New Story: Fund life-changing houses for homeless families

Love the idea of transparency and video storytelling, adds a level of comfort and gives something tangible to where my money goes.. plus the social sharing aspect (if I donated to a family, I'd want to share that video) can help spread the word. Kudos, I love seeing these types social good hunts on PH on occasion.

Report

11yr ago

ICON

Maker

@lewis502 Thanks Lewis! My co-founders and I all had terrible donor experiences in the past (giving and never hearing about the impact of our donation) so we decided to take donors as close to the impact as possible. Maria Rose is a great example of this newstorycharity.org/maria-rose You can actually take a virutal tour inside a home on this page :) newstorycharity.org/build

Report

11yr ago

Product Hunt

@lewis502 here's a collection of social good products curated by @brandonjgeo.

Report

11yr ago

@rrhoover Perfect, thanks @RyanHoover !!

Report

11yr ago

Turfly

@rrhoover @lewis502 They're now #3 on that list... see if we can get them to #2!

Report

11yr ago

I didn't see what the cost actually is for one home? Is that because it depends on location, materials, contractors?

Report

11yr ago

@bradenhamm If you click a home to fund there is a summary breakdown of the cost and a link with a detailed breakdown of the costs.

Report

11yr ago

The Global Startup Movement - Slush CEO Marianne Vikkula

Maker

@bradenhamm hey Braden! If you look on the bottom left of this family page [ http://newstorycharity.org/roseline ] you'll see a "Where 100% of Your Donation Goes", and that link takes you to see every nail here: http://bit.ly/1MFuwpP

Report

11yr ago

@bretthagler @bradenhamm Oh ok. I thought it was more generalized where all the money goes to one home after the next, like Charity Water does with wells. But a person is specifically choosing which family to support.

Report

11yr ago

ICON

Maker

@bradenhamm exactly. We believe showing donors the EXACT family they help creates more transparency and a closer connection to the impact.

Report

11yr ago

The Global Startup Movement - Slush CEO Marianne Vikkula

Maker

@bradenhamm If the person makes a general donation then it gets allocated to the next family and we email the donor who the family is, then send a video of that family in their new home. But yes, most donations are direct to family. Thanks!

Report

11yr ago

Skrlla

@Matth3wMarshall first off, I love what you've built. A couple of questions: - is there a vetting process for the contractors that will build the houses? - have you thought about / planning to opening up the platform to 3rd parties, such as "tiny houses" manufacturers or @EcocapsuleSk? Thanks!

Report

11yr ago

New Story

Maker

@robertoscaccia hey Roberto! Yes, there is a vetting process for the head contractor and one cool thing is, locals (who formerly lived in the tent camps) are trained to help build the homes - which stimulates the local economy and provides jobs. We have a long list of potential housing ideas for the future but right now we are focused on our current housing model (built to Miami-Dade County hurricane standards). We welcome all new ideas so thanks for sharing. Checking out Ecocapsule now - looks awesome!

Report

11yr ago

New Story

Maker

@robertoscaccia hey Roberto! Yes, there is a vetting process for the head contractor and one cool thing is, locals (who formerly lived in the tent camps) are trained to help build the homes - which stimulates the local economy and provides jobs. We have a long list of potential housing ideas for the future but right now we are focused on our current housing model (built to Miami-Dade County hurricane standards). We welcome all new ideas so thanks for sharing. Checking out Ecocapsule now - looks awesome!

Report

11yr ago

Skrlla

@laughsee Love the idea of involving locals in the building process, that's KEY to deliver a long term, lasting change! Re: ideas - I was thinking that companies like Ecocapsule, average $2,500 for an habitative unit, could adopt the "get 1 give 1" model, where for every unit funded through your platform one is given for free.

Report

11yr ago

Hi all! Spent quite a bit of time going over the site and love that YC is focusing on impact companies. My company, Light Up Africa was in the first cohort of the Impact Engine. Some things I love about New Story: 1. The story element of addressing social problems. 2. Funding families to homes. 3. Your Partner! 4. Your MVP. Some things I thing you should really address: 1. KPIs leading to a truly sustainable way of building homes. I have found (10 years living and working throughout Africa, India, US, and Central America - building sustainable engineering projects along Water, Health, Energy, Farming, and Human Rights) that having families pitch in a small fraction of the cost to build the home results in higher impact and increased scale. 2. A backend model that repairs, services, and provides supports for the families. Many of these families cannot afford a home let along the repairs that come along with it. 3. How is your model sustainable? What do you intent to do to keep donors engaged beyond the initial 100? Many of these types of projects usually stagnate before eventually dissolving. How do you intend to negate this? 4. Where are you getting the capital to find new donors? Will this be organic growth or beyond YC, what are your additional revenue streams? Loads of questions, but these were the ones that jumped out at me. Keep up the work and hopefully you move towards a more sustainable, social for profit model. Cheers, Alan

Report

11yr ago

Very nice Project it's very useful too how to stop nail biting ?

Report

7yr ago

The Global Startup Movement - Slush CEO Marianne Vikkula

Maker

Hi - I'm Brett, one of the founders of New Story. New Story crowfunds homes for homeless families -- starting in Haiti. We believe that when you donate money to a cause, you should always know exactly who you're helping and where the money is going. That's why we built a fully transparent giving platform that shows you exactly who you're helping, where the money is going, and you get a video of the family you helped in their new home. We also use local construction vendors to help support the Haitian economy. We're launching "100 Homes in 100 Days" today and our goal is to get 100 homeless families away from life-threatening dangers as soon as possible. We'd love for the Product Hunt community to support the mission! Feel free to ask us any questions here.

Report

11yr ago

Very nice project. I am myself a founder of a small NPO and agree that donating should be as transparent as possible. Glad to see non-commercial products on PH.

Report

11yr ago

ICON

Maker

@johannesengl thanks for the kind words Johannes! #TransparencyToOurCore

Report

11yr ago