incubator ideas We set aside a little money every month to help fund new projects that are brought to us through the community. If you have an idea you’re currently trying to get out the door, or need help in amplifying it, let us know and we’ll consider partnering up for a test run or two!

We think of this whole site pretty much as our “incubator of good”, and we want to make the RCF as beneficial as it can be for everyone.

Submit a project idea | Support the project :)

Total Projects Funded So Far: three

Current Projects We’re Testing:

PROJECT: “The School of Rock Your Money: Mo’ Money, No Problems”
ABOUT: A financial workshop for youth
COST: $63, with RCF funding 50%

Blogger Primal Prosperity had been thinking about putting together an introductory workshop to help kids develop a positive and healthy relationship with money. After talking with us about RCF’s Incubator of Good project, she decided to move forward with her class, and we funded 50% of the first one (and also helped her come up with a mechanism to build some giveback ideas for the kids into the class itself). Check out the brief highlights below to see how it went, and make sure to head over to her blog post for the full details :)

From: Primal Prosperity
Forum Post: Success! First Personal Finance Workshop for Youths Was Held!
Blog Post: What Should We Teach Kids About Money?

People over profit. No exceptions. Lastly, we talked about giving back and how fulfilling it can be. Most people will be more successful if they have a greater purpose than just making more money. Love, community and social connection is as much of a human need as food, water and shelter. Money won’t hug you when you need it. Money is to be respected, people are to be loved. They are given an activity to come up with business ideas for making money, while making meaning.

In closing, the homework is to:

Create a list of short term and long term goals and to review and revise often.
Report back on how they gave back their $10 to a good cause and how it made them feel.

The first workshop went off amazing. It is hard to impress teenagers, but by the end, the kids were completely motivated and inspired and they said that they would definitely recommend this workshop to their friends.

They wrote thank you letters to Nate and Jay at the RCF (see pictures above) and they also said:

Activities were fun.
They learned concepts that haven’t been taught to them.
Time went by fast.
Their generation needs this.

Graduated Projects:

When someone comes to us with a great project idea for social good, we test it out with them for a month or two by partially funding it and/or helping with creative and executional direction. If it goes well and we see high potential in the idea, we then bring the project into the family and make it an “official” RCF project, with dedicated support each month and the ability for our community to help fund it. And the person whose idea it was continues to be the project lead, of course :)

Here are the projects that have “graduated” from testing status to official status:

PROJECT: The #GivingCards Project
ABOUT: We give you gift cards to create unexpected joy in your world
PARTICIPATE: https://communityfund.lovedrop.us/giving-cards/

PROJECT: #DebtDrop
ABOUT: Providing a little help and a lot of hope to those struggling with debt
PARTICIPATE: https://communityfund.lovedrop.us/debt-drop/

About Our Philanthropy Experience:

The RCF is run by J. Money and Nate St. Pierre. They love merging the two worlds of finance and giving back, and they have the most fun doing it when their online projects create positive change offline. Here’s a little more about them:

Nate was one of the first micro-giving pioneers online, and he’s been doing this kind of work since 2009. Community projects include:

ItStartsWith.Us (10,000 members giving time)
Love Bomb (5,000 members giving support)
Love Drop – with J. Money (1,000 members giving money)
GiveForward ($100,000,000 raised for medical need – as Director of Communications)

Jay has been creating communities of his own around the web since 2008, most notably in the personal finance world:

Budgets Are Sexy (15,000,000 people learning about and discussing money)
Rockstar Finance (3,000,000 people learning about money, and now *engaging* with others in our forums and philanthropy project!)
Love Drop – (The last time Jay and Nate paired up, raising over $90,000 in 12 months helping families across the country)