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I just launched a very first beta version of http://www.giveinpublic.com/ Right now, the only functionality is that you can track your current donations and embed the dashboard through your socials/website. Would love to get some feedback and see if this is useful for the community.

Inspiring others to do good

by Laurin

Jul 7 20211 min read 8

14

Donation writeup

Frontpage

Hi EA community,

I posted here a couple of days ago to find some inspiration on how to share my donations publicly. The main goal of it, to keep track of my donations and inspire others to take action.

I realized that I am not the only one who doesn’t have an optimal way to do that right now and I think that is a missed opportunity. Why? Because having a beautiful way to share your impact can inspire action in others. Through this, you can have a multiplier effect. This led me to an idea, ‘Give in Public’. I created a landing page:

https://www.giveinpublic.com/

The key goal is to use technology to inspire altruism and make the giving experience more engaging. Right now, this is only a landing page, so I would love to get some feedback from you to understand what to focus on when building this.

If you have some ideas, or inspiration, you can also reach out to me via PM.

Regards,

Laurin

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shelscapeSep 10 20218

I love this idea and found this post because I was specifically looking for a way to record AND SHARE donations!

I'm no dev but would be happy to fund such a project or a tracker app (similar to a budgeting app) and would be happy to help get it off the ground. I don't think it would even be that pricey.

I think sharing is a big motivator not only to encourage others, but also to feel connected to the wider community. I'd love to have something like that to track my own 'achievement' while being able to share with like-minded friends (even if not 'everyone'). And as you say it's a good way to encourage others.

We normalise saving/budgeting for a range of income levels (ie not only for necessities) and I feel like this would help to normalise giving as well.

Seriously hmu with ways to make it happen :)

PS I have some experience in UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) design

Charles HeSep 10 20213

I don't know anything about this project or its space, but I just wanted to write that I think the positive energy and "just built it" vibe of you and the OP is awesome!

Fantastic!

Stephen ClareJul 7 20217

This looks great! Thanks for setting it up.

Just a heads up, these hyperlinks in the FAQ are broken (and "founderspledge.com" has a typo in the text).

LaurinJul 7 20211

Thank you for that feedback! Definitely missed it.

Aaron Gertler 🔸Jul 8 20216

I think it would be great if a project in this space took off, and lots of new people were turned on to effective giving who want a nicer-looking site. I think Momentum might be on the way to doing that, though I don't know what user numbers + donation targets look like these days.

Have you tried tracking your giving through Momentum? I don't know whether they allow "standard" donations or if all donations are managed by "giving rules". If the latter, maybe the true killer app is just adding standard one-time + timed recurring donations to that platform.

One note is that most people in EA who track donations do so via EA Funds and a bunch of region-specific giving sites. So if you want a strong base of initial users, you might have trouble finding them here. (These sites provide tax-deductible donations that people couldn't get otherwise for a lot of EA-frequented charities.)

Scott Smith 🔸Jul 8 20212

It appears there are two "giving rules" that cover "standard" donations. They call them "Monthly Giving" and "Giving Now".

I love the idea behind Momentum with these rules. Such as donating set amounts when you buy drinks or dine out (something I thought of doing for myself manually). Not sure how it works however and can't see it being an automatic process - would have thought your linked bank account cannot categorise your spending like this for the purpose of automatic separate donation contributions. I tried to set up an account myself to test it out, but appears it is for United States only, which likely highlights a gap to be filled.

By sacrificing some automation and having the cause area to be user-defined but specific charity options limited, it seems likely to be able to create a more globalised product. Due to this, and the publicising angle, I think Laurin's project has promise.

Neel NandaJul 8 20212

Interesting idea! I'm curious to see where this goes. I'm unsure whether I expect most people to perceive this as pretentious, or as admirable/norm-setting

One thing that would significantly put me off using this as is is that I can only choose 3 cause areas (none of which are the ones I most highly prioritise), and can't choose specific charities within each cause area. But if this website isn't aimed at longtermists/highly engaged EAs, maybe this is fine! I believe One for the World do something similar.

LaurinAug 2 20211