Author: Marshall Rhinehart
36 Websites in 36 Months, is the Buffalo based website that allows you to participate in a tech startup, even if you don’t know a bit from a byte (See BRO article for background).
Our first project is called ‘SomeDo – The Scoreboard for Good Deeds’, and will be introduced on April 6, 2015. The site hopes to encourage good deeds by recognizing and rewarding those that do much of the work in our community that so often goes unrecognized. Initially, we are focusing on traditional volunteers, recognizing them and rewarding them through a number of unique methods. (Click here for more information about SomeDo.)
So what’s this have to do with me?
As with all 36in36 projects, a portion of equity in each of the 36 projects goes to those that help to grow the project. In this case, 30% of the equity of SomeDo has been reserved for people that would like to get involved with the project in a non-technical role.
This is what makes a 36in36 project different (and unlike any other project we are aware of). There’s not an owner who attempts to pay everyone related to the project the absolute minimum, while pocketing as much profit as possible. Ownership is distributed, determined by contributing thought, time, and perhaps tapping into your network of friends and family for some specific expertise (from your keyboard, no meetings, no boss).
The 36in36 site describes this in greater detail, but for brevity, you accumulate points in relation to how important the task is related to the long term growth of the project (you’ll see the points weighting next to various tasks). After a set period of time, all of the points that have been accumulated by all contributors are totalled, and divided into the 30% equity that has been allocated for the ‘growth hacks’ associated with the project.
The technical people that develop the sites work under the same system. For SomeDo, the development team is splitting 25% of the equity (for more complex sites, the percentage would be higher).
We’d like to get a little traction for the project starting right here in Buffalo. We’ve come up with six tasks that we’ve assigned points to.
- Signing up a volunteer (100 Points) If you know someone that coaches a baseball team, volunteers at a hospital, or delivers meals to shutins, tell them about the project. Submit their name and email on the form provided (left side of the 36in36 website has the links). They will earn points as they volunteer.
- Signing up a blood donor (200 Points) Again, let a blood donor know about the project, and have them sign up.
- Organization sign up (300 Points) Does your organization need more volunteers? Maybe you work with the SPCA and need more dog walkers. By signing up, we’ll put your organization on the ‘map’ of local places that need volunteers. We’ll set you up so that you can quickly and easily pass out SomeDo points to those that volunteer for you.
- Sign up a blood bank (500 Points) We will update a map with today’s donation sites, as well as set you up to award SomeDo points to those that donate blood.
- Sign up a Media Partner (3000 Points) Six months after we start, we’d like to have a local media outlet recognize a top point earner during a one month period, in the geographic area served by that outlet. Could be print or tv. A person who has collected points from different organizations would seem like a worthy person to be briefly highlighted.
- Sign up a Business (2000 Points) We’d like to have just a few businesses that might offer a small discount to people who have earned some minimum number of SomeDo points in the current month. A SomeDo point earner can access their account, and see various discounts they have earned.
I should probably have mentioned that there is no cost associated with any of this for the volunteers or the organizations. Volunteers are awarded points for their efforts. To help promote the organization, we have some social media tie ins when ever a volunteer performs some type of volunteer activity.
Why is this the first site?
We felt offering a site that, over time, may be able to help the community is a good way to introduce how the 36in36 system works. This site has less of a monetary component than the others. (Many of the other sites will have a subscription component, or some other way to generate revenue.)
We have a second phase of the program that will help link victims of a natural disaster with those that might be able to help. Think of the good work the shovel brigade did in South Buffalo shortly after the November storm. We’d like to be able to quickly implement a Google maps based app that allows those that need help to mark their location on the map, with the type of aid they need. (Yes, security of this type of information is important, we’re working on that.) This isn’t a replacement for calling 911, but a supplement that hopes to allow emergency workers to deal with life threatening events, while this website/app deals with less urgent, but still important issues.
Following Hurricane Katrina, we were able to quickly put up a site that linked people that could provide housing, with those that needed it. While we were able to help dozens of families, had we had the ‘network’ set up in advance, we could have done much, much more good. Similarly, we’re aware that when a local college collected goods for Hurricane Sandy, they had some difficulty connecting with individuals in the impacted area that needed these items. It’s that connection between those impacted, and those that can help, that needs to be cleaner/more transparent than just making a donation to a large organization, and hoping a percentage reaches the people that need it (sorry, off soap box).
Hopefully this gives you a bit of an understanding about 36in36. Ideas for sites are submitted from anywhere in the world. We have a network of developers at the ready to work on the best ideas, we will be working to make this process better over the course of the 36 projects.
Now we need to begin to build a similar non-technical network to get the ideas out into the real world. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at the email address listed on the contact page of the site. Thanks for your time in reading this. We’d love to have you join us.