One + One - Blockchain Charity Marketplace
Hello! I am Mikhail Paley, founder of the Odin + Odin charitable platform . We started quite recently, on August 15, 2017, and decided to start a blog on Habré in order to acquaint the IT community with our project, as well as with the field of charity in which he works. We hope to receive feedback from developers, entrepreneurs, and inspire others to create their own IT projects in the charity or social sphere.
“One + One” is an online platform that unites charity stores, socially responsible retail, charitable foundations, as well as all those who want to do good deeds by buying and selling things. Here, any user can put up their things for sale or buy other people's things or shops. The money from the purchase will go to one of the charitable funds connected to us. To which fund the money will go, the one who puts the thing decides. If he does not, then the buyer decides it at the time of purchase.
Charity auctions known since time immemorial. Until recently, this was the affair of rich people. But at the beginning of the 20th century, the first charity shops appeared, in which people of different layers began to participate.
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The most famous example is the organization Goodwill , consisting of thousands of thrift stores located in the United States and a dozen other countries, with an annual turnover of several billion dollars. And in Europe for a long time there are online aggregators of thrift stores.
Over the past 10 years, similar projects have also appeared in Russia. One of the first stores launched in 2010 was “Thank you!” In St. Petersburg, now it’s already a mini-network of four stores. A little later, in 2014, the Charity Shop appeared in Moscow, also representing a small network.
There are in Russia and the first charity online stores, for example, the wonderful organization “Easy-Easy” . But even they work with only one specific foundation and do not allow people and ordinary shops to independently display items on their platform, participating in charitable activities. We decided to give people and businesses the opportunity to apply modern technologies.
The project “One + One” appeared in my plans even while working in the banking sector. It was there that I first encountered the blockchain, and in parallel I was asked to help with a charity project for orphanages. So, I, who had previously avoided “close” contact with charity (after all, I did not fully understand the mechanisms of work of charitable foundations), but regularly donated money, had the idea to combine modern technology and charity. Only it was unclear exactly where they best intersect and can give the greatest effect.
Why did we choose the field of charity? First of all, because this is the part of life that everyone needs and understands. If in other social areas that had to be dealt with earlier (culture, history, art and improvement of the quality of life of people in the country), projects can be directed only to certain groups of people, then charity is a comprehensive concept that finds a response in every heart.
We began to think where in this sphere it would be best to apply modern technologies in order to bring it to a fundamentally new quality level. We studied the market and saw that there are charity stores that have already proved their profitability, but for some reason, they are still limited to narrowly focused activities in favor of a specific charitable foundation. Why not work with all existing funds? In addition, all the charity stores work mainly with individuals who donate their items to the store so that they sell them, but there are still a lot of regular stores that could also donate part of the funds received from the sale of their belongings to charity.
So in March 2017 we came up with the idea of ​​a commercial charity platform built on the blockchain and uniting a variety of charitable foundations, socially oriented commercial shops and people who are interested in the idea of ​​“light” charity, when it’s enough just to buy your favorite thing that
We conducted a survey among potential audiences and found that 67% of users are ready to donate things to charity and buy them using our online service.
5 people worked on the detailed elaboration of the idea, and they became the project founders. We have long been united by various joint projects. For example, before “One + One”, we launched the “Together” application, which solves the same problems as “The Goodness”. Earlier we helped the project "Immortal Regiment". The roles in the new project were distributed among us as follows: project manager, technical director, marketing director, manager for work with payment systems, manager for operational work.
We created the prototype of the project during the first month, and thanks to this version we were able to attract friendly investments. Within three months, we began to connect charitable foundations and in August launched the official version of “One + One”. At the end of September we attracted new investments, by October we connected retail, and by November we launched the auction mechanism.
Now about 25 people work on the project. In addition to the founders, this is primarily 10 developers, divided into 2 groups: the first deals with the marketplace, and the second - the blockchain. These are also testers, a system administrator, an analyst and designer, client and operational managers, a communications manager, a SMM manager, a lawyer, an accountant, and others.
The platform “One + One” is deployed on the basis of the LAMP stack, on the symfony framework, Nginx is used as the front controller.
Users interact with a secure transaction. The scheme of a safe transaction in favor of a third party (a charitable foundation in our case) was specially developed for “One + One” in Yandex.Money. We are very grateful to them for their cooperation and the API provided to us.
All transactions conducted through the site are recorded in the Blockchain . Emercoin is used as a blockchain platform. We chose this technology because we see one of our tasks to make the reporting of charitable foundations completely transparent. In addition, we have already begun to create the Association of Blockchain Charitable Foundations. In our opinion, this solution will allow at least:
We will devote a separate material to the blockchain issue in charity, this is a very big and interesting topic.
The main clients that our service is designed to help raise money for good deeds are charitable foundations. More than 20 funds are already working with us, but there will be more (there are a lot of people who want to). At the same time, we pay special attention to the transparency and honesty of the fund, and therefore we entered into an agreement with the United States Russian office, which helps with the verification of organizations wishing to connect to the site.
We already have the first successes. For example, the children's hospice "House with a lighthouse" with the help of our service was able to collect more than 300 thousand rubles.
The main users of “One + One” are divided into two groups: the first group is the people who exhibit their things for charitable sale, and the second is those who buy these things for themselves. The one who exposes the thing, he himself appoints her price, and also indicates the fund in whose favor the money from the sale will go. But the fund can not be specified, then it will make the buyer. The interaction takes place on our marketplace .
We also work with stores that expose their goods to us, and transfer part of the proceeds to charitable needs of the funds connected to us. The store itself exposes a percentage of sales that will be sent to charity, usually 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25%. The store can choose a beneficiary (in case the company management has specific preferences in the direction of charitable activities or the fund) or leave the choice to the buyer.
Many doubted that business in general could be interested in participating in such a project. But only in the first month, without additional client work, 6 stores connected to us and are already selling their products. There are a lot of people willing to connect, because the advantages are obvious. First, of course, the opportunity to earn extra money using “One + One” as an agent platform for sales. And this is good. Secondly, reputation. The more ambitious the company, the more attention it pays to social responsibility, and the image in this area needs to be built on real cases with real partners, and our platform is a useful tool for this.
Separately, we work with famous people who donate their things for sale through a charity auction . Thanks largely to our partner, Share good among the stars who have placed their belongings on the site, such people as Polina Gagarina, Chulpan Khamatova, Maria Sharapova, Andrei Kirilenko, Maxim Potashev, Andrei Makarevich, and many others.
We do not take money from charitable foundations for connecting to Blockchain. Our only monetization channel is a commission on sales through the Internet platform, which is 7%. We did not make a high commission for ethical reasons, for the same reasons we do not set ourselves high salaries and do not scatter advertising budgets. At the same time, we hope that with time we will be able to significantly reduce or even completely abandon this commission.
Making good works easy is what we want to show. It is also important to get away from the charity of “pressing on pity”, manipulating people's emotions, and showing that each of us can help. “One + One” allows you to change the world and help without harming yourself.
“One + One” is an online platform that unites charity stores, socially responsible retail, charitable foundations, as well as all those who want to do good deeds by buying and selling things. Here, any user can put up their things for sale or buy other people's things or shops. The money from the purchase will go to one of the charitable funds connected to us. To which fund the money will go, the one who puts the thing decides. If he does not, then the buyer decides it at the time of purchase.
Charity auctions known since time immemorial. Until recently, this was the affair of rich people. But at the beginning of the 20th century, the first charity shops appeared, in which people of different layers began to participate.
')
The most famous example is the organization Goodwill , consisting of thousands of thrift stores located in the United States and a dozen other countries, with an annual turnover of several billion dollars. And in Europe for a long time there are online aggregators of thrift stores.
Over the past 10 years, similar projects have also appeared in Russia. One of the first stores launched in 2010 was “Thank you!” In St. Petersburg, now it’s already a mini-network of four stores. A little later, in 2014, the Charity Shop appeared in Moscow, also representing a small network.
There are in Russia and the first charity online stores, for example, the wonderful organization “Easy-Easy” . But even they work with only one specific foundation and do not allow people and ordinary shops to independently display items on their platform, participating in charitable activities. We decided to give people and businesses the opportunity to apply modern technologies.
How did we come to the idea of ​​a charity online platform
The project “One + One” appeared in my plans even while working in the banking sector. It was there that I first encountered the blockchain, and in parallel I was asked to help with a charity project for orphanages. So, I, who had previously avoided “close” contact with charity (after all, I did not fully understand the mechanisms of work of charitable foundations), but regularly donated money, had the idea to combine modern technology and charity. Only it was unclear exactly where they best intersect and can give the greatest effect.
Why did we choose the field of charity? First of all, because this is the part of life that everyone needs and understands. If in other social areas that had to be dealt with earlier (culture, history, art and improvement of the quality of life of people in the country), projects can be directed only to certain groups of people, then charity is a comprehensive concept that finds a response in every heart.
We began to think where in this sphere it would be best to apply modern technologies in order to bring it to a fundamentally new quality level. We studied the market and saw that there are charity stores that have already proved their profitability, but for some reason, they are still limited to narrowly focused activities in favor of a specific charitable foundation. Why not work with all existing funds? In addition, all the charity stores work mainly with individuals who donate their items to the store so that they sell them, but there are still a lot of regular stores that could also donate part of the funds received from the sale of their belongings to charity.
So in March 2017 we came up with the idea of ​​a commercial charity platform built on the blockchain and uniting a variety of charitable foundations, socially oriented commercial shops and people who are interested in the idea of ​​“light” charity, when it’s enough just to buy your favorite thing that
We conducted a survey among potential audiences and found that 67% of users are ready to donate things to charity and buy them using our online service.
Team and project launch
5 people worked on the detailed elaboration of the idea, and they became the project founders. We have long been united by various joint projects. For example, before “One + One”, we launched the “Together” application, which solves the same problems as “The Goodness”. Earlier we helped the project "Immortal Regiment". The roles in the new project were distributed among us as follows: project manager, technical director, marketing director, manager for work with payment systems, manager for operational work.
We created the prototype of the project during the first month, and thanks to this version we were able to attract friendly investments. Within three months, we began to connect charitable foundations and in August launched the official version of “One + One”. At the end of September we attracted new investments, by October we connected retail, and by November we launched the auction mechanism.
Now about 25 people work on the project. In addition to the founders, this is primarily 10 developers, divided into 2 groups: the first deals with the marketplace, and the second - the blockchain. These are also testers, a system administrator, an analyst and designer, client and operational managers, a communications manager, a SMM manager, a lawyer, an accountant, and others.
Technology stack
The platform “One + One” is deployed on the basis of the LAMP stack, on the symfony framework, Nginx is used as the front controller.
Users interact with a secure transaction. The scheme of a safe transaction in favor of a third party (a charitable foundation in our case) was specially developed for “One + One” in Yandex.Money. We are very grateful to them for their cooperation and the API provided to us.
All transactions conducted through the site are recorded in the Blockchain . Emercoin is used as a blockchain platform. We chose this technology because we see one of our tasks to make the reporting of charitable foundations completely transparent. In addition, we have already begun to create the Association of Blockchain Charitable Foundations. In our opinion, this solution will allow at least:
- remove unclean funds and one-day funds from charity,
- to attract to the charity sphere those people who did not donate because of distrust to charitable foundations,
- to redistribute the market of donations in favor of companies that are ready to be transparent for donors.
We will devote a separate material to the blockchain issue in charity, this is a very big and interesting topic.
Clients, users, partners
The main clients that our service is designed to help raise money for good deeds are charitable foundations. More than 20 funds are already working with us, but there will be more (there are a lot of people who want to). At the same time, we pay special attention to the transparency and honesty of the fund, and therefore we entered into an agreement with the United States Russian office, which helps with the verification of organizations wishing to connect to the site.
We already have the first successes. For example, the children's hospice "House with a lighthouse" with the help of our service was able to collect more than 300 thousand rubles.
The main users of “One + One” are divided into two groups: the first group is the people who exhibit their things for charitable sale, and the second is those who buy these things for themselves. The one who exposes the thing, he himself appoints her price, and also indicates the fund in whose favor the money from the sale will go. But the fund can not be specified, then it will make the buyer. The interaction takes place on our marketplace .
We also work with stores that expose their goods to us, and transfer part of the proceeds to charitable needs of the funds connected to us. The store itself exposes a percentage of sales that will be sent to charity, usually 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25%. The store can choose a beneficiary (in case the company management has specific preferences in the direction of charitable activities or the fund) or leave the choice to the buyer.
Many doubted that business in general could be interested in participating in such a project. But only in the first month, without additional client work, 6 stores connected to us and are already selling their products. There are a lot of people willing to connect, because the advantages are obvious. First, of course, the opportunity to earn extra money using “One + One” as an agent platform for sales. And this is good. Secondly, reputation. The more ambitious the company, the more attention it pays to social responsibility, and the image in this area needs to be built on real cases with real partners, and our platform is a useful tool for this.
Separately, we work with famous people who donate their things for sale through a charity auction . Thanks largely to our partner, Share good among the stars who have placed their belongings on the site, such people as Polina Gagarina, Chulpan Khamatova, Maria Sharapova, Andrei Kirilenko, Maxim Potashev, Andrei Makarevich, and many others.
We do not take money from charitable foundations for connecting to Blockchain. Our only monetization channel is a commission on sales through the Internet platform, which is 7%. We did not make a high commission for ethical reasons, for the same reasons we do not set ourselves high salaries and do not scatter advertising budgets. At the same time, we hope that with time we will be able to significantly reduce or even completely abandon this commission.
Making good works easy is what we want to show. It is also important to get away from the charity of “pressing on pity”, manipulating people's emotions, and showing that each of us can help. “One + One” allows you to change the world and help without harming yourself.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/344676/
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