How It Works

Providing a Social Safety Net to the “Missing Middle”

  1. We partner with Lebanon-based NGO Al Majmoua to source and vet needy families, onboard them on this service, follow up with them and report on their use of funds to prevent misuse or abuse

  2. Donors select whom they want to support and make recurring monthly payments by credit card via Paypal for 6 months

  3. Donations can be made in USD or Euros. Payments are delivered in USD bills to the candidate families using a qualified system to guarantee the delivery of the funds from the origination card all the way to the distribution of USD bills, securely and at the lowest overall cost. See Payment Flow below

  4. Donors will receive program updates and an impact report

  5. We have researched extensively the most efficient ways to create a money flow from the US to Lebanon (Donors-Families) based on key success factors such as lowest cost, most expedient, most scalable, and not requiring the setup of special tax vehicles in the US

  6. We believe the current model for this pilot meets these critical success factors, however we will be monitoring several analytics during the 6-months pilot to improve the system in preparation for a large program in terms of number donors and families

  7. As of this pilot, the cost of the model above is 15% of the donated amount, point to point, see the breakdown below

Total Cost: 15%

We will use the pilot to test and refine these estimates, vet financial processors, and measure the effort needed to operate the service in production at scale.

We will constantly endeavor to bring these costs down.

As a result, and during this pilot, donors will be charged US$230/month for families to receive $200/month.

Cost Breakdown

Payment Flow

Comparables

Western Union charges 13.5% for sending US$200 to Lebanon using a credit card (see their pricing calculator), and at least US$10 for withdrawing the USD bills, totaling 18.5%. Note that this is a singular transaction that does not include any vetting.

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