RATIONALE

Charities can always do a better job of raising money. Though this isn't a problem that
can ever be "solved", we decided to experiment with improving the mechanism by which philanthropies raise money. We started by thinking about WHY somebody would give money in the first place, and landed on three major reasons:

1) because giving to a cause you care about makes you feel better
2) because you have money set aside for giving and you want to spend it
3) because by giving money you might get something of tangible value in return

Though it's perhaps the least altruistic, the third reason sparked our curiosity and compelled us to devise a new mechanism for incentivizing philanthropic donations with prizes.

THE IDEA

To promote charitable giving, we created HEART SHOW. It’s a gallery that accepts donated work from well-known artists and uses those pieces to incentivize donations from the public.

It works just like a lottery—by offering valuable art from artists like Jeff Koons, David Choe, and Banksy as potential rewards for donating, a philanthropy like the Red Cross would raise much more money.

HEART SHOW creates a unique win-win-win-win situation for the artists, the donors,
the public, and the chosen charity. Donations from artists and financial donors are tax deductible, all donors have a chance to win valuable art, admission is free for the public, and charities raise money by selling art they didn’t have to pay for.