I've been following Watsi for a while, and it's great to the continued success. They're currently tied for first in a HuffPo competition to win $10k which would help them reach even more people in need of medical aid. If you want to help them out, you can vote in 10 seconds for them here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/millennial-impact-c...

Voted for Watsi. They're currently ahead by less than 3%, so they could use a little push!

Your open Google doc is what persuaded me. I've always felt uncomfortable donating to charities - knowing well that my money may never go towards the cause they're touting, but on TV ads, expense accounts, PR Campaigns etc. While some argue it's operation costs but it's just not transparent enough.

Your easy to access and understand table really lifts the veil, as well as your clear separation of Donations going to the patients vs. Donations to the operating costs. I think people are definitely more willing to open their wallets knowing that 100% of the money go towards directly helping the patient.

Definitely suggest setting up a recurring payment option - while some people would love to help out continuously, they may not have the time to read each case (and then having to decide who to help) and come back once in a while(paradox of choice) - just take $100 bucks each month out of my account and let me know how that $100 was spent. Also give the option of deciding a % of the donation go towards operation and a % go towards the patient (like a slider style) so people don't have to feel compelled and work to donate in 2 flows.

And knowing that you guys may have a challenge of getting operation donations, offset it by giving us easy to add social widgets or just a simple graphic to add to our blogs and sites. I have no problem showing it next to my Dribbble and LinkedIn icons knowing that you guys have a really tight budget and may not have PR money. (I think free social advertising works better than those in your face PETA campaigns anyway. Makes us feel like we're directly helping out by displaying it on our sites :D)

Oh my god! I missed this for a while but .. wait a minute. You're saying that I can find $580 and help save this kid Cesar ?!

Or Alan even ?!

This is absolutely FANTASTIC!! I'm really curious as to how you carry out on the ground execution (getting the money to the family, carrying out the needed medical procedures, etc.) and stuff but I absolutely love the idea. Amazing work guys!

EDIT: Just donated $25 :) Oh yeah, just noticed this. If I click on "Tweet" on the site, the pre-filled tweet says "via @sharethis". You might want to change that to say "via @watsi_org" so that you know when someone shares your stuff =)

EDIT2: Just voted for you at the huffington post thing. Looks like it's close! 51-48 so far :O

EDIT3: GOOD GOING HACKERNEWS :D I just checked the site and:

There are 0 people on Watsi that need your help!

AWESOME!!! (http://watsi.org/fund-treatments)

Clickable to Watsi: http://watsi.org/

Clickable to original thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081

Great work Adam, and the Watsi team!

However, its the time to scale up higher. I came to the website and saw that there were no patients to help. Surely this means that the scouting team should be enlarged. Tie-ups with other NGOs would help, who can provide you details about patients who need help.

Here in India, there is a very reputed hospital called AIIMS, who have subsidized treatment, but still ask for some nominal payment. Also, patients have to buy medicines on their own. Watsi could be a great help to these patients, since the amount of money they require is only nominal, and many times, these patients can't even afford that. Some of these medications would cost as little as $20/month. Partnering up with such institutions would get you a credible list of people needing help, and this list is perfectly aligned to the 'low-cost, high-impact' patients you aim at.

I'm willing to help you with operations in India, if you are willing to expand.

Keep up the great work!

Wow, this is so, so awesome. You made the right choice to quit your job for this. :)

I am really really looking forward to see this become big. Kudos to you for building this thing. I should also note that you've made a beautiful site as well, I can't find any faults in it by any aspect. I wish you much success.

This is a wonderful idea being executed completely by volunteers. It can be a game changer for those in impoverished countries. You can help out even more by voting in the Huffington Post IgniteGood contest. Watsi has a 50% chance of winning $10,000.00. Please vote for them so they can continue doing this amazing work. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/millennial-impact-c...

Congrats on the great work! Just a quick question; have you considered making a WordPress plugin to display today's top causes?

I worked on a project similar to that for Oxfam Novib (Blogsfam) which didn't make it due to organizational friction but won several awards nonetheless.

It might be an interesting addition to your platform...

Do you have a way yet to charge on a recurring basis? #shutUpTakeMyCreditCardAndChargeItMonthly

It literally takes half a second to get what the site does and how to help. Brilliant.

I'd put the mailing list or something similar more prominently above the fold, because more people would regularly return if they'd get a weekly or monthly email with success stories and new profiles/stories that still need funding.

F.e. currently every project is fully funded and I almost fear forgetting about the site.

Anyway great project if you need someone to help with some marketing ideas or anything else from time to time (of course for free), send me a mail (me[at]ilkthomas[dot]com). I'd love to help.

Your website is excellent, I've helped five people so far.

Just two suggestions:

1. Please give me a way to view who I have helped. A followup story would be great too.

2. Please give me a way to find out about new people

Also, on your "donate to help cover our overhead" page, you might consider giving suggested donation amounts. I have no idea what your overhead is, what amount would help you reach more patients, what your current funding is, etc.

Providing suggested amounts may also boost donations (see http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669882/how-touchscreen-buttons-...)

Will do. This is a great idea. We're hoping to even have a fundraising bar ($X raised out of $X needed this month) to encourage people to give.

Kiva (a similar site for microlending to entrepreneurs in third-world countries) does this. From my personal experience, it's been quite effective and encouraged me to occasionally donate while lending to entrepreneurs.

Since everything is fully funded you should give people the option of funding in advance.

Be open about it of course, and send them an email as soon as you know who the money is going to.

Also give people the option of getting an email when there is someone in need. (To avoid annoying people perhaps limit the email to the next 3 people, then stop sending them for a user specified time.)

Another option is to donate to their operating costs here (http://watsi.org/about) under the Donate to Watsi heading.

Wonder if there should be an option to over-donate. I'm particularly sympathetic to certain illnesses that I've lost loved ones to, and covering the cost of the immediate treatment is lovely but I wouldn't mind giving that person a little more so they can be comfortable while recovering and cover future bills from follow-up treatment too.

Love this idea. We're going to implement a "general fund" profile soon which is essentially what you described above. Email idea is also great.

Have you guys met up with the Kiva team? This strikes me as such a similar model in many ways.

I imagine they would have an incredible amount of learning from the past several years that they would be willing to share. A lot of this has to do with perfecting the user experience for potential lenders / donors. It seems like you're doing a good job on this front but no doubt there's room for improvement.

I've been a loyal Kiva lender now for years and watched them grow to $375M in loans. I think you're on to something similar with tremendous potential.

Kiva was actually part of Adam's inspiration! http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680490/making-medical-care-affor...

Members of the Watsi team work for Kiva too (at least as of several months ago): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424745

Excellent - thanks for sharing! It's a great model and I'm excited to see it grow.

Of course, the nice thing about Kiva is that it is a loan, rather than a donation, which allows you to use the same initial investment to help lots of people again and again.

Now that you have been a Kiva lender for years, you may help to understand whether Kiva actually works as mentioned in http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2009/10/kiva-is-not-quite-w....

I second this. Wonderful idea to be able to commit to funding before it's posted.

I just tried to access the site and got a Heroku error page. Looks like you guys are under some significant load? This is an excellent idea.

I'm left to wonder how well this idea would transplant to a country like the United States. Everyone has varying degrees on Obama's healthcare act depending on where you fall on the political spectrum - but wouldn't it make the entire conversation moot if the private sector were able to fund stuff like this?

What about directly funding and putting a face to the efforts of someone who is homeless finding a job? Plenty of people give to organizations like Goodwill and United Way, but you very rarely get to have a picture put with where your dollars are going. There would be a lot of details to work out, and the idea is certainly ambitious - but if Watsi is able to succeed this much then hey, someone should give it a shot.

So much good is happening here. You guys are brilliant, and I'm thankful for people like you. Cheers.

Check out giveforward.com for a US version of this.

Good to know. Thanks!

I can't help feeling that there's some of the ingredients needed to create an entirely new form of health insurance in here.

I'm ridiculously glad its working as well as it is. Its like watching the start of an avalanche. You don't really know what exactly is going to happen, but the ground is rumbling and you're sure its going to be huge and exciting.

This is my favorite comment of all time.

Every now and the something comes along that is a real game changer. The internet was such a thing and it in turn engendered with web, which gave us WikiPedia, the Khan Academy and now this. What a super concept!

I hope you guys will be able to avoid the various pitfalls and traps that other charities seem to fall in to (where it becomes more about them than about those they help), by the looks of it you will be in excellent shape in that department.

Edit: you've covered this in the faq, but you may want to make it more plain, your donations are tax deductible, you might want to emphasize that. Especially for corporations that's a big thing, and it could get you corporate sponsors willing to name you. I know you're peer-to-peer but don't underestimate corporate dollars and riding their PR machine for free.

Great work guys. I agree with the other comments, I just felt something powerful as soon as I hit the landing page, and just had to donate (and I don't do that much).

It's amazing that just 10 minutes ago Cesar needed $500 and now he's fully funded. Keep up the awesome work!

Wow, that's a pretty great site.

You should make it easier for people to give bigger gifts -- to do so people need your tax ID and address info, so they can set you as beneficiary for 401ks (if you die before collecting), etc. And most people don't know anything about this, so maybe a 1-pg on "how to save 10 lives for free*" or something.

Also, a lot of people donate specifically before the end of the (tax) year, so a focused campaign in December would make a lot of sense.

If you possibly can, get reviewed by Givewell.

I am a student at USC. I could not do much on the financial side of it but I sure did spread the word on Twitter and other channels. I e-mailed them about the awesome work they were doing and told them that I would help them from the technology side if they required me. Then I got a reply back from Chase (co-founder) himself. In life very seldom you get a chance to do something meaningful, they are doing it! Hats off. Go Watsi!!

@chaseadam It would be quite nice to have an option to use this in a gittip sort of way. Also how do you go about finding people to donate to? I have contacts with a Ugandan Hospital and I'm sure others here have have worked on the ground with folks that would love to link up with you guys. Thanks for your awesome work and good luck

This is such a brilliant idea, and looking at the site now everyone is fully funded. And major kudos for taking the risk of quitting your day job to head such a great non-profit. If you ever need any extra dev hands, I'll happily help any way I can.

The problem would be verifying that the people are real, they have the claimed illnesses, they get the claimed treatment, it's the right treatment, they ask for the right amount, have the claimed outcomes and checking where remaining money goes.

If there are any plans to expand to Asia, I would be happy to bounce ideas. I think this is a fantastic idea. I have been involved in healthcare startups (co-founded one) for the last 2 years in Singapore, so this is extremely interesting to me.

Congrats, this is really awesome. We're building a crowd-funding site in the charity space. Where one can fund a project directly and relieve updates on project progress. So that your money is going directly to help.

You guys rock man!

I would love to meet you guys if you are in SF. This is the kind of deep impact stuff that I want to be doing or at least sponsoring.

Woah @ prefunding-treatement. Brilliant! I hope it scales - It can, I think, if you keep momentum.

Gratitude is never too corny for Thanksgiving. And thanks for putting the platform together :-)

Well done! Support for Google Checkout and Amazon Payments will help a lot, I think.

You guys are absolute heroes. The concept behind this site is amazing. Well done.

Here's to another 30 more!

you should build widgets so that others can embed the top stories from your site and get distributed exposure, I'm sure it would provide sustained exposure.

chase - this is great :) if you're up for it, we would be happy to donate some iOS time to the mobile app.

795 donations so far totalling $28,515

Holy shit. I can't remember a time when a website had an immediate impact on me like this. I mean, literally 5 seconds after landing on the site I got what they were trying to do and couldn't click the fund button fast enough. Such a simple idea but maybe that's what makes it so damn brilliant. So cool.

Edit: When I first went to the site 15 minutes ago there were two profiles of people in need of medical care. The total outstanding balance for both treatments was around $650 USD. In just 15 short minutes both treatments have been fully funded according to my inbox. That's just phenomenal, and I bet this story on HN has a lot to do with that!

this is indeed THE BEST web service that I've ever seen EVER. @chaseadam17 Do you take advantage of mobile apps/fb/twitter/etc.?

One thing I realized about your service. It's sustainable. Resources are NEVER depleted. I have a lot respect for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but according to them they intend on spending ALL their money on charity in their lifetime. So that means the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be non-existent 100 years from now. Watsi is a gamechanger imo.

  > So that means the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be
  > non-existent 100 years from now.

Not necessarily. Put $100 billion into a trust and you can spend billions of dollars a year from the interest generated without depleting any capital. Barring unforeseen economic catastrophes, this can be sustained indefinitely.

Bill & Melinda Gates want to avoid the foundation spending money and energy staying alive. So the rule is that all the money has to be spent 50 years after they die.

One good thing about baking in a date of dissolution is that the organization will not be so concerned about self-preservation that it loses sight of its primary mission.

If you use all the interest, you'll lose money because of inflation.

The Gates Foundation will cease to exist 50 years after both Bill and Melinda are deceased. Despite the fact that it could be sustained, it won't be.

Thanks sinner ;) The good guys at futura.io have agreed to help us with an iOS app, and we're hoping to get started on that soon. Also looking to integrate open graph ASAP. So much to do!