I became a Save the Children sponsor this week, both because I admire their good works, and because I want to see how they connect donors to specific recipients — something they do as well as any international donor agency. They strongly encourage small recurring donations over larger one-time donations, and I understand why: this is a reason to stay in touch, a reliable predictor of future support, and forges more of an identity than a one-time gift.
This week Brand Labs in Michigan also started a weekly donation to OLPC – giving one laptop a week. Co-founder Dane Downer said of the project:
“The entire world is rapidly going online and the more people that join the Big Conversation, the better off we’ll all be. If we can do a little bit to add some new voices to the chorus, we’ll be extremely proud… We haven’t put an end date on the program because we don’t want it to end.”
We receive a number of one-time donations of more than $10k, but there’s something compelling about this sort of steady project. Thank you to Brand Labs, and to everyone doing what they can each week to support projects they care about.
If only OLPC had tried to connect donors to specific recipients (or even recipient communities, which is what Save does)….
There was a lot of natural interest in it, which is why I’m so keen on seeing how it works with Save. The people I’ve talked to there confirm that it is hard to do effectively, and that they’ve built up to it. One way they rate limit the flow is by requiring a lot of work on the donor’s part to specify how directly they want to be in contact (with regions, communities, or specific families).