Charitable crowdfunding platform makes its debut in Kansas City

Flash back to November 2014, Kansas City Startup Weekend. Tim Racer pitched a proposal to a fast-track incubator for entrepreneurial ideas. Forty-eight hours later, he walked away with a business plan.

Racer’s idea launches next week as Daily Deeds, a website that promotes crowdfunding for local nonprofit agencies. It’s a specific way to help philanthropies that he believes to be the first in the country.

“We’ll build a crowd of donors first, which is different from other charitable funding sites where the nonprofits start by creating their own appeal and marketing it to try to build the crowd,” Racer said.

Here’s the idea in action:

Small nonprofit agencies will fill out a 12-question form on the Daily Deeds website to describe specific things they need money for and how much they need. Meanwhile, people who have signed up as donors on the website can contribute money to a fund housed at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation.

That’s where the crowdfunding comes in.

The Daily Deeds team will review the applications from the nonprofit agencies and pick one a day to add to the website. Each agency will be featured for seven days before being rotated off.

Whenever the donors wish, they can review the current nonprofit appeals. If they want, they can then click a button to steer a donation from the fund to their chosen charity.

A click can give as little as one dollar or as much as the donor has personally deposited into the Daily Deeds fund.

“I’m trying to make it easier for younger people to give smaller amounts, to become philanthropists,” Racer said. “I think this is a low-friction way.”

If enough people deposit and click, it’s crowdfunding. And a small nonprofit can install the playground it sought or buy a steam table for a food kitchen or install fencing around a community garden.

Crowdfunding sites have been growing for about a decade. They help business startups, “social good” projects, and organizations of all types to raise money in small amounts from large groups of donors.

Sites such as indiegogo, gofundme and kickstarter are raising billions of dollars from millions of investors and donors. Sites such as razoo, causes and crowdrise focus particularly on charitable or civic causes.

Racer ideally wants donors to contribute at least $30 a month to the Daily Deeds fund. Once a week the donors will get a heads-up about the current appeals. Each appeal must be for a specific project with a dollar goal.

“They can’t just ask for dollars as blank checks,” Racer said.

He also believes donors will be prompted to give more because they will know that the nonprofit agencies on the site have been approved by the community foundation. They also will be assured that their donations will be tracked and will know that their donations are spent as intended.

Roxane Hill, vice president of development at the Children’s Place, said she jumped at the chance to promote her organization when the community foundation alerted her to the Daily Deeds debut. The nonprofit, which serves neglected, abused and traumatized children, will ask for $1,000 for its “snack pack” program.

“Social networking is really taking off, and this is a great opportunity to connect with new people who might not know about us,” Hill said.

Racer, the Daily Deeds founder, is associate general counsel at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation by profession, but his avocation is the crowdfund project, which has been set up as a limited liability company. He emphasized that Daily Deeds is not a Kauffman foundation project.

The project received financial startup support from the Black Community Fund, the Hallmark Corporate Foundation and the Bank of Kansas City. The Black Community Fund was able to channel a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Pat Macdonald, executive director of the Black Community Fund, said the fund jumped at the chance to help Racer get his idea off the ground.

“We had as a priority to try to increase individual giving and engage the next generation,” Macdonald said. “What makes them want to give? What makes it easy to give? We saw this as a way technology could inspire young givers especially to give.”

Macdonald said the crowdfunding should speak to people who think their small donations will just get lost and not do anything.

“This will help them think small donations can make a difference,” she said.

Racer said he’s looking for more sponsors to finance the five Daily Deeds team members.

“My goal is to get 10,000 donors to give a dollar a day,” Racer said. “It won’t start that way, but we hope to build it. We hope to make giving a part of daily life.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2015 at 3:16 PM with the headline "Charitable crowdfunding platform makes its debut in Kansas City."