It’s snowy in London. Like everyone else, I pass homeless people with a feeling of helplessness. I’ve heard that giving ‘spare change’ is not advised, but feel saddened to do nothing. Of course, that feeling passes and nothing gets done.
If only I could do something right there and then to contribute. Not vaguely like a big cause, but to someone who might help this person I’ve seen here. But who do I give to? And how?
Here’s my idea. Imagine there was an app called something like HelpNow. You’d see a person in trouble on the street and open the app. It would geo-locate charities in the area and with one tap you could donate and report what you saw. The app would know where you saw it and there may be times when attaching a photo is appropriate too.
The message, and money, would be relayed to the charity worker’s version of the app and they could take appropriate action. The donor could easily be contacted later to update them on progress.
This would be a great app for a big company to sponsor/create for CSR. And all charities would need to do is sign up and download the app.
This probably needs refining, but seems like a simple way to empower people to help at the moment they are motivated to do so. The recipients don’t just get Random donations, but information on who needs help and where.
2 replies on “SoLoMo charity – an idea”
Carl I think this is a great idea. Beautifully simple and you’re right could be a big csr opp for a big telco/ tech/ hardware company. I would have used it countless times over the past few weeks instead of having ‘must donate to mangos/ the passage etc on my to do list and never getting round to it.
Hi Carl
This is a great idea especially as recently I saw on my Twitter a very similar request from a charity, asking people to make a phone call to alert them to homeless people. Whilst this isn’t unreasonable an app would be much easier.
The problem some people might have is waiting for the GPS to locate whilst standing there slightly uncomfortably or the moment (or reception) fading, as you experienced. Asking for a donation at the same time would probably deliver high conversion rates.
Wouldn’t your employer do a bit of CSR, ;-}? A Titanium app for Android and iOS wouldn’t cost that much!