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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

#41

Post by nowarninglabel »

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…

You also have to take into account the amount of time it would take for PIH to deal with direct contributions. It's a non-trivial problem for these organizations to focus on that aspect when their core competency is to focus on the medical work they do. We've seen this a lot at Kiva where our partners are able to do things they could not have done otherwise because we are providing a source of funds that they don't have to devote resources towards, allowing for reaching new regions, providing different loan terms (for instance "bullet" loans for agriculture that pay off at the end and can be difficult for a small MFI to deal with), and for reach new groups of people with services, such as the completely unbanked.

That said Partners in Health seems to be a fairly robust organization and seems to have the donation handling and web presence problem solved, but Watsi is still providing a place to evangelize them to people who would otherwise never come across them.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#42

Post by chaseadam17 »

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…

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 take a 72-hour trip from Far Western Nepal to Kathmandu to receive life-saving heart surgery. This is a pretty expensive endeavor by Nepali standards ($1,125 USD), and without funding from an organization like Watsi, specialty care for individual patients like Bageshwori is out of the question.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#43

Post by chaseadam17 »

maxharris wrote: post #39

Is there any chance of expanding this to include Americans? Or even better - people that live near me, such as my zip code + the surrounding zip codes. That way, there's at least a chance that I'd see the person that I helped someday.

You should check out giveforward.com.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#44

Post by tptacek »

maxharris wrote: post #39

Is there any chance of expanding this to include Americans? Or even better - people that live near me, such as my zip code + the surrounding zip codes. That way, there's at least a chance that I'd see the person that I helped someday.

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 --- their entire life, even --- with easily correctible medical conditions.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#45

Post by jk4930 »

tptacek wrote: post #34
jk4930 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be interesting to observe how the established nonprofits react to this. Many of them do the following: Make their target audience (who they claim to care for) more dependent (i.e., don't solve the problem, just give some temporal ease) and take money from third parties (state, private donors) that don't control them. My guess is that they would come up with many arguments against this startup-ish approach and w…

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 job option and power play and protecting their org's income streams and spheres of influence is more important than helping.

This is a POV from Germany where you have a wealthy population willing to donate and many sharks eager to catch the fish. Add to this that some legal circumstances make it possible for the established players to keep fresh competition out of public money streams or eat plenty of the private donor money (e.g., up to 49% for admin costs).

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#46

Post by loceng »

tptacek wrote: post #44
maxharris wrote: post #39

Is there any chance of expanding this to include Americans? Or even better - people that live near me, such as my zip code + the surrounding zip codes. That way, there's at least a chance that I'd see the person that I helped someday.

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.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#47

Post by corin_ »

I'm personally not a fan of the concept of donating to help a specific person, rather than a cause, but am unsure whether I'm a rare exception or whether many people have the same view as me - hopefully a few replies could help answer this?

When I say not a fan of the concept, I absolutely don't mean I disapprove. I don't have any problem with organisations raising money this way, nor with people choosing to donate money this way - I simply don't like donating myself.

Trying to chose between fighting HIV or starvation, cancer or... etc. etc. is hard enough. Looking at Watsi's homepage, does Chimwemwe from Malawi deserve my money more than Kirshan from Nepal? What about Lidiya from Malawi? I can see the point of view that it's nice to know your money has definitely made an impact on somebody's life, but personally I don't enjoy the burden of making that decision. I'd far rather be 0.0000000001% of a big solution than 100% of a small one when it comes to charitable donations.

All that said, the fact that I dislike it doesn't take anything away from my thinking that Watsi looks like a great site, my opinion doesn't change the fact that anyone raising money for good causes is great and if the method used here helps that then no complaints from me.

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#48

Post by jango »

In Slovakia (a small EU country) we have a non-profit called "Dobry anjel" (Good angel) which helps families of children sick with cancer and other serious diseases. It is also collects donations, is separately funded and distributes all the donations "up to the last cent". Two possibly interesting tidbits: 1) The organization has re-distributed almost 17 million euros since its inception in 2006 (this is 23 mil. USD, over half a million USD in the last month alone -- our population is about the same as Minnesota), 2) Its co-founder Andrej Kiska is planning to run for president of Slovakia next year.

EDIT: Note on transparency: all the donors have their own website login information ("angel ID") to track every donation and see exactly how much was sent to whom. The stories of recipient families are provided, along with their address + telephone number. The donors have an option to remain anonymous or reveal their contact information. I never contacted any recipients or revealed my name to them but I have heard stories where the donors and families in distress got in touch and supported each other with prayers, encouragements, etc.. "Good angel" also makes it possible to keep sending donations to the same families if you choose to (otherwise the families will be chosen at random, which is the default choice -- or at least was the default for me when I signed up in 2007).

Re: Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

#49

Post by tsycho »

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 which I like a lot is Kiva.org (no affiliation, just a user). It's micro-finance, not donations, but all 3 people whom I lent to on Kiva, have paid me back so their enterprise has presumably succeeded. It feels great to be able to help some poor villager in Africa buy some fertilizers or a cow, and I like how Kiva makes it easy to keep track of them :)

Update: Watsi just emailed me a receipt that I can use for tax purposes, and promised to send me a email when the person I donated to receives treatment. So I take back my minor complaint above!

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