Austin Hill — a smart guy who founded the company that eventually became Radialpoint, and writes a venture-capital oriented blog called Billions With Zero Knowledge — has put together what he hopes will become a Web 2.0-style charity called Gifter, and launched it with a “million-dollar blog post.” For every wish that is submitted, $1 will be donated to charity.
You can also sponsor a wish by donating $1 or more to Gifter (props to Austin for keeping all the vowels in the name, unlike most other Web 2.0 outfits). There’s an explanation of how things work here, including a description of how you can use online charity tools such as Tom Williams’ excellent GiveMeaning.com, as well as CanadaHelps.org (another of Austin’s ventures, called Project Ojibwe, has sponsored 2,500 wishes).

Coincidentally enough, Muhammad Saleem of The Mu Life and a partner just launched a website called Socially Given, where they are also hoping to use Web 2.0-type community tools to bring together people who want to contribute. Their idea stemmed from a post on Digg, in which Valleywag said it would donate $10 every time its “Diggbait” posts made it to the front page — and Muhammad calculated that this would bring in far more in advertising profits than would be given to charity.
Cambrian House, the Calgary-based “crowdsourcing” software-development company (which I wrote about here), also has a socially-driven charity effort of sorts called Robinhood Fund, in which people pay $5 to submit a wish, and then the community votes on who should receive the money collected each month. Past recipients have included a woman who needed medication for her sister’s Parkinson’s disease.
Thanks for the link Mathew. So, do you now get to claim the 1st reporter title from Mark?
Great post. Hopefully as this spreads, we’ll give you some more interesting things to write about :)
You’re most welcome, Austin. As for the title, I will let Mark do whatever his conscience dictates as far as that’s concerned :-)
Remaking the charity biz, Web 2.0-style via Mathew Ingram: mathewingram.com/work December 19th, 2006 at 16:35
Those Cambrian House guys have the best ideas. I really hope things pan out for them in the future.
Press Coverage Remaking the charity biz, Web 2.0-style
here. Post a comment. Tell us your wish for the world. Do it as a way of coming together with others, to show you care about everyone else around you. Do it to demonstrate your generosity and hopefulness.” You know what to do. Second one came from Mathew Ingram
Press and Mentions Remaking the charity biz, Web 2.0-style 901am Staff Update Socially Given: Blogging For Charity TayTV in 2007
Craig Silverman probative The Holocore Weblog Aidan Henry Hartley Singer Beth Kanter at BlogHer wolog.net 100 Bloggers Webmasters? Let’s Talk! Valeria Maltoni Robin Wauters Marc Snyder Mike Murray Dennis Eusebio Mathew Ingram DCS Security Deb Richardson Andrew Flusche Tara Hunt Mark Evans Andy Nulman Hugh Mcguire Each and everyone’s support means a great deal to us and to the community-at-large. Please visit these sites, check out the great blogs and spread the word.
[...] Web 2.0 Charity By: Mathew Ingram 2006-12-20 Austin Hill has put together what he hopes will become a Web 2.0-style charity called Gifter, and launched it with a “million-dollar blog post.” Link: million-dollar blog post Hill is a smart guy who founded the company that eventually became Radialpoint, and writes a venture-capital oriented blog called Billions With Zero Knowledge. For every wish that is submitted, $1 will be donated to the charity. You can also sponsor a wish by donating $1 or more to Gifter (props to Austin for keeping all the vowels in the name, unlike most other Web 2.0 outfits). There’s an explanation of how things work here, including a description of how you can use online charity tools such as Tom Williams’ excellent GiveMeaning.com, as well as CanadaHelps.org (another of Austin’s ventures, called Project Ojibwe, has sponsored 2,500 wishes). Coincidentally enough, Muhammad Saleem of The Mu Life and a partner just launched a website called Socially Given, where they are also hoping to use Web 2.0-type community tools to bring together people who want to contribute. Their idea stemmed from a post on Digg, in which Valleywag said it would donate $10 every time its “Diggbait” posts made it to the front page - and Muhammad calculated that this would bring in far more in advertising profits than would be given to charity. Cambrian House, the Calgary-based “crowdsourcing” software-development company (which I wrote about here), also has a socially-driven charity effort of sorts called Robinhood Fund, in which people pay $5 to submit a wish, and then the community votes on who should receive the money collected each month. Past recipients have included a woman who needed medication for her sister’s Parkinson’s disease. Comment Tag: Gifter Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | FurlView All Articles by Mathew Ingram About the Author: Mathew Ingram [note only one "t" in Mathew] is a technology writer and blogger for the Globe and Mail, a national newspaper based in Toronto, and also writes about the Web and media at http://www.mathewingram.com/work and http://www.mathewingram.com/media. [...]
Matthew, thanks for the mention. Robinhood Fund is really excited to see the idea of community-driven giving taking off.
We’ve got some touching, deserving wishes up for $10,000 in January. To keep things balanced and interesting we’ve also got some truly naughty wishes, one of which will also get $10,000.
Thanks, Nox. Should be fun to watch.
[...] Mathew Ingram also posted something about Gifter.org. He mentions another cool project in social giving, which comes the team at Cambrian House, the Robin Hood Fund. I met the team from Cambrian House at Web 2.0 and they are a cool team, and the Robin Hood fund is a great community project. [...]