A tale of two outcomes
When you build a startup, you have to think about two very different outcomes for your company. The first is failure, the more likely of the two.
Failure is bad, but there is a positive: you learned and you grew, and now you have infinite possibilities again. Life is good.
The second one is often more scary - you succeed.
Success means many things, but one of the most important things it means is that you created something that people use and something that will forever be associated with you.
Success also means you can’t easily leave. People depend on you and your company to keep existing and improving. It becomes more than a full-time job.
It’s because of the possibility of success that we’re building Philanthropia. Philanthropia exists because we’re optimists; we believe we’ll succeed and that we can make the world a better place by doing so. If we’re going to pour our blood, sweat, and tears into it - is there really anything else worth doing more?
Philanthropia was founded on the core belief that social impact and growing a business aren’t at odds. In fact, we believe, now more than ever, that being mission-driven is necessary for your company to succeed, for your customers to be satisfied, and for the world at large to survive.
So what is Philanthropia?
The short form - we’re a rewards marketplace for impact-driven brands. We make it incredibly easy for businesses to partner with nonprofits and for them to show the world the social impact they’re doing through both philanthropy and their regular operations. We handle the infrastructure around charitable giving and make it so brands, customers, and nonprofits all benefit while tackling the causes they care about most.
Whether discovering impactful brands, shopping on our marketplace, or donating to nonprofits on Philanthropia - users earn Karma, our do-good-to-feel-good points system, that they can redeem for exclusive discounts on the products and brands they love.
Our stakeholders
We align incentives and are a platform for good that helps individuals, businesses, and nonprofits succeed. In the process, we get to play our part in solving the world's largest problems. Let’s break it down.
For Individuals
We’re the only philanthropy site that rewards users for their donations. You can not only rest assured that your donations are going to the right place, but also that they give you Karma, which you can later use to get exclusive discounts for your favorite brands.
This makes Philanthropia more than just a philanthropy or shopping platform. We create the only marketplace where purchases are directly aligned with purpose.
Shopping at impactful brands makes other brands more likely to drive their own sustainability. Donating to nonprofits gives you discounts on products you love. And highlighting brands with verifiable social impact encourages everyone to step up their game.
For Businesses
We’re the only platform that lets businesses create integrations with any number of nonprofits in less than a minute. This enables companies to showcase their values in a verifiable and public way.
And customers care. Consumers today are 4 to 6 times more likely to buy from impact driven brands.
By linking purchases and social impact together, we make it that much easier to accomplish an organization's social impact goals. Our Karma system lets businesses create discounts that reward their users for caring and creating a community of change for their brand.
For Nonprofits
Nonprofits benefit because they get funds for free, no fundraising required. We work with nonprofits to ensure dollars donated on Philanthropia become more and more impactful over time.
The largest nonprofits currently get the lion's share of all donations. Our portfolio approach to philanthropy helps smaller nonprofits grow and ensures that more dollars go to the most effective nonprofits over time.
Is philanthropy actually effective?
We hope so, but it's definitely not enough. We’re not naive. We don’t think that extra dollars going to nonprofits is somehow going to end world hunger, stop climate change, or eliminate racism.
But like I said, we're optimists. And maybe we watch too much anime. The only way we can solve these problems is by working together.
With Philanthropia, we hope to create an ecosystem where all our stakeholders can stand united and brainstorm human solutions to the human problems we all face. Philanthropia is designed to make thinking and caring about social issues part of what you already do. If that’s not enough to make the world better, we don’t know what is.
What's coming
We're working as hard as we can to build out the future of philanthropy and socially impactful shopping. You can follow our progress by signing up above or just looking at our public roadmap.
Some upcoming things we're excited about
- Curated blog posts and articles highlighting ways to create social impact and be involved
- Being able to shop at more and more of your favorite stores
- More transparent donation tracking into where donated dollars are going
- A Slack Community where you can start brainstorming about how to solve some of those global problems I mentioned
If you own a brand or business that would like partner with us, or know someone who does, reach out to us at brands@philanthropia.io!
Parting Words
Despite this post being called, "Why we're building Philanthropia", we talked a lot more about Philanthropia and what we're doing than the why.
I think it's because the why is simple for us. Philanthropia succeeding means that more money and more intelligent people will be solving the difficult global problems we all face. It will mean that we proved that social impact and corporate profitability go hand in hand. Most importantly, succeeding will mean hundreds of other companies will see our story and be inspired to make their own impact.
There's nothing more we could ask for.