5 ms·

As our communities grapple with the impacts of COVID-19, various organizations have sprung up to provide assistance. I wanted to gather together a quick list of

by gabem1 6y ago

As our communities grapple with the impacts of COVID-19, various organizations have sprung up to provide assistance. I wanted to gather together a quick list of local organizations that need help so that those of us that are looking to provide support can do so easily. Additionally, I was struggling to find ways to support local businesses -- donation links, gift card purchase links etc. All of the information is sorted by proximity to you. Currently it’s mostly focused on the Boston area (since that’s where I am). However, the tool will work anywhere, I would just need a list of local organizations in that area. After I created this I also found: https://giveandgetlocal.com/ https://giveandgetlocal.com/ and https://www.helpmainstreet.com/ https://www.helpmainstreet.com/, which serve very similar needs. I would very much appreciate: 1. Feedback on the tool 2. Suggestions about how I might source the data for other areas outside of Boston without violating terms and conditions 3. Names of relief funds or other ways people can support relief efforts

JangoSteve 6y ago
Very nice. We've built a similar tool, mainly geared toward purchasing gift cards, for Michigan. The code was built to make it as easy as possible to manage and add new businesses, so that others can easily deploy it for their own states. https://www.savemifaves.org/ https://www.savemifaves.org/
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  This is really cool, and something I had not thought of. I don't eat out enough to support my local restaurants during the crisis, but purchasing their gift cards would allow me to enjoy them even afterwards while supporting them during.
JangoSteve 6y ago
Also, I was looking at the helpmainstreet.com website that you mentioned in your comment and noticed they had a lot of businesses all around the country with links to gift cards. It's taken a fair amount of time for us to curate the gift card links for all the businesses on savemifaves.org, so I couldn't fathom how they could curate that many. Looking through the links, it looks like almost all of them are links to squareup.com, toasttab.com, or quickgifts.com. I don't know about squareup.com or quickgifts.com, but when we were verifying the gift card links people were submitting (to ensure that people aren't setting up their own fraudulent gift card links for local businesses that don't already have their own way to purchase gift cards), we specifically looked at toasttab.com and realized that toasttab gift cards aren't all set up by the businesses themselves. Toasttab seems to set up their own gift card purchasing for local businesses, probably in order to reach out to the businesses and force them to sign up to claim their money from anyone who unwittingly purchases gift cards from there thinking the business must already be signed up. So, we've had to spend a fair amount of time verifying submitted toasttab links to make sure the businesses actually signed up to sell gift cards through them, and that they weren't automatically set up without their knowledge. Otherwise, it's not going to help out that business much. Looking at the helpmainstreet.com site, I'm a little disappointed, since I'm guessing the vast majority of businesses on there won't immediately and directly benefit from the purchase of gift cards as listed there. It's one thing to set up such a site as some sort of enterprise, but it seems disingenuous to use COVID-19 and claim that it's directly helping the businesses if it's not.
- gabem1 6y ago
  Wow, thanks for that info. I didn't realize toasttab had that issue. I will keep an eye out as people submit businesses via my form. Also, great work building your database -- very impressive!
  - JangoSteve 6y ago
    Additionally, almost none of the nearly 400 businesses that have been submitted or added to our site for Michigan have used squareup or quickgifts for selling gift cards, so I have the same suspicion about the preponderance of those links as well.
jarofgreen 6y ago
Another suggestion: you are asking for data to source. To help others, also make all the data you have available as Open Data. A good API or data dump (both ideally) and an open license.
- gabem1 6y ago
  Great idea. I'll look into this.
- gabem1 6y ago
  Done - you can find the database here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tL6PqwVhj0Aa3COGlmokdjy_QYd6W__HUph1tJRivbI/edit#gid=2069755385 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tL6PqwVhj0Aa3COGlmok...

by gabem1 6y ago

JangoSteve 6y ago

Very nice. We've built a similar tool, mainly geared toward purchasing gift cards, for Michigan. The code was built to make it as easy as possible to manage and add new businesses, so that others can easily deploy it for their own states. https://www.savemifaves.org/ https://www.savemifaves.org/

stronglikedan 6y ago
This is really cool, and something I had not thought of. I don't eat out enough to support my local restaurants during the crisis, but purchasing their gift cards would allow me to enjoy them even afterwards while supporting them during.

JangoSteve 6y ago

Also, I was looking at the helpmainstreet.com website that you mentioned in your comment and noticed they had a lot of businesses all around the country with links to gift cards. It's taken a fair amount of time for us to curate the gift card links for all the businesses on savemifaves.org, so I couldn't fathom how they could curate that many. Looking through the links, it looks like almost all of them are links to squareup.com, toasttab.com, or quickgifts.com. I don't know about squareup.com or quickgifts.com, but when we were verifying the gift card links people were submitting (to ensure that people aren't setting up their own fraudulent gift card links for local businesses that don't already have their own way to purchase gift cards), we specifically looked at toasttab.com and realized that toasttab gift cards aren't all set up by the businesses themselves. Toasttab seems to set up their own gift card purchasing for local businesses, probably in order to reach out to the businesses and force them to sign up to claim their money from anyone who unwittingly purchases gift cards from there thinking the business must already be signed up. So, we've had to spend a fair amount of time verifying submitted toasttab links to make sure the businesses actually signed up to sell gift cards through them, and that they weren't automatically set up without their knowledge. Otherwise, it's not going to help out that business much. Looking at the helpmainstreet.com site, I'm a little disappointed, since I'm guessing the vast majority of businesses on there won't immediately and directly benefit from the purchase of gift cards as listed there. It's one thing to set up such a site as some sort of enterprise, but it seems disingenuous to use COVID-19 and claim that it's directly helping the businesses if it's not.

gabem1 6y ago
Wow, thanks for that info. I didn't realize toasttab had that issue. I will keep an eye out as people submit businesses via my form. Also, great work building your database -- very impressive!
- JangoSteve 6y ago
  Additionally, almost none of the nearly 400 businesses that have been submitted or added to our site for Michigan have used squareup or quickgifts for selling gift cards, so I have the same suspicion about the preponderance of those links as well.

jarofgreen 6y ago

Another suggestion: you are asking for data to source. To help others, also make all the data you have available as Open Data. A good API or data dump (both ideally) and an open license.

gabem1 6y ago
Great idea. I'll look into this.
gabem1 6y ago
Done - you can find the database here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tL6PqwVhj0Aa3COGlmokdjy_QYd6W__HUph1tJRivbI/edit#gid=2069755385 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tL6PqwVhj0Aa3COGlmok...