Riding around in a tricked out school bus, the responsibly (yes, small ‘r’) team sat down with TechCrunch to talk about their gifting platform. CEO Antoine Grant points out early on that responsibly is different from other social good initiatives because it does away with the feeling of sacrifice. He says that they are unique because they are “pairing normal human behavior, gifting, with a meaningful contribution to education.”
Responsibly CEO Antoine Grant and COO Stuart Felkner
responsibly works like your average daily deals site, except that 100% of the proceeds is donated to education. You choose which education project you want to donate to. 50% of the proceeds for the purchase go to the school with another 50% matched via corporate sponsorship from Donor’s Choose.
“The education system is in dire need of our help, and we want to start a movement that spreads awareness, brings people on board with our mission and gives them a really easy way to help directly and contribute to saving America’s education,” said Grant on the motivation behind the startup’s for profit mission (they take a cut of sales).
The actual deals are sparse. Right now, you can only buy aromatic Stone Candles, but these offerings will be expanded during the beta period.
Their tour bus is a rolling home office, featuring solar panels and customized fold-out beds. They just came off a 15 city tour during the month of April, visiting schools and leaders from the KIPP, Greendot, and Teach for America programs across America. The goal here is to show they are committed to their cause and to get a better idea of the issues faced by US educators so that they can find the best ways to help.
“Our goal is to be more than a simple commerce platform – we want to connect consumers and companies with charitable giving in an easy and cost-effective way that benefits everyone,” said Felkner.
via TechCrunch