How shall we give our users a voice in which causes can be fundraised for?
Luke Flegg
Public
Seen by 17
After 4 years, we're about to launch our first fully fledged local services marketplace - not a prototype. The real thing. We have the most kickass team in Dignity's history and significant startup funding is imminent.
However there's a pandemic now and we've adapted Dignity's launch strategy accordingly, but we need to decide how we work with causes now.
Until Dignity opens up to allow users to raise money for any cause, we will work with a select number of causes (gradually increasing this) and we call them partners. They do most of the work of promoting Dignity to their supporters.
Proposals in this thread should answer these questions:
Which cause(s) shall we partner with? (or do we allow users to fundraise for any cause [our long term goal] straight away?)
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If we have multiple partner causes, can each user choose which ones they fundraise for?
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if so, can they change their mind? (if so, how?)
and what are the constraints? (how many causes can they choose, is money they raise automatically split evenly between the ones they choose or do we enable them to adjust the percentages going to each cause?)
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How do we give our users a say in which causes we partner with in the first place? (is this revisited, what's the exact process?)
The Hirer is obviously the one who pays for the service ('gig') but who's choice is it where the money is donated? The Hirer, the Volunteer, or both? How?
Anything else? (due diligence plan, veto, etc?)
Pasco Mon 18 May 2020 1:02PM
I feel we should not use the title 'Partners' as this, as we have learned, can cause bureaucratic blocks, due to the formality of that title. I believe strongly that we need another title. Eg. A Dignity Cause.
I also feel we should make this process as simple as possible, for both our internal team, and the user, without taking away the functionality/autonomy of users choosing the causes they want to fundraise for.
And I feel that having fewer causes to choose from is a stronger growth model, because it equates to larger total of money, for each cause, each month.
Having both users choose the cause also creates a more complex accounting system, requiring a lot of checking into user profiles, manually, appriciating what it will take to market the platform, I feel strongly we want to create an easy process for the accounting and donation managment. And utualise paid team members for marketing, over donations. If a user doesn't align with a persons listing cause choice, they can create a request for the same skill, and/or message that user. The more we have to check and split the money, the more time is needed to manage all the payments.
Pasco Mon 18 May 2020 1:08PM
I'd rather add a comment, than a counter-proposal, as I agree with most of your proposal here:
Changes:
change the language around causes, not partnerships.
3 (max) causes available to choose each month
the person creating the listing is the only user that chooses the cause for that gig.
Belinda, as previously agreed, does our donation accounting, Luke's skills are more valuable elsewhere.
Then, later down the line, we can add more complexity, causes, when we have more capacity.
Poll Created Wed 27 May 2020 9:19PM
Luke's proposal v2 Closed Fri 29 May 2020 10:02AM
Same a v1, except integrating some of Pasco's thoughts and suggestions + my own ideas into the following amendments:
Use term 'Dignity causes' instead of partners
Start off with only The Real Junk Food Project, immediately open voting (with guinea pigs) on what 2nd cause should be
• close this vote 15th June and form relationship with the most popular cause our guinea pigs chose
• as soon as we've formed a collaboration / successful relationship with this new Dignity cause, we add them on our platform as a new option you can fundraise for as well as (or instead of) TRJFP - this is one of the legacies of our guinea pigs; they chose the 2nd cause 🙂
• first pay out date is last day of June (so payments will be paid out to both causes)
• this cycle repeats every TWO months; our users selecting a new Dignity cause every 2 months (again, we only add them as an option on our platform once we've built a relationship with them) so after 1 year, there are 6 Dignity causes you can raise money for - up to a limit of 3 max (if they choose more than 3 and we have no way to prevent them from doing so, we just 'deselect' the causes they ticked which have implemented the least ideas on Ideaspace)-
Belinda will lead on the ongoing bookkeeping and paying out to Dignity causes, but Luke will work with her to establish the systems / automatons to make this as fast and easy as possible.
(So everything else unchanged from v1. That means Hirers + Volunteers each decide where 50% of the money goes, etc)
Review date for this proposal: 15th July.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Agree | 0.0% | 0 | |
| Abstain | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 50.0% | 1 |
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| Block | 50.0% | 1 |
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| Undecided | 0% | 11 |
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2 of 13 people have participated (15%)
Luke Flegg
Wed 27 May 2020 9:21PM
I think this creates the most exciting proposition for our users, the greatest incentives, without giving us too much work to manage. It's also in line with our collaborative outreach and roll out model with Dignity causes while making regular use of Ideaspace
Pasco
Thu 28 May 2020 11:44AM
I thought we discussed the concerns with the RJFP community location. I have also already begun creating relationships with other causes to launch with.
Luke Flegg
Thu 28 May 2020 1:41PM
Blocking now as we've discussed and I know we have a better v3 coming up
Luke Flegg Thu 28 May 2020 1:43PM
Notes from today's phone call
ACTION POINTS IN BOLD
"LukePasco proposal"
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only lister decides?
no, both decide
PASCO TO UPDATE BELINDA ON THIS
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choose causes on profile or listings?
not per listing because have to enter every time you list
per profile quicker for bookkeeper too
DO PER PROFILE, WITH % GOING TO DIGNITY TOO
ADD LINKS + INFO RE: DIGNITY CAUSES to learn about them
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which causes do we fundraise for? How are they decided?
guinea pigs: decision on which 2 causes we fundraise for (L + P add a couple of options of causes to kick us off) decision period: immediately after group video call [DATE TBC], closing 48hrs later
public: TRJFP london? We think strategically about this. 3 causes. Decide by …TBC
PASCO LEADING: Urgent, so they can promote us: Connecting with potential Dignity causes.Every month, we announce winner AND add the most popular partner cause voted on Ideaspace as a new tickbox option on profiles
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multiple causes?
No: So use dropdown box
RESTRICT MULTIPLE CLICKS so they can only choose 1 cause to fundraise for
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Launch location + cause locations
Only london for now. Discourage brighton users, disallow london causes
LUKE TO MAKE IDEASPACE VIDEO WALK THROUGH
6th + 7th June: internal testing + iteration, release to guineas on 8th
iterate the marketplace DURING testing, where possible.
Poll Created Tue 2 Jun 2020 11:01PM
I propose "lukePasco proposal" - see above Closed Fri 5 Jun 2020 10:02PM
We've launched with our guinea pigs, based on this proposal! Thanks for voting on it; glad it has everyone's blessing : )
Pasco & I had a chat and went through this in detail, so hopefully we're both actively in favour of this, and we want to give an example of how Ideaspace works, for our Guinea pigs :) - Link again for Guinea pigs (our first users of our first custom built, fully featured platform, after 4 years of work: tiny.cc/guineapigs)
You guys - please start your own threads / ideas on how Dignity platform could be better + help decide the causes you're fundraising for right now.
: ]
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Agree | 100.0% | 5 |
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| Abstain | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 10 |
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5 of 15 people have participated (33%)
Luke Flegg
Tue 2 Jun 2020 11:03PM
Let's move forward. Now.
Luke Flegg · Fri 15 May 2020 9:06PM
Luke's proposal v1
(rather than launching a proposal immediately, I wanna kinda float it informally first and allow for anyone to highlight any assumptions, blind spots or share any other input. I'll probably launch proposal in a day or two)
Initially: The Real Junk Food Project, plus 1 other cause chosen by anyone who self-joins us here in Ideaspace (in a new thread I'd start).
Proposing and voting on the 2nd cause would end 1st May 2020 (5 days before our devs expect to have our platform ready to use; bearing in mind our first few days will be testing only with our first 30 users. This gives us time to build a partnership with this cause and work together on promotion strategy)
Yes
There would be a check box for each cause in a section of their profile...
...which they can change any time, and they are presented with upon signing up.
They can select any combination of the causes on there. They can update this as we add more causes in the future. However, money is paid out to causes on the first day of the month, and (assuming they've raised anything) that is when the bookkeeper (me) will check which cause(s) that user has chosen to allocate their funds to. Example: It's the end of the month and I'm paying out raised funds to causes. I see Mary's raised £250 this month, I check her profile and see that she currently has both causes ticked on her profile, so I pay out to those on her behalf.
Users cannot chose different percentages. If 1 cause, 100% will go to them (minus fees + any chosen donation to us) if 2 causes, 50% will go to each.
When the bookkeeper (me) pays out to causes, they also check Ideaspace for the latest results: what is the next most popular cause our users want us to partner with?
This cause will now join the options available to users and we begin our partnership with them.
The Hirer decides where half their money is donated and their Volunteer decides where the other half is donated.
The Dignity team will first perform a due diligence check (against our due diligence policy) to ensure the new cause meets our requirements. Luke and Pasco also have the power to veto if they see a major problem partnering with this cause (eg. conflict of interest)