Alexander Blass:
Top Winner
Innovator of the Year Award
Educated by Wharton and Oxford, venture capitalist turned entrepreneur Alexander Blass grew up in a family that knew the importance of giving and helping others in need. Because he grew up in a religious neighborhood in Pikesville, people who had come from overseas would often go door to door for donations to feed their family. His parents never turned anyone away, sometimes inviting them in for dinner and always giving them money.
During a backpacking trip through nearly 40 countries, Blass had a chance to see some of the world’s most impoverished areas. And after a trip to Auschwitz in 2004 to pay respect to his ancestors, Blass knew that life was truly a gift and decided to use his background in technology and finance to “pay it forward.”
RealityCharity.com wants to revolutionize charitable giving by making “doing good” more socially rewarding. Lauded as the “eBay of Giving” since its public launch in April 2007, RealityCharity.com is the world’s first direct-giving Web site and philanthropy community.
RealityCharity cuts out the middleman between donor and recipient in a fashion similar to eBay and a concept not unlike FaceBook. The Web site has a centralized fund-raising platform to help individuals in need by providing a voice to those who may not have one. For example, individuals who have been left destitute by Hurricane Katrina no longer have to wait for huge charitable organizations to find them.
For organizations, RealityCharity’s platform helps them dramatically lower their fund-raising costs and engage more donors by leveraging their base of supporters. Other donors prefer to give this way because they can see their gift going directly to someone in need. Though its platform is patent-pending, the Web site has a partnership with Equifax for real-time identity verification of fund-raisers, and a partnership with PayPal to perform instant deposits of donations received.
RealityCharity.com not only provides easy tools for people to pitch in financially and provide momentum for a fund-raiser but it also allows users to post words of encouragement and support on a virtual Donor Wall. This can enhance the social network of the individual in need and can create what Blass calls a “viral giving” effect, reaching more people more quickly and, ideally, raising more money.
Blass believes that everyone has a story worth hearing and respecting, and RealityCharity.com is providing the megaphones.
- Elizabeth Stocklin
