate when they wouldn't otherwise have done so, and costs very little in additional administrative time.
Administrative time is always at a premium in non-profits, and optimizing for lower overhead in time and work is a reason for many things that might otherwise seem a little puzzling in their persistence.
The match is for the first month's charge. If you sign up for a $20 monthly donation, it will be matched to $200 for the first month, then return to $20 after that.
The current cap for the campaign is $100k and we still have a ways to go. However, the campaign is off to a great start and there might be an opportunity to increase the cap if needed.
It's awesome when platforms can increase the effectiveness of our donations like this.
By the way, if anyone is looking to support teachers through small donations, DonorsChoose (https://www.donorschoose.org) does matching opportunities like this regularly. They fund classroom projects, not health issues, but I think the satisfaction and rationale for supporting are similar. The most recent match was backed by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
It's the effectiveness of Tencent's donation that is being increased.
Which I guess I don't feel bad that more money is being raised for Watsi, but it's interesting that people don't see this sort of thing for what it is.
I love the idea of Watsi. I do wish they would, tastefully of course, take a page from CharityWater's playbook and highlight better the impact your money creates. Also is it like charity water in which my donation goes to the cause 100%? or are the funds going to support watsi ops? (I'm ok with either, but would prefer transparency this day in age).
The donate a birthday Idea could be pushed further. I've given up my birthday a bunch on charity water, raised thousands that way. I'd like to see "I'm giving up my birthday so we can get Maria in honduras a new kidney" or something along those lines.
Thank you! If you are already a donor and you increase your donation, Tencent will match the new amount the next time your donations runs. E.g. increase your existing $10 donation to $20 and it'll be matched to $200. No need to create a second account.
No emotion on the home page. Would be nice to immediately see a real person that could be helped. Not sally struthers style melodrama but some connection. Some example of the good that will happen.
What if they have a 90% administration fee... all that matching could go right back into the charity. This would effectively make it 0% matching.
Also, the matching could be prorated over the next 100 years. This company has only been around for 3 years and doesn't have a profile on Charity Navigator yet. I will give it some more time.
100% of donations directly fund patient care. We even pay the credit card processing fees out of our own pocket in order to keep the administrative costs at 0% for donors. If you donate $10, it'll be matched to $100, and every cent will go to the healthcare provider to cover the cost of the patient's care.
We can afford to do this by 1) raising money separately from a group of donors to cover our administrative costs and 2) enabling people who donate to patients to add a tip to help cover administrative costs (despite it being optional, ~2/3 of donors tip).
We're too new to have been rated by Charity Navigator. Regardless, even when we are rated I won't point donors there. I think Charity Navigator is a valuable tool (more transparency around nonprofits is a good thing imo) but I don't think it's an effective way of evaluating an organization's impact. It's focused on what % of donations nonprofits spend on programs (vs administration) but not on whether the programs work.
You're right to be cautious and with any charity it's reasonable to expect transparency. I've donated to Watsi for a while, they send a lot of updates and freely share what procedures cost, the steps they are on and when they were performed. It's my understanding, they cover their operational costs from other sources (and asking you when making a donation). It's never free to run a charity and I can respect some higher expense ratios having worked for one. Assuming what Watsi is putting out isn't flat out lies, they seem competent and trustworthy.
