Last week, I was happily surprised by an initiative that @JaimeH, one of our members in TuDiabetes, came up with. She has a way with graphics, so she offered to make Virtual Santa hats for people on Twitter in exchange for a micro-donation of $1.50 to benefit TuDiabetes.com.

That started Dec. 3. To date, she's raised a little more than $250! Talk about perseverance... and people keep asking how they can get their Virtual Santa Hats!

I found a source dating back to 2002, talking about micro-donations as a viable fundraising mechanism... yet back then, the tools and the networks to make this possible weren't available.

Today, we have Twitter and networks on Ning (to just name a couple of social media) that help spread ideas like this one virally and generate hundreds (if not thousands or millions) of donations to make the micro-donation concept not only possible, but perhaps a great way to help nonprofits get over the hump in the coming months.

BTW, have you gotten your Virtual Santa Hat yet? ;)