‘Double Dutch’ By Inez & Vinnodh Makes Charitable Giving Easy
Choose generosity as a holiday gift this season.
According to Finder, Americans threw away more than $15 billion worth of holiday gifts last year. That’s pretty pathetic, both in the fact that we’re creating unacceptable volumes of waste, and in that we’re so bad at gifting.
Photographer duo, Inez and Vinoodh, decided to help us out by creating Double Dutch, a cash-giving app that allows users to donate to charities in someone else’s name, and gift a piece of digital art at the same time. When a user signs on, they can donate directly to the charity of their choice, including options like OutRight Action International, Save the Music, Parley For The Oceans, and Knot On My Planet. Then, they choose a virtual card to send to the gift recipient.
“We asked ourselves ‘What is the perfect gift to express love and gratitude and how do we bring that to a larger scale? How does showing one person you care about them benefit all of us?’ We figure that by combining art, message and money we can eliminate waste and really contribute to ‘the bigger picture,’” said Inez and Vinoodh.
Revenue from the cards is split 50/50 with the artists, who then also have the option to donate their profits. Both established and emerging creators have signed on to the project. So far the list includes Gigi Hadid, Urs Fischer, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Maurizio Cattelan & Pierpaolo Ferrari, Derrick Adams, Marilyn Minter, Sterling Ruby and Richard Prince. Gift recipients can display their cards on their “wall” within the Double Dutch app, or share them across social media. The nature of Double Dutch allows users to be like virtual art collectors and philanthropists all at the same time.
For the project, Inez and Vinoodh teamed up with Kidfund founder Laura Bailyn, former Rent the Runway executive Piyusha Eluri and Amsterdam-based payment giant Adyen. The platform will launch on Dec. 14, at which point users can go to www.doubledutch.cash and start gifting.