The other day I finished reading Paul Carr‘s ‘Bringing nothing to the party‘. It was an OK read, all about the dot com boom, crash and subsequent boom. I think that’s how it went, anyway.

One story in this book was all about Alex Tew’s Million Dollar Homepage. You can read all about it here, but essentially, to help fund his university education, Alex sold pixels on his website for $1 each. Word spread, advertisers snapped them up, an internet phenomena was born, and 21-year-old Alex was $1,000,000 richer.

Now, I’m sure there have been many attempts to copy it since, but recently I’ve spotted a couple of charity versions too. Firstly, Evan Riley is trying to raise £150,000 for Barnardo’s. He’s slightly cheaper than Alex, at £1 for 10 pixels. I do worry though, that promising to create a page AFTER he’s received all the money might be his downfall. People like to see what they’re getting. Either way, it’s a good cause, and he’s only raised 0.01% so far, so why not bung him a couple of quid?

A more exciting take on this idea popped up on twitter this morning. In a partnership between Dulux and UNICEF, ‘Own a Colour‘ does exactly what it says on the tin (sorry to mix up my DIY brands). For £1 a triangle, you get to name your colour, leave a message and even give your colour as a gift. Totally pointless, but it still sounds pretty fun! Also there’s 16.7 million colours. That’s a lot of money. There’s already some famous faces on there and over £13,000 raised. So if you’re more of a UNICEF kinda guy than Barnardo’s, maybe send your £1 thattaway.

Richard

For a second I thought it was someone real.

Not that you’d advertise on Facebook if you actually needed blood transfusions.

But I clicked it anyway. Thankfully it went to a real website. Not some black market for selling your blood.

Could do with some eye-contact still though…

Richard

What better way to battle through a birthday-induced hangover than browsing the internet while sat at work? I cannot think of any either…

Whilst this may not be a super productive use of time, it did allow me to stumble across an article on the BBC website. It told the story of how Google was successfully lobbied to include South Sudan on its maps service. Now why is that relevant to fundraising and charities? Well the mobilisation took place on a website called www.change.org which allows people to create petitions and for other people to lend support – these petitions are then used to lobby governments, businesses and organisations for change. People who sign petitions share their actions with friends on Facebook and the viral benefits of the internet really kick in. A lot of people are using this service. 400k joined last month.

How can charities use this service? How about engaging donors in non-financial actions? Allowing donors to promote charities’ messages to their friends? But mostly, making change.

Here is an example of a live petition

And here is an example of a successful petition

Paul S