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Freedom in Five Minutes


Aug 22, 2019

How to avoid losing reliable supporters and donors? Is it possible to fundraise without fatigue?

Join Huy Tran, Founder of Megadeeds (https://www.megadeeds.com/), as he cuts through the challenges of raising non-profit funds and the solution that will help make it easier for donors to keep on giving naturally.

If your non-profit organization is running out of creative ideas to keep your donors coming back or you're a donor who's just about ready to stop supporting a charity because of donor fatigue, then you wouldn't want to miss this episode!

Link to the Megadeeds app on the Apple App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/megadeeds/id1382326748

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Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto, founder of freedom in five minutes.com. And we're here again with another freedom in five minutes. Episode. Today's topic is this raising non profit funds, the easy way, that and more coming up. Alright, cool. So today's topics actually be really, really cool. I have an awesome guest. We haven't really talked too much about nonprofits at all, but it's something that is is I've been dying to do, because there's so many things when it comes to nonprofits, that man it that in order to build a scalable, non nonprofit, you really have to have some things together. And one of those things is being able to get donations, right. But what happens when you're constantly constantly asking for money or for donations are things like that, you the, eventually your donors are going to start dropping off, right? And they're going to be like, dude, stop asking me for money. So all that being said, there's so I am here with Cui Tran, who has developed a really cool unique way of making it so that does not happen. So we How's it going, my man?

Huy Tran 1:29
It's all good in then follow EW at us on the show. Very cool show. And I'm so happy to have can talk to you today about mega hit.

Dean Soto 1:38
Yeah, no, I love it man. So you, you are one of the founders of mega mega deeds or you are the founder of mega deeds and like so So first and foremost, what is mega deeds and why did you create in the first place?

Huy Tran 1:55
Oh, we make a nice is actually is we call us a marketplace? fundraising like you say earlier fundraising in the same hotel as probably heard year. You know, people thought campaign. And they just keep sending out emails and phone calls over and over. Please donate. Donate, please donate. I think at some point oh, no. Yeah, pretty high of it. Yeah. And we saw make a nice calm our experience is that we undertook we also participate in a lot of charity donation. And, you know, we kind of get high with just here in the same thing over and over. At the same time we hear from our previous and I'll finish Ebola, you know, what, if you have something perhaps you can sell them and figure out how to sell to the otter and give the proceeds to the charity or to the cause? Yeah. So we look at it as an hour. It's not that easy. Because if you need to do the three way facts and the I sell to you, but why do you pay the body and I know that you rz and we look at it and we live but you know as technical as is doable. Even that I used to run engineer DirecTV. One DirecTV so to at&t, I look around our stuff on our farm, you know, people on Facebook, Google Amazon, but like, Hey, you know what, I have some extra cash from the payout on the Mojo. Why don't I pursue our dream. So we spent the last year and a half to be without it wiki. Exactly how we want it to be it's a it's a marketplace where, you know, anyone who wants to help a charity off Bob and raisin can do it. And people can eat body. People can sell service, and use the proceeds to donate either 50% 25% of us are generous, and hundred percent to any charity or any cause of that choice. The family can I love it. No,

Dean Soto 3:55
it's great. It's funny, it's funny that you mentioned, like, even the church thing. So so I'm Catholic, and, you know, I just remember like, I mean, I still I we still get it, it's I live in the country, so we don't get it as much anymore. But when I was in Orange County, like oh my gosh, I get literally every every mass, it was like, hey, donate to the past memorial service appeal, pastoral service appeal test or a silver spiel. And it was like, dude, stop asking so much. Like, that's all you're doing. And but if, but if there was like, if there was like, if there was something where they were giving where you can, you can actually get a good service, like maybe like maybe a speaker or something, somebody to come or something like that you paid and then some of those proceeds went to the church, then it's a different story. Because you because because you're getting value from it. And that's, that's very amazing.

Huy Tran 4:56
You know, it's funny that you mentioned because our churches few years ago, we have some you know, we got we got some short and sweet on the say, you know what, if you have something that you can sell, who wanted to order and use the proceeds to give it to us, it'd be great. He used to collect item. And you know, price and sell but it turned the church into a garage sale. And unfortunately, people property is all sort of junk, as they thought is valuable. So with this, we call it you sell something, it has to be compelling because else nobody's going to buy it. Yeah. So you can no longer sell your very own computer monitor. The whole TV and thing is what I'm about to go, you know, you cannot bring it to church and say does this thing work to $1 but he can sell it and if you sell a computer monitor on a US iPhone, right? Yeah, with a compelling value. Some people will buy from you. And if you just want to donate half, at least you can keep the other half. Yeah, you donate all send the moment people pay, it goes to the church. So so lot of power where people overvalue thing they give you know how everyone just do it through the pasties on right. Hey, old TV what I have $500 Yep. My old Paul with $1,000 now No, you have to be realistic. Yes. Great, really good marketplace for people to get.

Dean Soto 6:18
Yeah, no, you're totally right. Yeah. It's great. Because and then like, because so it's an iPhone app.

And

they, it's you you have to put something on there that it's not like you can go it's not like a Craigslist, either. It's not like where you you know, it's like I'm gonna just put up like you said, like this computer monitor. And it's and it's good. It's like it literally has to be a valuable goods or service

in order

when you put that up there and so, like, so, like, how has it been? Like, like, what I'm like what successes have you seen so far with the app when it comes to fundraising?

Huy Tran 7:01
Right so so let's look at your first question first. Why is it unlike playlist we all know Craigslist is popular but it's why is I have this new land for scammer Yeah, totally you for go lyst like gab and people offer to pay you with my you know, personal jack Cassie check a lot of them turned out to be fake it you know, we address that. So same way anybody address you know, by Felton faction First of all, we actually use PayPal so you cannot even like fake the check or you know the money. That's the check. Yeah,

it's exactly the same but

the only difference is that you know, it's not a body just your cells are now the sound against the Wi Fi. Where's the body? Gotta go. Yeah, well, we talked about with eBay. We use eBay benefaction with very secure people don't have to worry about the bank account or anything because they're gonna pay him with a PayPal account. Yeah, the second also they decide to collect money they had to have PayPal. We also provide a rating system to middle of the evening so you know, if you decide to scam people call it you can do it on one, but Eva gonna charge back you anyway. Yep. So that is a YZT that are out and do have all the requirements on PayPal, but we didn't. That's probably the hottest. The whole tape out on out a Brita. Yeah. So you know, you Holly go on the app or website Elijah there's not not fundraising an app on our apples really hot. We go Apple have like, really strictly five. Oh, yeah. Mommy at a fundraiser nap. And, you know, after six months, we finally got approved by Apple. We've been using it popped up all in. I'm all out of all the local school district and I'm all out band. Yeah. And we're excited. It absolutely went away. We had visa when we thought I gave an example. We we tied it to a hospital in Vietnam. Yeah. And you know, it's pretty hot acne, global hard auto, auto nation? Yeah. Well, yeah. A lot of email support. A lot of them have access, access to fashion. Yeah. And, you know, some people want to gather while they eat on a lot of other seaboard and never use. And we raised the model so quickly, because I don't want to tell anybody, I lose our all you know, the call, but I mean it. Yeah. And we reach our goal way the ball out. paga. And obviously, you know, when you feel impossible, but we know we all have a limit on how much we can do with that. Yep. So we got people donate people.

On board, we got a lot. me like,

nearly impossible. Yeah.

Dean Soto 10:06
For sure. For sure. Like that's that, like they like any especially in a church church setting. I mean, people just don't have cash anymore. Just and just in general. Right. You know, and so So to do that, like, like, that's, that's pretty unheard of, you know?

Huy Tran 10:22
Yeah. You know, what we found interesting, when we asked for people out on the call, a lot of people have you call? And you know, you cannot copy church. Right? They won't take it. Yeah. If you have $1, you got back by you can do it? By dollar. Yep. Right? Why it gotta get a PT?

Dean Soto 10:53
Go straight to the church. That's Yeah, see, and that that's awesome. Like, like you said, like, with a used car, if someone, someone buys like a, so the church doesn't want to, you know, have the have, or any organization really doesn't want to have like a used car sitting in their in their parking lot, all shabby, and you sell that thing for 500 bucks. And then it goes, you know, whatever percentage goes to the church, like, they didn't, they didn't have to do anything. Like they know, no inventory, know what, and whatever. They're just reaping the benefits of it in, like, I can see how organizations could, I could see how organizations could even like, they can promote and say, say, you know, hey, we're doing a used car drive or whatever, if you have a used car, just posted here on mega deeds, posted on mega deeds for our church, any used car that you want to get rid of just posted there, and we get the proceeds. And they literally don't have to do anything other than that.

Huy Tran 11:57
All right. And we can walk, we would walk in with a cool little shake off. And right now we walk in with a School District of New York. Where my kids are. Yep. And you know, right. onto the Pamela the PTA off new school.

By the PDA school year.

PDA.

Bye bye, cookie. Woke up. The school doesn't want to the dog. Yeah, but parent and suppose

you, you buy you buy gold.

And those go straight into the PDA do the school. Wow.

Dean Soto 12:51
That's cool. See? That's awesome. Man. I love this. I love this like so. So what are what are some of the things that people I know there's a lot that they can do. Like what are some some of the things that you've seen that have been the most successful? Like has it been services? Or is it more more product type stuff? Like what what do you what do you kind of see?

Huy Tran 13:19
We wanted?

So we designed the app. And you know, at first we thought Oh, this is so cool. feature. And we launched it and guess what? Nobody can

you know, you look at Asia. People. And

yeah, we actually had to go back and how do we make it? So? How do we make it so easy for people? Now, you know, a mega

nowaday, you know, nobody read the manual.

Manual. Yeah.

Yeah. And actually, that's us.

And we

all got it now. So that's number one. Number 2017. Paul, The Guardian, and you follow that law? and Alabama, you know, holy, we had a daughter. And, you know, that's why Apple very strict on that. But how do you? How do you know that? You know, I'm being corny. Yeah. So we had

and while we you with that, that,

you know, graduate?

And you know, the fact you need

to make it easy.

Right? And I'm a three you actually have to fall by. had to

decide that?

Dean Soto 15:27
grand?

Huy Tran 15:30
earlier?

Dean Soto 15:35
Yep. Yep. No, you're right. Like, because literally, they anybody nowadays, because they attend, especially because the attention span is so short. If you don't have good user interface, if you don't have a good user experience, you're done. And so, so like, how long actually how long did it take you to? Like, so you built the first the first version, love it? And then it then people were like, I don't know how to use this. How long did it actually take you to do the second version? Like how long has this been actually going on? Totally.

Huy Tran 16:39
And, you know,

we, and we will die? We have

you know, the user

right after we get off the year.

E boy getting back to them. So we've had on with apple? And we

how do we go? Boy? Wow. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Dean Soto 17:43
Get out. Which is great, though. Like, it's, that's that is still pretty fast. But yeah, but yeah, the that's the great thing about that. I mean, it It sucks without with having to do that with Apple, but you know that the quality is going to be there, you know, that the safeguards are going to be there, which is a huge, huge plus. For for the for the app, and like you said, there's not a lot of apps out there that are able to do what you're doing right now.

Huy Tran 18:09
I think we all only wanna

we are the only ones that are.

Dean Soto 18:21
See. That's where it's, it's definitely a lot harder. And, but that's where, like, the difference is, to me, such a such a big thing. And it allows because because with with the marketplace that you are, it's not the same as just donating, like a like a Kickstarter thing, or a GoFundMe or whatever it is, right? You are adding some kind of value. But then you like you said, you also have to be able to there's going to be people who put who want to put something up there that is that's not actually true. Like so like you mentioned, like the gift card, like if someone puts a $50 gift card, and it's actually not worth, it's actually doesn't have the $50 on it. You have to have safeguards for that, and so on, you know, so so that's, that's a that's a pretty, pretty tough thing to go to go buy like. So you said you, but you sounds like you have an engineering background that I probably made it easier. The like, what were like what was what was like, did you have one instance where it was like a, you had like a really major thing happened where you're like, I'm not even sure if this is gonna work out.

Huy Tran 19:43
You know, I hated it.

I go back, you know, 1990 a.

Okay, yeah. And,

and

in 2008

Wow.

So we will

add

an ad.

You know, do I muted?

Dean Soto 21:04
Exactly.

Huy Tran 21:06
You know, what do you have? You had?

Right?

You didn't know?

Dean Soto 21:26
Yeah. Yeah, seriously? Like, three months? Three months? That's a long time.

Huy Tran 21:34
Yeah.

Dean Soto 21:44
Yeah. Wow, that's crazy. I love that. So I always ask this, this question. It's up. It's what I call the five minute mindset shift question, the five minutes like strategy. Question. Like, what's something that like that where you like it? It you, you you made a decision to do something? That if that, that once you did, it completely transformed? Everything you did in your business? Like massively like, where were it? It changed, it changed the game for you or for your team or for your customers?

Huy Tran 22:27
Right, so

we have our own challenge. You know? Yep. Yep. To

off.

Yeah. So

yeah. So we,

Holly, Holly, Holly.

Yeah. And, and we don't want

to school and just follow them.

All

right.

All right now.

And if all

you do that, you know, you have to believe it.

You can't believe you and

your family.

You can do that. But as you bad.

Dean Soto 25:16
I love that. I love that, like the making money right away. I

love that. I love that. No, I love that. It's great. Because it it it. The I love that. I don't know I I'm a big fan of 37. Six knows the guys who wrote base camp. And that's what they always say is that like, you, you don't want to you want to be you want to know how you're making money up front and not be that startup that's like, like, well, we're just gonna get a lot of users, we're gonna get millions of users, and then we'll figure it out. Like, no, you want to know that you said you want to know how you're going to make money or, like you're making money right off the bat, because that is what is going to help build it out and grow what you're doing. Otherwise, it's going to just you're just wasting, especially if you're going for venture venture capital or something like that, and wasting people's money. And eventually, you know, it could potentially crash if you're just hoping to get bought out by by Google or bought out by some big company. You know, that only that that only happens very, very rarely. So it's, it's a great idea to just focus first on like, on how how, how is this going? How's it going to grow? By bringing in revenue?

Huy Tran 27:05
Yeah, right.

I know, we never want

more

money. Yep.

Dean Soto 27:33
Yep. I love that. So how can people how can people reach you? How can people get your mega deeds app and so on and start start selling things for their charities?

Huy Tran 27:48
Right. So you know,

that

maybe? No,

Dean Soto 28:11
that's great.

Huy Tran 28:11
Bye.

And as a big love it.

So

Dean Soto 29:05
Wow. Yeah, that's really cool. So So someone jumps on and starts starts doing something for their church or organization or anything. You have a matching like actual matching program.

Huy Tran 29:21
Right now?

Yeah. Yeah.

We go, can you go

out and do that?

On a minute. That's

Dean Soto 30:26
cool. I love it. Man. This is great. This is great stuff.

Huy Tran 30:38
We didn't want to go Yep. And then we're gonna be living.

Dean Soto 30:43
I love it. That's cool, man. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. And for, for sharing this. I already know and I I mentioned to you before the show, I already know some people that I want to introduce you to because I know they do. They do fundraising. And they they also have a lot of connections with fundraising in general. So I'll be email. I'll be introducing you to them. But man, I just appreciate you being on the phone on the on the show is real pleasure having you on man.

Huy Tran 31:13
Thank you.

Dean Soto 31:19
Awesome, that sounds good. Cool. Thanks for being on the show. And guys, if you want to check it out mega deeds, go on the Apple Apple App Store and get mega deeds and start supporting your organizations that you that you want to support. I mean, what better way than to you know, just get started, get it on, get on get on there and start doing putting something of value on there that you can actually utilize to just start donating to your church to your organizations, your schools, things like that really, really cool. Really, really cool app. Also good. Go check out mega deeds calm. And yeah, it's you can tell this just this is something that I I truly believe is going to revolutionize how people raise funds. Because I know I don't like when I'm just getting asked all the time for money when I when I know that I'm able to get something of value, and it's going to a charity. That's pretty dang cool. And I know also on my end, I like being able to give value, whether it be a service or selling something and know that it's going to a good cause. So go check out mega deeds on Apple App Store, go to good mega deeds calm and get started with the app. But for now, we are done with this episode of the freedom in five minutes podcast and we will check you out in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.