Philanthropy for everyone.
Because no person with a brilliant vision for the common good should be held back, ever. – This is The Golden Thread.
The problem
Billions of dollars in philanthropic and non-profit funding are available globally but remain inaccessible due to…
Lack of common knowledge about funding options
When you just want to do some good for your area, you will only know bank loans or government funding. Many people don't even know that philanthropic funds can also be directed to one's local area. We can educate large-scale.
So many different types of funding
Foundations, government grants, EU grants, direct donations, social entrepreneurship, and so much more. Information is highly fragmented. People don't even know where to start, because there are too many options. We can advise them in a personalized way.
Difficulties in setting up the right legal structure
Tax-free benefits? Or appearing like a for-profit business, because you need to grow first, for your eventual goal of non-profit? It's not trivial to navigate the jungle of legal and taxing issues. We can make this easier.
The "All or nothing" argument
People think that "either my idea needs to be fully and perfectly fleshed out, or I can't do anything". We can assist them to take the first steps.
Systemic disadvantage
Many people with great motivation simply don't speak the "language" of money or can be easily scared or overwhelmed by bureaucracy. We can lift up systemically disadvantaged people (esp. those without an academic background) tremendously by showing them that they can work for something they genuinely care about instead of a job they hate.
Learned helplessness
Some people don't believe that they could ever have an impact on the world and feel helpless and powerless. We can make direct philanthropy accessible to bridge this gap between joy and passiveness or extremism.
The belief that philanthropy is only for the rich
People don't know that they could do genuine good (e.g. for their area) already with a few hundred euros, francs or dollars. Even when you have a decent income, using your money to fund something which actually matters to you can still seem like a distant dream. We can bridge this gap.
Being used to donating out of remorse
Some donate only when something terrible happened. We can teach them that they can also donate to building structures that can later prevent similarly terrible things in the first place.
Philanthropy not being a "popular" topic
Philanthropic projects bring people together, while politics and the news aim to divide. We can show politicians that genuinely well-managed, financially sustainable non-profits are worthwhile, because they are the main driver of well-being and personal fulfillment in industrialized societies, both for those that give (e.g. time, money, work) and those that receive.
Lack of donor transparency
Donors are often unsure where their money is going or how it is being used. This leads to hesitation in contributing to philanthropic causes. We can build transparency into the process, ensuring that donors see the direct impact of their contributions, but not in terms of dry KPIs, but instead in terms of the real people they helped.
Risk-aversion in traditional funding
Many philanthropic foundations or grant-giving bodies are risk-averse and only fund well-established projects. This leaves emerging or experimental ideas without resources. We can advocate for and guide these riskier but potentially transformative projects towards funding as well, thus exploring more innovative methods of societal change.
Inadequate technological literacy
In a world moving toward tech-driven philanthropy (such as crowdfunding and digital giving platforms), many aspiring philanthropists or non-profits lack the digital skills needed to access these tools. We can create an incredibly accessible platform that is trivial to use.
Our approach
"Come for the tool, stay for the network, join for the community, live your dream"
Being global from the start
Just like global trade has revolutionized the world, global good can interconnect the world. We believe that joy should travel fearlessly across languages and borders.
Being free forever
This platform doesn't need to charge money from users, because it's self-sustaining. Once kickstarted, we can use it to fund itself.
Inspired by growing movements of societal change
Platforms like "Cobudget" or techniques like the "Advice process" are inspired by the Burning Man community.
Being dream realizers
Our focus is never "what is currently most needed in the world?", but "what's best for you right now?". Making people feel powerful is our purpose of existence. Synergies are inevitable.
Self-sustaining processes
The structures we create will be regenerative, i.e. they should sustain the subjective joy within themselves. This concerns relationships, nature, resources, and much more.
Choice of words
We can express constructive criticism in positive words, encouraging creativity and making growth present at all times. Rhetorics is key.
Legal structures that make sense
We will focus on discovering the most suitable existing legal structures which foster actual collaboration instead of reinforcing harmful patterns. We will never let ourselves be held back by slow legislation.
Open source forever
This platform is only worthwhile if it is developed with the collaboration and under the scrutiny of a growing community. All project management happens in public as well.
Colleagues can be friends
We always encourage everyone we work with to look deeper within and beyond themselves.
The solution
A comprehensive digital home for philanthropy. With superconnector capabilities.
Smart matching
We know all existing and past funding opportunities in your country and the world, scraped regularly, and the best can be matched to you. It's just comparing cosine similarity scores of embeddings.
Intelligent application templates
Guiding you through any form or evaluation process effortlessly. Always as easy and as focused on your actual ideas as possible, instead of paperwork.
Legal setup advice.
Helping you determine the best setup for your region. Guiding you through the different possible legal setups in an easy-to-understand step-by-step process.
One platform, all matches
The very first step will be matching individuals / organizations to funding opportunities. But once we have that, we can use it for so many other resources as well, e.g. matching individuals / organizations to legal and financial advisors.
Trivial frontend, backend with an open API
UI designed for all types of users and age groups, ensuring that technical literacy is not even really a requirement. Having an open backend so that everybody can work on building connections freely.
Built to last
"The Golden Thread" aims to become a long-lasting organization, ensuring you the benefits of a long-term partnership.
An opinionated tech stack
Using the world's best, most interoperable tech and language stacks internally, both in code and in everything else digital. Continuously reviewed and agreed upon by the community.
Simply awesome employee benefits
This is like the "Make a wish" foundation for yourself in a responsible, regenerative way.
Focus on real events
Supported regenerative communities are encouraged to built real places to make the effects of philanthropy more and more visible, instead of only staying on Zoom calls. It'll start making marketing for itself.
Coaching for project success
Making sure that people actually feel like striving towards their dreams by teaching them the techniques to do so.
Subjective KPIs
Measuring Subjective Well-Being (SWB) through self-assessments, ensuring insights that arise from purely subjectively obtained data (quality instead of quantity).
Focus on the human aspect
Encouraging a loving, personal connection to the project you are funding, with consensually ensured mutual well-being.
Technological inclusion
Of course you can use it on the web and on mobile. But the platform will also be available on older phones (e.g. through call and SMS interfaces). Doing good is not just between technologically literate people, and we need to respect that.
Multilingual from the start
Translated by volunteers across languages and possibly even sociolects. Being aware of the medium used for communication is key.
A new social network, but without the hassle
Matching always happens anonymously and no texting happens within the app, but instead always in a decentralized way, based on the consensus of the conversation partners. Signal suggested.
Proven prototype
I built the most basic funding matcher possible, which has since grown into Stiftungsfinder
(see repository for the technologies used).
Next steps and open positions
High-growth, startup-inspired techniques, combined with a non-profit vision.
Funding
In the beginning, we will expand and grow our interdisciplinary team of interconnected thinkers and makers, and we want to pay appropriate salaries to them. See open positions here.
Partnership development and project management is one role
To become able to bring you together with the best possible collaborators in the world, we will need to establish our own interpersonal network first, starting with all kinds of relevant ecosystem stakeholders (e.g. non-profit projects, foundations, financial and legal advisors for non-profits, social entrepreneurs, individuals interested in contributing etc.)
Developing the scrapers
The first step for the smart funding matching will be acquiring a much wider scope of non-profit funding data. Data from just government and other open APIs will not be enough. Instead we will need to scrape the unstructured data from all the sources we need, globally. As easy as never before with LLMs.
Pilot programs
The first projects are already interested in using The Golden Thread, so that pilot projects applying for real money can be started soon.
Establishing decision structures
We need to find techniques through which we want to manage administrator access to technical resources collectively.
Platform localization
From the beginning, the platform should not be developed with a bias towards the English language. Being multilingual is an essential feature to preserve global reach.
Launching a mobile app
Smartphones are as ubiquitous as never before. Being app-native is imperative for global adoption.
Finding prompt magicians
For making unstructured data comparable beyond just cosine similarity scores, we will need so-called "unified semantic formats" to improve accuracy. Prompts that achieve this transformation still need to be typically written my humans.
Making smart infrastructure decisions
What are the best long-term technologies we can use? How can we develop this platform, so that it stays delightfully maintainable, even many decades in the future? This will especially need committed, experienced open source maintainers.