Prizeo fundraising platform combines celebrities, prizes and microdonations
Howard Lake | 30 November 2012 | News
Digital fundraising platform Prizeo was launched this week, offering celebrity prizes in return for microdonations to the star's selected charity.
Actor and presenter Stephen Fry has got the site underway with a competition to benefit mental health charity Mind, of which he is president. Other celebrities taking part include chef Jamie Oliver and boy band JLS.
They each offer a 'money can't buy' experience via Prizeo and invite the public to win it, at £1 a go.
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The celebrities are encouraged to promote this prize and fundraising via their social media accounts. Fry's prize is a VIP experience at a recording of his QI TV show, including a rare opportunity to QI the quizmaster himself with their own questions.
Fry said of Prizeo: "When I first heard the idea I thought, why has nobody ever thought of that before? Prizeo is a fresh, innovative and above all inclusive approach to fundraising. I'm a strong believer in using technology for good."
Prizeo is the work of two entrepreneurs who met while studying at Oxford University. Leo Seigal (21) and Bryan Baum (22), have already have been accepted into Silicon Valley's Y Combinator programme to develop Prizeo, following in the footsteps of other digital start-ups such as Dropbox, Reddit and Airbnb.
Seigal said: "Our unique and bespoke prize packages will allow people to not only interact closely with the charities they support, but also for celebrities to connect with their fans in a more meaningful way, allowing them to directly use their star power to help raise money for the causes closest to their hearts."
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.