Earn $2 Per Vote! (Fundraising)

In this case, paying for votes is not against the law -- simply click on your favorite charity from a long list of organizations, and the campaign sponsor donates $2 to your choice.

This type of campaign has been experimented with for many years, and it is interesting to see the model still alive and in this case being promoted by Seth Godin, the popular blogger, author and thought leader in the realm of opt-in or "permission marketing." Here's some interesting elements this time around:

• The campaign is conducted on the community platform Squidoo, which was created by Godin and colleagues. When looking at the campaign's page, you quickly feel that this is an online-community effort. It is colloquial and even a bit clunky in places, and very popular.


• The Squidoo Charity Fund is actually the sponsor, putting up the prize money, which is capped at $80,000 total to be spread across whichever charities get the votes.


• At least some of the charities seized the opportunity to viral-market for votes -- for example the Acumen Fund sent out an email to colleagues and supporters highlighting this easy way to help raise money for their work quickly, simply by going to the campaign page and voting for them.


• The campaign page also includes space for user commentary about the future of online fundraising targeted at both "the small and the many" and "the big and the few" donations.

The goal was to generate 40,000 votes by October 15. That target was accomplished by October 4.