:Michael Anuzis

One of my goals for 2007 is to raise $15 million for Kiva.org, a non-profit site that turns cash into microcredit then returns it to the lender. My first tactic was a potentially viral facebook group called “We’ll invest $25 in microcredit per 100Kth member”. Do the math and 300,000 members means $15 million raised.
The idea was based off the group “For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur” that reached over 480,000 members within about 6 months. Unfortunately, after a couple weeks our microcredit group has only got 150 supporters and the momentum’s just not there. I’ve been brainstorming the challenge since day 1, and the best solution I’ve come up with involves a potentially lucrative web2.0 company that I don’t yet have the programming skill to create.

The idea’s similar to fundable.org, a site that helps groups of people raise money for their cause. Rather than require everyone interact directly with fundable.org, however, the site I envision allows people to embed a fund-raising gadget on their own site.

Look at the fund-raising gadget Wikipedia uses as an example.  It updates in real-time as donations are made, it’s easier for visitors to trust since it’s embedded right on Wikipedia’s site, and it’s successful at raising money (it’s got over a million in donations already!).

Imagine all the other sites\organizations that would love to have such a simple\effective fund raising application on their site, but don’t know how to program all the complex back-end processes to process transactions and post real-time updates to the web. If one website allowed people to register their fund-raising initiative with it and they were given a simple piece of code to paste onto their site to make it work it could benefit thousands of organizations. Take 1% of the money for providing the applet and you could be rolling in an automated revenue stream that could easily make a few families well-off.

Another function that would enhance the site’s success is allowing people to choose from a set of pre-made fund structures. Is this a one-time event like Wikipedia, or are you raising money via a 3-tiered structure (e.g. donate $25 per 100K members, up to 300K members total). I’m sure there are ten other creative\effective methods that could be used if you thought it through. Also, allow people to customize the graphic from some pre-set models. Do they want a horizontal bar like Wikipedia? or would a vertical bar embed better on their site? Perhaps an image of their choosing is slowly revealed as they approach their fund-raising goal.

To leave you with one last idea, such a site would spread the surface area of fund raising exponentially. Rather than hosting your fund-raising applet locally only, organizations could encourage their supporters to post the applet on their personal website, myspace profile, or w/e else they prefer.

Seems like a great idea to me. If anyone makes this happen please let me know. I think we could help Kiva raise $15 million with it - and that would be just the beginning…