In contrast to all other comparable donation plattforms, betterplace.org is open, i.e. everybody can post a social project, regardless of whether the project managers organisation is recognised as charitable by the German tax authorities or not. In fact – our enthusiasm for a few small NGOs, unknown in Germany, led to the creation of betterplace, as we wanted to give them a broader support base.
Openness creates diversity and momentum: on betterplace we also especially welcome approaches using entrepreneurial methods for poverty alleviation and social justice. Many of which are not charities, even if they need starting capital via donations. At the same time we want to encourage private inidviduals to become active changemakers and use betterpace as a free-of-charge tool to raise support for their causes. And finally, there are so many amazing foreign NGOs, which have simply not registered for charitable status with the German tax authorities, because their support base is elsewhere, in Nepal or Columbia.
Yet openness also creates a risk: the official stamp of the German tax authorities may only be a very technical and limited guarantee, that the money is being spent on the stated goals of the organisation, but it is a guarantee nevertheless.
betterplace.org is an enabler, matching givers and takers, donors and beneficiaries. We strive to built a transparent system. A system in which you will have to judge for yourself which people and organisations to trust and which not. Of course, you will also find „bad“ (i.e. ineffective and even counterproductive) organisations trying to raise money online. But according to our 18 months long experience, the chances that people donate to those on betterplace may actually be smaller than in the „normal“ offline world. Because as readers of this blog (or of William Easterly or Danbisa Moyo) will know, there have been a good many bad development projects around for a long time, projects financed by our taxes and private donations.
Now, with a plattform such as betterplace.org, there is a whole range of new projects easily available. In order to help donors find the projects they can trust we are counting on three different trust mechanisms (and this is not counting the increasing number of technological tools used in order to stop potential fraudsters right at the beginning, i.e. when they are posting a project.)
Three trust mechanism
The current Web of Trust, depicts 3 different kinds of trust.
There is, first of all, „institutional trust“. This is evoked when the German tax authorities grant charitable status to an NGO. In addition there are certifications such as the DZI Spendensiegel and the reputation of a brand such as Misereor, The Red Cross/Crecsent or UNICEF.
Secondly, there is personal trust, the trust which develops because a friend, collegue or family member recommends a project. We know from donation statistics that a significant number of people donate after somebody close to them has asked them to do so.
And thirdly, we have trust created by „swarm intelligence“, an evaluation of projects according to the discussions and ratings of a large number of people. We see this already forming on betterplace.org: active projects, which have many visitors, donors and advocates are receiving more donations than other, more passive ones. Success creates success.
This last type of trust can be greatly improved. Participartory web 2.0. technology will give an increasing number of people a voice (people, who haven’t had a voice before, because they are far away from the donors and have little financial and social capital). These new voices will help us detect fraud – has the school really been build? And measure effectvity - Did the workshop really help migrants?
(more on this and what we at betterplace are doing to optimize the web of trust, in a later post)
Well informed donors
In the betterplace team we have an ongoing discussion about the kind of tools donors need in order to make an informed choice. We are also asking ourselves whether our communication with betterplace users is sufficient. Do you, as a user of betterplace, know that you are on an open plattform and that we don’t check the projects ourselves? (we do check though whether an organisation claiming to be charitable in Germany is so, as we hand out donation receipts). Do we sufficiently disclose the self-regulatory nature of the plattform? And do we stress that you as a donor are responsible for making the right donation choice?
A few days ago we decided to be more explicit and included the following sentence under each project:
betterplace.org is an open platform on which anyone can upload their project. This project is recognized as charitable by german tax authorities. We recommend that you support this project, especially if you know the project responsible, an advocate or visitor to the project, or perhaps you know the organisation, or a friend has recommended it to you - and because you feel that the project is meaningful and worthwhile supporting.
What’s your opinion about this?
Is it a helpful reminder that we at betterplace are responsible for the running of an efficient and sensible infrastructure, whereas you – the potential donor – is responsible for a good and sensible choice of where to allocate your Euro?
Or does this sentence look to you rather like a disclaimer, like the small print of a medication, warning of its potentially harmful sideeffects? Are we distancing ourselves too much from what are, in all likelyhood, well-intentioned and good projects, worthy of our support?
We’ll be coming back to these questions over the next couple of weeks and would very much welcoime your feedback. What is your gut reaction to the sentence? Do you find the message useful or does it turn you off? Which alternatives would you recommend?
We are looking forwrd to your feedback!