Hatcher — Rethinking crowdfunding for Mexico

Rodrigo Chousal
Sep 2, 2018 · 5 min read

As you probably know, Mexico is a country with its fair share of problems. Public education is often found greatly lacking (teaching positions were, until recently, hereditable), our healthcare is a national joke (google ‘IMSS memes’), a man was recently found killed by a cartel in front of my school (4 out of every 5 homicide cases in Mexico go unsolved), and corruption scandals are a dime a dozen.

Being only one in almost 130 million Mexicans, I decided to focus on only one of my country’s problems when I joined Water is Life, an organization which aims to provide clean drinking water solutions to communities from across the globe, with a particular emphasis on Africa. Joining a small team of students, we opened the Mexican chapter of Water is Life. Initially, we concentrated our efforts on a single community in the state of Nuevo León, Lomas de García, which was in need of safe drinking water. Thanks to the charitable contribution of emergency water filters from Water is Life, we were able to distribute these filters to almost a hundred families who were used to drinking out of dirty containers of unknown origin, sold to them weekly. However, potable water was only one of hundreds of problems in hygiene, security, pollution, and addiction facing this community that we learned from community leaders. For example, trash was either thrown in nearby lots (trash pickup trucks did not service the area) or was burned right outside people’s homes. We organized trash cleanup rallies, but ultimately failed to implement lasting solutions due to the lack of financial resources. Although Water is Life made every effort to provide us with the tools, equipment, and resources to adequately address our communities’ water problems, we could not even begin to provide solutions for the myriad problems we saw. It was heartbreaking to know that the government would never give this community the attention it deserved.

Drinking water in Lomas de García, Nuevo León, México

Then, in September 2017 major earthquakes struck central Mexico, including the states of Puebla, Morelos, and Mexico City, killing more than 350 and injuring approximately 6,000. This time, it was heartwarming to witness the overwhelming support from every corner of the country: meals, blankets, tools, medics, rescuers, from every single state in Mexico. #FuerzaMéxico (Be strong, Mexico) became a trending topic within hours. This is when it clicked for me. If the Mexican spirit were to be mobilized in an organized manner, in the same way that a disaster compels us to, then we could bring both attention and aid to the myriad problems facing forgotten groups and communities across the country. In effect, we could succeed where our government fails by sheer force of spirit.

On a long flight, I outlined what the creation of such a platform would entail, the mission it would serve, and the purpose it would fulfill. Through the tried and tested method of crowdfunding, I envisaged how Mexicans from all over the country could contribute to projects that they deemed interesting, efforts that touched their hearts, or organizations that were attempting to fix something that was broken. A techie and a design freak, naturally, I also sketched what an app for this crowdfunding platform could look like. It had to be plain, so the purpose was clear, but it also had to provide enough information about each project to achieve a level of transparency that could capture the trust of habitually suspicious citizens.

Home page of Hatcher’s iOS app

This is how Hatcher was born — a crowdfunding platform designed for not-for-profit projects (not NGOs, but the specific that NGOs are trying to undertake) whose entire purpose is the advancement of Mexico. Of course, the idea of expanding the platform across different countries is the ultimate goal, but like any other endeavor, I had to start somewhere. In this platform, users can simply sign up and browse a list of local projects other citizens or groups are attempting to implement within the community. This way, the projects presented to users are personal, as the changes they hope to make are changes that the user can see and experience. Should a project in the list peak the user’s interest, they can learn the details of the project, including exactly what the money will be spent on, how much extra funding is needed, images of where the project is looking to be implemented, as well as who will be carrying out the execution of the project. The premise is extremely simple, yet focusing the proposal of these projects on the local, personal level is what I believe will ultimately make Hatcher successful at rallying millions of helping hands to unglamorous, unnoticed, and unpopular problems.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that I was still in school and tend to take academics very seriously, progress was painstakingly slow. By the beginning of summer of 2018, a working alpha version of the platform was ready: users could sign up, record achievements, post details about themselves, propose projects for listing in the platform, projects could be ordered by relevance and popularity, among other more technical features. Nevertheless, I still needed a team to help get the website up and running, as well as the server-side minutiae. Fortunately, I recently had the pleasure of meeting Alfonso de los Ríos, a fellow at Stanford Designership Institute and Technology Director of Moonshots in Education, through a mutual friend. We agreed to work together on finally launching the platform in early October 2018, with the support of dozens of NGOs here in Mexico. I am excited about launching Hatcher in the coming months, in collaboration with Stanford Designership Institute, Moonshots in Education, the city of San Pedro Garza García, the American School Foundation of Monterrey, as well as numerous other NGOs in Mexico.

Here’s a sneak peek at the iOS app (currently in development).

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade