I #donate $25000 to @CFNCpreschool to build brighter futures for at-risk kids in #AlexandriaVA via @GoodWorld. Join me & RT to #give today!
— Todd Hitt (@toddhitt) June 24, 2016
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but one tweet on Friday from Washington, D.C.-based Kiddar Capital founder Todd Hitt is worth $25,000 for the Alexandria-based Child & Family Network Centers of tuition-free preschools. Hitt tweeted out his donation with the help of D.C.-based social enterprise startup GoodWorld, which offers direct donation to partner charities with a hashtag.
"This is our biggest donation yet, the last was for $22,000," GoodWorld founder Dale Pfeifer told DC Inno in an interview. "And it's a really really great charity."
CFNC offers free bilingual preschool to families who might not be able to afford to send their children to a preschool otherwise. It's a charity that Hitt has supported before, but never with quite as much ease. That's a central part of the appeal of the company, which is based out of startup incubator 1776.
"I think he sent the tweet from the airport before flying," Pfeifer said. "This is where things are heading. It used to be you would collect mailers all year and select a few to send checks too, but millennials look online [to donate]."
Pfeifer makes a credible case about GoodWorld's model representing where charitable groups need to look for new donors. Even though most people aren't giving in the five-figure range like Hitt, the fact that 63 percent of people who donate on GoodWorld have never given to their chosen cause before represents quite a lot of potential giving. And bigger donors will take their cue from people like Hitt. That means even bigger numbers in the pipeline for some charities soon, and a bigger range of potential recipients all the time.
"The more people use it, the bigger the reverberations will be," Pfeifer said. "It's a social tool and screening network where friends can support the causes each likes."
