My gf wants to make a mobile app that helps homeless/impoverished people share good dumpster eating locations.
Imagine a platform where restaurants, bakeries, anyone with excess food that would otherwise go to waste, could get "points" for availing that excess inventory to those in need. It might be similar to the model used by Shelter Partnership (http://www.shelterpartnership.org/).
In a nutshell, they solicit donations from major manufacturers (think Johnson & Johnson, et. al.) for totally-usable products that can't be sold on store shelves for whatever reason - i.e. a typo on the packaging. They provide some receipt giving J&J the opportunity to seek some tax benefit for the donation at a discount of the retail-price, and needy people get the products for free.
I don't see a compelling reason why something like this couldn't work in major metro areas. Bakeries could get some off-set for donating bread; grocery stores could get some off-set for donating otherwise-spoiling fruits and veggies, etc.
There would be substantial value for this to exist in addition, or in cooperation, with food banks.
I could see this being a valuable tool for food banks to build relationships with willing-entities that otherwise wouldn't want to bother with setting up the relationship and keeping track of items donated.
If it were very simple:
- Bakery downloads App "Free Food"
- Plug in estimated donation
- Get matched with a willing food bank
- Pictures to confirm donation from both parties
- Some agreed-upon "value" (points) for said donation
- Food bank takes and re-distributes
Win-Win-Win
Bakery does good and maybe gets some benefit; Food bank gets more food (as long as the collection ROI makes sense); and hungry people eat food that would otherwise end up in the trash.
FYI, I wrote about this idea very briefly way back when: http://peterkimfrank.com/2013/01/21/doing-well-by-doing-good...
Ooops, forgot the topic -- that is indeed a truly idiotic idea.