Thing-athon

[marcusmarcusrc]

I've always been a little dubious about the whole thing-athon idea, inasmuch as it seems like if you're going to give donations to stuff, why do it by sponsoring a friend in a thing-athon rather than just donating directly to the organization? And yet, I do sponsor friends anyway. So, now that I'm doing a thing-athon of my own, I figured I might as well ask for sponsors. *shrug*.

Click here to donate money to Greater DC Cares through my Servathon page

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

I think it's all about a) giving you a reason to donate now (as opposed to tomorrow, or never), and b) exploiting your social web to make you feel a greater sense of incentive/obligation. :)

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Certainly, it is all about exploiting the social web in service of a cause. For (a), the question is whether it is "an opposed to tomorrow" in which cause I'm just switching someone's donation from one time (and cause) to another. On the other hand, if it really is "as opposed to never" then that's probably worthwhile...

[desireearmfeldt]

But I think that "no particular reason to do it today as opposed to tomorrow" does often translate in practice to "never getting around to it." (Not just for charity--for nearly everything.) We like events and special occasions and reasons and impetus to do things.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Plus there's the whole issue of getting something on the radar at all. There are causes I donate to sometimes - there are a lot more causes that I've heard of but not chosen to donate, and there's even more that I've never heard of at all. Certainly "Greater DC Cares" is not a cause that I had ever heard of before, and it's not like I was likely to go searching out "Helpful groups in DC that need money".

[ilai]

Here's a little variety: the Phelps-a-Thon. You're using Fred Phelps to help donate directly to a local school!

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Now that's a clever idea!

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have to remember to pledge to that.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I think thing-a-thons help sort of fill an instinct towards reciprocity in the social contract between friends. Instead of saying "Give money, please?" you're saying something closer to "If I do X, will you give money?" which feels more like a fair trade (even though X is usually not something at all related to the person giving money).

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That makes sense. If someone is willing to commit several hours of their time to a cause, I'm more likely to be willing to chip in some money for that cause too...

[bamboocity.livejournal.com]

Completely OT - but I don't have your current e-mail. A long time back you recommended an accountant in the Boston area... do you remember who it was?