Life in General

Creative giving part 3

John Quiggin470 Comments

Aus-Halfmoon-Wattle-2

I haven’t managed to come up with a creative new idea for helping the tsunami aid appeals, so I’m going to copy Michele Agnew. From now until midnight Sunday, I’ll give one $A to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal for each comment[1] I receive on this post, up to a maximum of 1000.

To add a tiny element of novelty, I’m inviting others to join the effort by sponsoring this offer at whatever rate they can afford. You can work out your maximum exposure from the limit, for example, if you offer 5 cents a comment, you’re promising to give up to $50.

If you’re interested, please send me an email at j dot quiggin at uq dot edu dot au. I’ll record it in the updates with your name, pseudonym or anonymously as you prefer. When the appeal is over, I’ll write and tell you how much you’ve promised. Feel free to nominate a charity of your choice.

Update The Eudora mail server is running hot, with the first contributor to join the effort already coming through:
“William Burroughs’ Baboon” says pls put me down for 10c per comment
Update 10:12 pm An anonymous regular reader offers 50 cents per comment, nominating World Vision
rdb offers 50 cents per comment
Nicholas Gruen offers to match me dollar for dollar, in return for an ad. Accepted!
That’s $4.10 $3.10 per comment! (sorry for late-night arithmetic errors)

Update 6am
An anonymous regular reader offers 15c per comment
“Saint Straightjacket” offers 20c per comment, up to $300

So we’re up to $3.45 per comment, and the total amount raised is nearly $500, with most of the day still left to come.

It’s particularly good to see lots of visitors from Tim Blair’s blog – a reminder that, whatever our disagreements, we can all work together at a time like this.

In the comments, Tim has offered $100 if I shave my beard off. That’s nowhere near enough, but I’m eager to secure Tim’s money for the cause so I’m making a counteroffer in the spirit of national unity and cash for comment. If Tim will give $100, I’ll write a 200 word post saying exclusively good things about John Howard. I’m willing to increase the amount proportionally for further pledges from Tim’s (or my) readers, until I run out of good things to say.

Update 10:30am We’re well over 200 comments now, and thanks to the generosity of cosponsors, within sight of the original target of $1000, with the capacity to raise a lot more

wmmbb has offered 20c a comment, up to a total of 500
Mark Bahnisch has offered 10c a comment

I’m really impressed by all of this. Quite a few cosponsors have offered more, in relation to their means, than my starting offer. This is one area where I’m unreservedly in favour of competition, and I’m already thinking about my next move.

I’d also like to thank everyone who’s linked to the post. In particular, I now have a full set of Tims, at least among the blogs I read regularly: Tim Blair, Tim Dunlop, Tim Lambert and Tim T have all sent visitors this way. For any other Tims or non-Tims who want to link, there’s still more than 12 hours to go.

Update 1:34pm
Crossing the ideological divide, Andrew Norton offers 10c a comment
Paul2 also offers 10c
wmmbb offers 10c more
Harry Clarke offers 20c up to 500 comments

That puts us over $4 a comment, and with well over 300 comments, we’ve easily passed the original goal of $1000. But there’s still plenty of money on the table, so keep the comments coming in.

I forgot to mention it when I put this post up, and I’m not going to worry too much about it today, but this is a PG blog, so no more coarse language, please. Double entendres and dirty jokes are fine, as long as they’re funny.

I’ve had the first taker on the Howard challenge. “2dogs” has sent in his $50 to the Red Cross, and emailed me the receipt, earning 100 words of sincere praise from me for John Howard, to be published as soon as I’ve tallied up the donations and tied myself to the keyboard. Come on Howard-lovers, and set me a real challenge. I could write that much defending Don Rumsfeld, and have done so. 1000 words in praise of Howard might give me some trouble.

And here’s the ad I promised Nicholas Gruen, who’s agreed to match my donations. If you click here you can see a further generous offer from him.

<img src="wordpress/wp-content/images/Peachanimatedgifbanner.gif" href="http://www.peachhomeloans.com.au/quiggin.htm&quot;

Update 6pm We’ve passed 400 comments and raised more than $1500. Looking at the current pace, there should be more than 500 comments by the time the appeal ends, but probably not many more than 600. A number of cosponsors have limited their contributions to an upper bound of 500 comments, thereby giving themselves a fair bit of certainty. Now I’m appealing for some risk-tolerant types to cosponsor the remaining comments, starting at number 501. Why don’t you put in, say, 50 cents a comment. There’s a small risk that you might be hit for $250, but in the absence of a last-minute surge, it’s more likely to be around $50.

Update 10:30pm

Jack Strocchi and Claire Rodda have promised 10c per comment up to 500

Down and Out in Sài Gòn has promised 50c for each comment over 500. At this stage, it looks as if he(?) will get off cheaply, so let’s have a flood of last-minute comments.

Final Midnight has come to Queensland, and we ended up with 470 comments. I’m off to bed now, but in the morning I’ll send my own contribution, rounded up to $500, and advise commenters how much they’ve promised to pay.

fn1. At my absolute discretion, I’ll delete bots, spammers, repetitive commenters etc. If you don’t trust me to act fairly in this respect, don’t participate.

470 thoughts on “Creative giving part 3”

  12. Excellent idea! I hope more people follow suit, and that this kind of fundraising model catches on for other things, as well.

  13. Quiggin: Tsunami Relief
    John Quiggin is offering to donate one Australian dollar for every comment on this post until midnight tonight to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal… Go over there and post a comment now! At the time of writing, John has…

  14. It worries me a bit that we need this kind of stunt…

    And how about raising money for Darfur or Ethiopia – if MSF says the need is much greater elsewhere, surely it behoves those of us who actually think about development issues not to follow the herd?

    There, maybe that will start an argument or two 🙂

  19. Good effort, I like your approach. I hope you reach 1,000.

    Good luck from Elizabeth Colorado USA

  22. I’m really impressed, John. I admire your desire to keep the original generous response to this heart-breaking disaster alive. I’m looking out my window and seeing a few flags at half mast. Down here in Melbourne, it is one of those beautiful summer mornings – one of those ones that makes you feel a little – well, actually very – alive. The irony is not lost on me. Good luck.

  23. I agree with you Danny. I saw a BBC Hardtalk with former UK Development Secretary Claire Short, and there is definitely a lot of concern that donors may shift some of their resources from desperately needed help in Africa – the UN’s World Food program is one such example. Yes, it is often in places that receive the least media attention like the former Democratic Republic of Congo that are in the greatest need. I can think of other areas of Africa which are in similarly dire circumstances.

    Still I really appreciate John’s gesture, best of luck hitting four-figures.

  33. Aedh wishes for the clothes of Heaven

    Had I the heavens embroidered clothes,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark clothes
    Of night and light and half light,
    I would spread the clothes under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams
    I have spread my dreams under your feet:
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

  36. Well done, a good and thoughtful thing. While I donate to the Salvation Army myself, it is wonderful to see you doing this.

    MarkL
    Canberra

  37. Creative giving
    John Quiggin and some of his readers will make a donation to tsunami relief charities for every comment left on this post. So far the pledge is $3.75 per comment, and there are 231 comments — but his upper limit is 1000, so head over there and leave …

  39. Pay up, you bastards!

    PS: Onyer for making an open-ended commitment like this. I hope you have fun seeing how many comments you can collect. Oberfuhrer Tim Blair sent me – I didn’t really want to do this. Ouch! Yes master, coming …

  45. I wish I could think of something amusing or important to say. But Night shift has robbed me of my brain power. Keep up the good work.

  48. Pakistan are putting up a good fight in the cricket- I don’t know if anyone noticed but the cricketers stopped for a minute’s silence since today is the Memorial Day.

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