After stints in the donor aid industry in Malawi and Haiti from 2013 to 2016, Gret Glyer knew it wasn’t working. He realized that a majority of donor organizations are chasing a mirage in the name of lack of infrastructure instead of doing the actual aid.
Gyler went ahead to raise $150,000 to start DonorSee, a platform that empowers aid workers across the globe to identify people in need so that they can directly and effectively help them and fight extreme poverty. The platform helps its users raise money from donors directly and openly shows the donors how their money is working in people’s lives and not annual reports.
Like HopeMob, a crowdfunding platform for communities of color, DonorSee also simplifies fundraising and giving as its open to everyone around the world. DonorSee allows anyone to just hit the upload button and upload their projects or start donating. According to the firm, the donations go directly from the donor’s credit card to the bank account of the aid worker posting the project giving the aid worker full responsibility for deploying the funds and providing visual feedback on each donation.
Gyler says the platform works on pure trust and a donor should give to people they trust and a donor knows no one using DonorSee they can find some very worthwhile projects from its Staff Picks section. However, we hope the firm will find a way of helping new donors and new aid workers easily connect and join hands to do what they have got to do.
A big percent of donor aid money ends up mismanaged. However, DonorSee has built features to help donors keep track of their projects. These features are helpful as not all donors have the time to visit the project communities and an unfaithful aid worker can easily post photos of projects which they didn’t fund. By following aid workers who post projects on the site, donors get notified everytime a new project or milestone is posted on the site.
Already working in almost 40 countries, the platform is available on web, iOS and Android and late last year helped fundraise for disaster efforts in Les Cayes, Haiti. Early this year US govt volunteer programme Peace Corps, the one of the biggest beneficiary of donor money banned its staff from using DonorSee as any support to DonorSee is a threat to Peace Corps finances and other international governmental and non governmental programmes and organizations like it.
With Peace Corps fear behind him, Glyer aims to make $75 million in revenue this year from the 4% fees charged on donations. DonorSee has also launched monthly donations so that donors can specify a certain amount each month to give to those in need.
