What Has Zach Been Up To?

Hello, I hope that you’re having a great week!  I spent last week at the American Democracy Summit in LA, which was a blast with tons of folks from Forward. 
 
Many of you know my campaign manager Zach Graumann, who wrote the book Longshot about the presidential campaign.  Prior to that, Zach worked on Wall Street and started a nonprofit for underprivileged kids called SuitUp. 

“I realized the limitations of the non-profit space,” Zach said.  “I mean, they do great work.  But I had a hard time shaking the feeling that the problems are still there.”  This misgiving was amplified by his day job advising philanthropists on how best to give to charity.  “Even people with incredible wealth struggle to figure out how to give enough to make progress on a particular problem.” 
 
He also noticed that companies saw philanthropy as an add-on.  “A lot of the time, a company will give to a cause or an organization, but then spend more money telling the public about the nice thing they did.”  They also had a tough time engaging their employees; it’s one reason why his organization, SuitUp grew so fast:  “We offered high-quality volunteering opportunities to employees, which was unusual for a lot of them.” 
 
Meanwhile, for individuals who want to find a way to help, non-profits aren’t always set up to receive their efforts.  “For some orgs, like a soup kitchen, the way you help out is very straightforward.  But a lot of them don’t really know what to do with you.  And if you show up once, you don’t show up again.  That’s why only one-quarter of people volunteer each year, even though three-quarters of people say we want to.” 
 
Zach is a lot like me, in that he is always looking to both help people and solve a worthwhile problem – it’s why we connected in 2020.  Now, he’s started a company to address all of these problems:  Samarity.  
 
What is Samarity?  In Zach’s words, “Samarity is a way to channel more corporate dollars to charities by giving them something they want – consumer intelligence.  Companies right now spend billions a year on market research.  You know who knows a lot about us?  We do.  And would we share some of that information to benefit our favorite charities?  Imagine if you could just fill out a survey and your favorite charity gets between $1 and $5, maybe more.” 
 
Samarity is now piloting this with 100 non-profits.  “The non-profit sends out a survey to their supporters, and we pay them for each response.  We then turn around and package the insights – anonymized – to corporations.  Some of our non-profits are already receiving thousands of dollars for doing something that a lot of them want to do anyway; the great thing is that the non-profit can ask any questions it wants to so they actually get better information about their own supporters.  Companies win because they get better consumer insight more cost-effectively.  And non-profit supporters win because they get to help their favorite cause with just a little bit of their time.” 
 
This first product is just the beginning.  “We want a world where anytime someone does something good - volunteers, tutors a kid, does something positive – they get recognized and rewarded.  Right now it’s filling out a survey, but eventually it might be helping your neighbor.”  I love how Samarity is trying to solve a big problem in a way that benefits everyone.  Its success would drive millions of dollars to non-profits and maybe move us one step closer to an economy that is centered on people doing good. 
 
For my interview with Zach click here.  To get involved with what Zach is building, you can email their team at hello@samarity.com.  You can also sign-up any nonprofit you love here, so they can start earning new donations.  Lastly, you can even take a quick survey yourself to unlock some charity donations here if you want to do something good today. 😃  Most importantly, Zach got married this summer so feel free to congratulate him!