DESMOS

Desmos Direct is a Desmos core business project (www.desmosdirect.org) which has been built with the goal to become the go-to tool for any donation in Greece. Desmos Direct, Desmos’ online donation platform, is a Desmos core business project, co-funded by the SNF, the Katharina Turnauer Privatstiftung and, recently, The Hellenic Initiative, which partially funds operating expenses. Desmos Direct’s six month test phase was significantly facilitated through the funding by the VODAFONE World of Difference 2014.

Desmos Direct is not an exclusive tool for limited use, but is designed to be used as widely as possible and is therefore designed to be accessible by users with basic computer and online literacy. Thus it is built to be used by individuals and companies that wish to become donors on the one hand, and NGO's and social welfare providers, on the other. The interface is set in a familiar social media environment, with easy and straightforward steps to browsing through the organization’s information, creating a profile, posting items for donations or posting needs etc.

Ongoing, longterm

Desmos is a non-profit foundation that continuously communicates with social welfare providers in Greece, in order to accurately document their emergency and long-term needs in resources and infrastructure. In tandem, Desmos communicates with individuals and companies to actively secure donations from individuals and companies in surplus products. Desmos daily collects, sorts and distributes these donations to organizations according to need, ultimately matching each donation to an appropriate destination. The Desmos Portal takes the day-to-day processes of Desmos to a more efficient and inclusive level through the development of an online platform where donors, organizations, and social welfare providers have the opportunity to directly interact and transact in the user-friendly environment of a familiar social media platform which automatically matches items donated to items needed.
 

Through Desmos Direct (DD) the donation process between individuals, companies and social welfare providers is facilitated and accelerated the donation process. Desmos Direct provides a platform where:
 

1. Social welfare providers with supply and service needs are able to create a profile to present their work and mission and, most importantly, post their emergency, one-off and long-term needs.
2. Potential donors, individuals and companies, can also create private profiles and post goods they wish to donate.

3. The DD automatically matches donations posted with corresponding needs and notifies both the donor and the organization about the match.

Since its establishment in January 2012, Desmos, in addition to collaborations with grant making institutions, has supported an expanding network of over 420 social welfare organizations in Greece and more than 170 companies and hundreds of individuals who have contributed by donating in goods and services exceeding €1,300,000 in - conservatively estimated - total value (please visit our website www.desmos.org for a complete list). Desmos gradually introduces Desmos Direct to each and every one of our collaborators in our continuously growing network.

N/A

Greece

Desmos Direct’s target audience consists of all individuals, companies and organizations. For individual and corporate donors the quantitative and qualitative results are significant:

1. Potential donors are able to browse through organization profiles and discover the work of smaller, more grassroots or diverse initiatives, thus expanding their awareness regarding their third sector.
2. The donor, through the power of information, is able to make informed choices about where they want to give and why and are able to choose the destination for their donation based on a number of criteria geographical (e.g. all the organizations in my neighborhood), special interests (e.g. children's welfare), type of need (e.g. medical equipment) etc.
3. Direct communication with the organizations and, more often than not, physical contact when the goods are delivered or received, provide insight for the donor who is able to witness personally that the donation is needed, utilized and appreciated, providing motivation to donate again.
 

For the organizations that are constantly facing decreasing resources while the number of people in need continuously increases, Desmos Direct provides a powerful ally because:

1. Organizations and social welfare providers that have no experience in fundraising as well as limited access to the media and the public sphere, gain greater visibility since they benefit from the promotion of Desmos Direct.
2. Gaining greater visibility through Desmos Direct, consequently increases their chances in benefiting from potential donations. Donor–users on the other hand may also choose organizations as destinations for their donations based on mission statement, profile and projects, i.e. on merit.
3. Desmos engages an increasingly wide donor network, individual and corporate, to donate through Desmos Direct, resulting in increasing successful transactions and percentage of needs covered. During the past two months, Desmos Direct has facilitated the donation of goods worth – with conservatively estimated values – approximately €18,500.
4. In a great percentage, organizations in Greece suffer, among other pathogenies, from limited or non-existent computer literacy, poor fundraising skills, and inconsistent record keeping in terms of regular needs, expenditures and consumption. For these organizations, Desmos Direct is an opportunity to embrace online tools, on the one hand, while the platform keeps their records for them, making updating regular (e.g. monthly, annual, etc.) needs easy and effective. Most recently, Desmos has documented an unintended positive effect of Desmos Direct: since every visitor on the platform may browse through needs, organizations that have surplus have pro-actively donated to other organizations in need!

Desmos Direct is a good example of how technological solutions are a good strategy to increase output with existing resources, while maintaining the trademark Desmos quality of service. For Desmos, Desmos Direct has significant advantages:

1. Expand geographically: Desmos Direct allows Desmos to provide the same service of matching donations to needs without being restricted by geographical boundaries since it encourages donors and organizations alike to interact directly, becoming a virtual hub.

2. Since donations are not physically processed through Desmos offices, the communication and overall logistics volume is managed on the also limited human resources while output and social impact continue to increase. This allows for the organization to have a more solid sustainability plan.

3. Desmos Direct is built on a database which allows data collection for both total activity in needs vis a vis donations and user activity records. Thus, each donor may keep his/her own donation history on line available at any time, including information on donation recipients, amount of goods donated, dates etc., while the organizations may do the same for goods received.

4. At the same time, equally significantly, Desmos is able to extract data on total philanthropic activity by chronological period, type of goods, and derive a number of valuable conclusions for need/donation trends, needs by type of organizations etc. Such observations may be essential in working preemptively to address shortages/needs on a greater scale and more efficiently.