The CNY SPCA always needs donations. Imagine you could help with little effort. Imagine donating in small, painless increments.
This is Centsere, a new social media platform created by three Syracuse University students and graduates: Ian Dickerson, Michael Smith and Franklin Taylor.
Centsere is simple. Users sign up with a credit card via their social media account, choose their charity and select an amount to donate for each activity. Once that’s done, you’re donating without thinking about it each time.
“It’s a habit,” says Smith. “It’s not something that demands a lot of your attention.”
Dickerson says he wanted to do something meaningful with loose change. He says their main target audience are millenials, those between 18 and 30-years-old, who don’t have a habit of giving and don’t have a lot to give, but can donate here or there.
Centsere launched a beta version with select charities, including the YMCA and the Food Bank, and 100 donor participants. By the end of the year they hope to have 500 donors involved. Taylor says the site will launch to the public in early 2014.
The CNY SPCA hopes to join Centsere in the future.
“I think it’s awesome,” says Terri Para, development director of the CNY SPCA. “I think something like that would be really helpful to charities.”
Centsere currently targets local charities in Syracuse – though the Student Athlete Foundation in Texas has also signed on – but hopes to branch out in the future.
“Once you get a few big charities on board, it’s much easier to convince other charities to come join you,” says Taylor.
Taylor says right now their priorities are to fix any bugs before Centsere is made available to the public and to keep their current charity clients happy.
