Beth Kanter is experimenting with losing weight and solving the hunger crisis, all by way of putting social action platforms to work.

Kanter, the earliest of all early adopter, is looking to shed some pounds. If she were anything like me, she'd commit to jogging every day, do it twice, get bored, and actually gain two pounds by way of shoving spoon-fulls of Chunky Monkey into her mouth in an attempt to binge away the sense of failure.

However, Kanter is much smarter than I am when it comes to a self-challenge, and she's putting your money where her mouth is.

Your money?

Kanter's campaign is hosted at The Point, a social platform that helps to frame action by way of creating more incentive for the organizer, participant, and potential donor.

• [Full Disclosure: The Point is a client of mine, not to mention that I like Beth Kanter very much, and I feel strongly about hunger issues.]
• [Note on Disclosure: I'd never write something nice about someone/an organization if I didn't believe in what I was writing, even if they were paying me to do so. This leads to me telling you that The Point is not, in fact, paying me to write about them here.]
• [Note on note: Maybe I'm being hasty. If you want to talk about seeing your company name mentioned in one of my extremely highly read (not to mention very clever) posts, feel free to email me your price and we can get talking.]

Beth's approach to this particular campaign, which has been constructed to raise money for the Capital Area Food Bank, is interesting in that it does something that few fundraising campaigns do: It's objective humanizes the fundraising process beyond lamenting about the human issues being faced by the recipients of the money raised. The campaign runs through the end of this year, is designed to raise money for the food bank, and they money will not be released if Kanter hasn't lost ten pounds (this is possible as all money raised on The Point is raised in the form of a pledge, and will not be withdrawn from the donors account if all objectives are not met). Kanter is put in the position of shedding weight so as to not keep these donations out of the hands of those who need them, and you're put in the position of giving to a good cause, and to helping Kanter reach her goal. 

We all give money to issues that have a human face, and the key to getting us to participate in the giving process is to attach to our campaigns as much resonance as we can fit into them without pandering in a way that turns people off. How often, though, do we consider connecting with our donors by putting ourselves on the line? And what issue resonates with nearly everyone in this country more than wanting to look better in a bathing suit?

Rather than talking about how sad and hungry large parts of the community are - something that we already know about and feel compelled on some level to give to - it's another story altogether to put your own battles on the line. I know that it's a struggle to keep those extra pounds off (especially after having hit the age of 25), and I know that incentive beyond my own guilty body-image is what keeps that weight off (thanks, skinny industry!) This is what compels me to give to Kanter - I can relate with this struggle, I want to help to give her incentive, and I feel good about giving money to a food bank while doing so.

[Further, this is one of the more interesting studies of post-modern, Marxian/Foucauldian redistribution of wealth - Because of my feelings about body image, and my compulsion to give to causes, I'll (voluntarily) pay money for Beth to keep food out of her mouth and to out it into the hands of the poor - I hope that my philosophy professors from The University of Southern Maine will care enough to comment on this.]

When I was in the 10th grade, tornadoes had ravaged the south and I started a campaign at my high school where I carried around a bucket and asked that people put their change into it. I would do it for two weeks, I said, and would carry it everywhere, no matter how heavy it got. Carrying a heavy bucket is less an inconvenience than living without a home, or worse, I explained. I called local radio stations and they broadcasted interviews about the campaign, and I called Kevin Smith's production house and got them to match what I raised, and by the end of the weeks, I had $500 dollars in change (some people were nice enough to give bills and checks) that went to the Red Cross's effort to provide relief. Matched with View Askew Productions' donation, I had $1,000. It was the first time I had raised any money for any cause, and it was then that I realized that successful fundraising is as contingent on the organizer as it is on the cause.

This sort of maneuvering is especially important as the millennial giving pool matures. As mentioned in previous posts, millennials are much less interested in giving to institutions, and more to specific campaigns. They're connection with the person they're giving to is even sometimes more important than the issue of campaign at hand. Kanter, as per usual, is doing interesting work when it comes to figuring out how to make campaigns more resonant, thus more appealing to the donor.

So what are you waiting for? Go help get the food out of Kanter's mouth and get it into the hands of those in need.

What other interesting ideas are out there that take this set of theories to heart?