New Charity Helps Poor People Get Small Sums Online for Big Needs

A new Chicago charity is playing Internet matchmaker for small donors and needy people in their communities with an online platform that also helps social-service groups attract new supporters. The new approach is catching on so fast that it has attracted two big foundation grants to spread it to three more cities across the country.

Benevolent was born when Megan Kashner, a former social worker, saw her clients face seemingly minor hurdles—cash for a month’s rent, car repairs, or a licensing test—but end up homeless or unemployed because they couldn’t scrape together what they needed.

“We have all these families falling back from reaching their goals for something that should have cost $200 to $500,” says Ms. Kashner, Benevolent’s founder. “And we have all these studies telling us that people want to know what the impact is of their donations.”

Merging 2 Ideas

In February 2011, Ms. Kashner, who earned a business degree in 2003 and progressed into executive roles, decided those two ideas were the roots of a concept that could be combined to help the needy.

While she was still an executive director of three big-city offices of the Taproot Foundation, an organization that mobilizes corporate workers and others to donate their professional skills to nonprofits, she fleshed out the idea to find a way online to connect donors directly with people who need small sums.

By December, a live site was raising money to help people who had been vetted by local social-service groups.

That is the main difference between Benevolent and other sites that raise money for organizations, not individuals. DonorsChoose.org allows donors to contribute to needs posted by public-school classroom teachers. And Kiva connects donors to low-income people requesting loans that they intend to pay back.

Modest Needs in New York is the most similar crowd-giving charity, but it does not partner with nonprofits to vet the needs of individuals. It does that work itself.

A social-service group not only verifies that a person really needs the money requested but also receives a grant from Benevolent to fulfill the need by purchasing it for the client, ensuring the money is spent as donors intended.

Ms. Kashner’s hope was that donors eager to see their money help real people would step up and provide small sums that could make a big difference.

So far, 700 donors from 44 states have provided 1,500 donations averaging about $50. Benevolent has raised more than $66,000 to help 131 people working with 90 nonprofits in 15 states.

“People want to help people whose stories they can relate to,” Ms. Kashner says.

Videos and Essays

Benevolent designed its Web site to make it easy to see the personal stories from vulnerable individuals.

Charity clients supply photos or videos and detailed essays explaining who they are and why they need the one-time help. Their case workers at social-service groups supplement that information and are responsible for e-mailing feedback to donors on how the money is spent

“It’s been immensely helpful,” says Regan Brewer-Johnson, associate director for programs at the Jane Addams Resource Corporation in Chicago.

The nonprofit trains former prisoners, low-income people, and the homeless the skills they need to get manufacturing jobs.

But the group’s $1.6-million budget, financed by private and government grants, does not pay for basic gear like helmets, gloves, and jackets that students must own to land welding jobs, for example. The typical cost for such items: more than $400.

“It’s a lot of money to come up with when you don’t have a lot of income, you’re unemployed,” Ms. Brewer-Johnson says.

When Ms. Kashner pitched the idea of Benevolent, officials at Jane Addams quickly saw the potential. So far, the group has raised an average of $491 for each of the 24 students who posted needs. It used the money to purchase safety gear, pay for car repairs, or buy winter clothes for their children.

“It’s been huge for us,” Ms. Brewer-Johnson says.

New Donors for Charities

Benevolent covers its expenses by adding 10.25 percent to the amount it raises for each client. When enough donors pitch in to pay for whatever a client needs, Benevolent sends a grant to the nonprofit that vetted him or her.

Some social-service clients don’t attract enough support; when that happens, Benevolent redirects those gifts to someone else’s need.

The site promises nonprofits that it will highlight their services and staff members and expose them to a new network of donors.

Benevolent has been helped by the attention from a high-powered fan: Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.

“Benevolent is a great example of a venture using an innovative solution to address the challenges facing our nation, especially those faced by the most vulnerable populations,” Mr. Greenblatt says. “Their crowd-funding approach is simple yet highly effective, which is why the rest of the nonprofit community has also taken notice.”

In May, in part because of attention from Mr. Greenblatt and the White House, Benevolent received foundation assistance to place staff members in other cities and start working with local nonprofits.

The Marjorie S. Fisher Fund of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan awarded Benevolent $85,000 to build a Detroit presence. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation gave Benevolent a $200,000 grant to hire representatives in Charlotte, N.C., and Silicon Valley.

‘Moved to Tears’

Benevolent sends frequent e-mails to its donors highlighting compelling stories about people it has helped. One such note relayed an unusual request from a pregnant Chicago woman named Brianna. She needed $210 to pay off a traffic ticket. If she didn’t pay it, she would lose her baby.

That’s because Brianna is in prison. To be eligible to participate in a program that allows infants to remain with their mothers behind bars, she could have no outstanding fines.

“Seven donors from five different states took only seven hours to completely fund Brianna’s need,” Ms. Kashner wrote in an e-mail to donors.

Within days, the ticket was paid and Briana was transferred into the program.

“If it weren’t for Benevolent, she wouldn’t be with her baby and she wouldn’t be bonding with her son right now,” says Alexis Mansfield, pro bono director at Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers.

The benefit for her clients is not only financial, Ms. Mansfield says. “They’ve been moved to tears by the help they’ve gotten through Benevolent,” she says. “There is something really healing and cathartic about knowing there are people out there who care enough to help.”

Ms. Kashner and her small staff worked without pay until July 2012. They struggled to create and improve the site and formed partnerships with nonprofits by calling people Ms. Kashner had met in her social-service work.

The site’s big break came last summer when Ms. Kashner was talking to Paul Schmitz, chief executive of Public Allies, who served on President Obama’s White House Council for Community Solutions. He put Ms. Kashner in touch with Mr. Greenblatt at the White House.

Mr. Greenblatt and Ms. Kashner spoke one day by phone as she was returning from a meeting. He peppered her with questions about Benevolent before inviting her to speak at an exclusive White House-sponsored meeting on philanthropic innovations in Washington.

With microphone in hand, Ms. Kashner delivered a TED-like talk she called “The Power of One.” It featured the story of a woman named Christina who needed $200 to complete her nurse-certification training to get a job.

Ms. Kashner may just as well have been a client on the Benevolent site. Her need was cash to expand her operations. She sold her story just like people on her site do.

And she sold it to just the right audience.

The meeting was closed to the public, but its host, Jean Case, co-founder of the Case Foundation, in Washington, said Ms. Kashner’s presentation was one of the meeting’s highlights.

Julie Fisher Cummings was at the meeting and was sold on Benevolent right away. She alerted her mother, Marjorie S. Fisher, whose foundation seeks to finance ways for neighbors to help neighbors.

“They like to know who they’re helping,” Ms. Cummings says.

The grant from her mother’s foundation was an easy sell. And now a new Benevolent employee, Andrea Perkins, is in Detroit, reaching out to social-service groups in a city that has just gone bankrupt.

“I definitely think that every community could benefit from a program like this,” Ms. Perkins says. “There are a lot of people who want to help. They have the ability to help. They just don’t know how to help.”

That’s what Damian Thorman, national program director at the Knight Foundation, found so appealing about Benevolent—its ability to build local networks.

“It’s very important to have it tailored to a specific community,” Mr. Thorman said. “We like the fact that it helps citizens help each other.”