Today I was asked by the Committee to Protect Bloggers (where I'm a technical adviser) if I knew anyone who was a good source of fundraising support.  The Committee raises awareness and support for people around the world facing government repression because of the contents of their blogs.  (See their profile in the case studies section.) The group just secured its 501c3 status and currently has an operating budget close to zero.  That makes it hard to sustain the kind of support work that the bloggers in danger world wide deserve.

I immediately thought of Pledge Bank, another group profiled in the Net2 case studies.  Pledge Bank is a great way for a project to help itself gain support, financial or otherwise.  It's a simple system; someone starts a pledge by saying "I will do X (anything they chose) but only if X number of other people do it too." 

Pledge Bank then gives each pledge a web page on its site and lets visitors enter their email and name to join the pledge.  The pledge starter is kept up to date on the number of people who have signed on, how much time is left on the pledge (you set the deadline) and even creates a flier automatically that can be printed and distributed anywhere you please.  There's an inspiring list of pledges underway, an impressive list of pledges successfully met and you can even subscribe to the lists of new pledges made and pledges successfully completed by RSS.  It's an impressive system where you bring the energy and Pledge Bank provides the communications infrastructure for grass-roots organizing.  Most of the pledges are requesting action more than they are requesting funds, but there is some of both on the site.

Since I think the work that the Committee does is very important, I created a pledge for them.  To read more about the group and this Pledge Bank pledge, you can read more at this post over at my own blog.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, support, organizing, CPB, PledgeBank