Biola alum makes donating a few dollars a simple online task

A new website has appeared amidst the many pages of the Internet. One that hopes, in time, to reach people all over social media in pursuit of the gift of giving.

Buck4Good is its name, and every Friday on its site hundreds of thousands of people will be invited via email or app to choose one of five organizations to donate one dollar or more to. Each organization will have a page of text describing its mission, and participants can build their impact by inviting friends and tracking the differences that they have made.

While the site may be new, the idea is certainly not. According to founder Dennis Wadley, the idea has been more than two and a half years in the making. As a former Biola student and graduate of Talbot Theological Seminary, Wadley hopes that Biola will be the “ground floor” of Buck4Good and that the streamlined electronics will make it easier for cash-strapped students to give.

“This generation has grown up in a time when money’s been tight. This generation has something that no generation before it had: the social network, something God provided,” Wadley said.
A Growing Site

Wadley is certainly confident that there will be plenty of support for the new site. Student Missionary Union vice president Robert Kelley believes Biola will take quickly to the new site.

“As long as we can get the word out, get some publicity, get people interested, I really believe we can do this. It’s a great tool for any upcoming service projects that need to have things grounded their way quickly,” Kelley said.

He also confirmed that he would be one of the first to sign up for the new social media site, as a vote of confidence in its success.

Seeing a social media site that encourages recruiting friends might bring to some minds thoughts of Candy Crush and FarmVille — mere pyramid schemes that make profits from how many people the users can pull in. The advantage of Buck4Good is that in keeping all transactions purely electronic, the pyramid structure will be reshaped so that the money taken in goes to charities instead of deep pockets.
Where Does it Go?

The only difficulty remaining, then, would seem to be how to compile and account all the digital Washingtons flying towards Buck4Good’s various non-profits. Wadley noted that they have solved this, however, by instantly noting whenever a donation is made or a friend is recruited. This means every dollar that comes in is sent straight to where the giver places it. This way, Wadley says, not a penny is lost on anything.

New charities, non-profits and their supporters spring up every day, but Forbes’ recent release of a study shows that the current generation gives the least to charities than any generation before it. Buck4Good’s website states that it hopes to prove a real influence in communities across Biola and the country. The more people that take the few minutes needed to sign up and donate, the more people that have moved past the charity that consists only in thought. That charity, due to the power of anonymity the Internet affords, is quite common among people nowadays.

Buck4Good is determined to change the conscience of social media by giving people the opportunity for small, dollar-sized donations. Their founder hopes to make that tendency to click the “like” button in sympathy into something of actual power.

View full article: http://chimes.biola.edu/story/2013/sep/09/buck-good/