pledge4good
We started pledge4good to let motivated people give to their favorite nonprofits (charities, schools, etc.) without changing their daily habits by allowing users to tie donations to everyday activities. Moreover, we wanted to make donating fun and help friends stay better connected. With this in mind, we started pledge4good as a platform that:
- Adds Zest to Daily Routines: Choose any achievement or event from your everyday life–e.g., losing a pound, receiving an A in school, a win by your favorite team, everyday you go without smoking–to tie to a donation (as small as $1 per achievement)
- Makes Sharing Achievements Easy: Invite friends via Facebook, Twitter, or email to join a pledge by making a matching donation for each of your achievements. Let friends share in and comment upon each others’ achievements via Facebook, Twitter, and a pledge4good.com community page dedicated to each specific pledge
- Makes Donating Fun: When a user loses a pound or receives an A in school, she checks-in on our mobile app or on our website to log the achievement, share the news with her social network and others involved in the pledge, and effect the donation.
About Lenny Fishman
A homesick "New Yorker" living in Asia during ‘08-‘10, Lenny Fishman sent one group of friends a weekly tally of how many stairs he'd climbed in the hilly Hong Kong, another group a monthly update on how many Chinese characters he had learned, and he called his grandmother every Sunday.
Resettled in the U.S., he realized that he had stayed much closer with people with whom he had shared these seemingly trivial accomplishments and began thinking of ways to incorporate this experience into a business venture. As a Wharton MBA, Lenny cultivated his passion for entrepreneurship and social impact, finding an opportunity to fuse the two after joining up with Vik to launch pledge4good.
Previously, Lenny worked at Lehman Brothers / Nomura as an investment banker, during which time he launched a mentorship program for one nonprofit, helped raise thousands of dollars in nonprofit donations, and remained active in several nonprofits. Prior to Wharton, Lenny graduated with degrees in Economics and Spanish from Duke University.
Interview with Lenny Fishman
- Why did you start pledge4good – what was your inspiration?
pledge4good arose out of a question by company co-founder Vik’s father: “why can’t we get our donors to give $5.00 every time they hit a birdie?” Basically, he was frustrated that his organization relied upon infrequent events such as golf tournaments to raise 90% of its budget, while spending on average $0.50 to raise $1.00. As Vik and I considered this challenge, the idea to develop pledge4good emerged. The platform builds upon the productivity of leveraging personal relationships and donations tied to events (e.g. walkathons), while layering on the best in web functionality, including micro-donations, integration into mobile, and minimal-click checkout. - How do you measure your impact?
One of the aspects of pledge4good that most satisfies Vik and I is that the Company provides for two layers of impact. First, we track the funds we help raise for fantastic organizations as well as the first-time donors to these same organizations. Second, and because a central feature of pledge4good is to link donations with our users’ achievements, we can watch as our users score goals in their intramural sports leagues, lose unwanted weight, exercise regularly, get As in school, and so forth. - What makes pledge4good different from other organizations in the space?
Amazon one-click checkout, micro-transactions, Foursquare check-ins, Facebook and Twitter's real-time interactions: these are the most powerful dynamics on the Internet for engaging users and satisfying consumers. So, we wanted to bring these same concepts to nonprofit fundraising. pledge4good enhances the online fundraising capabilities of nonprofits by: (1) allowing for two-click and micro donations; (2) harnessing proven game mechanics and fully integrating into Facebook and Twitter; and (3) tying donations to recurring life achievements, as opposed to one-time grants. - In starting pledge4good, what was the best advice that you received or lesson that you learned along the way?
I think a lot of people working on or with an idea for a start-up have a fear of talking about it with other people because they don’t want the idea to “get stolen.” While I don’t suggest discussing an idea with someone you don’t trust, I want to stress the value of hearing the perspective of successful entrepreneurs as well as getting objective feedback from potential users. - What’s the greatest challenge that pledge4good faces today?
As pledge4good only launched just before Christmas, the Company is focused on getting users onto our platform. Of course, pledge4good’s potential impact is only limited by the size of our user base. - Five years from now, where do you envision your organization? What legacy do you want to leave?
In terms of the Company’s legacy, we want pledge4good to be considered the tool that galvanized Millennials and established a new culture of philanthropy. In a world of flat or declining government and corporate grants, and where the tax deductibility of larger donations is under assault, it’s becoming increasingly important for nonprofits to cultivate a new generation of donors. So while the Internet and social giving have always offered great promise, the actual results have been disappointing. In fact, NTEN research has estimated that nearly 80% of nonprofits generate less than $1,000 of donations from social media. We want pledge4good to reverse these disappointing stats. - Tell us a story about a memorable impact you’ve made (on a beneficiary, volunteer, pledger, etc)?
Before launching www.pledge4good.com, we hosted a pretty rudimentary alpha product that replicated the user experience with Facebook Groups and some manual back-end work on our part. One close friend asked if he could get involved in the pilot, because he needed to try “something new” that would keep him committed to losing weight. As he began describing “decent healthy restaurants” he had tried as well as humorous and triumphant experiences at the gym, we saw friends really rally behind him and support his pledge. It seemed that visiting and commenting in the group page became a part of several people’s Facebook routines, which proved to give him the perseverance to change his lifestyle. Ultimately he lose 25 pounds while raising $235 for a nonprofit he supported. - What advice do you give to other potential social entrepreneurs?
Focus on product first. Too many entrepreneurs, whether in social enterprises or otherwise, focus on non-core aspects of their business: writing the perfect business plan, raising money, or even, designing a logo. What they should be doing is conducting detailed research to better understand the needs of their customers and build even a basic version of their product. This way, the entrepreneur can be more confident that HIS solution is the right one for the problem customers face, and he will be in a position to either fail early—so as not to waste time and financial resources—or quickly build and scale his enterprise. - On a personal level, what does giving mean to you? How can one make a difference in the world?
I was raised to value community involvement and to take pride in giving both time and money to those who were less fortunate than myself. My parents, and I think this may apply to their generation, think of philanthropy from the perspective of individual contribution. However, as friends and family become ever-closer through the use of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. I think a strong case can be made that individuals can have an outsized impact by quickly and efficiently harnessing the collective efforts of social networks. It was really the belief that by building pledge4good.com that Vik and I could have a much more amplified impact than either of us could ever have individually that prompted us to start the Company.