large/central stations with a row of turnstiles in bus/train stations...

1 or 2 of these turnstiles (may be the corner ones) should be 'charity linked turnstiles' which if you pass using your usual contactless card, an additional 5 pence/cents will be deducted and this money to be used for a charity organization.

commuters can either choose to use such specially marked (visually distinct) turnstiles everyday or once a while as per wish. This is only for swiping-in...no change during swipe- out.

to promote this mechanism, 'system' picks a lucky commuter and texts him this -- "as a token of appreciation for supporting the charity, your trip from xxx to yyy on dd/mm/yy is on us! " and this user's contactless card is credited with the relevant amount of this specific trip.

also this might avoid those volunteers standing with a small bucket asking the commuters for 'spare change'...
-- ravi kris334, Oct 25 2017

thelifeyoucansave.org has about ten high impact charities http://www.thelifeyoucansave.org
[beanangel, Oct 25 2017]

Wonder how much money Clark Kent would have to pay to turn into Superman?
-- RayfordSteele, Oct 25 2017


They would have to measure this, with the risk of having an expose written up at Freakonomics. Very approximately, research suggests that doing something like giving thumbs-up to charity posts feels like giving, and less actual action is taking, creating a net loss to do-gooderism.

although thelifeyoucansave.org [link] says it is possible to save a human life, and prevent lots of malaria, for $60 it is possible, or even likely, that the turnstile nickels would go to a suite of less effective charities.

They should do the research to find out if it actually reduces giving.

I sense a croissant coming if there are two lanes though one labeled "high impact charity" and one labeled "local charity"
-- beanangel, Oct 25 2017



random, halfbakery