We are living in an age of exponential times.....things change very fast and it is easy to channelize energy in the required directions.
We have open source ....to have free software ....break monopoly or whatever reasons you can thin of.....then we have "causes" on facebook , people can recruit facebookers for their cause etc.
you can also see .......websites which have donation indicators to attract donations from its fans....like wikipedia........and yes ....these instruments work........
whenever I am roaming around in campus and get a glimpse of people who are having some T-Shirt/bag etc which support some cause.....it makes me go thinking......why do not I buy everything i need...trouser,shirt,shoes....supporting my causes......there might be a way to buy a cap from Mozilla store.....Tshirt from Ubuntu site........but why do not we have a web store which is a charity aggregator.....so that when I am about to buy something .......i can check on this web store charity aggregator and find if my purchase decision could support some charity .........
So....once you have a cause which needs money .....and you have some accessory which people might want to buy to support the cause.......you can submit that apparel/accessory on this web store and people can buy it.......
Once this web store becomes popular we can have the physical manifestation of the same.........you can walk into your favourite shopping mall and enter into this charity store and buy stuff for the cause you support....
However, this webstore does not need to be an independent portal but could have presence on existing social media portals like Facebook etc or it could be just extension of the existing players in business....like amazon charity ....... :)
I like thi idea. Charities in e-business can really change the world. From donors point of view, we have the ease to do it due to its online nature.They can follow its path, see its effect. Say for every transaction you do online (say above $15) a poor kid gets one meal and gets to the school for that day! I am sure people in the west will buy more. And it can really change the e-business. But what needs to implement is get people see what good they have done, the moment they do it. Let them know whom they are helping! It can also connect people.
ReplyDeleteIt has other consequences as well, say i purchase a thing i dont like. But still i feel good because nevertheless i helped someone.
Great idea Sachin !
-Pardeep
Very good idea Sachin!
ReplyDeleteThere is alot of charity organisations, that are supporting good causes and have good products but no one finds them on the web. This webstore could allso help people to find charity organisations that they want to support.
In the webstore colud be ways to sort products by what do you want to support with your purchase f.ex. animal protection, child support... Or sort by product like t-shirts.
Allso adding easy ways to donate to the website is am exelent idea. People will donate more if it is made easy for them. A good example for this is "feed a child with a clik"-pages.
-Aino
Very nicely put Idea Sachin...There are few stores like this in India as well but the organizations are trying very hard to make them popular. It is important we all realize that things which may be waste(unused) for us may not be for someone else!
ReplyDelete