Pledgebank “says it can make collective action easier on a local and national level,by letting people publicise their personal campaigns,”the Guardian reports.”Pledges take the form of requests for help from like-minded individuals - for example “I will donate 1% of my salary to charity if 100 other people do too” - and can be signed up to using the internet or text message, and the site provides ready-built flyers and material to help gather support.”
Making the pledge
- June 13th, 2005
Comments
@ 12:52
Great idea! Two suggested improvements:
1) Are other people really going to follow through on their pledges? For monetary pledges, you could work with an escrow service. People would have to send credit card information, or a check, to pledge, but cards wouldn’t be charged, or checks cashed, unless pledge drive succeeded. This would also allow useful variants like: “I will donate $100 to the BBC if 1000 others do AND if the BBC doesn’t cancel program X.”
2) Encourage focus on pledges where getting over the “threshold” number of participants really matters. 50 people recycling or giving blood isn’t going to have much impact on landfills or the blood supply, but 5 people organizing a web site or writing the same politician about some previously obscure issue might make a real difference.