WeCare is a crowd-sourcing platform that aims to increase transparency and participation in charity projects. It allows users to start projects, donate goods or money, and volunteer. Goods donations use "WeStamps" that track items and allow thank you cards. Money donations specify causes through "WeCoins." Volunteers use "WeInvolve" to review projects. The platform seeks to address lack of transparency in traditional charities by providing detailed project information and tracking donations through mobile interactions like scanning codes. A user study found transparency and seeing impact motivates continued participation in charity.

1. WeCare: Crowd-sourcing Platform for
Charity Projects
Abstract
Donating goods, money, and participating in
volunteering works are vital around the world. However,
our user study shows that participates lose passion due
to the lack of transparency and lack of information on
the impact of their contribution. We introduce WeCare,
a crowd-sourcing platform for charity projects that
empower the crowd from existing social networks to
participate in real actions. Each project consists
resources such as goods, money, and voluntary works.
For goods, WeStamp is a novel way to allow the crowd
benefits from its tracking and extra caring information.
Also, the receiver can use the real stamp inside to send
thank-you card back. For money, WeCoin allows the
crowd to donate to specific cause. For voluntary work,
WeInvolve is an instant way for the crowd to become
volunteers and send geo-tagged reviews. WeCare also
gives the crowd a novel notification of bumping into
various caring projects nearby. This allows the crowd to
walk by projects or even participate in them.
Keywords
Crowd sourcing, charity, digital volunteerism,
collaboration, design, incentive, mobile, social network,
location-based service,
ACM Classification keywords
H.5.2. User Interfaces: User-centered design. H.5.3
Groups & Organization Interfaces—collaborative
computing, computer-supported cooperative work.
H.3.5 Online Information Services: Web-based services
Introduction
Donations of goods and money, and volunteers from
charities are most common and easiest way to help
each other. However, the use of the resources remains
unknown. For goods supplies, they are needed in
various areas (e.g. books for the poor). With the
traditional charities approach, goods are often too over
estimated which later on become trash causing
resource waste. The donors wouldn’t know if the goods
are helpful or get miss used.
In monetary donations, 67 percent of donors plan to
eliminate or reduce support to nonprofits that over-
solicit [1] and over 70% of the first year donors
wouldn’t retain the donation the following year [2],
which means participates have lost their motivation
throughout charity work. Obviously, the donors face a
tremendous drawback after donations. In voluntary
work, it’s difficult to find people with certain skills when
the help is needed. Also, volunteers couldn’t easily
support time and skills. These both sides have a strong
need to link to each other. However, the traditional
charities haven’t provided a platform to connect them.
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI’13, April 27 – May 2, 2013, Paris, France.
ACM 978-1-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/XX.
Yu-Hsiang, Andy, Tseng
National Taiwan University
Mechanical Engineering
b01502075@ntu.edu.tw
Yi Tsung Lee
National Taiwan University
Mechanical Engineering
b01502100@ntu.edu.tw
Yi Yu Wang
National Taiwan University of
Science and Technology.
Industrial design
yiyu510@gmail.com
Figure 1. a) Action starters
start a project. b) Supporters
join the project. c) Stick
WeStamp on the goods to have
a better transparency. Or use
WeCoin for transparent
donations d) Goods and money
get to the care-receiver. If the
project is in progress,
WeInvolve notifies the
supporters and nearby crowd,
and checks the location for
them to update their real
reviews.

2. In all, without a clear transparency, detailed
information and well communications of charity projects,
the crowd doubts the resources can be used properly
and build contributions. Also, the coverage of the
traditional helping system is classified and limited by
traditional charities. However, the helpless ones out of
the coverage remain helpless. This means the
traditional system can’t fundamentally solved the
problem.
Trying to solve the following problems and encourage
the crowd’s motivation is a great challenge. After
researching the previous studies, we adapt these
theories into our design and bring it to our platform. In
1979, with the prospect theory [7], it remarkably
predicts that a clear and transparent charity project can
trigger supporters’ motivation. Also, a study shows
peer-pressure can motivate the willingness of helping
and the “crowd effect” is remarkably strengthened in
helping others and charity work. [8]
From existing crowd, there are over one billion users on
Facebook [5]. In fact, the crowd depends on these
social network systems to share and get information
including news, social issues, and events. They update
status to obtain others’ attention about their
perspectives or the issues they motivated. With wide
population, these social behaviors, and the “crowd
effect” in charity work, we decide to start with
Facebook.
As a result, using these methods, we create WeCare
providing users more transparency and detail
information, which allows each user to easily participate
and build out projects, regardless of its scale, huge or
small, to help the ones ignored by the charities. Inside
projects, we empower the crowd to donate goods and
money, and also volunteer. Donating goods, WeStamp
allows the crowd to track down every item with extra
caring information included. WeStamp also contains a
real stamp, which the receivers can send real thank-
you card back to the supporters. Donating money,
WeCoin allows the crowd to specify their donation. To
volunteer, WeInvolve enables the crowd to volunteer
instantly and send localized reviews bringing out a huge
transparency. Using WeCare with mobile and location
information, it is beneficial to make the crowd
participates charity project with novel interactions and
strengthen their motivation with the help of
collaboration.
Related work: Kickstarter and Ushahidi
In crowd founding, Kickstarter, a website for startup
social funding, allows entrepreneurs to start projects
and collect fund from individuals. A transparent project
with clear identity, meaningful proposes, and detailed
information is often funded the most. We leverage this
technique and adapt it to charity. In charity, not only
funding but also goods and volunteers are needed. Also,
to bring more transparency, we need different tracking
systems. Specifying Kickstar’s method to charity, we
empower the crowd the ability to start care projects,
support them, receive help and send back feedback,
and participate whenever they’re nearby.
Ushahidi is a crowd-sourcing mobile information
network. From Following the crowd, “over the last few
years, Ushahidi has been used by organizations to
monitor local elections in India, map incidences of
violence in Pakistan, and track medicine shortages in
the Philippines.”[9] Ushahidi is used both effective and
wide range. Adapting the idea of mobile application and
location-based interaction, we enable the crowd to
check our platform by scanning the code in delivering
the goods and volunteer events. This brings the
platform a wide range of transparency, and sense of
discovery.
User Study
We investigated the essential reasons of the lack of
continual participation of the crowd. After interviewing
several experiential donors, we realize more of their

3. viewpoints on charity subjects. To questionnaires, we
have designed a survey about social issue participation
and donation for the crowd to answer. The survey
includes the question to know the reason why the
crowd wouldn’t support the organizations they used to
participate in, and the question to know how the crowd
thinks about the current system of charity
organizations that lead them not to support them. 70
participants answered the survey. Most of them aged
from 18~30, and 60 of them have the experience of
charity participation or been a donor. After analyzing
the interviews from these participates, we have found
two major factors that matter.
• The crowd is not sure whether the current charity
organizations work as they expected. When they are
asked about whether they know how their donations
are used, most of them don’t realize what happens
to their donation. “After donating, I still don’t know
if the charity use the money for helping Haiti or
not,” from participate A.
• The crowd doesn’t think these charity organizations
can really help many people in need since they
really don’t know how their support are distributed
and used.
The results have indicated that the lack of transparency
of real use of donation has caused the low rate of
continuous participation and even caused the crowd not
willing to join these activities. Without realizing the
effect and the benefit of their donation, it is reasonable
to find out that the crowd eliminates their motivation
and participation in charity.
Also based on the survey, we have found out some key
factors, which motivate the crowd to help each other.
• Many participants have agreed that even just a card
from the ones they helped or a picture of recovery
because of their donation really make them happy
and would gain a sense of self-achievement and
increase their motivation. Participants noted “the
thank-you card really made my day.”
• Most participants also agreed that they are easily
affected by the crowd around. If the crowd around
them also takes part in some charity projects, they
are more willing to join them.
• If charity projects can show more transparency and
detail information, including more of their
contribution, more measureable results, and do
better management practices, they would like to
involve more in charity work. For example,
participate A said “It would be better if I can see my
project really helps.” ”If I know more about what
the charity is actually doing, I think I’ll participate
more,” from participant C.
Proposed Solution
Our proposed solution is WeCare, a mobile caring
project platform designed for all kinds of charity work.
To bring out more transparency, we decided to give the
crowd incentive feedback by creating new interactions
in both reality and the mobile app. Also, we use a
persuasive technique [4] and mobile interaction to
trigger the users’ sense of participation. To ensure real
projects progressing in real location, we bonded the
platform with mobile devices.
Design Goals
Our main focus is on reinventing the perspective of
charity projects to let the crowd understand how their
help influences the world. We enhance the trust of
charity groups by giving each project a complete
transparency. We adopt the strategy of social
networking to trigger the crowd’s motivation of giving
help. Also, we tried to change the traditional single-way
support and build a strong connection between the
supporters and the receivers. A secondary goal is to
ensure the projects are real validated by the crowd.
Here we enlisted the detail approaches:
Figure 3. First prototype
a) By hitting the plus, action
starters can simply start a
project. b) By hitting the search
bar, the crowd can easily search
projects, locations, and
previous projects of users c) By
hitting the menu, the crowd can
find projects in a detailed and
categorized way d) By hitting
the star, the crowd can easily
follow the project, and easily
see the resources needed inside
the project.

4. • We care about all human beings. Our solution must
be simple enough to meet user’s common daily
activities.
• WeCare platform must be flexible enough to achieve
all kinds of caring projects, including goods tracking,
money for specific cause, and voluntary work
interactions.
• WeCare focus on real actions, which mobile phones
are essential to serve as a location tracker. Also,
WeCare platform must give the crowd the ability to
check if the projects are taken in reality.
• WeCare must enable the crowd to join from the
existing major social networks and empower the
crowd to encourage each other to help.
Design Process
Based on gathered information and study of existing
systems, we sketch our design process for the
prototyping of WeCare, including user types, platform
structures, and mobile app.
User Types
After researching different traditional charities’
experiences and gathering various roles in different
projects, our team defines user types reflecting the four
types people in the crowd that can participates in
WeCare by giving help, receiving the help and getting
notified. We have identified four classes of the crowd:
• The action starters, who mainly gather the detailed
information, collect the need and conduct which
projects should be taken (through field surveys,
interviews and meetings)
• The supporters, who determined if the projects are
correct and worth applying, and follow the projects
guidelines to give help to the care-receivers
• The care-receivers, who get the help from the
projects and are encouraged to give a thank-you
cards on WeCare app or mail in reality.
• The nearby crowd, who get notified that the cares
are happening, and could check if the cares are
accurate and taken in reality.
We gathered these user types to build interactive
relationships in this effective caring platform, WeCare.
Platform Structures
WeCare contains a mobile app, QR stamps, and a
Facebook application. Each of the element are essential
and with unique designs. These key elements help us
develop our platform to achieve our goal.
Different types of users get benefits from the Project.
For action starters, they would like to not only help
solve the problems but also achieve their self-fulfillment.
From our user study, supporters trust those who give
transparent and detailed information. In order to
attract enough crowds, action starters have to build
trust first.
Trust from transparency: There are four important
steps for action starters to persuade supporters to
believe they’re trustworthy:
• Real name and previous background: The easiest
way to let supporters to trust action starters is their
previous work.
• The detailed causes and solutions of the project: As
the more transparent information presents, the
supporters would believe more on the project and
motivate them to take action.
• How the resources going to be used: From the user
study, the supporters want to have more
transparency and detailed information. To ensure
the action starters’ reputation, they often present
their transparent detailed plan to the public.
Figure 3. WeStamp
a) By scanning the QR code
inside WeStamp, the crowd can
easily know the information of
the goods. Also, the WeCare
system can easily update the
location status. b) WeStamp
contains a real stamp for care-
receiver to send thank you card
back.
Figure 4. The crowd can get
the most transparency by
simply scanning WeStamp

5. • The initial crowd from your close relations: When
the strong initial crowds are approached, the
supporters would believe the credit of project. This
transparent information would trigger “crowd effect”.
To build better transparency and help action starters
achieve their reputation, we layout a project board and
a chat room to strengthen the transparency. Inside the
project board, the action starters’ profile, detailed
causes and solutions, the resources usage, and the list
of supporters are presented. We also enable the
supporters to ask for further details by the chat room.
For supporters, they are willing to see the impact of
their help and join important trustable care projects.
After understanding the action starters’ reputations and
the various projects, the supporters join the projects,
which are applicable and trustable. Then, they support
the projects by using three resources of support: goods,
money, and volunteers.
Goods: We generate a transparent tracking process to
approach the actual amount of the need and the
information of where the goods deliver. To expand the
transparency of the goods, we design a stamp,
WeStamp, which meets different users need and is
checkable by the crowd. Basically, supporters get
WeStamps from everywhere (e.g. convenient stores,
gas stations, and etc.) Each Westamp contains a unique
URL to link to WeCare and a real international stamp
inside. Simply, put the stickers on the goods, and use
WeCare app to scan WeStamp, which links the project
goods and the actual one. Later on, when the code get
scanned, the mobile device automatically check-in
where the goods is. Action starters could scan
WeStamp to report that they receive the item. Before
the goods is given out to the care-receiver, they could
scan again to check-in on WeCare to let supporters see
the proper usage of the goods. Also, they are able to
take out the real stamp inside and send the thank-you
mail to the supporter.
Money: Unlike the goods, money is extremely difficult
to track. Instead of tracking it, we design a way to
bring out the transparency, that is WeCoin, money by
cause. For example, to eliminate the population of stray
dogs, each stray dog ligation can be funded case-by-
case from supporters, which they can see the actual
number of their help in WeCoin.
Voluntary work: We ensure the participants’ time and
skills happened in reality, and also present a
transparent way for everyone nearby to participate and
comment. We name our real transparent voluntary
work interaction as WeInvolve. First, it would generate
a location stamp for action starters to keep. This
location stamp enable mobile devices to check-in
directly and concise. As long as the crowd arrives, they
take out the their mobile device to scan the location
stamp. Then, as soon as WeInvolve checks their
location, it gives them the right to comments. For
volunteers, they could post reviews. For care-receivers,
they could send out a thank-you note. For the nearby
crowd, they could comment on their thoughts about the
caring project.
Using these three resources, the supporters gain the
motivation to help because they can take action with
transparency easily.
For care-receivers, they’re able to get what they
actually need, and also have a way to send appreciation
to action starters and supporters by mobile app or the
international stamp inside WeStamp. Their appreciation
is an important encouragement for action starters and
supporters, which keep their motivation to help.
For nearby crowd, they are willing to help but haven’t
taken further action. Installing the app is a great start
to take action. Whenever they’re near a care project,
the request is send to ask if they are willing to check it.
With the notification, the nearby crowd have the sense
that these care projects are happening validly in real
life. Also, it becomes a reminder for them to take action
on WeCare.
Firgure 5. The care-receivers
are able to thank the
supporters.

6. Mobile App
For the target users, the mobile device has two major
functions. One is to enable user to have a better
transparency to see and report the extra location
information from WeStamp and project in progress.
Another is to present a new human interaction with the
caring platform which trigger the user’s cognitive
motivation from this novelty behavior. The other is to
provide the crowd a novelty social network which give
the user a sense of closeness and motivation by getting
notified, map view and the enjoyment of treating the
device as a lens to see through the charity work. Finally
with the mobile app, our design can easily ad hoc to
today’s world, which is innovative and applicable.
The WeCare mobile app separates the caring platform
into two views: categorize view and map views. In
categorize views, the user can easily follow various
projects based on their personal preferences (e.g.
Poverty, disaster, orphans, and etc.) In this way,
WeCare can push the accurate request to help the user
to trigger their motivation. In the map view, users can
easily switch between local, national, and international
view. Using this method, users can easily focus on the
real caring projects happening around the world and
understand what others support. With the visualize
information, user can easily understand the projects
around and also have a full transparency of the projects.
Conclusion and Future work
We present a transparent and encouraging caring
platform for all charity work. We believe with the help
of this platform, the crowd draw more attention to
caring projects, put more efforts in helping each other,
and increase motivation on taking caring projects.
We hope the further extension of the work would
strengthen this platform by the discovery of:
• The type of the projects and the behavior change
after WeCare transparent caring platform
• The influence on traditional social networking
• The data of projects after applying to the real world
• The neuron prediction of the related projects
By connecting the strong bond with the crowd, we will
continue our development and apply improvements to
address the unlimited potential of human kindness.
With this innovative service of helping each other, we
believe the crowd can bring out the most kindness
through collaboration and care more to the world.
Acknowledgements
We grateful to Prof. Mike Chen and Prof. Tang who
spend considerable time to providing helpful advise and
support throughout the design and development of our
work. Also, We thank all the volunteers, and all the
participants.
References
[1] Penelope Burk, (2010), The Cygnus Donor Survey
(US Edition), Cygnus Applied Research, Inc.
[2] DonorCentrics Index of National Fundraising
Performance for 2009
[3] Karla A. Henderson, JOPERD-- Enjoyment as the
link between leisure and physical activity The Journal of
Physical Education, Recreation & Dance| September 01,
[4] Fogg, B. 2009. Creating persuasive technologies:
an eight-step design process. In Proc. of Persuasive '09,
ACM, 1--6.
[5] Lim Yung-Hui, 2012, 1 Billion Facebook Users On
Earth: Are We There Yet?, Forbes.
[6] Pei-Yi Kuo, Elizabeth M. Gerber, “Design Principles:
Crowdfunding as a Creativity Support Tool,”
[7] Daniel Kahneman; Amos Tversky, Prospect Theory:
An Analysis of Decision under Risk, Econometrica, Vol.
47, No. 2. (Mar., 1979)
[8] Arpita Ghosh, Mohammad Mahdian, Charity
auctions on social networks, Bibliometrics, 2008
[9] Samuel Greengard,“Following the crowd”, Magazine
Communications of the ACM CACM Homepage archive
Volume 54 Issue 2, February 2011 Pages 20-22
Firgure 6. With map view, the
crowd can see the care around.