The Hype Machine

Jim Carini recently shared his incredible idea with us and I had to pass it along. First the background:

According to Newsweek, the struggling US economy is bringing about an upcoming Charity Crisis due to people losing jobs and trying to save more. 2008’s charitable donations are expected to be down $8-10 billion! It’s estimated that 100,000 nonprofits nationwide may be forced to close their doors leaving millions of Americans without a safety net during the worst recession since the great depression.

So Jim mashed up the modern day trend of a Flashmob (big group of people showing up, doing something crazy, then dispersing) with Charitable contributions into something he calls Flashmob4Charity.

The idea: Get 1 million people to each give just $10 to create a war chest
from which the flashmob4charity community makes grants each month to
charities facing financial crisis. And to keep things non-controversial
they¹ll only be concentrating on food, shelter, clothing and medical care
charities.

So head over to Flashmob4Charity and sign up to pledge $10. You’ll only get charged if at least 100,000 people sign up so that it has the intended grand-scale effect. They’ve also done a compilation album with indie label Nettwerk Music Group. Everyone who pledges atleast $10 will get a special link where they can download the album free.

One of my goals this year is to volunteer somewhere. Where do you guys volunteer and do charity work?