WeCareCard is the first-ever online fundraising platform tied to a prepaid debit card. It empowers people from around the nation to raise funds for a variety of life-changing causes. The cause-related fundraising solution delivers a simple, seamless and secure way to share stories, connect networks and gather immediate funds for those in need through the WeCareCard Prepaid MasterCard. This prepaid card serves as a money management tool and is welcomed at over 25 million MasterCard locations worldwide. WeCareCard launched yesterday, November 2nd, and they are currently at Money 20/20, the largest money conference in the world, along with Atlanta’s FirstView Financial, IDology, FirstData, & FIS.
We were able to catch up with Katharine Mobley, CMO, to hear more of their story.
Year/Date Founded:
Incorporated March 15,2012
Number of Employees:
6 full time (6 Contract)
Founders/Execs:
2 (Co-Founders)
Jessica Weiss
Phillip Qualls
Funding or bootstrapped?
Jessica Weiss raised some initial money for her IP and market research from family. Since her executive team has been put into place we have raised 700K in seed funding and look to close this out at 1M by the end of November.
Revenue Model:
B2B
- Partner channels (wedding/funeral/hospitals/retail) –
- current partners: @ImSorrytoHear1
D2C Direct to consumers
- Social media outreach, campaigns, local media coverage of personal interest stories
- For example Malika Bowling (see more here) will be interviewed by the AJC which will be run in the Nov 9th edition of the AJC. She an Atlanta food blogger and author (@ATLEatsNTweets) who is raising funds to go back to her native India, where she was adopted.
How’d You Get The Idea For It?
Cofounded by a neonatal ICU nurse, Jessica Weiss who consistently witnessed first-hand financial hardships caused by unexpected medical bills, the cause-related fundraising solution delivers a simple, seamless and secure way to share stories, connect networks and gather immediate funds for those in need. The card will be delivered to fundraisers early in the campaign and funds will be loaded throughout the duration in order to directly, quickly and easily manage expenses. Additionally, co-founder Phillip Qualls – a 20 year FinTech veteran, who previously was an equity partner in the Money Network until it was acquired by First Data in 2007, he saw an opportunity to bring Jessica’s vision into reality.
Who are your competitors and how do you stand out?
Gofundme, YouCaring, and Fundly are some of our competitors.
While there are several other crowdfunding platforms that raise money for social good and are a donation based model, our’s is the industry’s first-ever powered by a prepaid debit card, specifically a WeCareCard MasterCard. Granted, no one can guarantee 100% fraud protection or prevention; however, our platform provides controls that make is unattractive to those who would engage in fraudulent activities because we have a 4-step validation process – 1. Verification of Funds by payment processor, 2. ID Verification – (CIP, OFAC, AML – Compliant) 3. Campaign Validation 4. Card Usage/Transaction Monitoring.
Our patent pending technology and the WeCareCard MasterCard will be launching the next week during Money 20/20. It is the largest money conference in the world with over 7500 attendees, 650 of them being CEOs – Apple Pay, Google Wallet, etc. will be there.
How does ATL weave into your story?
Katharine Mobley, CMO is an Atlanta native and resident. Our program manager is based here in Atlanta – FirstView Financial (@FirstViewFN) as well as our ID verification company – Idology (@IDology)
Additionally, depending on where our next round of funding (Series A) is secured from we will be considering moving our headquarters to Atlanta as it is the FinTech capital of the South.
Check out their explainer video.
