The border line between charity and sustainability aspect of a program

Is it ok to monetize a social issue to be able to fund and sustain a project that is trying to resolve that same issue?

When it comes to social issues it seems that we have an endless list of problems that we want to solve to make our world a better place to live in. There are many individuals and organizations that started their own initiative to tackle issues like: hunger, homelessness, abuse, human trafficking and so on. Although there are many of them that are looking into these issues, there are only few of them who have the metrics to make the program scalable and sustainable.

For a non-profit organization, the challenge is to keep raising funds to sustain the operation of the program. Being dependent on fund raising only impedes the scalability of a program since it does not grow by itself instead it only act as a channel from philantrophists to the recipients.

 

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What if there's a way to monetize a social issue and build a scalable buisness and keep the prgram sustainable? The Samaritan app (https://www.samaritan.city/) has envision a way to do it. The Samaritan aimed to tackle the issue of homelessness & help the people that are living on the street. The technology connects people who are willing to donate to homeless persons. The way it works is that a donator has to have the Samaritan app while the benefactor has to hold a beacon. As the donator pass-by a benefactor, the donator will recieve a notification through the app to learn about the benefactor's story and needs. The donator can then donate electronically to the benefactor.

For the benefactor to calim the donation, he has to go to a Samaritan designated outpost (government agencies & non-profit organizations) and have a talk to an Adviser about the benefactor's situation. The goal is to provide assistance for the benefactor to get back on his feet and eventually be financially stable.

The Samaritan profits by licensing the technology to government agencies who see value on the data that it can collect.

As clever as it seems, there are some of us who think that making profit out of a despair of others is not acceptable. However, if we are to look at the solution that the Samaritan can offer to the benefactor, I believe that it is a noble way of building a sustainable business through it.

I would rather focus on how it can help the society and not about the way it profit. There is more good to it!

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://funtraveller.repollo.org/2019/04/29/the-border-line-between-charity-and-sustainability-aspect-of-a-program/

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