About Directly
The Causes
When experts help people, they can choose to double their social impact by donating their rewards and earnings to a non-profit group of their choice.
NeighborWorks America is a leader in affordable housing and community development, working to create opportunities for lower-income people to live in affordable homes in safe, sustainable neighborhoods that are healthy places for families to grow. The NeighborWorks Center for Foreclosure Solutions was created to preserve homeownership in the face of rising foreclosure rates.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense when our freedoms in the networked world come under attack. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990 and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.
Directly and the 1/1/1 Model
In addition to focusing our business on “big problems” and helping the insiders support their affiliated causes, we support these causes directly using a model inspired by the 1/1/1 integrated philanthropy model. We contribute 1% of our revenue, 1% of our company equity* and 1% of our team’s time to our affiliated non-profits and causes listed above. We also spend time mobilizing our network of experts, creating programs that encourage them to contribute their time and earnings in turn to these organizations. * Full disclosure: we’re in the process of setting up the foundation that will hold the equity. Until then, we’re doubling the revenue donation.
The Roots
In 1994 while in college, one of our co-founders took a solo bike trip from New Haven, CT to Americus, Georgia to work with Habitat for Humanity building low-income homes. His fund-raising skills exceeded his house-framing skills, so he returned to school and created the Habitat Bicycle Challenge, a cross-country bike tour that raised money to build Habitat homes. Over the course of the next 15 years, a network of thousands of riders would raise millions of dollars to build homes for low-income families, riding during the week and stopping on weekends to build homes with local Habitat chapters. The cross-country ride was chronicled in the 2004 documentary Hammer and Cycle.
We’re using this same idea today, building a network of thousands of experts who are helping people while raising money for these affiliated causes.
