The document proposes The Compassion Exchange, a global marketplace and electronic commerce site that would optimize the distribution of material and service donations from corporations and individuals to charitable organizations. Donations would be listed on the site, and charities could bid on donations using Compassion Coin, a digital currency created by the nonprofit Compassion Coin Foundation. This would help match donations with the charities best able to utilize them. The goals are to increase efficacy, transparency, and strategic allocation of donations to improve their positive impact.

1. The Compassion Exchange: A Global Solution for Distributing Material and
Service Donations
Joel Finkelstein, MA.
“We live in an age where compassion is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for our species to
survive.“
-H.H. Dalai Lama
The Rise of Material Donations: Opportunities and Obstacles.
In the charitable world, non-cash donations have
predominated the growth of corporate givingsince the end of
the recession, showing year after year increases averaging
greater than 10% since 20081
. These non-cash donations
include “excess inventory, pro bono services, use of company
facilities,intellectual property, land and other asset
donations.” At nearly 15 billiondollars annually, material
donations now constitute the largest source of corporate
donations in the world, dwarfing cash donations, and are likely
to remain predominant in the coming years. The rise of
material donations unquestionably benefits the charitable world,
yet these donations are often non-strategic, with many material
donations arriving to missions and organizations not best suited
to use them.
What is The Compassion Exchange?
What if we could instead invent a system that matches each donation to its best and most impactful
use? The mission of the Compassion Exchange is to solve this problem; to optimize the global
market of goods and service donations by matching each donation to its best purpose and most
exigent need.
The Compassion Exchange is the first compassion based electronic marketplace and the basis of a
new social contract for donation-based philanthropy. In addition to making a traditional cash or
material donations, the Compassion Exchange will enable corporations and private donors to
market their donation to the entire global, charitable community. As an e-commerce site,donors
provide product and inventory information on their donations and member charitable organizations
use the exchange to bid on the materials and services best suitedto their mission. As an example,
an affordable housing project in rural Belize will bid differentlyfor plywood and construction
material than an organization supporting breast cancer research in urban Tokyo. The Compassion
Exchange will empower these charitable organizations to reach for the specific donations they need
across a global menu of goods and services.
Fig 1. Non-cashdonations have
comprisedthe growingmajorityof
corporate donations since 2007.

2. This same feature of the
Compassion Exchange has
another important benefit:
Charitable organizations can
also circulate the material
donations they don’t need in
exchange for the ones that
are best suited to their
missions. They can put these
donations up for bid on the
Compassion Exchange,
provide them to other
charitable causes that need
them more and use the
proceeds to obtain donations
they can better leverage. The
Compassion Exchange thus
caters to the diversity of needs for the charitable world by optimizing the global circulation of
available goods and services (Fig2.).
The Compassion Exchange will also empower donors to interact directly with the needsof the
entire charitable world. Donors will populate the Compassion Exchange with service donations,
offering their expertise in legal-council,accounting time, graphics and web development or other
forms of skilledlabor. They can also offer material goods such as property, facility use, vehicles,
medicines or computer hardware and electronics and put all of these services up for bid on the
exchange. Rating systems on deliveryof goods and services are attached to each provider allowing
for reputation-based evaluations in all transactions.
Compassion Coin, the Currency of the Compassion Exchange.
There is a problem however, with bidding on donations by definition: Donations someone bids
on aren’t donated – They are purchased. To solve this problem, the Compassion Exchange will
use a special form of currency called Compassion Coin, a transparent, digital currency with a central
ledger. Items for bid on the exchange can be purchased exclusivelyby Compassion Coin. the coins
are provided and produced by the Compassion Coin’s not-for-profit organization, the Compassion
Coin Foundation. After a successful bid, coins are recycled back to the charitable causes by the
donors themselves in a closed, positive feedback loop - profit is never made. Compassion Coin
solves the problem of creating and distributing a scarce currency, on the one hand, but closes the
market as a loop on the other, allowing goods and services to circulate without ever making a
profit.
The transparent central ledgerlies at the core of how Compassion Coin works and offers powerful
leverage to the structure and functionality of the Compassion Exchange. The ledger contains all
transactions from the inception of a coin to its end. With this transparent ledger, Compassion Coin
Fig 2. Charitable causes use distributed coins to purchase goods andservices which
private donors provide inthe CompassionMarket. All proceeds from the sales of
these goods cycle backto the causes because sellers distribute these coins backto
the causes theywishto support in a positive feedbackcycle.

3. can exponentiallyimprove the circulation of material goods and services in the charitable world in 4
key ways that would be impossible with a regularly
currency. Compassion Coin will empower a
community distribution system, create
unprecedented transparency for donors, create a
new platform for global philanthropy analytics and
fund the Compassion Coin Foundation:
1. Empower the global community with a
voice and a vote. The community decides
how coins are distributed because the worth
of a charitable cause is best measured by the
support of the community. The distribution
scheme is simple:any time registered users donate cash to any of the curated charities on
the compassion exchange, these donors will automatically receive a proportionate number
of coins (1$:1 Compassion Coin) for their donation. Now, in addition to their cash donation,
donors can distribute a proportional number of compassion coins to the causes and
organization they deem fit. The favor and support of the community thus directly translates
into greater purchasing power for cars, legal work, building material and medical supplies
for charitable causes.
“A lack of transparency results in distrust and
a deep sense of insecurity.”
-H.H. Dalai Lama
2. Establish unprecedented transparency. All
charitable causes must employ a public wallet
in order to receive distributions of
compassion coins and obtain membership to
the compassion exchange. This means that
all of the transactions on the exchange are
perfectly transparent to each donor on the
central ledger. How organizations spend
their coins and what donations they obtain
with them comprise an unbroken and
perfectly disclosed chain of transactions
from start to finish. Users will see how their
coin donations are being employed and gain a personalized summary for each transaction.
Not only does this offer unprecedented transparency for the users, it automatically enables
causes to show their value proposition to donors. Compassion Coin therefore instantiates a
new capability for absolute and crowd-sourced transparency in the world of charitable
causes.
3. Create a global platform for philanthropy analytics. Because so many charitable causes
will populate the Compassion Exchange, the ledger, in combination with Compassion
Exchange, will preserve global information about supply and demand in the philanthropic
Fig 3. The communitydistributionsystem. 1) Donors
provide cashdonations to curated charitable causes.
Coins are automaticallyprovidedto donors bythe
CompassionCoin Foundation inproportionthe
donor’s gift. 3) Donors canthenassigncoins to the
causes theydeem fit

4. world. What items are demanded most by charities, how much do they value these
donations? What kinds of organizations are bidding on which items and how does demand
differbetween regions and organizations? The transparent ledger, can, for first time,
portray this information and display it publicly. Analytics applied on this data could
revolutionize the efficacy of global philanthropy, inform policy and give rise to more
strategic donations.
4. Fund the Compassion Coin Foundation. In exchange for providing compassion coins, the
Compassion Coin foundation will charge small processing fees for processing monetary
donations to its member charitable causes. The use and popularity of the coin will permit
the foundation to hire developers,pay salary and fund events and operation costs. The
success of the coin will perpetuate the success of the foundation without ever having to ask
for additional donations.
Compassion Coin is leveraged by the Compassion Exchange to solve a public goods problem. It uses
digital currency technology to implement a new social contract betweenthe community, donors,
and charitable causes. This contract permits greater transparency, community participation,
analytical tools and fiscal support for Compassion Coin Foundation.
To summarize, The Compassion
Exchange represents a global
marketplace that circulates the flow of
goods and services to charitable causes,
features a new form of charitable
currency, and squarely positions the
community as its own advocate, as the
agent best suited to helpitself. If
successful, this ambitious project
represents a “New Deal” in the world of
goods and service donations, one that
erodes the gaps betweengivers and
receivers, that uses new tools of modern
technology to create transparency and
that recognizes that the responsibilityto repair the world belongs to all of us.
The Compassion Coin Foundation
The Compassion Coin Foundation is a registered not0for-profit organization and the charitable wing
of Compassion Exchange. It is the transparent, governing body for the distribution of coins to
partner charitable organizations and it has 5 specific aims:
 Organize and maintain the Compassion Exchange where not-for-profits can exchange
compassion coins for donated goods and services.
Fig 4. Donors can put materialdonations upfor bidon the
compassionexchange. When the bidding ends, inaddition to
donatingthe item, donors also receive compassioncoins from the
winning bid, whichtheythendistribute charitable causes.

5.  Ensure and monitor the fair distribution of compassion coins in accordance with the will of
the community.
 Create events and Compassion Exchange fundraisers for charities and use the brand to
accomplish good in the world.
 Work with web developersand open source community to advance the future of the
Compassion Exchange.
 Encourage private and corporate donation to the Compassion Exchange.
Launch plan and first milestone.
The official launch of the coin and first major milestone, will be implementedas a hosted, online
fundraiser (by someone of sufficientfame) to directly issue coins to charities in order to begin
placing coins in circulation.
Once the community voting system is tested and launched, the foundation will obtain high-level
donations from corporate sponsors such as laptops, valuable services and property and host an
inaugural launching party for the coin that puts these goods up for auction. The foundation can
entice donors to provide these donations not only by the promise of efficacy, but also through
promoting donor’s brands and reputations with the outcomes of this major event. The foundation
can offer publicity opportunities for corporate donors by tying their brand to the unique success of
their donation on the Compassion Exchange. The not-for-profits can then use compassion coin to
bid on these high-ticket items,creating a strong proof of principle,a major media eventand a
demonstrative test case for the coin.
The “reveal” at the end is that this is not merely a one-time event, it is actually a platform that
demonstrably distributes goods and services repeatedly. In this way, this publicized event serves as
a surreptitious reveal for the actual platform. This will require a fullyfunctional web site, auction
site, coin, wallet as well as curated goods and charitable organizations.
Business planning:
Funding:
The Compassion Coin Foundation will raise initial funding followedby a first round of investment
that will kick start the full compassion exchange platform. Subsequently, the foundation can fund
itself in two key ways: processing fees for transactions on the compassion exchange (which
generates Compassion Coins) and by pioneering the new service of philanthropy analytics.
The foundation will initiallyseek an initial kick starting fund of $40,000 in order to:
1. File the initial provisional US patents to protect the technologies developedwithin
the frame of the compassion coin foundation through a patent attorney.

6. 2. Develop an initial prototype through an extensive network of highlytalented
programmers.
3. Conduct a thorough customer survey that will help to develop a customer oriented
compassion coin platform and to developa sophisticated business plan.
4. Prepare a high end pitch presentation for the project
Following the initial funding, a conference hosted by The Center for Compassion and Altruism
Research and Education at Stanford that will gather potential customers and investors in order to
raise the first round of investment.
The first round goal is to raise $400,000 which will help initiate the full fledge compassion exchange
platform in its first year and will spent as follows:
Personnel costs 330000 $
Marketing costs 50000 $
Travel expenses 20000 $
Total costs 400000 $
Detailed personnel costs are follows:
Personnel Salary
Director 100000 $
Administrative Assistant 50000 $
Lead Developer 90000 $
Software Engineer 90000 $
Personnel involvedin this development of the compassion exchange are depicted in the following
organogram:
Gabriel Lifton-Zoline (Director): responsible for donors’ relations, marketing plans and overseeing
the day to day functioning of the organization. He will have an administrative assistant to helphim
with his tasks.
Mickey Cohen (CTO): responsible for overseeing the development of the compassion exchange
technical architecture and supervising the lead developer and software engineer.
The board of directors for the compassion exchange will consist of: James Doty, Joel Finkelsteinand
Ahmed El Hady. They will contribute, along with the core management and technical team, in making
the compassion exchange become the first and the largest global digital philanthropy network.
Marketing:

7. Marketing for the compassion exchange will be first done through word of mouth with our extensive
network, participation in conferences such as TED, DLD, talks at corporations, professional and
educational institutions. We will also seek publish articles about the compassion exchange in
internationally recognized newspapers and widely read magazines such as New York Times, The
Atlantic, etc… An aggressive marketing strategy should aim to increase our visibilityand to promote
the feasibility of the compassion exchange as the future of philanthropy.
Business development:
As the cost to maintain a corporate social responsibility department and the rise of interest in
philanthropy among the global elite increase, a strong need is emerging for an optimized and
tractable manner to allocate donations. As the compassion exchange grows globally, it’s capacity to
uniquely analyze data streams on the distribution, demand and supply of philanthropic goods will
become its chief principal strength. Combining these data streams with state of the art analytics
algorithms, we will be able to provide large corporations with on shelf solutions to allocate resources
and ultimately take integral part in their social corporate responsibility. The compassion exchange
will open up a new era of digitized corporate social responsibility, one that can penetrate into the
world’s most exigent needs with foresight, transparency and strategic precision.
WhoWe Are
Board of Directors
Mikey Cohen is a senior architectand principal engineer for the Netflix edge platformwhich is
the front door for the Netflix streamingapplication.The edge platformsupports more than ten
billion incomingrequests per day fromover 1,000 devicetypes and supports our over 48 million
customers around the globe. Mikey has been a principal engineeringleader at Netflix for over
9 years designingand leadingengineeringof thecoresystems and cloud infrastructureatNetflix
including the Netflix API and edge services. He is the creator of Zuul, the open source routing
tier that controls the edge of Netflix’s streaming and web services. Among the many key roles
he has played atNetflix arearchitectingand buildingtheNetflix edge serviceplatformand the Netflix API , migrating
and scalingNetflix services from a datacenter model to the Amazon’s AWS, buildingNetflix’s infrastructureout to
multipleAmazon regions with failover from one region to another, and leadingengineering for Netflix’s firstsocial
networking systems. His current areas of interest are in cloud reliability, high scalability, resiliency and dynamic

8. cloud systems. Mikey holds a B.A in Mathematics from UC Santa Cruz. His favoritemovie is Monty Python and the
Holy Grail. When he isn’t working, you might find Mikey playing banjo, in the forest foraging for mushrooms, or
enjoying time with his wife and three daughters.
James R. Doty, MD, is a Clinical Professor in theDepartment of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and the Director
of the Center for Compassion and AltruismResearch and Education as Stanford University School of Medicine. He
is an inventor,entrepreneur and philanthropisthavinggiven supportto a number of charitable
organizations including Children as the Peacemakers, Global Healing and Family & Children
Services. These charities supporta variety of programs throughout the world includingthose
for HIV/AIDS support, blood banks,medical carein third world countries and peace initiatives.
Additionally,hehas endowed chairs at major universitiesincludingStanford University and his
alma mater, Tulane University. He is on the Board of Directors of a number of non-profit
foundations including the University of Southern California Brain and Creativity Institute, the
Friends of New Orleans (FONO) and the Dalai Lama Foundation of which he is Chairman. He is also on the
International Advisory Board of the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Joel Finkelstein, MA, Ph.D. candidate is the founder of Compassion Coin and acting co-
director of the Compassion Coin Foundation. He is a neuroscientist, a graduate student at
Princeton University and founding fellow at the Center for Compassion (CCARE) at Stanford
University where his research focused on the neural underpinnings of compassion and social
behavior. Joel is a graduate fellow at the National ScienceFoundation, an entrepreneur and
musician and has interestthat span from mycology to machine learning. Formerly at Google,
he has headed charitable and philanthropic events, established meditation courses and also
organized and spoken at international conferences on the psychology and neuroscience of compassion.
Gabriel Lifton-Zoline is the acting co-director of the Compassion Coin Foundation, a political
organizer and author. He helped to craftBarack Obama's 2012 victory in Colorado and was the
National Field Director and Senior Advisor for the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee in 2014 where he devised a plan that saw the largest grassroots team in
congressional election history assembled.Gabriel wasalso appointed as director for theNational
Day of Serviceby the Obama administration,oneof the largest,nation-widecommunity service
initiativein thecountry.Gabriel is a skilled organizer,strategic planner,and has worked on new, more efficientways
to engage voters in the political process ata national scale.His writingfocuses on educating a wider public on the
pitfalls and failings of political campaigns and works to advance ideas for reform.
Affiliations and Sponsors

9. 1 CECP, in associationwith The Conference Board. Giving in Numbers:2014 Edition.
Compassion coin is an affiliated project
of the Center for Compassion and
Altruism,Research and Education at
Stanford University.