The generated and ranked bookmarking site has over +100,000 independent communities, called subreddits, dedicated to things like saving lives or playing (virtual) ones, dispelling religion or exploring faith, randomly delivering pizza or sending gifts of kindness. And for all of reddit's controversies, kitten pictures, and useful/less arguments, it continues to break news, protect the internet, and source the Web's most original content. Despite its extremes, the community parodies and exposes the world as something far simpler than I think we're comfortable in believing: we have one rock, and we all live on it.
That kind of clarity has allowed its community to use the internet in spectacular fashion and it's what inspired our newest experiment, reddit Donate. Today, in partnership with reddit and Stripe, we're releasing a simple platform that connects the reddit community to the world's most progressive nonprofits.
No gimmicks, no tricks, just buttons.
Generated at redditDonate.com, moderators of individual subreddits are able to create campaigns and donation buttons from a community of like-minded, certified nonprofits.
Once created, buttons are then embedded into the subreddit's sidepanel until a moderator decides to switch out a campaign, add more, or remove it entirely. Not a redditor? You can still make a donation.
Once a redditor clicks that button, they can easily send however much or little money they want. And because all payments go directly to the nonprofits, they get more of what was donated. Our partner, Stripe, is helping out and processing donors that wish to use cards.
Of course, it goes a lot deeper than just reddit and these 12 nonprofits.According to Giving USA, Americans donated $217.9 billion, or 2 percent of our nation's GDP, to nonprofits in 2011. With a number like that, it's easy to forget that every penny counts. See, while price breaks for nonprofits exist, many organizations rely on angel donors or specific fundraising campaigns to cover the costs of transactions, which range from 2.2 to 5 percent + 30 cents a charge. Note: If you have a Capital One card, use their No Hassle Giving site.
Let's keep going. What if, for every $1 invested in improved water supply and sanitation in developing nations, yielded an average of $4-$12 for the local economy? Depending on the type of intervention, that's what The World Health Organization speculates. The fact is simple, nonprofits are getting smarter, technologies are getting better, and funds are going exponentially farther than they have in the past. Heck, $25,000 can now build entire schools. Pennies are no longer fractions of a dollar, but multipliers for real change. We hope Dwolla can help with that.
We will be adding more nonprofits to the platform soon and have a lot of ideas for reddit Donate, but, as a passion project, we're taking it a day at a time. We still gotta keep the lights on at Dwolla. Also, if you'd like to see some of the (hilariously awesome) mashups, head over to our new subreddit,r/redditdonate.
You can also follow us at @redditDonate or email us at,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
