Free access is the product requirement
A community-care directory fails if people need money, an account, or a subscription to find urgent food, housing, recovery, crisis, legal, or volunteer information.
- Keep search, support resources, safety pages, and official links public.
- Do not sell sensitive user intent.
- Avoid dark patterns or guilt-driven fundraising.
Make optional support boring and transparent
The healthiest funding copy is plain: here is what the site costs, here is what contributions cover, and here is what happens to excess.
- Publish monthly hosting, domain, tooling, verification, and operating costs.
- Offer choose-your-own support without implying access changes.
- Show when funds go to local charities and how those charities were selected.
Donation choice can be thoughtful
Letting supporters choose local charities is compelling, but it needs guardrails so the feature does not route money to harmful, deceptive, or unverified groups.
- Use only vetted local organizations or public funds.
- Avoid large controversial organizations in the first version if the mission is local trust.
- Publish a simple public ledger before adding gamified rewards.