Just in time for Mother’s Day, co-founders Antoine Grant and Stuart Felkner are launching responsibly, a gift giving platform with a social good component. responsibly (yes, small “r”) is basically a daily deals site that lets you donate 100% of an item’s purchase price to US public schools in need of project supplies and funds.
responsibly allows you to choose the specific education project you’d like to donate to, and 50% of the original proceeds of every gift purchased will go to the school, matched by another 50% of corporate sponsorship via Donor’s Choose.
The responsibly website integrates with Facebook, and you can send a message announcing the gift to the reciever via Facebook or through email. Right now both its inventory and its project offerings are sparse (currently you can only gift aromatic Stone Candles) but the co-founders are working on building up a queue during the beta.
“The education system is in dire need of our help, and we want to start a movement that spreads awareness, brings people on board with our mission and gives them a really easy way to help directly and contribute to saving America’s education,” said Grant on the motivation behind the startup’s for profit mission (they take a cut of sales).
The co-founders are committed to the cause, and actually turned an old school bus into a home office, outfitting it with solar panels and makeshift beds in order to take a 15 city tour all around the US in April. The responsibly tour visited schools and leaders from the KIPP, Greendot, Teach for America programs across America, getting a better idea of the issues faced by US educators in order to figure out the best way responsibly could help (watch the video above for an in-depth on-the-bus interview). The bus’ return home to LA coincides with the company’s beta launch.
“Our goal is to be more than a simple commerce platform – we want to connect consumers and companies with charitable giving in an easy and cost-effective way that benefits everyone,” said Felkner.
Interested TechCrunch readers can join the beta here.
