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Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

ycombinator.com

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Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#51

Post by tptacek »

loceng wrote: post #46
tptacek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth mentioning that patients in the US, and particularly children, are guaranteed medical care regardless of ability to pay. Medical care funding can bankrupt you in the US, but it cannot prevent you from having a broken femur fixed. States also run "CHIP" programs to provide health insurance coverage to children. The same is not true in Haiti or Malawi. Without the funds to pay for care, a child can live for years…

"guaranteed medical care" - of what quality, with what results? And the value of medical care being covered is that it doesn't destroy the rest of your life. It's actually kind of pointless to help someone just get to the point of surviving, and then leave them to fend for themself.

I just don't know how to respond to the idea that there's minimal value in removing infected bone fragments from a child's femur, and so I'm not going to pretend that there's a useful discussion you and I can have about this.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#52

Post by tptacek »

chaseadam17 wrote: post #42
tptacek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a kind of care I'd be funding using Watsi that I wouldn't be funding as effectively if I routed contributions directly to PIH? Or is the big advantage to Watsi (from a 1000ft view) that it creates an especially compelling way to get people to contribute on-the-ground operating funds to places like PIH? The latter is certainly a huge big deal, in case I sound skeptical. I'm just trying to refine my understand…

Really insightful question. With Nyaya Health (the PIH org) we're funding treatments they don't normally provide their patients (specialty referral care, think heart surgery and the like), so yes, there's a big difference between funding organizations directly and funding via Watsi. Here's a link to the first patient we funded via Nyaya ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyayahealth/8405959818/in/photo... ). She had to t…

Wow. There are treatments PIH can only provide in Nepal because of a site you built? That is completely amazing. Congratulations.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#53

Post by pg »

tikhonj wrote: post #22
pg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no difference; it is simply a charitable contribution.

Will they also be going through dinners, office-hours and the like? I could see this being a good way to help new non-profits get over the initial hump of raising awareness, getting administrative issues sorted out and so on. Certainly a service worth more than just the money provided.

Yes, everything is the same. They're going to present at Demo Day too (lots of rich people in that room).

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#54

Post by chaseadam17 »

suchow wrote: post #28

This is a neat idea. I have an unimportant question. PG's post says "They even eat the credit card processing fees", but Watsi's FAQ says, "As part of the cost of the treatment, we have included PayPal credit card processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). These PayPal fees are unavoidable, and no portion of the fees go to Watsi." Who is right?

Sorry! This is our (Watsi's) fault. Everything pg said is entirely true.

When we first launched Watsi we had absolutely no operating budget and because of that we had to include credit card processing fees in the cost of treatment. We are now paying the credit card processing fees out of our own operating budget (see our Transparency Document for more info: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ...).

Thanks for catching this. We've updated our FAQ to reflect this change.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#55

Post by tptacek »

jk4930 wrote: post #45
tptacek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watsi is already working with huge names in this space. PIH, one of the best known, funds on-the-ground medical care in places like Haiti and Subsaharan Africa. I don't think anyone in these places cares how "dependent" they are on PIH; their kids are living with broken femurs, infected bones, cataracts, and hernias. Charities are not going to lobby against Watsi.

Thanks for the info. I didn't intend to imply that they (or other nonprofit startups) would face opposition by all established players. It's just that I found many "nonprofits" showing questionable behaviours: The people working in the field are often very interested in helping, (some but important) people in the administration became cynics or bigots and working for a nonprofit became less of a mission and more of a…

I'm sure this is true of a lot of charitable endeavors, but the health care charities are generally about getting medical teams on the ground and deploying desperately needed care.

It makes sense to route contributions to reputable charities. In the medical space, you have not only PIH but also organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières/DWB-USA. One of the very cool things about what Watsi is doing is that they provide a front end that routes contributions to multiple reputable on-the-ground health care providers, like PIH clinics.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#57

Post by chaseadam17 »

tsycho wrote: post #49

On one hand, I love it that I was able to donate to a person, and Watsi didn't require a login, email etc. (though I guess they have my email from the Paypal payment). But this is one of the sites where a login would probably be a good idea, so that I can keep track of my donations and particularly the status/health updates of those whom I am helping, and also potentially for tax purposes. Another site on these lines…

This is a great suggestion. We do send updates to all donors, but as soon as we integrate Stripe we're going to enable optional user accounts. These accounts will enable us to create new features like one-click donation checkout, recurring donations, and a donation history so you can easily view all the patients you've helped support. If you have any other ideas, please let us know!

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#58

Post by kalvin »

tptacek wrote: post #31
chaseadam17 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the treatments funded on Watsi are provided by our partner organizations (names listed on the patient profiles) and our first partner, Nyaya Health, is a Partners in Health clinic in Nepal. So in short, the benefit of Watsi is both of those you described. 1) 100% of funds directly fund treatments and 2) those treatments are performed by great organizations like Nyaya.

Is there a kind of care I'd be funding using Watsi that I wouldn't be funding as effectively if I routed contributions directly to PIH? Or is the big advantage to Watsi (from a 1000ft view) that it creates an especially compelling way to get people to contribute on-the-ground operating funds to places like PIH? The latter is certainly a huge big deal, in case I sound skeptical. I'm just trying to refine my understand…

If you're willing to fund overhead and give up the direct-to-recipient portion, you "should" contribute to PIH because nonprofits have a much easier time covering their program costs compared to overhead costs. Nobody wants to contribute to office supplies or fundraising costs, they're not sexy, even if necessary.

Of course, you should also support Watsi because as they succeed and drive a ton of extra contributions toward program-costs-only, even if there isn't enough existing overhead covered, there "should" be strategic donors who see this happening and decide to fund it.

This is all assuming Watsi's average partner is interchangeable with PIH, along with the treatments you'd be funding, which of course they aren't. Based on Chase's comment on Bageshwori, it may be very different-- it sounds like by directly funding PIH you'd be contributing to basic (though still potentially lifesaving) care through PIH, whereas with Watsi-via-PIH you have the option of (and often are?) contributing to more difficult, expensive, and perhaps otherwise-even-more-unavailable care.

If you're feeling generous, support both :)

(PIH spends a remarkably high 94% of its donations on program expenses, fyi: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary..., though there's long been a philanthropy-wide consensus that over-focusing on overhead is common and unhelpful: http://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a-...)

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#59

Post by chaseadam17 »

jkuria wrote: post #38

This is really great to see. I am just curious, how do they ensure that the funds are actually used for the intended person's health issues? How do you prevent scammers and posers who just want to get money? I have a bit of experience here and would say it is a non trivial problem if you do not have an operation on the ground. You could donate to organizations that you trust but then you get back to the same old prob…

We prevent scammers by going through trusted organizations. The funds go directly to the organization that is providing treatment (i.e. the hospital or clinic), and never into the hands of the patient.

As well, patients aren't able to solicit Watsi funding. In fact, they don't even know we exist until a doctor at one of our partner organizations has identified them as a candidate and presents them with the opportunity to have their care funded by Watsi. You can think of us as an "Emergency Fund" for on-the-ground healthcare providers.

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