Tech in Philanthropy: San Francisco startup gives a new meaning to philanthropy, heading to the World Humanitarian Summit
Author: Christine Dunn
San Francisco startup GOODdler was chosen to demonstrate its technology at the Innovation Marketplace during World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey on May 23–24th. Christine Dunn was able to ask Galina Fedorova, a co-founder of GOODdler, a few questions
Q. Congratulations, GOODdler was picked to showcase its technology at the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit that will take place in just a couple of months in Istanbul, Turkey. This is such a great acknowledgement that what your team is doing is very important for the future of humanitarian aid. Tell us, what is GOODdler?
Thank you! We are really excited to be a part of the dialog. We strongly believe that at this time, it is not about what you want to give to the world poor, it is about what they want to receive. It is the time for Smart Philanthropy.
GOODdler offers an enterprise software to civic and charitable organizations anywhere in the world to collect and manage “in kind” (goods) donations. We provide technology to utilize local retailers to maximize an effectiveness of humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts, solve resource distribution problem and expand outreach. We facilitate the continued flow of resources between donors and beneficiaries, improve the coherence of humanitarian response, ensure funding is used efficiently by partners, and strengthen public trust, increasing opportunities for ‘in kind’ (goods) contributions. It is a digital platform where private companies can see the vetted requirements of any humanitarian organization and connect to respond to them.
Gooddler is building humanitarian capacity through a multi-stakeholder collaborative process, including local and national governments, international organizations, national and international NGOs, donors, and local businesses and farmers.
Q. What is your innovation?
GOODdler is a technology that dramatically improves a process of donating goods by individuals or corporations. It localizes the process by ensuring an active beneficiary participation, minimizing corruption and bureaucracy.
It puts transparency at the forefront by allowing individual and corporate donors to purchase specific goods for people in need, increasing opportunities for in-kind (goods) donations for civic and charitable organizations.
How it works: local NGOs are given a tool to create multiple wishlists with goods from international or local retailers. These lists can be customized to fit the needs. Items from these lists can be purchased by anyone in the world, and delivered to the intended recipients in the most efficient way.
Q. What is the core challenge and problem that GOODdler addresses, why is it important at this time?
Growing Humanitarian needs and widening gap between needs and available resources call for a greater involvement of at the moment under-utilized private sector and international communities. Individual donors are deeply concerned about lack of transparency and inefficiency of humanitarian aid and development assistance. Donating money is pretty much the only way for individuals to get involved, which greatly limits their participation. Refugee Crisis in Europe showed a great desire of individual donors to help. However, their individual efforts in most cases were not coordinated with the work of charities on the ground and were very ineffective. As public continues to engage with humanitarian crisis they will increasingly add chaos to the process, unless they become a part of the solution.
At the same time, Charitable organizations are operating without the benefits of modern enterprise technology. They lack the tools to express their specific needs, to provide transparency about a flow of resources from donors to people in need and to effectively engage international communities and public sector.
Q. How does your Innovation connect to humanitarian action?
At the present time, global communities are only aware of needs of people in distress that are in current news, while vast majority of very serious needs is invisible. In most cases, public interest diminishes with time and as soon as a new disaster/conflict takes a precedent in the news. GOODdler technology gives voice to even the smallest charities by providing them with a platform where they can reach out to global audiences by expressing their specific needs through creating wishlists and appealing for help, independent of media coverage. Doing so they are able to draw in more resources.
Q. In what way is GOODdler technology unique from other approaches that already exist in this space?
Technologies available to NGOs today allow them to do fundraising campaigns and collect monetary donations. While we recognize that unrestricted cash is what charities want, we also can prove that when donating money is the only way charities reach out to potential supporters, they limit the involvement.
Many people do not trust in monetary donations, especially in light of media covering extreme abuse cases. Giving supporters an opportunity to purchase goods for charities they support serves as a first step in nurturing a positive relationship. After the trust is built, there is a potential to move these supporters into financial donors. Or technology offers the most effective way to access the needs on the ground by allowing local NGOs to create wishlists with goods from international or local retailers. This collaborative effort minimizes costs of delivering aid while allowing NGOs to offer one easy way for supporters to get involved. Our technology also allows to avoid interaction with government structures, which is especially valuable in weak or hostile to international involvement societies and in areas with a lot of out of state players. We are building an infrastructure from local retailers, vetted by local NGOs and connecting local players with international communities.
Q. What does your Innovation achieve and who are the beneficiaries?
Efficiency in providing humanitarian aid and international development; transparency in how funds are spent; increase in an involvement of international communities that don’t trust in monetary donations and want to see a direct impact from their giving.
There are three main groups that benefit greatly from our technology:
1. Charitable and civic organizations, and most importantly national and local NGOs that depend heavily on support of donors to obtain everyday necessities required to achieve their organizations’ goals. With Gooddler they are able to express their specific needs, have their needs heard and fulfilled by international communities in the most effective way, minimizing corruption and bureaucracy.
2. Local retailers who are at disadvantage when international humanitarian aid agencies bring with them goods that are available locally.
3. International communities who now have an alternative to donating money and able to see a direct impact from their giving.
Q. We heard that you had a great success working with NGOs who served victims of an earthquake in Nepal. Tell us about it.
After an earthquake in Nepal happened, there was a tremendous response from people all over the world. Many people donated money, but there were many who sent care packages to Nepalese NGOs. Later it was reported that not only majority of the packages contained the goods that were not essential, but the sheer amount of them overwhelmed the country’s postal services and ports.
At the same time, GOODdler partnered with a few NGOs in Kathmandu area and provided them with a software to create wishlists using local retailers.
These NGOs spread the word about their needs on social media and got a great support from people in different parts of the world, purchasing items for them. Once enough items were purchased to load a few trucks, retailers delivered them directly to NGOs and it only took a couple of hours to do so. Retailers were happy to receive business and NGOs were happy to receive goods so fast.
The process was very efficient, no customs, no expensive shipping, no dealing with local authorities. Later, NGOs took pictures of them delivering goods and sent them to everyone who purchased goods in a “thank you” email.
We have more stories to tell.
Q. Thank you for your great work and good luck at the World Humanitarian Summit. We are looking forward to hearing more about your work in the future.
