Although individuals own more than 25 percent of US equity, only about 20 percent of such investors bother to participate in proxy voting. Why would so many give up their voting rights? A big part of the reason is the difficulty of researching the issues, says ProxyDemocracy founder Andrew Eggers, who is also a doctoral student in Harvard University's Department of Government.
ProxyDemocracy is a non-profit, non-partisan project that aims to change all that by helping individual investors get the information they need to produce positive changes in the companies they own. Owners of stocks in an individual company, for example, can sign up for ProxyDemocracy's email alerts providing advance notice of the company's shareholder meetings as well as information on how respected institutional investors at CalPERS (a state pension fund), Calvert, CBIS (an investment adviser to Catholic institutions) and Domini plan to vote at the meeting. "Just as citizen voters take account of endorsements from respected groups like the Sierra Club or the NRA (depending on one’s political persuasion), individual investors can use these cues from known institutional investors to arrive at a principled vote more cheaply," Eggers explains.
Meanwhile, the free site also offers voting profiles on 77 mutual funds from 33 leading fund families, as well as CalPERS and CBIS. Mutual fund investors can search a database of agendas and institutional investor votes for more than 12,000 shareholder meetings since July 1, 2003, and quickly see how their funds rank on the site's activism scale for director elections, executive compensation, corporate governance and corporate impact. If they don't like a particular fund's voting record, they can contact the company and let them know, or even move their money to a different one.
For some time now transparency tyranny has been causing ulcers among leaders in the travel, hospitality and automotive industries—to name just a few—and now ProxyDemocracy promises to spread the joy of accountability to a wider range of companies than ever. Once again, the Web leaves nowhere to hide!
Website: www.proxydemocracy.org
Contact: info@proxydemocracy.org
Spotted by: Abigail Howell
Thanks to California's Proposition 8, passed back in 1978, homeowners in the state can get a temporary reduction in their home's assessed value—and, accordingly, their property taxes—when the housing market enters a slump. Recognizing that that applies to virtually everyone who purchased property in the state within the past few years, Prop8.org is a new consumer advocate group that was formed specifically to help California consumers take advantage of the law.
Prop8.org provides tax-assessment appeals services for commercial, industrial and residential properties throughout California. With a team that's professionally trained in tax appeal rules, procedures and requirements specific to each California county, Prop8 can provide market data and analyses needed to advocate the lowest possible tax assessed value. Clients get full-service representation, from the initial filing of the assessment appeal application and supporting documentation, through negotiations with the county assessor—even including a formal hearing before the County Tax Appeals Board, if necessary. Prop8's services are available on a contingency fee basis for 50 percent of the first year's tax savings or via a flat-fee plan that covers the entire process—with a three-year guarantee—for USD 495. For homeowners who bought their homes between 2004 and 2006, the average savings that result from hiring Prop8 are between USD 1,500 and USD 2,500 per year, the company's founders say.
Prop8 is currently seeking affiliates to help extend its service throughout California. Meanwhile, of course, there are also many other situations in which consumers are legally entitled to compensation but are unaware or too busy to claim it. Find one of those, and you just might have something to build a business on! (Related: Claiming compensation for duped passengers.)
Website: www.prop8.org
Contact: info@prop8.org
Spotted by: Troy Nelson
As the weakening economy causes purse strings to tighten in many parts of the world, consumers are increasingly looking for new ways to earn some extra money. Enter My Gold Party, which facilitates Tupperware-style parties that help guests sell their unused trinkets, cashing in on record gold prices.
Launched earlier this year, My Gold Party sells all the equipment minipreneurs need to host parties in which guests can sell their gold, including a scale, karat tester and book of instructions. Party hosts then invite guests to bring gold coins, watches and jewelry to their party, where they assay and weigh each item to determine its current market worth. The party host pays guests for the items with cash or a cheque, then ships the gold to a refinery, which in turn pays the host—at a rate the host hopes will be higher than paid to the party guests. The gold is then melted down and reused. My Gold Party's kit for hosts is priced at USD 699.50. (Obviously, scales and karat testers can also be bought from many other suppliers.)
Consumers in hard times have always been able to sell their spare jewelry in pawn shops, but by bringing the process out of the back alley and into the living room, My Gold Party legitimises and updates it with a social and entrepreneurial twist. As the saying goes, there's gold in them thar hills—both for the consumers who have it and for the minipreneurs who help them sell it. One to bring to cash-strapped hills near you?
Website: www.mygoldparty.com
Contact: info@mygoldparty.com
Spotted by: Bill McMahon
Longtime Springwise readers may remember Kiva, the venture we wrote about back in 2006 that facilitates charitable microloans to entrepreneurs in the developing world. Now the organization has found a way to make loans go even further through a partnership with credit card issuer Advanta.
Earlier this month Advanta and Kiva announced the KivaB4B Project, an initiative through which Advanta will match the loans made by holders of its business credit card with up to USD 200 per month per card. Card holders simply select a business owner to sponsor through Kiva and make a grant using their Advanta BusinessCard. Advanta matches that grant, dollar for dollar, and Kiva distributes the total resulting funds. As the funds are repaid, they get deposited back into the card holder's Kiva account, while the match funds go back to Advanta. In the meantime, donors get materials to publicize their support, such as a KivaB4B button to put on their website, stickers for their storefront and postcards to send to customers.
Started in 1951 with USD 30 in seed money, Advanta is now one of the largest credit card issuers in the US small business market. Ami Kassar, Advanta’s Chief Innovation Officer, explains: “In our years of working with small business owners, we’ve found that many of them remember the moment someone gave them inspiration, some good advice, or a little cash to get things going. Now, through KivaB4B, American small business owners can offer that same ray of hope to entrepreneurs in developing countries.”
San Francisco-based Kiva has already opened a whole new world of opportunity to entrepreneurs in developing countries—it's facilitated more than USD 27 million in loans since its inception in 2005. With the power of a major bank behind it—and a little cause-related marketing incentive for donors—there's no telling how far its effects might go.
Website: www.kivab4b.org
Contact: aholderer@advanta.com
Spotted by: Susanna Haynie
Slated to launch this summer, Wells Fargo’s vSafe is a secure online location where customers can upload and store copies of everything from the deeds to their homes to precious family photos. The bank also uploads each customer’s bank statements to the vault, which can be accessed by logging on to customers’ regular internet banking accounts.
Reported fees of USD 4.95 for 1 gigabyte to up to 14.95 for 6 gigabytes might seem high when you consider that webmail accounts like Gmail and Yahoo offer multiple gigabytes of storage space at no cost. But Wells Fargo adds layers of security and throws in a dedicated phone help line. Plus it provides a single, central location for an individual’s or family important documents. Wells Fargo claims it is the first large financial services company to offer virtual storage of vital documents. In the Netherlands, ABN Amro Bank offers a similar service: Digitale Kluis (digital safe). ABN Amro’s safe stores a maximum of 500 MB of storage for EUR 14 per month, and is accessible to anyone who has access to an account holder’s online banking—including authorized accountants or family members.
The focused service is an order removed from the general purpose online storage services that have been available for years. Whether or not the US bank can make the service pay, imitators are sure to enter the space. Besides competition from other financial service providers, look for online storage firms to bundle-in virtual vaults as part of their regular offerings.
Website: www.wellsfargo.com — www.abnamro.nl
Contact: www.wellsfargo.com/help
Spotted by: Bill McMahon
Consumer credit is ubiquitous and the notion of saving up for something is almost foreign. But it's an essential step toward regaining control over spending, and SmartyPig wants to help.
Iowa-based SmartyPig offers a safe, secure way for consumers to save towards a specific goal—a wedding, remodeling project or vacation, for example—and it adds a dash of social networking and added incentives to speed up the process. Users begin using the free service by creating a profile on SmartyPig and establishing a savings account and goal amount—anywhere between USD 250 and USD 100,000. (SmartyPig's banking partner is 115-year-old, FDIC-insured West Bank, which has assets of more than USD 1.3 billion.) SmartyPig, in turn, suggests a monthly contribution in order to meet the savings goal by the time it's needed, and each month it deducts whatever amount the user chooses from their existing checking account or other funding source and puts it into the SmartyPig account.
To enlist the help of family and friends, users can choose to make their account public, enabling those they know to help them meet their goal; they can also put a SmartyPig widget on their MySpace or Facebook page to enlist the whole world's help. SmartyPig members can contribute to each other's accounts for free; to contribute via credit card, the fee is 2.9 percent. Once users reach their goal, they can receive their savings plus 4.30 percent (APY) interest on the SmartyPig MasterCard debit card, or they can get it plus interest and additional savings of up to 5 percent on a gift card from some of the country’s top retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Staples and Marriott.
SmartyPig just launched in February, with plans for a major publicity campaign to begin this month, but it was already awarded "Best of the Web" by NetBanker in March. It's open just to US consumers, however. Time to bring this concept to the credit-laden community near you! (Related: Layaway is back.)
Website: www.smartypig.com
Contact: support@smartypig.com
Spotted by: Sarah Johnson
Aiming to invigorate a stagnating housing market, Dutch ING Bank is helping potential buyers bid on houses that aren't yet for sale.
The bank's WoonWaarUWilt ("LiveWhereYouWant") initiative, which launched yesterday, lets clients make an offer on the house they'd love to own. ING is partnering with online real estate firm iBlue. After potential buyers fill in a form on www.woonwaaruwilt.nl, including their dream home's address and the initial offer they're willing to make, iBlue contacts them to discuss whether the offer is reasonable, and adjusts it if necessary. A mortgage consultant also determines whether the buyers would be able to finance the purchase.
iBlue then sends a preliminary offer to the property's current owners, explaining the situation and inquiring whether they'd consider selling. As with other 'Intention Economy' real estate ventures we've covered before (in Finland and elsewhere), the reasoning is that many homeowners aren't actively interested in selling, but can be persuaded to do so if the right offer comes along. By declaring their intention and backing it up with a lender’s financial approval, buyers can help eliminate the uncertainty associated with putting a house on the market. Meanwhile, the concept is a smart way for ING to get a head start on other banks when it comes to financing the transaction.
Making an offer is free for clients, but if the owners are interested in pursuing the offer, iBlue acts as the buyer's agent and charges a commission once the deal is done. The Intention Economy was first described by Doc Searls as follows: “The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don't need advertising to make them.” Which offers exciting opportunities for businesses who are willing to shift from marketing to buyers, to facilitating their intentions.
Website: www.woonwaaruwilt.nl
If the current sub-prime lending crisis in the US and the UK proves anything, it’s that even traditional lenders can act irresponsibly, despite the myriad government regulations designed to hold them in check. That sobering fact, together with the tightening liquidity and a possible upcoming recession, should give a boost to so-called peer-to-peer lending. For the uninitiated, P2P lending websites directly match borrowers seeking relatively small amounts of cash with private individuals willing to lend them the money. Borrowers post their needs, lenders make offers and everyone benefits from bypassing lending’s traditional middlemen who package loans for a fee.
We first looked at P2P lending nearly three years ago when we profiled Zopa, a UK start-up which we described as “like eBay for money”. Since then we’ve covered other fast-growing P2P start-ups in the US, the Netherlands, Germany and China. And last week, Fynanz, which focuses solely on loans to students.
The latest entrant on our radar screen is Fosik, which brings P2P lending to Australia. Like its counterparts elsewhere, Fosik touts the benefits of using the site’s tools as a way to formalize lending arrangements among family members and friends. Plus, the site notes that investors—whether they know the people they’re lending to or not—can benefit from returns that reach 10 percent or higher.
Meanwhile, signs abound that the P2P lending is rapidly maturing. Prosper is seeking to create a secondary market around its loan portfolios. This would allow lenders to get quick cash by selling their loan portfolios to other investors. Is it too late for entrepreneurs to get into the P2P lending space? Probably not. Whether launching in new markets, targeting specific audiences or offering different types of financial services, there’s still plenty of room for peer-to-peer banking to grow.
Website: www.fosik.com.au
Contact: www.fosik.com.au/About/Contact.aspx
Spotted by: Tom Flaherty
