Last year, social bookmarking site Reddit partnered up to raise over $3,000 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF.org), a non-profit selected by the website’s users to benefit from the
fund-raising drive. This year, they’re trying something different — raising volunteers instead of cash.
It's partly an
acknowledgement that many people have few funds to spare, and partly a nod to the wealth of high-tech talent found among Reddit users.
Between now and the February 14th deadline, individuals are encouraged to sign up with Reddit’s Feed a Need
project and give 2 hours of volunteer time to a designated nonprofit. Prizes
donated by a variety of sponsors will be awarded to winners chosen at
random from the pool of eligible volunteers.
So if you are a programmer, designer, artist, lawyer, geology
professor, bacon cooker, or anyone else with a few hours to spend for a
good cause please consider participating in this year’s Feed a Need
charity drive.
Volunteers are asked to fill out a fairly detailed form, so their
skills can be matched as closely as possible with the needs of a
participating charity. Appropriately enough for a social bookmarking
site, Reddit users are invited to “vote up” their favorite
organizations in the pool of nominated nonprofits, and there’s no need to volunteer to participate in the voting.
Does your nonprofit have a need to feed?
If your nonprofit organization could use the help of a skilled volunteer for a
few hours this winter — there’s still time to take advantage of the
Feed a Need project. Just provide
the organization’s name, website address, and a description (500 words
maximum) in the submission form at FeedaNeed.org.
Reddit reports that it receives something in the order of 4 million
unique hits each month, with most of the bookmarking activity coming
from a young and tech-savvy crowd. Your group might be lucky enough to
be matched up with the kind of special-talent volunteer you’ve needed
to move your projects to a new level — but at the very least, it’s a
no-cost opportunity to bring attention to your cause.
What’s to lose?