Kickstarter Co-Founder's Next Chapter: A Nonprofit Discovery Platform Perry Chen has been working with a team of volunteers every Monday night for the last year to come up with an organization that helps people discover and support nonprofits for $1 a day.
By Catherine Clifford •
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If you had to name five quality nonprofit organizations, other than the Red Cross, could you? That's exactly the point behind Kickstarter co-founder Perry Chen's newest venture, Dollar a Day, which launches today.
Dollar a Day is a subscription-based donation service meant to bring awareness and support to a host of nonprofits. Every day, members receive a newsletter featuring a nonprofit and a short description of its mission. Everyone who is registered as a contributing member automatically donates $1 to each nonprofit each day, regardless of the nonprofit, for a total monthly charge of $30. People can opt to receive the daily email without choosing to donate, instead using the service as an information discovery platform.
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Nonprofits featured on Dollar a Day will fall into one of six buckets: education, health, economic development, arts and culture, environment, and human rights. The next 60 nonprofits slated to be featured will be presented on the website. The nonprofits are chosen for their innovative approach to solving issues that don't traditionally get enough attention.
Today, for its kickoff, Dollar a Day is featuring a nonprofit called ShelterBox, an organization that delivers customized aid boxes to people devastated by natural disasters.
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Donations are processed by the fundraising technology suite of services Network for Good, which charges a 4 percent transaction charge. Dollar a Day has an option for donating members to pay more than a dollar each day to offset the transaction costs.
Chen, the biggest name connected with the project, is also one of three founding members of the donation-based crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and currently serves as its chairman of the board. He worked with five other people to launch Dollar a Day, which is itself a nonprofit, every Monday for a year. Two people will be devoted to Dollar a Day full time, and the rest of the organization will be managed through donated time, between five and 10 hours per week, by the board members.
