Google One Today

Have you ever been working on something then had some huge company just go ahead and release exactly what you're building? Yeah, um, that totally didn't just happen to me.

I once saw a nice idea when I was traveling to Sofia in Bulgaria. When I withdrew money at an ATM it asked me at the end if I would like to donate 1 LEV (0.66 USD, 0.5 EUR) to Unicef.<p>I really liked it, because it's a very small amount of money, a big name (Unicef), and it's no hassle at all.<p>I don't know if there are enough ATM withdrawals for the sum donated this way to be significant at all. But if yes, I wish they would do it in other countries, as well.

"One Today is an app that brings together people and nonprofits through the simple act of giving $1."<p>To be clear: you'd be giving the non-profit $0.98, and your credit-card company $0.02:<p><a href="http://www.google.com/onetoday/faq.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/onetoday/faq.html</a><p>"How much of my donation will reach the nonprofit?<p>"The nonprofit will get all of your donation except the credit card processing fee of 1.9%"

What do they do to prevent fraudulent charities?<p>E.g. a "save the seals" campaign that spends all its money on lavish salaries and helps one seal a year?<p>People paying only one dollar are unlikely to do much research.

I found it a bit weird that they never asked for my email, they just assumed that my Gmail account was my email.

This sounds an awful lot like Philanthroper, which Mark Wilson eventually had to shut down. However, it's a slightly new angle, and I sincerely hope they succeed. I created a nonprofit Facebook app many years ago in the same space. It's tough, but Google has the resources to see it through.

It won't fly just like this - You can't just ask people to download an app and donate a buck a day. You need an incentive. This will definitely work if the $1 gets the donor an "item of the day" from the play store, which Google can most certainly give out copies for "free".

Is it just me or is it really weird to request an invite to use an app which needs your donation?

Let's continue to encourage people to give to charities with shit effectiveness!

&#62; Google has a long-standing commitment to supporting nonprofits and to do doing good.<p>The best kind of good<p>/snark