A social experiment for good · 2014
Generosity,
made contagious.
In the spring of 2014, Jason Buzi and Yan Budman began hiding envelopes of cash in public places and posting clues on Twitter. They called it a social experiment. Within twelve weeks, without a single paid advertisement, over seven hundred thousand people chose to follow. Thousands went outside to search. Millions watched.
There was no budget. No brand. No precedent. Just an idea, a belief that generosity could spread like joy — and the quiet conviction that people, given the chance, will surprise you.
"It gets people out of their living rooms and out there doing things with their friends, their kids, their families."
Jason Buzi, co-founder · CNN Anderson Cooper 360°
What it meant
A 14-year-old girl
used the money she found to buy medicine for her sick grandmother. She didn't keep a cent.
Families
who hadn't spent an afternoon outside together in months found themselves running through parks, laughing, searching side by side.
Strangers
who found envelopes bought lunch for other strangers, paid off parking tickets, donated to local charities — and paid it forward.
Academics
later credited @HiddenCash as an early model of what they called "stunt philanthropy" — a form of generosity that inspires generosity in others.
As the world saw it
"The anonymous man behind @HiddenCash says he just wants to make people happy — and judging by the thousands who turned out across the country, it's working."
CNN
TechCrunch · CNN · BBC · NPR · The Guardian · TIME · The Wall Street Journal · The New York Times · Los Angeles Times · NBC News · ABC News · CBS News · HuffPost · The Telegraph · Gothamist · Business Insider
The creators
Jason Buzi
A real estate entrepreneur from Palo Alto who believed that giving back didn't have to be formal, distant, or institutional. He wanted it to be human.
Yan Budman
His co-founder and partner in the experiment — who understood that the idea wasn't about money at all. It was about what happens when you give people a reason to look up from their screens.
"Anyone can do this. It's not about the money — it's about the joy of making a difference."
Yan Budman · TechCrunch, 2014
Generosity is not a transaction.
It is a feeling that spreads.
@HiddenCash ran for one summer. The envelopes stopped. The Twitter account went quiet. But the idea — that a small act of generosity, shared openly, can move through a city, a country, a world — that never stopped.
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