Putting A Spotlight On The Art Of Giving
Horyou wants to democratise philanthropy with a new digital currency.
Horyou, a social network platform for non-profit organisations and social entrepreneurs, has launched a digital currency through which it aims to democratise philanthropy.
Spotlight, as the currency is called, can be bought on Horyou’s social network and used to fund various organisations engaged in social work, chief executive officer Yonathan Parienti told BloombergQuint on the sidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 in Hyderabad.
"Essentially it is one cent, penny per day for a year," Parienti said. When a spotlight is bought and treasured, the value is frozen for a year. Then you could allocate the spotlight to whichever social entrepreneur or non profit you most resonate with, Parienti said. When you allocate one spotlight to an NGO, they'll receive one unit of the currency every day and that cannot be redeemed by the non-profit till there are hundred units. And if you don't like what they're doing then the Spotlight can also be reallocated, he explained.
Horyou has over 2,000 non-profit organisations on its platform that are sharing transparently the work they are doing towards achieving the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, he added.
The advantage of having micro amounts of allocation is that it cuts down the possibility of misuse of the funding. “Sometimes they get huge amounts of money and they can't manage it or it is wrongly used. It distracts them from the work they're doing," Parienti said. With spotlight capital is accrued constructively and the social entrepreneur is hence not distracted by the upfront amount, he added.
Spotlight isn't supposed to replace direct funding of social causes. Rather, it is meant to be complementary and accessible so that more people support social projects, Parienti explained.