Hi friends, if you are interested in giving money or time to help Afghan
refugees resettle in the Bay Area, I wanted to point to a couple orgs doing
this work:
Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay
https://jfcs-eastbay.org/urgent-afghan-evacuation/
"Some planeloads of refugees have arrived in Fort Lee, Virginia, and this
month, JFCS East Bay has already welcomed 40 people to begin their new
lives in the East Bay. We are currently waiting for 23 people more people
to arrive from Fort Lee, and have accepted the cases of another 33 who are
still in Afghanistan. The number and pace of resettlement is like nothing
we’ve seen in recent years."
They also have volunteer opportunities (e.g. airport pickups, register kids
for school).
International Rescue Committee Northern California
https://help.rescue.org/donate/Softlandingfund
"The IRC Northern California is raising $150,000 toward an Afghan Soft
Landing Fund. 100% of your donation will be disbursed to cover emergency
temporary housing as well as rental & utility assistance to support evacuee
families stabilizing."
In solidarity,
Topher
Hi folks,
Some of us at Chrysalis are joining this phone bank
<https://www.mobilize.us/swingleft/event/404576> for the California
governor recall (so we can avoid getting a Republican governor). This might
be an uncomfortably close election, and I think this is a high-impact
opportunity.
The event is here: https://www.mobilize.us/swingleft/event/404576
and the options are generally *Wed 6-8pm or Sat 10am-12pm up until Sept 14*
(some of us joining this Wed Aug 25 and this Sat Aug 28)
I've done a number (ha) of phone banks with various orgs and I bet this
will be one of the friendliest possible audiences!
<3S
P.S. it's of course also important to vote—please do and remind your
friends!!
Hi friends, I recently invested in The Drivers Cooperative, a new
worker-owned/operated ridehailing service in NYC. They're still actively
fundraising, and although it's not quite a "giving" opportunity, Stacey
encouraged me to tell the folks on this list! So, allow me to give you the
pitch!
[image: coop-ride2.webp]
*Why invest in The Drivers Cooperative?*
* Drivers keep 85% of the fare vs. 60% on average with Uber/Lyft.
* The company is 100% driver-owned and -operated. Any profits are shared
amongst driver-owners rather than disproportionately benefiting executives
and VCs, and drivers take part in decision-making.
* A successful ridehailing cooperative in NYC will create interest in more
such cooperatives in other metro areas, including the SF Bay Area! It will
also create interest in making cooperatives work in other industries.
*Can they really compete with Uber/Lyft?*
* Yes, the app works! I personally used it several times on a recent visit
to NYC (early July, a month after their launch). Most of the time, I was
matched with a driver with only a 7-minute wait time, and a slightly lower
price than what Uber/Lyft offered. I talked to the drivers about their
experience, and they were universally over-the-moon excited about the
company. There were a few times the app could not find a nearby driver, in
which case it was easy to turn to Lyft as a backup. I anticipate that a
significant segment of riders like you and me will prefer Coop Ride for
ethical and price reasons, knowing that they can always fall back to
Lyft/Uber if for some reason a particular ride request doesn't work out.
* They've put together a high-quality software engineering team including
former Facebook employees.
* The NYC ridehail market is so huge, and they've worked out the unit
economics enough, that they only need 0.2% market share to break even.
(Details in their deck, linked below.)
*How does the investment bit work?*
* The minimum investment is $100.
* The first three years of your investment are a grace period for the
company during which you won't receive payments.
* Starting in Year 4, you are paid back on a quarterly basis. 2.5% of
quarterly revenues after driver payouts are reserved for investors. You
will be paid every quarter until you have been paid back 250% of your
investment. For example, if you invest $100, you will be paid a small
amount every quarter until you have been paid back $250 total. (Their deck,
linked below, includes several examples of payback schedules.)
*Interested?*
* Check out their deck and fundraising campaign at
https://wefunder.com/driverscoop!
* Email me with any questions or concerns! Happy to answer.
* If you do end up investing, please let me know, it would put a smile on
my face and also let me know that this email accomplished something :)
Thanks for reading! I'm excited to support companies that share power
amongst all workers and simultaneously provide high-quality service to the
general public, and I hope that some of you will join me in this effort.
<3
Topher
