Spend two nights in a pool villa on a private island for 40% of the listed price? Use that money to support a foundation that teaches children to swim by contributing to the renovation of toilets and shower facilities instead of simply paying the hotel? The gift of giving is now possible — and literal — with just a few clicks on socialgiver.com.
“Socialgiver grew from the idea of helping people who want to do good do it in a sustainable and fun way, and in a way that multiplies the impact,” says co-founder Aliza Napartivaumnuay, 31. “How do you get a lot of people to be consistently involved in creating change?”
The solution Aliza and her partner, Arch Wongchindawest, found is simple: “Integrate the customer experience with the giving experience."
Socialgiver, set to launch at the end of next month, is an online platform that turns spare capacity in the hospitality and service sectors into social progress. Using the platform, people can shop for services such as hotel stays, meals at restaurants and gym sessions, then pick a social project to support with that payment. Seventy percent of money spent on the site goes to the chosen project and 30% goes to the Socialgiver team for operational costs.
Arch has long been involved in social entrepreneurship, with experience as a consultant for the UN Development Programme and the UN Environment Programme (Asia-Pacific). The two met at the University of Warwick, where Aliza earned a master's degree in supply engineering and logistics in 2006.
Arch and Aliza embarked on their first project together in 2012, with IDEACUBES, a citywide exhibition of 100 simple ideas created by 100 artists to inspire social responsibility. Their ideas kept growing, finally transforming into what Socialgiver is today.
“For me, it has always been about finding efficient solutions,” Aliza says.
After juggling a corporate job in supply chain management and development and her work in social development for almost four years, Aliza decided to fully commit to Socialgiver at the end of last year.
“The social sector in Thailand is very reliant on international funding. Many closed down after the global financial crisis in 2008. The main problem was that Thailand cannot sustain our own social sector, while at the same time we have this saying that Thai people should help our own people,” she says.
“We realised that a non-profit organisation is reliant on donation money. A social enterprise, on the other hand, runs on a business model, but the goal is not profit-driven. It’s impact maximisation rather than profit maximisation.”
The partners turned to the hospitality sector, which on average operates at only 55% of its full capacity, with the daily excess going to waste. They set to work connecting businesses to the people to the social projects.
“We want to create a ‘giving ecosystem’ where everybody is a stakeholder,” says Aliza.
Hotels donate empty rooms, restaurants donate open tables, concert organisers donate unsold tickets. Socialgiver establishes partnerships with these businesses so that, while they might be small, offers remain consistent rather than one-off and time-sensitive.
“[The businesses] are as excited as I am. They’ve never heard of something like this. They like that it’s a practice that can be embedded into their usual business operation,” she says.
Just as a diner becomes a donor, a chef also becomes a volunteer. "CSR", for Arch and Aliza, doesn’t stand for corporate social responsibility; it stands for "citizen social responsibility".
Aliza’s scope of work includes all aspects of a start-up — getting businesses on board, handpicking featured projects, promoting the platform and participating in competitions for social enterprises. Socialgiver won a local Venture award this month and will go on to represent Thailand to compete for the global title in Silicon Valley in July. Last year, it won the Global Social Venture Competition in Southeast Asia, and was the runner-up for the Most Socially Responsible Initiative, Digital Innovation Asia.
“There are many smaller projects from all over Thailand that don't have the exposure they need in order to fundraise,” says Aliza. “We have worked hard to create a way to pick the projects so that we are not biased. We do background checks on all the projects to make sure that they are efficient with funds and that they are good at what they do, regardless of how small or big the organisations are.”
Socialgiver has run through its testing phase and was able to raise more than 500,000 baht over the course of four months.
“This means more libraries, water filters, therapy, many more years of school — it exceeded our goals and expectations.” Fundraising is only the first step. The transparency of transactions and how each organisation manages its funds allows trust to be built and knowledge to be shared. Some projects are specific in what they need and what the funds would be used for, so that the impact can be tracked.
“A lot of people said this is too good to be true. We call it extraordinarily good,” says Aliza. “People feel guilty for taking something when they do something good. They feel like doing something good means not receiving anything in return. Sure. But in another sense, it’s about supporting people who want to give and acknowledging them.
"We created the slogan, 'Tum dee dai dee mai tong ror tueng chat na' [Don’t wait until your next life for good karma].”
“We’re not trying to share a sad story and guilt people into doing more good. Doing good should be something that is inspiring. It is a happy story and you are a part of it.”
