Virtual CareBacks for the Indigent
CareBacks is a modified form of Greenbacks.
Imagine this scenario: you’re walking in the french quarter on a cold night and you see a begger with his dog. He asks for help; your nature would be to give to him but you’re worried that it will be used for drugs, alcohol, etc but not food or clothes. You ask his name, he tells you John Doe. You pull out your phone, send a DM that simply says “5.00 to John Doe” to @vcarebacks, and you get a DM back confirming that it’s done and you get a 6 character alphanumeric code.
To add to the “cool” factor it may send out a foursquare-like tweet saying “I gave some vCareBacks here: http://example” – bear in mind, if you’re out at night you’re probably spending at or over $30 on booze, what’s another $5 to help.
You give the man the code and let him know that any he now has $5 vCareBacks from you.
Maybe he scoffs at it because his real intent was to buy drugs or alcohol – or maybe he takes it because he genuinely wants to use it for a real need.
He then goes to any CareBacks-certified grocery store, clothing store, shelter, or hotel and tries to purchase CareBacks for approved goods. When he gets to the counter he tells them is name and any vCareBacks codes he was given. The approved retailer then puts in that info to a website to redeem the money (or DMs again).
Givers and Retailers would have to setup their accounts on the website (w/banking and cc info) before being able to give via twitter). Instead of DM’ing twitter, you could send a simple text message to a certain number. To avoid abuse by corrupt retailers, you could have mystery shoppers trying to buy something they shouldn’t…
I’m sure some kinks have to be worked out but it’s almost a metaphor to gov’t giving people vouchers for charter schools. It also empowers individual givers to help people directly.
This idea is a work in progress. Maybe it’s stupid and I’m overlooking something that currently exists. If so, let me know.
It’s like foodstamps 2.0 that non-poor can distribute.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 16th, 2010 at 11:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7 Responses to “Virtual CareBacks for the Indigent”
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Jessica Rohloff Says:
January 16th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
This is an interesting idea, Neel. I’ve never heard anything like it before. I say make the slides: it’s definitely a good IgniteNOLA presentation topic. Who knows? Maybe you’ll inspire someone to take this concept and run with it. How cool would that be?
One thought with regard to the name CareBucks: while I appreciate the Tulane reference, I suspect the majority of people don’t know what Greenbucks are.
CareBucks makes me think of Starbucks (and Walmart for some reason). It’s a little corporate-y. What about GiveCard? As in, philanthropic gift cards. Good luck with your presentation! Look forward to hearing more about this concept.
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Neel Says:
January 16th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Jessica – if it takes off Susco can easily develop the portal to make it work. Just have to see if there is enough interest…
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John Laurie Says:
January 16th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Interesting. Possibly. Maybe. Logistical problems include; people with the same username, fraud, the aforemention ‘purchase intent’ and its a non-instant gratification process – give someone $ on the street, they’ll take it. Make them go somplace, say a name comply with procedures – then its less likely to happen. How about carebucks that offer a hand-up instead of a hand-out? Instead of making the donator feel good make it go toward doing some actual good?
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January 16th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Maybe instead of a username they give their birthday and that plus a unique 3 alpha digit code allows them to redeem. As far as hand-ups, that’s great but give more detail? Maybe they can be aggregated and used for clothes for a job interview, discounted classes, rehab, etc. Again – connecting the donor and recipient is the intent.
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JP Says:
Sounds great man!
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Maybe. But people are inherently lazy. Jumping through even one hoop is often too much trouble.
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Suresh Sus Says:
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:02 am
Great cocept. The process needs to be simplified at the front end. This is when the interaction between the giver and taker takes place. Do you think the “takers” will take the time to process the code? You have to wonder how they got into that situation in the first place. They will simply wait for the next person who will give cash.