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- kindbeauty.org
kindbeauty.org
URL:
www.kindbeauty.org
City:
Dallas
State/Region:
Texas
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
We use the web to connect service providers willing to offer their services free of charge to 501Cs that work with populations that could benefit from these services but are unable to provide them for themselves. We have a three stage goal. Our immediate goal is to get our model perfected while providing a very limited service offering - hair services - to a small number of 501Cs. We have accomplished this goal. We now hope to add other wellness services such as massage, yoga and other fitness related services. The second stage of our goal is to add professional health services - medical and dental. Based on the success of our web delivery mechanism we envision using our site as a portal for deliviering other goods and services to the not for profit community. For example, our registered 501C's could post a specific request for goods and services. Potential donors could post goods and services available for donation. The web engine would match the need with the appropriate provider.
Sustainability (financial) model:
Our model from the beginning has been one that would require little funding. The services are provided free of charge by the service providers (in essence they are donating their time) and the human requirement for administration of our services is small due to using our website as much as possible to connect the 501C with the provider of the service. To date all necessary funding has been provided by the founder. The bulk of these funds have been used for website development and a small amount of funds have been used for other administrative costs like insurance, domain name purchase, etc. We currently have no paid employees and no recurring costs other than a small annual D & O premium. We feel that we can operate this way for some time. Hosting for our site is donated and our programming is provided to us at deeply discounted rates. In the future we envision potentially needing funds for large scale marketing efforts (to recruit more service providers) and to continue to upgrade our website but even here we feel there are creative ways to minimize the costs. We are in the position to offer our services while managing growth and, in turn, managing costs.
Potential obstacles:
There is a definite and large need for these services. Our sticky point, while in no way an insurmountable obstacle, is getting into the minds of our potential service provider categories and understanding how to best attract them to our cause and how to best tailor our program so that their participation can be facilitated. Also, while not necessarily and obstacle, we must alway be on the cutting edge of how the web can be used to connect those in need with doners. This will ensure efficiency and low cost of delivery for our services.
Resource Needs:
our greatest need is access to a community of those in the public and private sector that can act as a sounding board and offer feedback on strategy and implementation. As our operational process model evolves we will need technical resources to keep the website functionality in sync with it. We understand the the more we can add functionaility into our website the more we lower the cost of delivering service to our clients (Of course the service is free to all of our clients but we have a keen eye for efficiency and with lower cost of delivering service per client the more clients we can serve).
Key Milestones:
We have completed our first milestone of getting past beta with one group of service providers and one 501C (currently a large domestic violence shelter in Dallas). Our next milestone is to layer additional 501Cs into our program. Once we have a handful of 501C's registered we plan to layer other services into our program. We will continue to grow in a managed and controlled way.
Project Summary:
We believe that while basic needs are the primary priority for a functioning society, higher needs must be met in order to have a thriving society. People must feel loved, worthy, connected and healthy in mind, body and spirit in order to be contributing members of society. We hope to provide services that focus on these higher needs to the poor and working poor.
Comments
Planning
I really like the way you've planned your group to gradually layer in services. I think that will be very effective.
-Phil, Cauzoo
Planning
Thanks Phil. From the beginning our goal has been to figure out how to use technology to deliver services in a quick, effective and inexpensive way. We know there are many people (the majority of people I would like to believe) that would be willing to give to their communities if they could do so in a way that fits in with their very busy lifestyles. If we can take time to get into the heads of various service provider categories and figure out how to facilitate the donation of their services I think, over time, we can have a thriving community of providers and 501Cs. The key is to manage our growth and really understand each segment before we move on them. We appreciate you spending time learning about us and welcome any other feedback you may have.