Mobile giving platform, Daily Deeds wants to help KC charities

“Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love,” Mother Teresa once famously said.

That’s the spirit behind a new charitable crowdfunding platform that’s set to launch in Kansas City this Wednesday.

Created by local attorney Tim Racer, Daily Deeds is a mobile donation platform that hopes to raise $10,000 each day for a different Kansas City-area charity by pooling together smaller gifts into a larger contribution.

“Daily Deeds is geared for people who want to give to charity, but may feel like their gift isn’t big enough to make a difference,” Racer said. “If a person can spare one dollar and 30 seconds of time to review a project on their mobile phone, we will ensure their gift makes a big impact. And no matter how much we have to give, all any of us really wants to know is that our charitable contributions make a difference.”

To back a charity, donors must create an account with Daily Deeds and then allocate their balance to various projects. The fund will then issue a grant check equal to the total donations made. Racer hopes the platform will grow to include at least 10,000 users that need only to give $1 to each project to make a significant impact.

“Obviously, we aren’t going to start with 10,000 donors,” Racer said. “But my hope is that by making it easy to join with others to do impactful things in our community, we can all revolutionize crowdfunding for charities. But we can’t be successful unless donors give it a try — hopefully they will.”

Racer said that inspiration for the project came from a Christmas project in 2014 in which his family collected toys for Children’s Mercy Hospital. He hoped to get more people involved in the project in a meaningful, but simple way, and his work at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation opened his eyes to the efficacy of crowdfunding. 

Racer said the idea was further developed by a team of entrepreneurs at a Startup Weekend event in 2014, and it eventually launched in partnership with the Black Community Fund. The Black Community Fund provides support to enhance the socio-economic aspects of the African-American community in the Kansas City area.

“After vetting some ideas with a number of people in the philanthropic community, we stumbled across this model,” he said. “But I needed help making the vision a reality, so I took the idea to a Startup Weekend event at the Sprint Accelerator downtown last November. … Ultimately, we hope Daily Deeds will make philanthropists out of people who thought they couldn’t give in amounts that would make a difference.”

A new charitable project will be featured each day on the website, and Daily Deeds plans to provide donors with a follow up report on each funded project. Racer said the platform will expand to other cities if it finds success in Kansas City.

Organizations interested in attaining a Daily Deeds grant may apply here, and a committee will select the 30 best applicants each month. Daily Deeds also will be presented at 1 Million Cups this Wednesday.