This past spring we wrote about ECHOage, a Canadian venture dedicated to doing away with wasteful kids' birthday parties and focusing them instead on giving one gift and supporting one cause. Now DreamBank—also out of Canada—is bringing a similar concept to the grown-up world.
DreamBank aims to help people 18 and over fund their dreams by posting them online and inviting friends and family to contribute toward their realization. Posting a dream is free, and dreams must simply be valued anywhere between CDN 20 and CDN 20,000—examples currently on the site range from paying off student loans to attending the 2010 Olympics. Donating toward a dream is an eco-friendly alternative to traditional gifts, the site says, noting the many unwanted items that typically get exchanged each year, or are never used. It also helps a charitable cause. When they post a dream, users of the site are asked to choose a charity they'd like to support, with options including CARE, Doctors without Borders, the African Wildlife Foundation and Kiva. DreamBank deducts CDN 2.25 in fees from loved ones' contributions, and until the dream is realized, the rest gets pooled into one big fund, the interest on which is donated to the charity the user selected.
Users of the site can connect and exchange ideas with other "dreamers," and they can also withdraw their donated cash at any time, closing out their dream. DreamBank, meanwhile, deducts 2.5 percent of their total funds when they cash it out. Launched earlier this month, DreamBank already has more than 30 dreams posted on the site. Financial partners working behind the scenes are PayPal and HSBC.
Is this the gift-giving model for a new breed of consumers? With its focus on one big experience over many small possessions (most of the listed dreams are for experiences), DreamBank should definitely strike a chord with transumers.
Website: www.dreambank.org
Contact: feedback@dreambank.org
Spotted by: Lindsay McDonald
Thanks for the great write-up! We're proud that DreamBank has finally stepped into the light. And thanks for teaching me a new word: 'transumers'.
It's a bit sneaky taking 2.5% on deposits and withdrawals isn't it? Surely just on the end withdrawal is enough. That way people don't feel so 'angry' when contributing to someones dream.
Olympics are on 2014 :)
Hi Dave, Thanks for your comments and the chance to clarify on our fees.
We spread the fees over the Contributors and the Dreamers. Both get something by using DreamBank. Contributor has an easy way to give a wanted gift from anywhere in the world( if they are online). At $2.25 flat fee for contributions, we lose money on some transaction and we make a tiny amount on some.
Dreamer get something special and a way to post and receive collaborative contributions, advice, etc. At 2.5% we have to cover off a lot of different angles, people contributing from overseas, etc( which is more expensive). Also,the plain truth is that building a robust technology platform like DreamBank and secure payment processing are both very expensive. By spreading the fees out the idea is that we make the whole service safe and affordable for both parties. We've negotiated some better than retail rates for our Dreamers and Contributors.
We try to be very transparent about the costs and let you decide. Sneaky is a word that would be hard pressed to describes us:-) We list our fees everywhere on the site. Here's the link to our fees section. http://dreambank.org/about_us.php?page=13.
I hope that explains our fee structure a bit and puts it in perspective.
Thanks for reading!
You sound like you've thought it through, but the simple fact is that these fees appear prohibitive to making a small contribution - a "sampler" to see how it all works - and so I'm certain your site traffic levels vs. actual signups will demonstrate this for you quite clearly (I predict lots vs. virtually zero).
Justifying a business's product cost by it being expensive to set up sounds a little naive to me. You chose the payment system, why not choose one that better handles micropayments? Aeroplanes aren't cheap, but an airline wouldn't ask their customers to pay extra few million because they just bought a new one last week.
The thing you need most is a large number of users to have any hope of making DreamBank work, and you will not get those if you appear to be ripping people off (which, despite your words, is how it appears).
I feel I should refer you to the original dot com boom and wish you better luck setting up any future ventures!
Hi Steve, Well I'm way overdue responding. I know the 24 hour rule. It's a bit hectic around here and I've also heard the "better late than never" one so here I am regardless.
Thanks for your concern about our business. I think I have a slightly different view of value and cost. Using your airlines analogy, when I'm flying, I prefer to fly with larger carriers that have statistically fewer accidents and are known to be mechanically sound. I actually do pay more for that and I'm pretty sure others do too, or we would only have ‘charters" to choose from. I'm not knocking the charter business at all but clearly if people made choices only on price, all airlines would be charters. Like airlines, there are different levels of payment processing services and some are more expensive than others. PayPal is not perfect by any means but they are the Cathay Pacific of payment processing if you like. They are a bit stodgy and traditional (and bureaucratic), but they are sound in their processes.
That said, payment processing is just one part of what we provide at DreamBank. It’s very early days but we are really pleased with how much traffic we are getting and how quickly the site is growing with Dreamers from all over the world. Judging by the good growth we are experiencing in both dreamers and dreams, it seems that some people do feel the combination of services they receive on DreamBank is worth the cost.
Comments always welcome!
Dawn
Reading the posts it interesting to pick up on the cost 'in' cost 'out' being linked to payment processors. I would like to know if this is the case or if the business model is based on these fees? I have developed a patented operational digital currency that allows users to swap funds (including micro payments) with no fees. I'd be interested to JV with anyone looking to do a similar Dream Bank venture in the UK as I love the social interaction aspect of this idea.
But as Dream Bank have stated this infrastructure is not cheap (I've spent over GBP£1.5M!) and one has to generate a ROI with the uptake forecast of the model.
JH
Jay thanks for your comments. I would love to chat with you about what you are up to with respect to electronic currency. Can you pop a note to me at feedback@dreambank.org? It will get to me. Thx. Dawn