Today we’d like to introduce you to Seth Blaustein.
Hi Seth, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’ve been a storyteller since I was 12. I always loved the power of film to educate, inspire and change our perceptions about the world in positive ways. As I grew up, I learned about a lot of real issues facing humanity and that inspired me to use my storytelling abilities to help raise awareness about social impact causes. Over the years I had some viral successes, and in 2016 I produced a video that garnered 28,000,000 views and drove $1,000,000 in donations.
I was really excited to have helped raise the money, but I was immediately struck with the thought, “holy crap, 28,000,000 people…imagine if every one of those viewers just gave one dollar? We would be able to raise an enormous sum of money that could really move the needle, and without putting any financial strain on any one person.
I became really fascinated (obsessed is probably a better way to describe it) by this idea of unified, collective-giving. A large number of people micro-giving together could create a “collective super-philanthropist.” And why stop with doing it once? I imagined the simplicity of 1,000,000 everyday people giving just $1/month–driving $1,000,000 every month to social impact without putting a big burden on any one person.
Soon after that, I was producing a conference in Austin for a non-profit organization when something unexpected happened. One of the speakers–in her rush to get to her talk on time–left her backpack in front of the venue. It rolled off the curb and unfortunately got run over by a car–with her laptop inside. There I was, backstage when a member of my staff handed me a mangled, twitching laptop that was utterly destroyed. The owner of the laptop was on stage and had 5 minutes left in her talk. But I was inspired by this idea of collective giving and decided to try something. So, here’s what happened…
When she was done speaking, we jumped up on stage and said “Hey, everyone this is Betty’s laptop, it just got run over by a car. You know how that would feel if this was your laptop, so let’s try something. There are hundreds of us in the room right now and if everyone gave just one dollar, we can buy Betty a new laptop without putting any financial strain on any one person.
We put a Venmo and PayPal account on the screen inviting everyone to give just one dollar. Within 1 hour we had raised over $1,200 and were able to buy her a brand-new laptop–it was an incredible example of the power of collective giving.
It was at that moment that I knew this would work on a bigger scale to make some really beautiful things happen in the world! Things like helping Mary Crowley and the Ocean Voyages Institute break the world record for the largest ocean plastic cleanup in history, growing trees on a massive scale to reverse climate change, or ending hunger and poverty through systemic philanthropic investments that are proven to actually work.
This is when the idea for creating the world’s first collective super-philanthropist was born, which is the kernel of the idea of Dollar Donation Club. This is a vehicle that can start making BIG changes now, without needing to wait on billionaires or governments. This platform enables everyday people to unify like a school of fish and wield more philanthropic power than a “whale.”
I really don’t like vague and abstract visions of “changing the world.” I think people are tired of all the talk. It’s time to fund real, measurable solutions that go beyond just raising awareness and actually make a tangible impact.
Dollar Donation Club is all about the real projects who have a proven, measurable and scalable solution where we know that every dollar donated results in a measurable impact that we can see.
Since we launched in April of 2021, we have thousands of members micro-donating together and are on our way to becoming the world’s first collective millionaire super-philanthropist. Our members range from children who donate part of the allowance, to people who have shared with us that they were formerly homeless but want to be part of contributing to making global change and believe this gives them access to doing so (and everyone in-between). It’s a truly unified effort that transcends all differences.
Our big goal is to create the world’s first collective billionaire super-philanthropist, made up of 1 billion people giving $1/month to the world’s best impact solutions. There’s no good reason not to do this, and it would drive $1B /month to real impact without putting strain on any one person or organization.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Since launching we’ve been overwhelmed by the support for this idea. It’s clear that it’s an idea that is ripe. I think people feel less trust than ever in the institutions and billionaires to invest in solutions that improve life for all. Creating a people-powered philanthropic vehicle like this feels natural. I think people feel refreshed knowing that we are for the people by the people, and place a high amount of emphasis on transparency, vetting, and measurability of impact.
That’s not to say we haven’t had our challenges. We are a startup, so it’s a non-stop effort to ensure the platform has the necessary runway to scale. I easily put 80 hours /week in, and our team is incredibly dedicated to seeing this vision come to reality. A common challenge that any social cause faces is figuring out innovative ways to cut through the noise, so we are always innovating on new ways to tell this story and reach people in a digital world with short attention spans.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a storyteller at heart. I was blessed to have a video camera in my household when I was 12 and I immediately became obsessed with creating videos. I love the idea that a simple story can carry someone else’s attention from beginning to end, and by the end of a story, someone can see the world differently. If we can change our perspective of the world, we can change the world. I think this idea sunk in at an early age for me.
I made my first feature film when I was 19, which was in several international film festivals, and won a few prestigious awards. After that, I started the Future Frontiers conference in Austin (in 2013). The idea was to create an immersive experience that brought attendees into a vision of the future that may seem idealistic but was possible due to breakthrough work that innovators from around the world we’re bringing to life. We explored themes like Seasteading (creating floating cities on the oceans), space exploration, human health optimization, new financial systems (Bitcoin was a topic of our inaugural 2013 event), new educational models, etc.
I’ve always loved experimenting with new mediums of storytelling. Ultimately, I think companies are one of the most interesting mediums of storytelling. You can create something that real people can engage with on their own hero’s journey. Really great companies help people reach their full potential, to become more of who they aspire to be. I think this is the highest potential of creating companies.
Dollar Donation Club is ultimately an invitation for everyone to step into an incredibly important heroes’ journey–the story of how we unified together to make the world a better place–beyond all of our differences.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
When I was growing up, I was all over the place. I had a thousand different interests. I think my parents sometimes worried that I wasn’t focused enough on any one interest at a young age. But looking back, they always gave me the freedom to get intensely passionate about many different things. The phrase “he’s going through a phase with (insert new hobby)” was probably pretty common. Looking back, I think it was this freedom they gave me to explore anything that interested me–even if it only for a short period of time–was incredibly wise. Looking back–every “phase” I went through provided me with a more rounded experience of life, lessons that I was able to apply to new passions, etc. I believe this kind of well-rounded and full experience of life is essential to creativity.
Pricing:
- $1/month
- $1/week
- $1/day
Contact Info:
- Email: howdy@dollardonationclub.com
- Website: dollardonationclub.com
- Instagram: @dollardonationclub
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DollarDonationClub/
- Twitter: @thedodoclub
