Last Thursday we launched our new charity, the Misfit Foundation in Islington, North London. The term “launch” perhaps gives the wrong impression. Actually we held a party and invited our friends and told them what we were doing.

This seemed to go down very well although the copious amounts of liquid refreshment provided (thanks to our friends at Misfit Inc) might have had something to do with that.

To recap, the new charity has been set up to use the power of technology and storytelling to promote more and better giving (here’s the thinking behind it). There’s loads of things we need to do to get an entirely new charity setup in the UK and US nd this is very much a work in progress.

But what we do have are our first partners. Organisations doing extraordinary work who will deliver our mission on the ground and for whom we will fundraise and support. Who you most likely have never heard of.

The first partners are (imagine a drum roll, here…)

Sankara Eye Hospitals. This amazing organisation carries out over 150,000 free sight restoring surgeries a year to the poorest people throughout India. Sankara plan to reach one million surgeries a year by 2020 and we will do what we can to help them reach this number. That’s a million people saved from blindness every year.

Lessons for Life. A charity currently supporting the education of 17,000 of the world’s poorest children in Africa. Lessons for Life plan, with our support, to reach 50,000 children each year in the next three years. It’s not just about reaching more kids, Lessons for Life are bringing radical new technological solutions to the task of educating the poorest.

Global Health Network International. We will support the work of this very hands on charity by supporting the distribution of life saving medicines in Northern Kenya.

Jhai coffee house. Yes, really. A coffee house. In rural Laos. That exists to support the local community. And is currently helping them build a school. And communicating about the project in a beautiful way.

What all these organisations have in common are intensely practical, tangible and effective approaches to helping poor and vulnerable people. Our role will be to mobilise significant support for them by using our skills and resources to bring this life changing work alive for donor audiences. Using technology in new ways.

We’ll be saying a lot more about how we will be doing this in later updates.

(Oh and yes. Of course we will be asking for money. But not just yet…)