Our new local Outer Banks site, Charitocracy OBX, is online! I've just finished coding up the last bit of nice-to-have UI tweaks to make it easy for donors to go back and forth between the two sites. So consider the "soft launch" over. And thanks to the early beta testers for their brilliant feedback!

I'll keep new OBX nominations open until midnight Tuesday, so please throw your hat in the ring if you have a favorite local cause!

The Basics

• I'll call the ch-y.org site you know and love "Charitocracy USA" for clarity here. The new one is at obx.ch-y.org and I'll call it Charitocracy OBX.
• If you have an account on Charitocracy USA, then you have an account on Charitocracy OBX version, too. Same account, two great sites!
• Switch between them at any time by clicking the ❤️OBX or ❤️USA sticker next to the Charitocracy logo at the top of every page.
• If you click the "Remember Me" checkbox during log in, you'll stay logged in on that computer/device virtually forever, or until you log out. And if you have trouble logging in, don't hesitate to get me involved! We want you and need you on there every month!! I'm happy to help get you unstuck.

New Donation UI

• Say good-bye to the old limited menu of weird donation amounts. Now you can decide exactly how much you want to feed the monthly pot(s).
• If you're new to Charitocracy and only interested in supporting Outer Banks causes, you can sign up to just feed the OBX pot. Simply set the nationwide pot contributions to $0/mo and OBX to $99/mo. 😉
• If you're already a Charitocracy USA donor, it's real easy to add a new donation stream to Charitocracy OBX. Decide how you want to divvy up your Washingtons between the two sites. And you'll only be billed the prorated "catch up" amount now.
• You can also tweak your allocation between the two pots any time you want. If it's just shifting dollars from one pot to the other but the total remains the same, you won't be billed anything.
• All new donations are billed annually, but hopefully I can bring monthly billed donations back online. If that's of interest to you, please get in touch so I know to prioritize it.

Growing the Charitocracy OBX pot

• • • The pot started at $0 on October 1st. If you're viewing this blog post on the OBX site, scroll around until you see the pot o' gold showing the current pot size.
    • Your contribution today will make a significant % boost. $1 will bump the pot multiple percent! That won't be true for long. 🤞
    • Even more important are the 5 friends you invite to help fill the pot. Charitocracy is known to be highly contagious in OBX.
    • Let's make the first OBX winner not regret the trip to the bank to cash their check. 😜 Can we get it up over $100 this month?

Okay, that's all for now. Let's pig pile on this pot. Turn it into a snowball picking up size and speed all October!

Thank you. Truly.

OBX gets its own Charitocracy spin-off!

In hopes of harnessing the impressive engagement from the Outer Banks community of North Carolina, while at the same time calming the nerves of donors everywhere else who see only OBX causes winning lately, I'm busily working on a solution. The Outer Banks will have its own Charitocracy soon. Its own nominees, its own monthly pot, its own winners.

My goal is to finish by the end of September, and make October a dry run. Only OBX charities can be nominated in the new spin-off site, whereas the original national version of Charitocracy will proceed as normal, except without the OBX-specific charities. Current donors can choose to switch over, or with a minimum donation of $1/month per pot, they can participate (nominate, discuss, vote) in both!

Other future spin-offs?

And maybe in the future there will be more than two?? Contact us if you think a local spin-off would be successful in your area. In addition to geographical spin-offs, we could also host topic-specific spin-offs. Imagine a Charitocracy of all environmental causes, or natural disaster responses, or animal rescues, or social justice initiatives? The key is to start off with a critical mass of 100+ donors contributing an average of $5/month each, so we hit the ground running with a $500+ prize every month.

Challenge: make OBX Charitocracy bigger than the original!

The OBX monthly pot will naturally start out smaller with its new donor base. But I suspect it will grow more quickly than the national donor base and monthly pot did, thanks to the enthusiasm and dedication already demonstrated by OBX donors so far this year. Big question: will it outgrow the original national pot? Consider the challenge extended, OBX. There's no speed limit here at Charitocracy.

Now I need to get back to work! Just because I'm talking about it doesn't mean it exists yet. But I've started. And I'm no stranger to all-nighters. You all have me energized. Let's do this!