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Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit

• brezina 14y ago
  Congrats @pg and team! I love seeing YC used for so much good. The impact continues
• nsomniact 14y ago
  I lost a bet to a friend. I just used Watsi to fulfill it.
• SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  This is really cool, but I'm curious how an investment in this is different than a charitable contribution. The contribution is awesome for the network it introduces Watsi to, but I can't imagine there will ever be a return on this kind of investment. (This is not meant to sound negative. I am truly excited to see it, interested to see what the YC network can bring to it, and very curious about the investment thinking behind it.)
  • pg 14y ago
    There is no difference; it is simply a charitable contribution.
    • danvideo 14y ago
      Site and mission sound great, I'm looking forward to contributing. Hopefully it'll quickly join the ranks of the larger crowdfunding non-for-profits like Kiva.org, Donorschoose, etc...
    • tikhonj 14y ago
      Will they also be going through dinners, office-hours and the like? I could see this being a good way to help new non-profits get over the initial hump of raising awareness, getting administrative issues sorted out and so on. Certainly a service worth more than just the money provided.
      • pg 14y ago
        Yes, everything is the same. They're going to present at Demo Day too (lots of rich people in that room).
        • SoftwareMaven 14y ago
          That is awesome. A really great use of the YC network.
  • andygcook 14y ago
    If it takes off and is successful on a massive scale, I'm sure they will find a method to monetize it other than transaction fees on donations. One example that I can think of off the top of my head is to charge medical device manufacturers or pharmaceutical companies a fee to market their products the recently funded with direct messages or traditional advertising.
    • pinko 14y ago
      I don't think this ("monetization", for profit) is planned -- and if it were I and many others would have a big problem with it. See pg's comment above.
  • clicks 14y ago
    > The contribution is awesome for the network it introduces Watsi to, but I can't imagine there will ever be a return on this kind of investment. The model of charityfund-operationsfunding separation is quite enticing. This kind of transparency fosters trust. If they ask for donations on the side to keep their operations running, by golly they've got access to my wallet alright.
  • mb2100 14y ago
    Exactly what I was thinking. It says on Wikipedia that YC takes about 6% of the company's equity. But I suppose a nonprofit doesn't have equity. So what's the benefit to YC? Simply some good PR?
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• glimcat 14y ago
  So, the really cool part is this: "At Watsi, 100% of your donations directly fund medical treatments. Watsi.org is separately funded. They pay all their operational costs from their own funding, and none from your donations. They even eat the credit card processing fees." This works great with Watsi's crowdfunding-style model. It probably wouldn't help with things which need legs on the ground full-time, but it would be interesting to see more nonprofits looking at an "out of channel" donor model. P.S. If you haven't clicked through to read PG's announcement and check out Watsi, go do so. Really. This is something YC is going to look back on and be proud of being part of 20 years from now. https://watsi.org/faq https://watsi.org/faq
  • dmoney 14y ago
    So, the really cool part is this: "At Watsi, 100% of your donations directly fund medical treatments. Watsi.org is separately funded. They pay all their operational costs from their own funding, and none from your donations. They even eat the credit card processing fees." It doesn't sound (as) cool me if the founders can only do this until they go broke. It looks like they do accept direct donations to fund their operating costs, but it seems to me that the demand (if that's the right word for the desire to donate) might not increase at the same rate as the demand to fund treatments (and therefore costs for credit card fees, hosting, staff) increases. Better to take a percentage and be transparent about what you use it for.
    • tptacek 14y ago
      HN is bad at subtext, so let me offer you a decoder ring on the subtext of the 'pg story we're commenting on: YC is working on addressing the problem of funding Watsi's overhead. The point of the service is that end-users don't fund Watsi, they fund patients. In the same sense as you need to take it sort of on faith that Airbnb can bootstrap and maintain a two-sided market for short-term lodging, you should probably take it on faith that Watsi's model is going to work; if you want to make Watsi work well, go fund a patient with it. There is a real 13 year old girl on Watsi right now who is unable to walk because of a correctible congenital condition. Who cares about the Watsi founders? Go help the girl! :)
• eduardordm 14y ago
  pg, I wrote this minutes ago in a thread about the 3rd world. If you ever come across a startup that solves this please fund them: "The biggest problems right now involve education and health. Example: 60-80% health problems follow the same pattern: you see a doctor, he asks for blood/urine tests, you get the results, go back to the doctor for a prescription. Build something that the poor can explain their symptoms and do those tests without going physically to a doctor and become a semi-god here. That would involve a website (or phone call) and portable blood testers. (Specially for things like malaria, E. coli, colera, dengue fever, typhoid fever, etc)"
  • dreamdu5t 14y ago
    This would be illegal in the US AFAIK. The law and the US government are the biggest barriers to medical innovation right now.
    • tnorthcutt 14y ago
      Isn't eduardordm specifically talking about 3rd world countries, e.g. not the U.S?
      • TeMPOraL 14y ago
        Probably some of the US regulations would be relevant for US-based startups trying to develop and test the technology locally, even if it is to be used in 3rd world countries later.
    • dataisfun 14y ago
      What's illegal about it?
• sethbannon 14y ago
  Very happy to see this. At the very least, it's great news for the nonprofit world, which needs desperately to learn some of the basic the lessons of the startup world: fail fast, iterate, focus on your users, and more.
  • jk4930 14y ago
    Would be interesting to observe how the established nonprofits react to this. Many of them do the following: Make their target audience (who they claim to care for) more dependent (i.e., don't solve the problem, just give some temporal ease) and take money from third parties (state, private donors) that don't control them. My guess is that they would come up with many arguments against this startup-ish approach and would lobby for legal barriers.
    • tptacek 14y ago
      Watsi is already working with huge names in this space. PIH, one of the best known, funds on-the-ground medical care in places like Haiti and Subsaharan Africa. I don't think anyone in these places cares how "dependent" they are on PIH; their kids are living with broken femurs, infected bones, cataracts, and hernias. Charities are not going to lobby against Watsi.
      • jk4930 14y ago
        Thanks for the info. I didn't intend to imply that they (or other nonprofit startups) would face opposition by all established players. It's just that I found many "nonprofits" showing questionable behaviours: The people working in the field are often very interested in helping, (some but important) people in the administration became cynics or bigots and working for a nonprofit became less of a mission and more of a job option and power play and protecting their org's income streams and spheres of influence is more important than helping. This is a POV from Germany where you have a wealthy population willing to donate and many sharks eager to catch the fish. Add to this that some legal circumstances make it possible for the established players to keep fresh competition out of public money streams or eat plenty of the private donor money (e.g., up to 49% for admin costs).
• fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
  How about a kick starter like nonprofit for social funding of scientific and medical research?
  • kt9 14y ago
    Ask and you shall receive: https://www.microryza.com/ https://www.microryza.com/
    • prawks 14y ago
      Very cool! Thanks for the link.
    • diziet 14y ago
      These guys have a lot of potential, especially the more researchers they get on board.
    • chaseadam17 14y ago
      They're one of our favorite startups!
• PabloOsinaga 14y ago
  We (masporloschicos.com) have been doing roughly the same since 2005. (instead of health we focus on malnutrition) Note- site is in spanish - targeted to the Argentine audience We are a bit less granular though - instead of matching against an individual, we match a specific soup kitchen. But we keep donors updated with newsletters, pictures, letters from the kids and so on. edit: this level of udpates keeps donors engaged. we dont allow one time donations - instead we require you to subscribe. When we built masporloschicos.com I wanted to do it more granular (individual level), but we ended up doing it a bit more aggregate because it was really hard / expensive to get to that granular level. I wonder how is watsi tackling this problem - because ultimately you don't want to spend a lot of funds (regardless of where they come from) on the administration/bureaucracy required to provide quality 1:1 matching. So I just wonder how are they doing it?
  • irollboozers 14y ago
    The issue of administration and bureaucracy is definitely one the best questions and hardest challenges for new startups trying to tackle these kinds of peer-connected problems. There are entire systems of middle-men built up over long periods of time that up until the internet have been how systems like medical treatment, education, and research funding operate. The biggest factor of inertia in these systems is the system itself. Sites like Watsi are now making people realize two things: which inefficiencies we can cut away, and that simple experiences like funding medical treatment can be enhanced. Those are two very big revelations that will fuel so much of peer-to-peer funding.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Hablamos español and we tried to check out your site but it appears to be down (maybe because of HN traffic?). Two quick answers to your question about how we operate efficiently at a granular level: 1) We may have a slight advantage working in healthcare. Our partners already collect patient info (and sometimes even photos) for patient medical records, so requesting they send us that info isn't a big ask. 2) We leverage technology to ensure we can efficiently process and allocate donations. Look at kiva.org - they've leveraged their platform to fund individual microloans for nearly a million people, and that's a much more complex process (because of repayments, interest, currency conversion, etc.) than a one-way donation for a medical treatment. Happy to talk more offline if there's any way I could be helpful: chase at watsi dot org.
• justjimmy 14y ago
  Previous discussions about Watsi. Good to see they're getting more exposure. "Thank You HN: From 30 people whose lives you saved" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4815006 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4815006 "Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081
• josh2600 14y ago
  This is awesome. I think this model of achieving more direct distribution through technology could profitably be applied to a number of for-profit and non-profit endeavors. This seems like it could also be a better way of addressing hunger, contributing food to individuals but using a managed distribution system. What a cool idea :).
• kalvin 14y ago
  Watsi is awesome. Kiva and donorschoose made "direct" p2p lending/giving popular long ago, but Watsi is the first that feels like, well, a YC startup (just from the site-- product, team, mentality). Also be sure to check out givewell.org for very HN-friendly (rational/research-driven) tips on how you might think about giving in general.
• abraininavat 14y ago
  Really great project. Some thoughts: 1. In the interest of 100% transparency, what do you think about being 100% transparent with your tech? Would it make sense to open-source your technology stack? 2. I really wish you had the ability to donate on behalf of someone else, either to fund Watsi or to fund medical treatment. On Amazon I set up a wishlist that people can easily access for ideas of what to buy me on Christmas or my birthday. If I could set up something like that on Watsi instead, I probably would. And if your tech was open source, I might even implement the feature myself!
• tptacek 14y ago
  This is great. I did what you asked and used the site and it is indeed extraordinarily compelling. I might suggest a move away from Paypal (only because the Paypal checkout experience is more intrusive and annoying than the state of the art). Our annual all-hands summit is next week, and we'll look for ways to work this into our charity match programs. Many people on HN have companies with employees; we were told about running charity matches by other friends who have companies and let me pass the message along: they work really well. Match programs have generated more goodwill for us than bonus programs. Start a match program! I have a question: The big charity in this space is Partners In Health, which has an extremely positive reputation (their cofounder is also now the President of the World Bank), spends 94% of their funding on program expenses, and has a CEO who makes less than 6 figures. (PIH is apparently a medical partner for Watsi). Is the advantage of Watsi over PIH that 100% of funds go to program expenses, rather than 94%? Or is it that fine-grained funding is more compelling and will thus elicit more donations?
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    All of the treatments funded on Watsi are provided by our partner organizations (names listed on the patient profiles) and our first partner, Nyaya Health, is a Partners in Health clinic in Nepal. So in short, the benefit of Watsi is both of those you described. 1) 100% of funds directly fund treatments and 2) those treatments are performed by great organizations like Nyaya.
    • tptacek 14y ago
      Is there a kind of care I'd be funding using Watsi that I wouldn't be funding as effectively if I routed contributions directly to PIH? Or is the big advantage to Watsi (from a 1000ft view) that it creates an especially compelling way to get people to contribute on-the-ground operating funds to places like PIH? The latter is certainly a huge big deal, in case I sound skeptical. I'm just trying to refine my understanding of how all this stuff works. Congratulations on all of this.
      • nowarninglabel 14y ago
• seeingfurther 14y ago
  One could think of this non-profit funding as YC's own charity donation. I like this type of donation much more than just hard cash. YC is committing what it does best, building great organizations around amazing teams. I wish more people, companies and orgs took this approach to donations.
• kevinalexbrown 14y ago
  Aside from the human connection mentioned in the post, by far the most compelling aspect to me is the "fixed" attribute. There's something so satisfying about isolating a problem, then fixing it. Many charities feel like an investment. This feels like a transaction. Edit: Here by transaction, I mean it's something that has a very high chance that it's working out. When I order a shirt online, there's a high probability it will get to me. When I fund a new t-shirt company on Kickstarter, it's less certain.
  • dm8 14y ago
    I agree on the point of transaction vs investment part of non-profit. CRY (http://america.cry.org/site/index.html http://america.cry.org/site/index.html) has been doing it for years for educating children and they are quite successful (what I've heard).
  • volandovengo 14y ago
    I work with http://www.vittana.org http://www.vittana.org, which has also found success with this model. Overall our customer research has found that people find it a lot more compelling to give money to the individual than to hand money to an anonymous institution, even though on the backend it may be treated exactly the same.
• febeling 14y ago
  Go and fund someone, and observe how a couple of minutes later you get the notification email that the funding is complete. This is a very powerful new thing.
• suchow 14y ago
  This is a neat idea. I have an unimportant question. PG's post says "They even eat the credit card processing fees", but Watsi's FAQ says, "As part of the cost of the treatment, we have included PayPal credit card processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). These PayPal fees are unavoidable, and no portion of the fees go to Watsi." Who is right?
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Sorry! This is our (Watsi's) fault. Everything pg said is entirely true. When we first launched Watsi we had absolutely no operating budget and because of that we had to include credit card processing fees in the cost of treatment. We are now paying the credit card processing fees out of our own operating budget (see our Transparency Document for more info: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&output=html https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ...). Thanks for catching this. We've updated our FAQ to reflect this change.
  • bdcs 14y ago
    Good question. Also, PayPal fees are only unavoidable at PayPal. Would it be a conflict of interest, on pg's part, to include donations via bitcoins using Coinbase? If so, what if a competitor, such as BitPay, was used?
    • chaseadam17 14y ago
      We're switching over to Stripe and they've been kind enough to hook us up with a better deal than PayPal (we'll be paying cost which is something like 2.4% flat, inclusive of Amex and international transactions, which constitute more than 30% of our total donations).
      • ianstormtaylor 14y ago
        Was just about to ask about Stripe helping out a charity and fellow YCer. Awesome to here that they are hooking you guys up. Even with Paypal I already went through 4 donations or so, but Stripe would make the process even more addicting.
• jtchang 14y ago
  This is amazing. I love how they are moving so fast they simply publish results to a Google Doc spreadsheet. This foreshadows an era where non-profits must aggressively publish their spending and compete on how lean they become. My guess is there are going to be a lot of niche sites that perform exactly like Watsi.
• jmcgough 14y ago
  I really like the transparency - with a lot of nonprofits, I feel like I need to look into their expenditures to see where my donation is really going and to figure out if it's worthwhile. Watsi feels a lot more like kickstarter but directly targeted at helping individual people. Very cool idea. How do they pay for operations costs - is there a separate donations channel?
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• wave 14y ago
  The only suggestion I have is that it would be nice to see the patient's profiles get updated after being funded and treatment was given. We all like to see how our donations are making noticeable difference in people's lives. I really like what Watsi is doing. They even "eat the credit card processing fees"
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Working on this! After Stripe integration, it's one of our top priorities. In the meantime, you can view every patient update on our transparency document (see the last column):https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&output=html https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ...
• jkuria 14y ago
  This is really great to see. I am just curious, how do they ensure that the funds are actually used for the intended person's health issues? How do you prevent scammers and posers who just want to get money? I have a bit of experience here and would say it is a non trivial problem if you do not have an operation on the ground. You could donate to organizations that you trust but then you get back to the same old problem: Distance from the human face and actual life you are impacting. For those of you who want to donate to non health related issues there is also SeeYourImpact.org founded by Scott Oki, one of Microsoft's early execs. They also ensure 100% of the donation goes to the person and absorb all the overhead expenses. Shameless plug: For our Hacker News Clone for African startus, business and technology we will be running ads for SeeYourImpact.org but strictly for educational needs. Check out the site here: http://AfriTech.org/about.htm http://AfriTech.org/about.htm Actual news stories on front page: http://AfriTech.org http://AfriTech.org
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    We prevent scammers by going through trusted organizations. The funds go directly to the organization that is providing treatment (i.e. the hospital or clinic), and never into the hands of the patient. As well, patients aren't able to solicit Watsi funding. In fact, they don't even know we exist until a doctor at one of our partner organizations has identified them as a candidate and presents them with the opportunity to have their care funded by Watsi. You can think of us as an "Emergency Fund" for on-the-ground healthcare providers.
    • gruseom 14y ago
      This is all tremendously innovative and exciting, and you are doing a superb job of articulating it.
• maxharris 14y ago
  Is there any chance of expanding this to include Americans? Or even better - people that live near me, such as my zip code + the surrounding zip codes. That way, there's at least a chance that I'd see the person that I helped someday.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    You should check out giveforward.com.
  • tptacek 14y ago
    Worth mentioning that patients in the US, and particularly children, are guaranteed medical care regardless of ability to pay. Medical care funding can bankrupt you in the US, but it cannot prevent you from having a broken femur fixed. States also run "CHIP" programs to provide health insurance coverage to children. The same is not true in Haiti or Malawi. Without the funds to pay for care, a child can live for years --- their entire life, even --- with easily correctible medical conditions.
    • loceng 14y ago
      "guaranteed medical care" - of what quality, with what results? And the value of medical care being covered is that it doesn't destroy the rest of your life. It's actually kind of pointless to help someone just get to the point of surviving, and then leave them to fend for themself.
      • tptacek 14y ago
        I just don't know how to respond to the idea that there's minimal value in removing infected bone fragments from a child's femur, and so I'm not going to pretend that there's a useful discussion you and I can have about this.
        • loceng 14y ago
          Not the situation I was insinuating. That child will not be left on their own, presumably they have a family who will care for them and help them get past it. In a situation where the person is just left to basic care, and has no other future care options is what I was referring to. I should have been more clear.
• corin_ 14y ago
  I'm personally not a fan of the concept of donating to help a specific person, rather than a cause, but am unsure whether I'm a rare exception or whether many people have the same view as me - hopefully a few replies could help answer this? When I say not a fan of the concept, I absolutely don't mean I disapprove. I don't have any problem with organisations raising money this way, nor with people choosing to donate money this way - I simply don't like donating myself. Trying to chose between fighting HIV or starvation, cancer or... etc. etc. is hard enough. Looking at Watsi's homepage, does Chimwemwe from Malawi deserve my money more than Kirshan from Nepal? What about Lidiya from Malawi? I can see the point of view that it's nice to know your money has definitely made an impact on somebody's life, but personally I don't enjoy the burden of making that decision. I'd far rather be 0.0000000001% of a big solution than 100% of a small one when it comes to charitable donations. All that said, the fact that I dislike it doesn't take anything away from my thinking that Watsi looks like a great site, my opinion doesn't change the fact that anyone raising money for good causes is great and if the method used here helps that then no complaints from me.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Great point. It's all about personal opinion. There are currently tons of organizations that enable people to fund a cause, but nearly none that let you fund something as specific as an individual treatment. We're providing a new, more direct and transparent, alternative. Oftentimes there is institutional support for specific "mainstream" conditions (e.g. HIV, TB, etc.) and as a result, some patients who are in unique situations (e.g. have a rare condition, need a slightly expensive treatment, need referral care, etc.) often fall through the cracks. Watsi provides an opportunity to those patients by enabling them to tap into the crowd. While there are pros and cons to each approach, it's important to note that they are complementary. Charitable giving is not a zero sum game, and we're working hard to expand the pie, not take a piece of it.
    • corin_ 14y ago
      I wonder if everyone who has come across both options (broad vs. specific) choses one and sticks with that, or whether some people like both and split their donations? While you'd obviously always prefer to expand the pie rather than just take a piece, there's nothing wrong with the latter - like you said, your approach can help people who slip through the gaps, so even if the pie doesn't expand, your taking a piece of it can still be a good thing. Keep up the good work.
• jango 14y ago
  In Slovakia (a small EU country) we have a non-profit called "Dobry anjel" (Good angel) which helps families of children sick with cancer and other serious diseases. It is also collects donations, is separately funded and distributes all the donations "up to the last cent". Two possibly interesting tidbits: 1) The organization has re-distributed almost 17 million euros since its inception in 2006 (this is 23 mil. USD, over half a million USD in the last month alone -- our population is about the same as Minnesota), 2) Its co-founder Andrej Kiska is planning to run for president of Slovakia next year. EDIT: Note on transparency: all the donors have their own website login information ("angel ID") to track every donation and see exactly how much was sent to whom. The stories of recipient families are provided, along with their address + telephone number. The donors have an option to remain anonymous or reveal their contact information. I never contacted any recipients or revealed my name to them but I have heard stories where the donors and families in distress got in touch and supported each other with prayers, encouragements, etc.. "Good angel" also makes it possible to keep sending donations to the same families if you choose to (otherwise the families will be chosen at random, which is the default choice -- or at least was the default for me when I signed up in 2007).
• tsycho 14y ago
  On one hand, I love it that I was able to donate to a person, and Watsi didn't require a login, email etc. (though I guess they have my email from the Paypal payment). But this is one of the sites where a login would probably be a good idea, so that I can keep track of my donations and particularly the status/health updates of those whom I am helping, and also potentially for tax purposes. Another site on these lines which I like a lot is Kiva.org (no affiliation, just a user). It's micro-finance, not donations, but all 3 people whom I lent to on Kiva, have paid me back so their enterprise has presumably succeeded. It feels great to be able to help some poor villager in Africa buy some fertilizers or a cow, and I like how Kiva makes it easy to keep track of them :) Update: Watsi just emailed me a receipt that I can use for tax purposes, and promised to send me a email when the person I donated to receives treatment. So I take back my minor complaint above!
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    This is a great suggestion. We do send updates to all donors, but as soon as we integrate Stripe we're going to enable optional user accounts. These accounts will enable us to create new features like one-click donation checkout, recurring donations, and a donation history so you can easily view all the patients you've helped support. If you have any other ideas, please let us know!
• alpb 14y ago
  Kiva is a similar organization http://kiva.org http://kiva.org where people can lend money to people in poor countries for their needs. I wish the same help for Kiva.
• namank 14y ago
  I'm glad. Not because of the non-profit nature of this startup but the endorsement YC has now given to non-traditional and perhaps massively big ideas.
• pratikjhaveri 14y ago
  Just donated. What an awesome cause and an amazing effort by the team. I'm asking other organizations that I donate to, to follow Watsi's example in transparency.
• tadruj 14y ago
  A great site for millionaires to visit when they're bored or have lost their purpose.
• Golobulus 14y ago
  Will there be some kind of illness directory? Or a way I could keep track of or sign up for notices of new listings? What about a widget that I could embed on my site for specific kinds of illnesses that readers/users might be interested in donating to? Congratulations on all of this, really great idea/implementation.
• ryanmolden 14y ago
  Congrats, this is awesome news! I contributed to a couple of patients when I first saw you announce this on HN because I like the 'direct to patient, 100% utilization' nature of it. This is a reminder for me to go back. I see from your website you are a 501(c)(3) charity. I will submit your organization for approval for the matching program at my employer, which I like because it allows me to 'stick it to the man' by donating to all kinds of things my employer might or might not support (this doesn't fall into that category though). They also match volunteer hours by employees at $17 bucks an hour (after the first 10 hours), which can be a great way to get free work and free money.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Awesome! Thank you. Please let us know if we can provide any info for the matching request: chase@watsi.org.
• got2surf 14y ago
  After spending the past week thinking about monetizing ads, the next social/local/mobile app, etc... that all seems so minor compared to Watsi. It's awesome to see people doing so much social good - best of luck and amazing job!
• dasht 14y ago
  Paul Graham, or anyone "in the know", may we please hear a bit about what the equivalent of a term sheet looks like for a Y Combinator non-profit investment? Is Y Combinator giving a grant? Is Watsi issuing debt to Y Combinator? What's the financing model here?
  • pg 14y ago
    It's just a donation.
    • robg 14y ago
      Have you considered ycombinator.org? Call it a program-related investment and mirror the .com?
      • rdl 14y ago
        One of the things I respect most about pmarca and a16z is that they donate the difference between real income tax rates and the bogus carry-as-capital-gains rates to charity (individually or as a firm, I forget). I wish all VCs would do this, because carry-as-capital-gains is an incredible abuse of the system. I'm fine with founders getting this, and with LPs who invest cash, but VCs do not deserve preferential rates over other workers when they do not themselves take financial risk.
• zopticity 14y ago
  Wow, I'm really taken away the fact that you're using PayPal. First of all, you're in YC, where's the brotherly support of using other YC companies? You got WePay and Stripe, and you're not using either.
  • FrojoS 14y ago
    One step after the other. I just donated, despite ever having used PayPal before, and with a non-american credit card. And - it worked within a few minutes. I have my objections to PayPal, too, and would like to see alternatives but that doesn't have to be the focus right now.
    • h2s 14y ago
      You're right, and I understand your point, but I would also like to add my voice to those pressuring Watsi for a PayPal alternative. Personally I had pressed "Fund Treatment" and was 100% committed to converting until PayPal loaded. I don't have a PayPal account any more and I won't reopen it for anybody, not even Watsi.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    We're switching to stripe.
• xfax 14y ago
  Really cool concept, makes donating very compelling. In fact, I just donated to help fund Esther's treatment. An idea to get more people to give more - make it competitive. For example, it'll be cool if I could create a group for my school and then get people to 'tag' their donations with the group ID. Would love to see which school can get the most donations!
• st0p 14y ago
  I just donated some euro's, and I truely believe those euro's will be well spend. But it feels wierd (and somehow wrong) to crowdfund someone's health. I'm not questioning watsi, they are in it for the right reasons. But is crowdfunding something important as health for poor people the solution? I think everyone is trying to do good here, but nobody is solving the real problems.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Thanks for the donation, the patient (and we) really appreciate it. You bring up a really interesting point. Is crowdfunding a sustainable solution for healthcare? It's something we think about a lot as a team. Right now, there are people dying for lack of available and relatively cheap medical treatments, simply because they can't afford them. We think the only moral thing to do is fund their treatments. However, is this sustainable? I'd argue that it is for two reasons. First, the organizations we partner with are all working towards fairly obvious sustainable solutions. Some establish public-private partnerships, others cross-subsidize, and others have a very strong focus on training local doctors (some do all three - we require at least one). Second, and without getting into a really deep discussion here, only about 40 out of 200 countries in the world have a formal healthcare system. And those systems that work best are, for the most part, universal healthcare systems financed by the government (i.e. the costs are crowdfunded via taxes). However, with the world becoming smaller by the second, is it too crazy to think that Watsi might one day be the first truly universal healthcare system? What if instead of a mandatory tax, of which a % is allocated to national healthcare, human compassion was enough to fuel a global healthcare system? For the first time in history, the internet is making this feasible. The only question that remains is whether human compassion is enough to solve one of the world's greatest challenges.
• callmeed 14y ago
  I'm curious if there's a reason Watsi couldn't or shouldn't be a for-profit company? I like the fact they're not taking a transaction fee. But, it seems to me that they're also a benefit to healthcare providers, insurance companies, and big pharma (after all, the money raised is going to end up in their pockets). Aren't there ways Watsi could make money from these companies?
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Great suggestion. We hopefully will make money from them! As a non-profit, we're able to earn money just as a for-profit would. The only difference is that we are required by law to invest any profit back into the organization to ensure we're never personally profiting off of the generosity of others.
  • cdcarter 14y ago
    Not-for-profit companies aren't prevented from making a profit, and are in fact encouraged to (how else would they sustain!?). All the not-for-profit distinction means, business wise, is that the profits must be reinvested in the organization and not distributed to the owners. This is a common misconception about not-for-profits. They are expected to make money, and overhead is important.
• woodhull 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure that GiveWell (whom I adore) wouldn't like Watsi very much. It doesn't maximize the utility of donations to spend lots of money saving the lives of a handful of people vs. other interventions that can save the lives of many more people suffering from diseases like malaria at a much lower cost per patient than the interventions that Watsi is promoting. I think Watsi donors will feel good about helping specific people, but I'm personally interested in my donations actually being maximally impactful. If you want to save the most lives per dollar, the sort of extraordinary treatments that Watsi funds are not a great way to do it.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Charitable giving isn't a zero sum game. Instead of taking a piece of the charitable pie, we're expanding it by offering donors and patients a new opportunity. If Watsi didn't exist, many of the patients on our site would have likely died. How do you quantify that impact? How do you prove that all the donations made via Watsi would have been allocated to some other cause had we not existed? Also, I'd like to say that we really respect GiveWell's work. Quantifying social impact is a really tough challenge, and it's great to see such an intelligent team working on the problem. Furthermore, we actually think they'd be big fans of donations made on Watsi, at least those made to patients at Nyaya Health, which was rated one of GiveWell's "Standout Organizations" last year.
    • philh 14y ago
      > If Watsi didn't exist, many of the patients on our site would have likely died. How do you quantify that impact? Roughly, by comparing it to the number of people who die in other hypothetical scenarios. You can't get exact numbers, but you can do a damn sight better than saying "it can't be done". > How do you prove that all the donations made via Watsi would have been allocated to some other cause had we not existed? Of course they wouldn't. But what if, instead of creating Watsi, you had put the same effort into advocating for more efficient charities? (This is a serious question. I actually wouldn't be completely shocked if it turns out that that would have been less effective.) > Nyaya Health, which was rated one of GiveWell's "Standout Organizations" last year. However, they didn't estimate its cost-effectiveness. And on that metric... I go to your website and see that $1000 can stop someone from maybe becoming infertile, and that just doesn't seem like it can possibly win against malaria nets. (Looking deeper, that seems like one of the lowest value treatments available, but I don't expect the others to win either.) Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you guys are doing this. I'm not convinced you're doing the best you possibly could, but you're doing far better than me. I absolutely think your impact on the world is massively positive. But I don't anticipate donating to you myself any time soon.
• vegasje 14y ago
  I'm really glad to see that Watsi got some more attention after their original HN debut (here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081). These guys are making it so easy to help people in need.
• chunsaker 14y ago
  Way to go, Chase and team. This has tremendous vision and I hope you come out of YC with a ton of velocity.
• DannyBee 14y ago
  I'm really glad this is happening. A lot of the traditional funding mechanisms for non-profits seem badly broken, incentive wise. Then again, i've been in DC, where I guess almost everything is badly broken.
• zhyder 14y ago
  "I've never been so excited about anything we've funded." That's great! I'm excited that you're excited. I imagine we'll see a lot more non-profits in YC shortly. Will 2013 be the year of many such non-profits, like 2012 was for hardware startups?
• Mizza 14y ago
  I used Watsi when it was first announced here. It's a truly amazing offering, a great product with great customer support and outreach, and, as a user, it truly makes you feel like you're doing something good for the world. A few weeks after donating, I later got an email from them letting me know that the boy whose heart transplant I had funded had died. It kind of wrecked my whole day, but I was still glad I got the notification. I didn't expect to have such an emotional connection to a person I have never even interacted with before. Godspeed, Watsi.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Our team was heartbroken to hear the outcome of that treatment as well. (You've now got three of our team sitting around discussing your incredibly poignant comment.) It's certainly a bit of a dilemma, but we've made a promise to be 100% transparent, even when it hurts. FWIW we've found ourselves even more dedicated to Watsi since receiving our first negative outcome. We always knew that what we were doing was real and important, but there's something about death that really puts the gravity of the problem we're attempting to solve into perspective.
• orionblastar 14y ago
  Well it is good for people in Nepal. But what about the USA, especially disabled veterans, people on disability, people on no or low income, homeless people, and others who cannot afford their healthcare and got shafted by the federal government? There are some charities, but they collect funds with Quadriga Art, that keeps the lion's share of the donations and little to no money goes to the charity or people in need. CNN has investigated this company http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/us/senate-charities-investigation/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/us/senate-charities-investigat... http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/24/fund-raising-company-faces-new-questions/ http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/24/fund-raising-company-f... http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/25/charities-in-debt-to-fundraising-company/ http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/25/charities-in-debt-to-f... This is the reason why so many charities are broke in the USA and the money never goes to the people it is supposed to help. We can reform this problem by starting up a non-profit web company to keep the costs low for raising money for these charities and making sure the people in need get the money and life saving medical treatments and surgeries that they need.
  • jc00ke 14y ago
    Yes, there are people all over that need help, and that definitely includes those you mentioned in the US. However, there are existing organizations already working on that, or other organizations yet to be created that could lead the charge. Watsi was founded on a few simple principles, and 2 that we apply to every possible treatment are "low cost, high impact". Unfortunately, health care in the US is not low cost. It's ridiculous. I hope one day we can collaborate with an organization or 2 that will take on the challenge! Until then, there's Give Forward, which does a great job itself.
• rosstamicah 14y ago
  Next up, a YC L3C (a hybrid for and non profit)
• eranation 14y ago
  I'm so glad this was funded, I remember when it was initially posted, and the simple, brave solution, and I salute to YC for funding and mentoring this. One small thing, although I just donated 50$ for two people, I found myself to be a bit uncomfortable with my actions, I didn't really pay attention much to who I'm donating to, just clicked on the first picture that caught my eye without thinking, and donated 25$. Then I noticed, I'm donating to a 1 year old baby, with a cute photo. I really want to think of myself as someone who pays more attention, reads and makes a decision based on facts, medical condition, urgency, and likelihood to succeed, but no, I just clicked based on prejudice, 1 second first impression, biased decision, without noticing I did so. Then I saw a 37 years old woman and noticed she got much less donations although her total needed amount is higher, perhaps her medical situation is less severe, but I would be naive to think that that's the only reason. So I asked myself, am I doing some sort of unconscious decision that is not really fair and unbiased? I would lie if I say I didn't. So I donated 25$ to her as well, just so I feel a little better with myself, and then I thought, well, this is a feature request. So to avoid the "cute baby gets more donations" bias, what would make it a little nicer to me is to donate without knowing who it goes to, I'd like a button that says - "donate to most medically severe case", or "donate to most time sensitive case" and have someone else make the decision. This will make me feel a little more in peace with myself, and actually might make such biases less common. Right now it might not have affect, but as it will hopefully grow to help more people, having such "donate to who needs it most medically" option will help prevent such gaps. Also moving to a better payment system, Stripe or even Google checkout will make it a much nicer experience. EDIT: the baby's profile was on the home page, where as the woman's profile was one click deeper, so this could be another reason, but this brings another enhancement, please automatically promote / rotate profiles that have less donations / most urgent medical conditions to the front page Another feature I'm missing is to allow subscription, I would think many would be happy to donate 5$-20$ a month and automatically give it to those who have the least donations, or must urgent medical condition. Getting traffic is hard and critical for making this work, and not every day you get to HN front page, I would take advantage of it and offer a recurring donation as soon as possible.
  • DigitalJack 14y ago
    It sounds to me like that what you want to work with is the more traditional charity model. You don't know who your funding will support generally, you can subscribe, they have staff that steer the funding toward the most urgent needs. So have a look at the Medical Partners that Watsi uses. See about donating there.
• theklub 14y ago
  Wow this is a great idea.
• aidos 14y ago
  I just love this. It was featured a few months back and by the time I got to it everyone had already been sponsored [0]. It's brilliant to see the real stories of people who's lives you can have a positive effect on right now. I also use Kiva [1] which is brilliant in a different way. You can loan money to people so they can fund their businesses etc. I'm off to donate to Watsi now. [0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081 [1] http://www.kiva.org/ http://www.kiva.org/
• kanamekun 14y ago
  Congrats on a great site, and the exciting news around joining YC! One quick question: << If Watsi didn't exist, many of the patients on our site would have likely died. >> If a surgery isn't funding in time to save a patient's life, would you fund the remaining amount of the loan out of your own funds?
  • DigitalJack 14y ago
    Yep. Take a look at their transparency document [1]. It links to all their patients so far, and also provides information about treatments postponed, status updates, etc. In one of the updates, the patient passed away before treatment [2]. Funding was refunded. [1] Transparency Document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ... [2] Update info: http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=4ee1aaad2e315a0de585af615&id=6331dcdcb2 http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=4ee1aaad2e315a0de585af61...
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Yes, we guarantee funding for all patients on our site by leaving profiles posted until they are fully funded. Also, we give our partners permission to pre-treat a patient in the event they need immediate care, so long as we've already accepted the profile. We then reimburse the partner for the cost of treatment once the profile is fully funded. In the event we have more profiles than we can fund (never been the case so far) we will accept and post the lowest-cost, highest-impact profiles first. However, we can do a pretty good job of avoiding this situation by growing our partners (and thus our volume of potential patients) at a rate that corresponds with the speed at which donor demand is increasing.
    • kanamekun 14y ago
      If your doctors do "pre-treat" patients, please be very careful! If patients are regularly pre-treated, then the 1:1 connection between donor and patient could be seen as less pure (if the surgery already happened, it isn't 100% clear that the users' donations funded that specific surgery - as opposed to just being a general donation to a Medical Partner's operating budget). A similar criticism was made of Kiva, as covered by the NYT here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/global/09kiva.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/global/09kiva.htm... It's really important to disclose the date of any surgeries. And if a surgery has been performed prior to the profile being fully funded (or even prior to posting), the date of the surgery should be displayed and the profile should be labeled as pre-treated. Just want to make sure you guys avoid some of the growing pains of Kiva! (I used to run Marketing over there for a bunch of 2010/2011.) Good luck!
• raheemm 14y ago
  Not to be cynical but how do they ensure the veracity of the patients?
• macorama 14y ago
  Great Job!
• rdl 14y ago
  Please figure out a way to take equity eventually (there are organizations which help non profits do this). I, and a lot of other startup founders, have limited income to donate, but potentially have equity which could be worth a lot of money someday. It is a lot easier to donate equity than current income. It adds overhead and complicates your "transactional" model, but it might be a good way to fund your overhead, or to fund longer term projects, and could eventually be a recurring income stream to pay for some number of treatments.
  • chaseadam17 14y ago
    Yes! Great idea. We'll get on this.
• white_devil 14y ago
  Why would a venture capitalist invest in a non-profit? Does YC not want a return on their investment?
• chamboo 14y ago
  This is how all charities should be done. I will be supporting this charity, and I furthermore think it should be illegal to run a charity in any other manner than pure transparency. My hat is off to Watsi, and I feel this is a bigger deal than most people may realize. These are the types of startups we need to change the world. Not only do they do something good and useful for people, they also show the rest of the charities that operating with transparency is the only way to go. Thanks guys, this made my day.
• batemanesque 14y ago
  this could channel money away from preventative care, which is far more cost-effective than funding later-stage individual treatments. $50 given for the purchase of malaria nets would save a lot more lives than a single operation.
• benrmatthews 14y ago
  Amaingly transparent organisation too. You can see every patient they've ever funded and the outcome of their treatment in a Google spreadsheet, here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ...
• toddnessa 14y ago
  A really great idea. I have been befriended by a native pastor in Kenya. His son came down with something unexpected and had to go to the hospital. The hospital did not want to let the kid out until he was fully paid up and he couldn't pay it all . This escalated the bill even further. Something like this could have really helped.