The Execution
Do or do not. There is no try.
Well… how would we actually get this done? In my head it’s quite easy and straightforward.
Only one way to find out.
The Treasury
A-Cent-A-Day
How would we even collect $0.01 every day from every person in our grounded example from The Reality? Let’s evaluate the scale of that particular challenge.
365 days of transactions from 15,000 individuals equals 54,740 transactions.
No bank (the real one Cheese Bank banks with) or service (such as Venmo or CashApp) would allow for such volume. The most practical path forward would be encouraging individuals to “invest” their annual “deposit” to Cheese Bank upfront each year.
So, a single contribution of $3.65 once per year is the goal.
As discussed, $0.01 is a nearly meaningless amount of money today. Our goal is to show that together it is not.
Legal Classification
TBD - A non-profit of some kind.
The Growth
As stated, we want to sustain a continuous level of compounding growth to outpace inflation and treatment costs.
How will we invest?
Let’s pretend we have $50,000. Not nearly enough to have a dedicated team managing a full blown endowment. In Phase 1 of Cheese Bank, it would likely be most optimal to use a low cost brokerage account, such as through Vanguard, Fidelity, or Charles Schwab, directly with Cheese Bank funds. This would allow us to begin our growth in a controlled and transparent way, as well as having avenues for expansion.
Ideally, we build to a large sum of money within the treasury from contributions and market growth, which would then allow us to pivot to a self-contained team within Cheese Bank itself.
However, that would be when we reach the tens of millions, so a long way off as of now. In the interim, an investment account would be a viable way to grow as we establish Cheese Bank as a whole.
The Donations
Instead of sending the family the final bill, it would be redirected directly to Cheese Bank by the existing medical billing departments at hospitals and clinics.
How would families receive their funds for treatment?
While I hope no one would take advantage of what we are trying to do, validation is still a key step. I’m sure I’m being naive to the startup of such a system, but this is how it works in my head for now:
Send Cheese Bank the bill online through our HIPPA protected system (either directly by the hospital itself, or through Cheese Bank’s Medical Portal).
The staff of our medical claims division validates it (mostly, if not completely, automated).
Cheese Bank Medical Claims Department pays it.
Overall, there are already medical systems in place to facilitate payments in a secure, confidential manner. All Cheese Bank needs is to be sent the dollar value of treatment costs and a secure code that can be validated on both ends by the hospital and us.
Once established this process should be efficient, effective, inexpensive, and unchanging. That is how I imagine a number of aspects of Cheese Bank will be.
The People
The Contributors
The most important people to this idea are people like you. Currently you are just passing by and contemplating your decision to contribute or not. Ideally, you become a part of an idea aiming to change the fate of generations to come.
The Employees
One day we will be a team of tens or hundreds taking on a challenge unlike any other.
From people in the investment department to the medical claims division, when the day comes that Cheese Bank is worth enough to support a full-time team, all individuals will be compensated at market value. I don’t know how much those values are or how many people that will be, but that is not of a concern at the moment.
To be fully transparent, one-day I do hope to make Cheese Bank my full-time career, where I am involved with running and operating Cheese Bank to some degree on a daily basis. I would compensate myself at the median individual full-time, year-round income (approximately $65,000).
That is only when Cheese Bank is fully operational (aka at or approaching endgame) and requires 40+ hours of my week (in that I must choose between a career elsewhere or within Cheese Bank). That day may not even come, such as in our grounded example, where I will not make a cent.