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Benj and Jessica launched a nonprofit. Follow our journey as we built a 501(c)(3) and a web site, and now usher in an endless stream of worthy charity nominees and monthly grant winners!

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Spotlight on nominee Direct Relief

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Nominee Direct Relief

Next in our series of posts about new Charitocracy nominees, we have nominee Direct Relief, nominated by donor zardoz. They work to expand access to medicine and healthcare by equipping doctors and nurses with lifesaving medical resources. You can find their web site here.

A few words on Charitocracy

If you're late to the party, here's how it works. Donors pool their monthly contributions, as little as $1. The cause with the most votes each month wins the pot. No matter how much or how little you contribute, each donor at Charitocracy gets one vote. This is where charity meets democracy.

But as you may have heard, Charitocracy rides off into the sunset at the end of 2023. Regardless, keep voting each month until New Year's Eve. Our monthly grants will get bigger and bigger throughout the year!

About nominee Direct Relief

Healthy People. Better World.

That means all people — regardless of politics, religion, or ability to pay. Improving their lives is Direct Relief’s mission.

Humanitarian Relief

Direct Relief works to equip health professionals in resource-poor communities to meet the challenges of diagnosing and caring for people in need.

Disaster Relief

Every day, Direct Relief prepares the most vulnerable communities worldwide for more frequent, more destructive emergencies. And when disasters strike, Direct Relief responds fast, effectively, and efficiently to get medical resources where they need to be to save lives.

Nongovernmental, nonsectarian, and not-for-profit, Direct Relief relies entirely on private contributions to advance its mission and perform a wide range of functions.

Included among them are identifying key local providers of health services; working to identify the unmet needs of people in the low-resource areas; mobilizing essential medicines, supplies, and equipment that are requested and appropriate for the circumstances; and managing the many details inherent in storing, transporting, and distributing such resources to organizations in the most efficient manner possible.

So please visit the page of nominee Direct Relief to vote for, like, or discuss this cause! And watch this 1 minute video describing in images rather than words what Direct Relief does.

January 2023 winner LittleBricks Charity

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Charitocracy's 77th check to January winner LittleBricks Charity for $1000

We have good news about January winner LittleBricks Charity, right after this important update...

Charitocracy's Final Season

In case you've missed my recent blog or social media posts, this is the first of Charitocracy's last 12 grants. While we've stopped taking donations, new sign-ups, and cancelled all recurring donations as of January 31, we still have an exciting 2023 ahead of us. And that's because we'll be spending down our reserves. Each monthly pot will be bigger than the previous! So please keep on voting so we get our remaining funds into good hands. And thanks for everyone who's reached out over email, blog comments, and IRL. It means a lot. Thanks for checking in on me, and commiserating on the end of an era. ❤️

January 2023 winner LittleBricks Charity

Last Wednesday we named Charitocracy's 77th monthly winner. Congratulations to LittleBricks Charity nominated by donor Bubba. They build BIG smiles on kids who truly deserve to smile by delivering LEGO sets to children's hospitals and directly to kids. You can find their website here.

Now check out their video with an occupational therapist discussing why LEGOs are a great match for patients at children's hospitals. Then feel good about your part in our collective $1000 grant to support their ongoing work.

Have a great February, and be sure to log into Charitocracy to update your votes or nominate a new cause!

Charitocracy rides off into the sunset

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Charitocracy rides off into the sunset
Turns out they were waving goodbye this whole time!

2023 is the final season of Charitocracy! There are 12 monthly pots yet to grant. Let's make them count!

I'll try to keep the sentimentality out of it for now, given there's still almost a whole year left to go. This decision comes after weeks of personal contemplation over the holidays and discussion with Jessica and the rest of our board of directors. It wasn't an easy decision. Charitocracy has been a huge part of my identity for the past 7+ years! But I think it's the right decision for me right now.

I'll cover the How first, then the Why. But feel free to follow up with me directly if you have more questions. I remain an open book, and ever at your service. ❤️

How

  • New donations, sign-ups, gift purchases, etc. are now disabled. We're going out on top with over 400 donors across Charitocracy USA and OBX!
  • All recurring donations after January 31 will be automatically cancelled. No action is required on your part. This way every donor gets at least the 12 months of grant voting they bargained for!
  • Current donors are encouraged to continue voting on through the last vote on New Year's Eve 2023. Even if your Charitocracy anniversary, the day your annual donation would ordinarily be collected, comes mid-year, you won't suddenly lose your voting privileges.
  • Charitocracy's remaining cash reserves will be distributed into 2023's 12 monthly USA & OBX grant pots. Each successive pot will be bigger than the previous one as we gain more confidence we can meet our final expenses with smaller cash reserves. Our final "season" of grants should be bigger than ever as we "zero out" our remaining funds!

Why

  • There's been angst surrounding some of the more polarizing nominees at Charitocracy USA. For some folks, Charitocracy hasn't represented a positive force in their lives lately, either because they don't agree with the winners or due to some negative interactions online. Believe me, I can relate! And that goes for causes across the political spectrum, both ones that have and have not yet won a monthly grant. I never wanted to create something that could hurt people or cause hard feelings, so that aspect has been a bummer.
  • Meanwhile, I've spent more time than ever in the past few months fighting hackers. Rest assured, Charitocracy has never been breached, nor do we store any of your credit card information in the first place. (Our credit card processor, Stripe, takes care of that.) But what the hackers do like to do, for whatever reason, is to attack web sites and try to knock them offline. On several occasions I've had to interrupt trips or family time to literally fight bot armies (thousands of hijacked computers) flooding Charitocracy from all corners of the world with traffic, known as DDOS: Distributed Denial of Service. And the other thing they like to do is test lists of stolen credit cards by attempting to make donations from them. They automate it so I'll suddenly start getting a donation attempt every 5 seconds. Usually Stripe's fraud detection flags their attempts and reject them, but occasionally some get through. Then I have to refund the donations and eat the credit card processing fees. It's a nice adrenalin rush when it happens, but never a good time.
  • Finally, and perhaps most critically, is that I don't see a clear future for Charitocracy. The prospect of setting up Charitocracy's own endowment fund really brought into focus the fact that if I get hit by a bus, there's no one to take over, and there's no one to even gracefully shut it down. So it would be irresponsible to try to raise money for an uncertain future. While I've always run Charitocracy as lean as possible, with pride in our low overhead, the truth is that my volunteered skill set is actually a bit expensive... to replace. Not to mention I'm effectively on-call 24/7 for years on end with no good way to share that responsibility.

So let's go out there and make Charitocracy's 7th full year not only our last, but also our best! Thank you for the privilege it has been to pool your resources and make a difference in the world. I've had a blast!

Sunset through a Heart
Both images above generated via artificial intelligence using DiffusionBee on Mac. Fun!