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Some ideas just won't be reigned in...Part 2

posted on Thursday, March 06, 2008 01:18 PM

the power of one project

NB i am putting this up on here in the hope that if anyone finds this interesting they will contact me rather than just rip the idea off. I'm not out to make money from this, in fact it will make me no money at all (while i would be happy to see the idea succeed i do want to be involved in its journey.)

ok its not a small idea - and although its a simple idea its actually pretty complicated to figure out how it can work - i've got the bare bones and a bit of the flesh of it and some handle on the technology - so here it is but seriously minus any spin

the power of one project www.thepowerofoneproject.com (nothing on there yet - putting this info on an draft website is in fact my next step)

the idea is basically an online charity with a 'one to one' twist.

the projects: For example while travelling in someone comes across an old fisherman who needs a new net, or a family in who need some electrical work done on their house to make it more habitable. small projects that real people meeting real people find out about and can action themselves. I'm expecting that many of the people posting projects will be gap year travellers. (typical users of social networking sites like facebook)

the visitors to the site are 3 kinds: those who post projects, those who want to donate to projects and those who want to help on projects (realistically visitors can do all 3)

Projects get described with a mix of assets like text, photos, video etc & are linked to the member who creates them (and vice versa)

Members have profiles (but not as full as in online communities)

Members can view/search posted projects and add to watch lists (rather like auctions) and/or rate projects and pose questions (vistors have a more limited info search)

Members can donate to specific projects or to the general fund (using online pay methods such as paypal) (visitors can only make general donations)

Members can volunteer to work on particular projects

The member community essentially determines which projects get the funds, either by members donating to a specific project or by a voting/rating system ('would you give to this project?'/'how do you rate this project?')

Revenue comes from donations to the projects or site general fund, sponsorships, advertising revenue

Money is delivered to member/projects via a sponsor (eg a business sponsor in the wire money transfer sector)

Credibility and integrity is key and the deal with members who get funds is they need to post feedback about how the project went (photos/words etc). Members who contributed or rated the project could then see this from links to projects in their watch list .

Rather like in ebay members get rated/feedback by how well they have done as either posters of projects, donators or volunteers - not that this prevents anyone esle from doing stuff but sort of helps the sceptical members to be reassued.

so its an online charity with acting on and funding very local very personal charitable projects which otherwise are too non specific or small to come under the umbrella of the larger charities.

Plus and i think this is where its really different is that it is turning web 2.0 online social & collaborative netwrorking into real world action. and at the same time helping to balance the often negative impact of travellers in localities by allowing them to put something back in.

well there it is :)

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