The idea came to Luke Jensen one evening a few years ago after spending $300 for a night on the town.
While watching TV on his couch, the commercial for UNICEF came on. You know the one. Alyssa Milano tells you for $30 you can feed a child for a month. You listen closely, telling yourself you're going to start giving to a charity like that, but then don't do anything about it. Well Jensen, 32, was ready to do something, and the idea for iamselfless.com was born.
Launched in March, SELFLESS is a $9/month subscription service that lets you to donate to a charity of your choice, and in return you receive discounts to hundreds of Chicago restaurants, retail shops, and other businesses. 80 percent of the $9 a month goes to the charity they pick, which can be changed each month. Once a member, users can also make one-time donations, large or small, to any charity, with 100 percent going straight to the charity.
Once registered, members can use the perks immediately and as many times as they want, receiving up to 25 percent off of downtown Chicago restaurants and retailers each time they visit.
In a few short months SELFLESS has raised more than $10,000 for charities, amassed more than 1,000 members, and has partners with more than 200 Chicago businesses.
"It struck me, how can we bridge the gap between the idea of people wanting to give and getting them to actually give?" he said. "That's where I thought, how can we motivate or incentivize people to donate?"
SELFLESS currently partners with 29 charities, including the Ronald McDonald House, PAWS, and A Safe Haven. And just recently, it added Lurie Children's Hospital and the Brandon Marshall Foundation. Once a member signs up and picks a charity, they are automatically eligible for daily deals, which include discounts to local restaurants, transportation like Divvy and Lyft, and Chicago Cubs Rooftop tickets.
"We want to make it as simple as possible for people to donate, and make giving a part of their everyday lifestyle," Jensen said. "So with that we came up with the membership recurring donation model, so that just like anything else you do in life, be it Netflix or a Pandora subscription, you can now check donating off your list."
Jensen is no stranger to the daily deals business. He co-founded YouSwoop, a daily deals company that has amassed more than 300,000 users, but resigned in 2012 to begin SELFLESS.
"In that experience working in the daily deal industry, I saw room for innovation within not only the consumer experience but the small business experience," he said. "At the same time I still had in the back of my mind this idea of how can we help charities and inspire more people to give."
To date, SELFLESS has fundraised $135,000 for the company and plans to raise an additional $500,00 to $1 million in a Series A round, Jensen said. He added that down the road he would like to partner with credit card companies so the daily deals would automatically take effect as soon as users swipes their card. And at checkout, the person could even donate a certain percentage of their purchase to the charity of their choice.
"That's whats so beautiful about this model," he said. "There's really nothing else out there like it where businesses can really get behind people for donating to charity."
To learn more, visit the SELFLESS website at iamselfless.com.
