It started as a #snowzilla weekend experiment. About a month later, We Give Two had raised a total of $2,194 for its creators, a charity and one lucky sweepstakes winner.
We Give Two is the brainchild of 20-year-old George Washington University student Max Friedman — you might remember him from Happening, an events app he stopped working on around New Year’s when he finally had to admit that he was “just not that passionate” about it. Joining Friedman on his We Give Two project are his “roommates, best friends and business partners” Ari Krasner and Liran Cohen, both 19.
Essentially the experiment was this: Build a website, sell ads on the site and allow people to enter to win the collected money at the end of one month. Try to get as many entrants as possible, and as much ad revenue as possible. See what happens.
In a way it’s a little like The Million Dollar Homepage, but Friedman and co. decided to add their own unique spin. The site would feature one charity organization every day, and the eventual winner would have to pledge to give 18 percent of their winnings to a charity. “Do well by doing good,” the site’s FAQ proclaims.
Friedman and his team began by approaching companies and charities themselves, and by spreading the word of the sweepstakes to friends and family. But eventually it became a virtuous cycle — more traffic from entrants generated interest in advertising companies and among charities.
The creators see the site as a win-win-win: people who enter the sweepstakes have the chance to win money (who doesn’t like that), companies get advertising face time and partner charity orgs get traffic and, potentially, donations. Of course, Friedman, Krasner and Cohen kept a share (40 percent) of the total profit as well.
Wait, what? Is this legal?
Friedman told Technical.ly he and his cofounders joke it took just as long to answer the legality question as it did to build the website. What they found, though, through research and a consultation with a pro bono lawyer, is that as long as the terms of an online sweepstakes are clearly laid out (no purchase necessary, winner chosen by random chance, you know the drill), it’s pretty much good to go.
The inaugural sweepstakes ran from Jan. 27 to Feb. 27, during which time there were a total of 340,000 entrants and the site managed to raise over $2,000 in ad revenue. It’s not the Powerball, but hey, some lucky winner is walking away with $1,000 all for entering his or her email address on a random website.
So how does this project evolve?
Friedman was vague about what happens next, but he did say the feedback he’s been getting from charity partners has been inspiring — might this be a new way for such organizations to raise money?
In any case, the project will remain a fun experiment and learning process for Friedman, Cohen and Krasner. For three driven young men, there’s value in just that.
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