Cars in general have become more reliable over the years. Yet there are always some that just seem to keep rolling along, whistling right past the junkyard.

Pinpointing exactly how many miles, on average, any given model has racked up is virtually impossible, but we’ve identi-fi ed some with exceptional — sometimes surprising — endurance and value.

When you combine reliability and best-selling status you get ubiquity. Honda Accords of all years are every-where, usually in tan, silver or white, like my friend Marcel’s 1999 model. It’s push-ing 200,000 miles without any engine or transmission work, and relatively indif-ferent care. Sorry, Marcel. If you look up the Honda Accord in Consumer Reports you will see a sea of red dots in the rank-ings — a sign that owners have darn few problems with these cars.

Now, the smaller Honda Civic shares the Accord’s inherent quality but is more likely to be modifi ed by its owners with spoilers, wings, loud exhausts, that kind of thing — with maintenance simultane-ously neglected. So the Accord gets our nod.

Of all the cars General Motors put out in the 1990s and early 2000s, it’s the Buicks that got all the awards from the quality-ranking organization J.D. Power and Associates. And it’s also the Buick LeSabre, along with Centuries, Regals and Park Avenues, that live on, more so than their Chevrolet, Pontiac and

SUCCESSYour guide to managing money, work and the business of life

“So being married to that jerk is fi nally paying off!” said Sandy, after I explained how she could collect the equivalent of one-half of her ex-husband’s Social Security retirement benefi ts.

Luckily for those who had to endure the pain of divorce, you only need to have been married 10 years to ac-cess Social Security benefi ts on your ex-spouse’s work record. Both spouses need to be at least 62 years old, and the claimant must be unmarried. If you wait until full retirement age, your benefi t as a divorced spouse will equal one-half of your ex-spouse’s full retire-ment amount. If you claim early, your amount will be reduced, and if you con-tinue to work while receiving benefi ts, the retirement benefi t earnings limit still applies.

If you remarry and that later mar-riage ends, you can then collect on the fi rst ex-spouse’s record. For those who are not on great terms with the ex, don’t fret: You need not contact him or her to inquire about if he or she has begun

to receive that magical monthly check. If your ex-spouse has not applied for retirement benefi ts but can qualify for them, you can receive benefi ts on his or her record, provided that you have been divorced for at least two years.

You can also claim survivor benefi ts if your ex-spouse dies, even if he or she remarried, provided that your mar-riage lasted 10 years or more. If you remarry after you reach age 60 (age 50 if disabled), the second marriage will not affect your eligibility for survivor’s benefi ts. Benefi ts paid to you won’t af-fect the benefi t rates for other survivors getting benefi ts on the worker’s record.

The ex-spouse feature of Social Security is the more generous side of the system. The less charitable side can be tough for some municipal work-ers. These folks may encounter the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), which affects how the government calculates Social Security retirement benefi ts. If you work for an employer that does not withhold Social Security taxes from your pay, such as a govern-ment agency or an employer in another country, any pension you get from that work may reduce your Social Security retirement benefi ts — the maximum WEP impact for 2015 is $413 per month. If an individual who is subject to the WEP dies and has one or more survivors entitled to a benefi t, Social Security will re-compute the benefi t, which will eliminate the WEP and pro-vide a higher benefi t to the survivors.

The WEP does not apply if you have 30 or more years of “substantial earnings” that were subject to Social Security tax. If you have fewer than 30 years, you may get a partial break.

There is a similar provision for those who receive a pension from a government job in which they did not pay Social Security taxes, called the Government Pension Offset, or GPO. The GPO will reduce the amount of Social Security benefi ts by two-thirds of the amount of the worker’s government pension. Social Security will decrease a spouse’s or a surviving spouse’s benefi ts as well, which can sometimes reduce the spouse’s benefi t to zero. Some individuals are exempt from the offset; check the Social Security’s “Govern-ment Pension Offset” factsheet.

Contact Jill Schlesinger, senior business analyst for CBS News, at askjill@JillonMoney.com.

Generous, and stingy, sides of Social Security

You need to have been mar-ried 10 years to access Social Security benefi ts on your ex-spouse’s work record. By David Muhlbaum |

DIASHULE/FOTOLIA

HONDA

BUICK

GENERAL MOTORS

9 other cars that keep going1. VW Van — model years: 1950-1992

2. Volvos (rear-wheel drive) — model years: way back-1996

3. Saab 900 — model years: 1979-1993

4. Subaru Wagons (many of them) — model years: 1990-present

5. Mercedes 2400/300D/300TD — model years: 1975-present

6. Ford Escort — model years: 1991-2002

7. Chevy Camaro/Pontiac Firebird — model years: 1982-2002

8. Ford Crown Victoria/Mercury Marquis — model years: 1992-2011

9. Jeep Cherokee — model years: 1987-2001

Jill SchlesingerJill on Money

Oldsmobile equivalents.One reason these cars endure? They

were popular with older drivers, who maintained them well and drove them gently. That makes them a great value to pick up used, which is what my co-worker Marc did with his 2004 LeSabre. He bought it with 74,000 miles and has put on another 84,000 with very little

trouble. Check out that sweet cassette deck!

And there is the Geo Prizm. They last forever, too. A what, you ask? Here’s the secret: Under the skin, it’s actually a Toyota Corolla. So are a number of Chevy Novas, Chevy Prizms and Pontiac Vibes. Makes more sense now, right? It’s a Corolla! All these cars were built on the same line in California, at a factory jointly owned by GM and Toyota. That technol-ogy-sharing project ended in 2010, but these cars, sometimes into their third de-cade, roll on. My boss uses a 1996 model for his daily 46-mile commute. Sure, he could buy something fancier, but he loves his Prizm and its great gas mileage. He gets about 35 miles per gallon.

SOURCE: Kiplinger Washington Editors

FreebiesTreatsIn many big cities, Rover and his canine pals can enjoy free treats and water — as their humans consume discounted food and drinks — during happy, er, yappy hour.

GroomingMany vet schools offer free basic grooming services for your dog — tooth brushing, hair brushing, nail clipping, etc. Check with your local shelter or vet school.

Emergency stickersImagine that you're away when a fire breaks out. A sticker on your front door or window can tell firefighters pets are awaiting rescue inside. Get a window decal from the ASPCA's Pet Safety Pack.

Health resourcesThe American Veterinary Medical Association recommends WebMd's Pet Health Community, which includes a directory of afflictions for dogs, plus discus-sion boards where vets answer questions.

Hotel staysScout out dog-friendly hotels along your holiday/vacation route, and bring your best friend along for the ride. There's a difference between "dogs allowed" and "dogs stay free." Find out.

PET ALERTPET ALERTRESCUE

ME!

Experts say the minimum annual budget to care for a small dog is $1,314. Bigger dogs cost more (well, yeah!). So here are six free goods and services for your pooch, no purchase necessary.

Obedience trainingAt Petco's Unleashed stores, take advantage of a free, 30-minute training seminar for adopted dogs and their owners.

for your dog

3 CARS THAT REFUSE TO DIE

The Honda Accord, Buick LeSabre and Geo Prizm keep on rolling

1994 Honda Accord

2000 Buick LeSabre

2001 Geo Prizm

If you’d rather drift through quiet gorges with a small band of travelers than island-hop in the Caribbean on a packed mega-liner, consider a river cruise. At first glance, these calmer, more intimate voyages appear costlier than an ocean cruise. But river cruises are often less expensive overall. The savings start when you board: Even ships not desig-nated as all-inclusive often include wine and beer, shore excursions, and more in the sticker price.

It’s easy to find a river cruise that suits your tastes. Themes range from jazz and beer to opera and Jewish heritage. Family-oriented trips are increasing, and surcharges for singles on some lines are disappearing. Seasoned cruise passengers will appreciate the choice of more-exotic destinations, such as Myan-

mar and the Mekong Delta. Interest is also increasing in American waterways, including the Mississippi River and the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest.

Expect a more engaging experience than you’d get on an ocean liner. You’ll often dock in the heart of town and spend the day touring. “Excursions might take you to a castle or wine tast-ing, then you can come back and bike along the river,” says Colleen McDaniel, of CruiseCritic.com.

For help narrowing the choices, read reviews on CruiseCritic.com, or consult a travel agent accredited by the Cruise Lines International Association (this is generally free). Save money by schedul-ing your cruise during the region’s more affordable shoulder season (early spring and late fall in Europe; the height of summer in Southeast Asia). Seek ways to cut costs without sacrificing too much. For example, choosing a window cabin instead of a balcony can save hundreds of dollars.

SUCCESS

“Nontraditional” is the new traditional.Fewer than half of children under 18 are

currently living in a “traditional” family — with both parents, in their first marriage. Household sizes are getting smaller, as is the proportion of households involving a married couple; the recent legalization of same-sex marriage across the country has brought the situation of those families to the forefront as well.

“If you look at America and the broad landscape of families, what you start to see is life is more complicated,” says Sameer Au-rora, head of client strategy for UBS Wealth Management Americas. His company re-cently did a national survey and found that “modern” families — including blended, same-sex and multigenerational households — were nearly as common as “traditional” families with a heterosexual couple and children (34 percent vs. 35 percent). This survey focused on people with at least $50,000 in the bank; other research shows those with less wealth are even less likely to

be in traditional families.The changing American family can pose

special challenges for financial planning. Existing tax structures, regulations and financial products are all more or less intended for an outdated model of families with one breadwinner providing for two or more children. Another recent survey found seven out of 10 affluent investors felt that financial advice they encounter is designed with only the traditional family in mind.

The UBS survey found that 31 percent of blended families saw conflict among heirs, as opposed to 12 percent of traditional families. Two-thirds of blended families are still deciding exactly how to pass on their wealth, versus just half of traditional fami-lies. And blended families are more reticent about money and how to divide it. Only half say they have had open conversations across the generations, compared to 65 percent among traditional families.

That last statistic is especially bother-some, says Aurora. “One thing we’ve learned from past research on inheritance plan-ning and wealth transfer is that it’s best to start early.” It’s understandable that in households struggling to negotiate custody agreements, to bond as a family and to man-age all the emotions that come with divorce and remarriage, estate planning may go by the wayside. But you can’t afford to put off difficult conversations.

When it comes to providing for heirs from blended families, deciding what’s fair can be fiendishly difficult and is ultimately subjective. If you help your daughter with university tuition, do you have to help your stepdaughter? What if one goes to a private college and the other picks a cheaper public school? What if your wealthy new husband wants to gift his son from his first marriage a down payment on an apartment, and you weren’t in a position to do the same for your own child several years before?

The four estate planning tools most often mentioned for blended families are pre- and postnuptial agreements, insurance policies, wills and trusts.

A prenuptial agreement allows parents to set aside their personal assets for their existing children, such as the education funds in a 529 plan. It’s also possible to draft a postnuptial agreement after the knot is tied. However, these types of agreements, whether pre- or -post-, aren’t valid in every state, and enforcement may be up to a judge’s discretion.

A separate property trust offers another means to set aside assets when coming into a marriage and hopefully head off disagree-ments between a new spouse and existing children from a previous marriage.

With life insurance policies and retire-ment accounts, it’s important to update the beneficiary when you remarry — wills don’t govern that. It also may be advisable to take out new policies to ensure that everyone is provided for.

Aurora recommends seeking the advice of a financial planner with extensive experi-ence with these kinds of issues. Ideally, ex-spouses and current spouses will all be looped in. Remember that financial well-being is about making sure your actions are in line with your values.

Anya Kamenetz welcomes your questions at diyubook@gmail.com.

Financial planning for modern

families

Fewer than half of children under 18 are currently living in a ‘traditional’ family.

By Miriam Cross |

River cruises offer fewer crowds

MACROVECTOR/FOTOLIA

By Adele Peters |

How Burlington, Vermont, realized its vision of using 100% renewable energy

The city of Burlington, Vt., has been experi-menting with green energy since the early 1980s, when it

replaced an old-fashioned coal-burning electric plant with one that burned wood chips — something the state’s forestry industry could provide cheaply and reliably. It wasn’t until 2004, however, when the state agreed to join a market for renewable-energy credits recently established in the Northeast that go-ing fully green became the goal.

“That was the first time we had an inkling that this might be the right thing to do” — not just for the environment, but for the Burlington Electric Department and its custom-ers, says Ken Nolan, who was a resource planner there at the time. The city’s long-term contract with a nearby nuclear plant had recently expired, a short-term natural-gas contract was set to expire soon, and rapid technological advances were making solar and wind power cheaper every day. Finally, says No-lan, “We actually saw a path where

we could make this work.”Last fall, Burlington became the

first U.S. city to run on 100 percent renewable electricity. Nolan, who is now the city’s manager of power resources, acknowledges that it has benefited from some unique circumstances, including proximity to bountiful natural resources — rivers to generate hydropower, vast open spaces for wind farms — and a population of die-hard liberals who passed bond initiatives to pay for everything. A few smaller communi-ties beat Burlington to 100 percent green status, including Greensburg, Kan., population 785, which was forced to rebuild after a tornado destroyed the town in 2007. But Burlington, population 42,384, is by far the largest municipality to sever ties with traditional power.

Green energy is still more expen-sive than coal, but Burlington has managed to keep costs stable by selling credits to utilities in states such as Massachusetts, which requires energy producers to meet certain renewable-energy bench-marks. When utilities fall short of

those mandated goals, they must buy certificates through the regional market from a place like Burlington, and Burlington then passes along that revenue to its power customers as savings, like an energy subsidy doled out via the open market.

It’s a somewhat messy pro-cess that some environmentalists criticize: If a utility can buy credit for green energy it didn’t actually produce, it isn’t making progress to-ward producing more green energy. But with the cost of renewables continuing to fall, Nolan says, “there are years when the prices have been low enough that we’ve considered retiring the credit.”

Meanwhile, Burlington is con-tinuing to beef up its green-energy infrastructure. A new solar array at the city’s airport came online early this year, part of a mayoral initia-tive to use any available city land for solar power. And thanks to a pro-gram that offers free energy audits, technical support, and discounts on energy-efficient products, the city actually uses less power today than it did in 1989.

Anya KamenetzThe Savings Game

It’s actually kinda easy being green

MAX-O-MATIC

SUCCESS

Terry SavageThe Savage Truth

Long-term care is a subject nobody likes to think about. Yes, Medicare and supplements will pay for illness and hos-pitalization costs. But they don’t pay for care at home or in assisted living, when you can no longer do basic activities such as bathing, dressing, toileting and dining. Will your children come to help? Or, if you are an adult with aging parents, are you prepared for Mom or Dad to move into your home?

That’s where long-term care insurance comes in. Here are five things you should know:

1. The odds are likely that you will one day need some form of custodial care. Not all of the people who need custodial care are elderly, since accidents and diseases like Parkinson’s or demen-tia can afflict at any age, but the lifetime probability of becoming disabled in at

least two activities of daily living or of be-ing cognitively impaired is 68 percent for people age 65 and older, according to an AARP research report.

2. The cost of custodial care is ex-pensive, whether given at home or in assisted living or a nursing home. According to Genworth, one of the largest long-term care insurance companies, the average annual cost of a private room in a nursing home in 2015 is $91,250. And the average cost of a home health aide for 44 hours a week (not round-the-clock care) is $45,760. Could you afford that for years?

Genworth’s long-term care calculator (https://www.genworth.com/corporate/about-genworth/industry-expertise/cost-of-care.html) lets you see specific costs in your state, and also gives you costs for different types of long-term care.

3. Traditional policies require annual premiums. Traditional long-term care policies cover care for a fixed period of time, for a certain dollar amount, and may adjust for inflation. But you have to pay that premium every year — and it may rise over time. (Recent huge price increases have now adjusted earlier policies, so fu-ture increases are likely to be moderate.)

For example, a 60-year-old, single woman would pay an annual premium of $3,945 for a policy covering three years of care, at $200/day, with simple inflation protection. But if she waited to get cover-age until 70 and was still in good health, she’d pay an annual premium of $7,921 for the same policy.

Is it worth the cost? At age 80, the 60-year-old buyer will have $438,000 in benefits (factoring in inflation) that she paid less than $80,000 for (subject to class rate increases). And premiums stop when she activates the policy.

4. New “combo” policies combine a cash deposit into a life insurance policy with LTC benefits. If care is not needed, the policy owner can withdraw cash — or leverage the deposit into a life insurance for beneficiaries. For example, that same 60-year-old woman could put $100,000 into such a policy and receive $343,287 in long-term care benefits at age 80. However, if she doesn’t use the care benefits, her beneficiaries would get $111,622 at her death.

Check combo policies with your agent — or from Pacific Life, OneAmerica, Lincoln Financial or Nationwide.

5. Timing is everything. It’s best to buy LTC policies in your late 50s or early 60s, while you are healthy and can qualify. But you can buy even if you are older, al-though costs are higher. Major companies include: Genworth, Northwestern Mu-tual, MedAmerica, MassMutual, Mutual of Omaha. Or consult my two long-term care insurance gurus: Phyllis Shelton at www.GotLTCi.com or Brian Gordon at www.MagaLTC.com.

Plan now and you can sleep well. That’s The Savage Truth.

Terry Savage responds to questions on her blog at TerrySavage.com.

5 things to know about long-term

care policies

Genworth’s long-term care calculator lets you see costs in your state and gives you costs for different types of care.

Q: My siblings and I recently sold our late parents’ small home in a sought-after urban neighborhood where we all grew up. We accepted the highest of several offers (well above asking price) from buyers we assumed would renovate the house. To our dismay, it is being replaced by a huge new home that’s out of character with the block. Our former neighbors are upset with us, too. Didn’t the buy-ers or their agent have a legal or moral obligation to tell us of their tear-down intent? How could we have prevented this?

A: I don’t think the buyers or their agent had any obligation, legal or ethical, to disclose their plans to you voluntarily. If anything, the burden was on you and your listing agent to ask them or other-wise try to ascertain the intentions of

the various people seeking to buy the home — a difficult task at best. But even if bidders had verbally agreed to keep the house intact, the promise wouldn’t have been binding on them; they could always say they changed their mind after learn-ing the renovation costs.

Perhaps your agent didn’t educate you on the economic reality in your local housing market: Your parents’ property was worth more as a buildable lot than as a small, outdated residence, and the

highest bids were likely to come from tear-down buyers rather than remodel-ers. For your part, you might reasonably have been suspicious of an offer so much higher than the others. But you were apparently pleased to sell the house for a very attractive price.

Yes, you could have blocked this outcome, but only by putting into the contract a stipulation (or a covenant or deed restriction) that the house couldn’t be torn down or the facade significantly altered for a certain number of years. But be assured, that would have scared off not only the tear-down buyers but also the renovators who would not want the potential hassles of such a restriction. And you would certainly have received a much lower price for your parents’ home.

Have a money-and-ethics question you’d like answered in this column? Write to editor in chief Knight Kiplinger at ethics@kiplinger.com.

Should tear-down plans be disclosed?By Knight Kiplinger |

LJUPCO SMOKOVSKI/FOTOLIA

FTFOXFOTO/FOTOLIA

Jessica Mah, 25, descends onto the carpet in a pair of Ugg slip-pers. With no permanent desk at inDinero headquarters in San Francisco, the financial firm’s co-

founder and CEO seems to adapt herself to whatever space she finds herself in. She’s in the midst of a video conference with her four offices, including those on the other side of the globe in the Philip-pines.

Mah’s vibe has become more centered since four years ago, when her company appeared to be taking its last breath. In 2010, when she launched the “the Mint.com for small business” — as she posi-tioned it — the Y Combinator-backed startup offered a financial dashboard for business owners to track their cash flow. But Mah discovered that her product was flawed and its business model wasn’t sustainable. To complicate matters, she was powering inDinero with seven of her closest friends from University of Califor-nia at Berkeley, including her co-founder, Andy Su, 24. As the company began to unravel, so did her relationships. After one particular blowout, Su gave her an ultima-tum, threatening to leave: “I don’t forgive you until you agree to do counseling with me.” The two suddenly found themselves in couples therapy, of all places.

A failing business and an organizational headache was hardly the trajectory Mah imagined for herself when the precocious overachiever conceived of inDinero. Growing up with an engineer father and entrepreneur mother in New York City and Westchester County, she was coding by the time she was 8 years old. Mah hatched her first tech business at 12 (a web hosting services company), dropped out of high school at 15, and launched inDinero at 19. Other than a college internship, the computer science grad had never before worked for a company. She gradu-ated from Y Combinator’s summer 2010 class with $1.2 million in funding, while being hailed by the tech press as “the closest we’ve got to a female Mark Zuckerberg.” (In 2011, she was included among Inc.’s 30 Under 30.)

But a year after starting inDinero, cracks began to show. Most of inDinero’s 30,000 mom-and-pop-shop custom-ers were using the site for free, rather than paying for premium tools. Investors had cautioned against hiring buddies, but the young founder ignored their warnings. Now she was tangled in heated spats with her best friend over mundane issues like whether to put sales reps’ per-formances on a white board. “Suddenly I’m screaming at

her, and she’s screaming at me,” says Mah. “We stopped hanging out.” The startup was burning through $80,000 a month, with only $150,000 left in the bank, and Mah had to lay off all her friends (except two, including Su). “We were racing our Ferrari into a brick wall,” she admits.

To salvage what was left, Mah needed to pivot the company, but she didn’t know in what direction. She and Su moved the remains of inDinero into their apartment, with rent subsidized by their parents. The co-founders used their personal networks for market research, ultimately discover-ing their new product: software for small businesses to outsource back-office tasks, like taxes. The pair quickly learned book-keeping, and this time around, as they started to staff up, hiring friends was off the table.

But the reality was, she and Su were friends, roommates, and business partners — an overly complex dynamic. Even as the company began its turnaround, their relationship was devolving because of contrasting communication styles.

Last summer, the platonic partners’ re-lationship came to a head. Su gave Mah the therapy ultimatum, which turned out to be transformational. First, she hired an execu-tive coach, but the two soon upgraded to a marriage counselor, who has helped them adopt new rituals, like no fighting in front of the kids (employees) and mandatory

date nights, often in the form of hitting golf balls at the driving range or watching a movie. The understood rule: No talking about work problems. “Marriage counseling has been golden,” says Mah.

Today, the newly incarnated inDinero has become a force in the small-to-medium-size-business software space. Customers — primarily businesses with two to 100 employees — pay three to four figures monthly for the startup’s proprietary software, which handles all ac-counting and taxes. With another $8.8 million in funding, the company now boasts a staff of 150. In 2014, inDinero hit $2.9 million in revenue with a growth rate of 2,685.6 percent.

Along with that feat is another that’s just as critical to her: becoming a wiser, more grounded CEO. Mah’s been fueling her managerial self-help journey with lessons from books — she devoured 100 last year (from volumes on business management to political memoirs) She’s even repaired some of the friendships she lost in the initial inDinero meltdown. “At the end of the day,” says Mah, “all we have is our health, our family and our friends. That’s it.”

By Kate Rockwood |

How couples therapy saved this company

Poised for Silicon Valley

success, Jessica Mah

discovered that her company,

inDinero, had a flawed product,

an unsustainable business model

and a soap-opera-worthy

org chart.

These days, consumers have a vast array of financial products and services to manage. Consider these digital resources to help you keep track of it all:

1. Automatic bill payment and saving. To keep a record of bill pay-ments and how the money is spent (helpful if you’re trying to stick to a budget), check out Mint.com. An-other alternative is PersonalCapital.com, which provides budgeting tools and will track your investments, too.

2. Credit cards. Free tools at www.creditkarma.com help you gauge where your credit stands and show how you can improve it. You can also get access to your TransUnion credit report, updated weekly.

3. Insurance. The Insurance Infor-mation Institute offers Know Your Stuff, free software that will help you create a record of your possessions. It’s also available as an app for iPhone and Android smartphones. Your insurance company may also provide mobile or online tools you can use to record information you’ll need to file a homeowners or auto insurance claim.

4. Password management. PC-Mag.com provides a good rundown of the password managers available (along with their prices).

5. Paper files. Shoeboxed.com of-fers a free service that allows you to upload as many as five documents a month; after that, prices range from $9.95 to $99.95 a month, based on the number of documents stored and other services. Or use a free cloud-based service.

6. Retirement accounts. Your IRA provider probably offers tools you can use to figure out whether your overall portfolio is appropriately diversified, based on your age and risk tolerance.

SUCCESS

By Sandra Block |

Entrepreneur Stephen Lee would like to believe his app will trigger the same kinds of emotional response you’d get from sex or a really good steak.

His new app, ChariPick, aims to get people age 21 through 45 donating a dol-lar or more a day to niche nonprofits. The app was released recently for Apple and Android.

Lee, former COO of Chicago-based trading firm Hard Eight Holdings, said he wanted to create something that made charitable giving more personalized and interactive.

Each day, users can log in and select among three nonprofits that draw less than $10 million in donations each year. Donors then receive immediate feedback on what that money will be used for.

The choices will rotate daily. Lee and his team choose and vet the charities, which will include options in “animals

and environment,” “health and educa-tion” and “human rights and services.” The platform currently includes 100 charities, but Lee said that number will rise.

“Everything is designed for you to be able to review and make a decision in under a minute,” Lee said.

Lee said he hopes the app will be friendly to those in his target age group, who may have less of a budget for chari-table giving or who want to steer clear of inconvenience.

Users can share notifications of their donations across social media platforms. Over time, the app’s algorithm will curate nonprofits by mining a user’s donation data and selecting more personalized nonprofits, Lee said.

The platform takes 6.75 percent of each dollar donated.

So why would a 21-year-old allocate a dollar toward charity instead of a Taylor Swift song or extra lives on Candy Crush?

Lee said the “instant gratification of giv-ing” will be one factor — he cited research that charitable giving lights up the same area of the brain as sex or good food.

The ability to share notifications on social media could also help. Amy Webb, a digital media futurist and founder of Webbmedia Group, said younger millen-nials like payment apps that tie in sharing, such as Venmo’s chatty, public payment descriptions.

She said organizations that are doing fundraising with a social-media aspect draw wider engagement and more dona-tions.

“When those payments are transparent and public, the system by default encour-ages other people to participate,” she said.

Webb said apps that make the pay-ments seamless are more likely to succeed in pulling in donations.

“The easier the process is, and the fewer barriers that exist, the higher en-gagement that you’ll see,” she said.

ChariPick counts on the ‘instant gratification of giving’ for users

6 great online financial tools

to simplify your life

CHARIPICK PHOTOS

Stephen Lee, center founded ChariPick, a mobile platform aimed to get people age 21 through 45 donating a dollar or more a day to niche nonprofits.

By Meg Graham |