“You watched the video? Then you’ve just helped someone,” says Bassita, an Egyptian startup that is revamping the art of helping by making causes go viral. Its first campaign, launched today, aims to help 1,000 women in Khalta, a small village in the Fayoum oasis, get eye-glasses to continue with their detailed artisan work. Curious to understand how a simple video view can make a difference, we spoke to its founders, Salem Massalha and Alban de Ménonville.
How did the idea of click-funding came up?
We got inspired by a Californian website specialized in clicking for help, but when trying to adapt it to Egypt we finally ended up with a completely new concept. The most important aspect is that the impact is real and concrete: For our first campaign with Baraka Fashion, every 10 clicks on the video, a free pair of eyeglasses is “created” to support artisans. The ratio is very high, but the success remains in the hand of the web users.
Your website’s proposal is to do good with a click. But how can that happen?
So far, we cannot create real eyeglasses only by clicking, so there must be an optician somewhere, in this case Baraka Fashion. But basically any action on the video (view, share, tweet, or like) equals a certain number of points (1 view-1 point, 1 share-50 points) When the targeted amount of points is reached, donations begin.
Are there other projects coming soon?
Our second cause will to provide toys to orphans in partnership with Omar Samra’s Marwa Fayed Toys Run, and more will be coming soon. But we aim at increasing the scale of our causes. If 10,000 people can click to give 1,000 eyeglasses to artisans, why would not 1 million persons unite to provide 10,000 solar panels to Egypt? We are creating a win-win-win situation between the cause, the web user and the sponsor.
For more information: Visit Bassita‘s website, follow their Facebook Page, or watch the video again on Youtube.