Jolkona Foundation

Jolkona Foundation:

Jolkona Foundation makes it easy for you to make a difference by allowing you to make small donations to projects of your choice and to see the impact of every donation."

Web 2.0 microphilanthropy with an emphasis on interaction, human connection, and consideration of impact. The site does draw you in.  Doesn't feel like shopping, feels more like KIVA, though it fosters micro-philanthropy rather than loans.  As with Kiva, Jolkona "goes direct" to the end recipient, giving you a sense that your donation did something in particular for someone or something in particular. This disintermediation of nonprofits  is not so easy to bring off. When working with projects and people who are not within an existing nonprofit, the Foundation has to, presumably, exercise "expenditure responsibility," in providing due diligence and and ongoing supervision.  Apparently, Jolkona undertakes this.

Added Later: Adnan Azfar Mahmud of Jolkona Foundation answered specific questions by email. The Q & A is posted with her permission.

Q. You exercise expenditure responsibility over projects that are not under a nonprofit umbrella?

A.  Not quite. Our partners already have 501c3 status and run their own projects. Our goal is to bring together these projects in 1 place so that our users can easily pick projects to donate. The big difference is that our partners are committed to showing impact for every donation that they receive. For example, our partner – Children of Uganda – work with orphans in Uganda. With $25, a donor can feed 5 children for an entire week. In return Children of Uganda will send the donor list of the food items purchased for the $25. All of this is done over the web. Let me know if that answers your question.Q. How do you fund the site and the due diligence process? So far we have been finding partner organizations mostly through recommendations and Internet searches. We have an extensive selection process and you can find information about it here: http://www.jolkona.org/partnering-with-us.html

Q. Could not easily see the underlying financial stuff from your site. Might it be good to put the answer to the obvious question about costs and fees somewhere it can readily been seen?

         A. We transfer 100% of every gift to our partner. We have a separate fund – called Kona Fund – to help with our operations. We do separate fundraising for that account. Our users can also give to Kona Fund separately from the projects. You can find info on Kona Fund here: http://www.jolkona.org/kona-fund.html We also have a FAQ page here: http://www.jolkona.org/faq.html) which we hope answers most questions. We are continuing to look for ways to better expose these questions.

Quite responsive, to these queries, I would say. Thank you, Adnan.