Category: General News

You've proven that you can accept a challenge and deliver results. We had 384 Facebook Likes, we asked you to invite your friends to like us, and 4 days later we had 500. That number continues to grow, and as a result September's winning cause will get an extra $132... or more!

Double the Donors

This week we have a new challenge: bring our donor count from 186 to 200. That's a net of 14 donors in the next 5 days. Doable, right? After all, last year we signed up 59 new donors in the last 5 days of September! You just need to pick a few of your raddest friends and invite them to join Charitocracy. Or if you haven't already joined yet yourself, then you qualify to be the raddest: simply click here, and for as little as $13/year you'll become Charitocracy's newest donor!

Hitting an even 200 would effectively double our donors from September 30, 2016 to September 30, 2017. 100% growth in a year. That's all we need. If we double in size each year, the monthly pot will exceed $1 million just 10 years from now! Think about it, that means each donor has to simply convince one friend to join each year. Not so far-fetched! Especially considering the busy bees going over quota. You know who you are. <3

Double the Fun

We know extra incentives help motivate prospective donors to seal the deal. That's why we're matching all new donor sign-ups, dollar for dollar. When a new donor donates $13, we'll double that by throwing an extra $1 into the coming year's monthly pots. A $130 donation will go twice as far when we throw an extra $10 into the monthly pots. If you give Charitocracy to a friend, that same doubling will apply.

And because we not only want to increase the donor base, but also the $ per donor ratio, we're matching the new donation amount for all donation increases as well! Let's say you were giving $5/month and you double your donation to $10/month. We'll throw in an extra $10/month just as if you were a new donor!

By my calculations, if we hit this goal and end up with at least 200 donors come October 1st, the September pot could break $1500!

You've heard the news that we've been up and running for a whole year now, right? We have things pretty well dialed in at this point. Deserving causes, nominated and voted in by you guys, win ever-increasing pots of cash each month. Now we need to turn our attention to growth of our donor base. And for starters, that means we need more Likes... from the likes of you and your friends.

The Plan: $1 added to the pot per Like

We have some great ideas on how to attract more donors, but we need to get the word out to as many people as we can. We're primarily "preaching to the converted" at the moment: those of you reading this are by and large our friends and family. You're already donors, or if not, you at least get what we're trying to do and are patiently waiting for the perfect day to join us. (We're ready when you are.) But to reach those other deadbeats out there who've never heard of us, we need lots and lots of Likes!

Instead of paying Facebook/Twitter/Google for advertisements drumming up more followers, we're going to pay ourselves. We received some large matching donations earlier this year, not yet tied to any monthly pots. We'd like to use those funds to catalyze growth at Charitocracy. Before we roll out other incentives, we'd like to grow the audience who'll hear about them. So the first incentive: $1 added to the pot for every new Like.

Right now we're at 384 Likes on Facebook, and 31 Followers on Twitter.  So on the night of September 30, we'll take the current Like count, subtract 384, and add that many dollars to September's pot. If our Like count is up to 500, we'd throw an extra $116 in. Same goes for Twitter and Instagram followers. Now that's what I call sweetening the pot! And we'd repeat with our new baselines in October.

The Ask: Invite all your friends to Like us

Here's what we'd... like... you to do:

1. On Facebook, go to Charitocracy's page.
   
2. Click on the ... button, then on Invite Friends:
   
3. Click the little blue page icon and write a one-liner personal note like this:
   
4. Most important step: Click every Invite button in your list of friends!
5. Head on over to our Twitter page and Follow us!
   
6. I don't know if there's a way to invite Twitter followers to follow Charitocracy, but let me know if there is and I'll pass it along!

Remember, you and your friends Like us, but we LOVE you.  <3

• For a limited time, while supplies last, void where prohibited, batteries not included. We should have more than enough matching funds to cover us through 1000 Likes and well beyond, so please get busy!

A lot of people spend their labor day weekends doing fun stuff outside, soaking up the end of summer. Those people have their priorities straight. I spent the majority of mine adding Apple Pay support to Charitocracy.

Apple Pay

If you have a recent iPhone, iPad, or MacBook Pro with Touch ID (fingerprint sensor), or an Apple Watch and a Mac, then you'll see a "Donate with Apple Pay" button whenever you'd otherwise enter in your credit card details. If it's your first time using it, you'll see a "Set up Apple Pay" button which brings you to your device's Wallet settings. That's where you add your credit card(s) to Apple Pay.

So why use Apple Pay? For starters, it's fun. Apple Pay pops up a little panel with a fingerprint button. All you do is tap your Touch ID sensor, or double-tap your Apple Watch button, and bingo. Transaction complete. But then Apple Pay is also more secure. Your actual credit card number is never used for transactions.

You can use Apple Pay for signups and increases to your annual donation amount. For example, if you want to double your donation for this coming year, hint hint! The most common use of Apple Pay will be "sweetening the pot" with extra one-time donations, simply because it'll be so quick and easy now.

Stored Cards

But the rest of you, do not despair! I've improved the donation process for you, too. Our credit card processing company, Stripe, already keeps your credit card information on file in their vaults in order to process your annual recurring donations. But now I've made one-time donations and annual donation changes use those stored cards, too.

As before, your credit card details still never make it onto Charitocracy's servers. (We don't want 'em!) But now we tell Stripe to use your stored card whenever you want to make a donation. No more re-entering your credit card every time! Of course you can still choose to supply a new card. Or if your stored card fails to work for any reason, we'll offer up the Stripe credit card entry panel you know and love. You can store a new one that'll be used for all future donations.

Please try it!

I tested it out the best I can in my sandbox with fake Stripe credit card, but please do let me know if it all works! Make it rain on Special Olympics in these last few hours with an extra one-time donation of as little as $1. Or if you wait until tomorrow, you'll be sweetening the September pot.

These donation improvements combined with our new "forever" logins should make Charitocracy dramatically more convenient!

Apple, the Apple logo, Apple Pay, iPhone, and Touch ID are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.