If you would like to donate some of your money to charity, but don’t know where to begin, then one new app, Cradle, is looking to solve this situation. The app, presented back in May at the Disrupt Hackathon, lets you identify the kind of causes you’d like to support, then provides you with a list of relevant charities, helps you figure out how much you’d like to give, and then sets up the payments for you.
While there’s been a surge in charitable giving in the past 10 years, most charities have been slow to adopt digital technology due to various factors. Nonetheless, digital technology has a huge potential in the world of charity, especially as people in younger generations grow up with it. Indeed, the Internet has played a large part in that growth, thanks to platforms such as GoFundMe, JustGiving, and Kickstarter, which allow people to raise money for or donate to various causes relatively easily.
Nonetheless, this growth in communication and connection has also led to issues: with so many charities to choose from, there’s a lot of digital noise, and finding a worthy cause that you like, then choosing which charity to donate to, can get overwhelming. One article I read compared it to a music streaming service such as Spotify with countless tracks and artists to listen to; it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and then end up listening to nothing. And much like Spotify has used algorithms and listeners’ personal preferences to find new music for them, Cradle is working to curate charities so donors can find a great cause. While Cradle isn’t the first philanthropy directory site, it does allow people to navigate charities more seamlessly through app technology.
Of course, Cradle is (no pun intended) still an app in its infancy, and has so far made up its initial list of charities by vetting various organizations both directly and through third-party services. It will expand over time and offer users the chance to propose new additions. It’s also not yet tackled religious charities, a huge (although controversial due to conflicting ideologies) portion of charitable donations. It’s still off to an interesting start, and I’m excited to see where it goes going forward.