What is different about the Universal Fund? Is this just the formal announcement of what was already in place? Also, will Teespring be matching the recurring donations that were already in place before this announcement? Thanks!
You'll get an email about this tomorrow morning (we didn't intend to launch today, but it got out on HN a little early :)
Sorry for any confusion!
When I fund a watsi patient, I usually post it to my facebook and try to herd a whole bunch of my friends into giving to the patient.
For people who haven't tried the normal funding flow for Watsi - https://watsi.org/fund-treatments, directly funding someone's healthcare is an amazingly personal experience.
It literally costs you $10 to be part of changing someone's life and sometimes $100 to be the difference between them getting treatment or not. Making the donation recurring lowers the friction for someone to keep helping people if they had a good first experience.
Something to think about: How does a funder know if the partner is not giving raised prices the operation. How well do you guys trust the partners and how close are your relationships?
[Edit] Found more info about the partners in their FAQ: https://watsi.org/faq#what-is-a-medical-partner. I guess the FAQ pretty much answer my questions.
Putting a face to the contribution bridges the gap. Sign me up!
I was wondering how you select which patient will receive the donation each month ? Optimise impact ? Try and top up a maximum number of patient funds ?
Your donation will go to a patient who's fundraising on our website but hasn't had their treatment fully funded yet (like these folks: https://watsi.org/fund-treatments).
Our operational funding comes from investors and philanthropists (https://watsi.org/faq#how-does-watsi-fund-its-day-to-day-ope...). You can see them all on our About page (just tab over from team to "Founding Donors"): https://watsi.org/about
Have you thought about teaming up with eBay or some other giant like that? I know they ask me to round up/add a £1 extra to give to charity. Although i think the monthly subscription is hassle free, you'd get much more pocket change like that, which would compound. I'm not sure how you'd get listed there though.
Edit: i see the tip option while subscribing which is better than nothing
They aren't doing away with the old 'pick a patient' method, they're just adding another option.
