I have started a Super Bowl snoball: For every point the Pats put on the scoreboard, a dollar goes to the Greater Boston Food Bank. I’ve invited friends to join me, and it is my hope that you — and all of Patriots nation — will join as well. Every $25 provides more than 60 meals to those in need, according to the food bank. If the Patriots offense is in decent form, and if you recruit even a small group of friends, that could easily add up to hundreds of meals, and a lot of grateful families.
Snoball should be of interest to more than football fans. It features giving triggers tied to a number of big-ticket sports, as well as a growing list of creative non-sports options. It represents a novel solution to a problem that plagues the nonprofit sector: the wave of giving at year’s end, followed by a 50-week dry spell. For many of us, it’s also fair to say that Snoball could be used to make us more like the person we aspire to be.
Snoball is simplicity itself. You pick a charity, an amount, and then look through the menu of triggers. Under sports, there is hockey, football (college and pro), and basketball (ditto), as well as a dizzying array of options within each, tied to teams or individual players. (Snoball charges a 5 percent fee to cover their administrative costs.) One Philadelphia Flyers hater gives $1 to a food bank every time the Flyers lose. A note reads: “See? When the Flyers win, it’s bad for everyone!’’
There are other kinds or triggers, though, and this is where the possibility of self-improvement comes in. Psychology research stresses the importance of the “default.’’ One famous study found you could achieve substantially higher participation in company 401(k)s with a simple change: Instead of having people sign up, make participation the default for new employees, with the option to opt out. If you want to save money, or give to charity, it’s much more effective to set up an automatic program that puts aside a little bit each week.
