CHS is an experiment in collaboration. When you leave a comment here, you are working with the group to expand the conversation. Users post stories, pictures and videos. More and more, we’re finding ways to work together in significant ways — I’m looking forward to seeing what Cheesecake and EmilyP cook up with his next video episode and her design skills.
In that spirit, we’d like to try another new thing — CHS Giving Snowball 2008, an experiment in holiday giving. At the center of any community collaboration, there needs to be a driver. For Snowball 2008, it’s neighbor pffft who wrote in looking for a way to expand his plans for holiday giving. Pffft will help get the Snowball rolling by throwing $100 in the group pot (see below) and pledging $400 to Northwest Harvest if we meet our $700 giving goal. Thanks pffft! CHS is also throwing $50 in the community pot to get things rolling. And there is no time like the present to get things rolling — I’m hearing all sorts of anecdotes about challenges faced by local nonprofits right now.
UPDATE — Despite ChipIn’s lameness, we have exceeded goal with $725 raised. If you’d still like to give, here’s an update pot to drop a few dollars in.
Here is how the Snowball works:
- You should see a Chip In widget above. Please consider adding a few dollars to the pot to help meet our goal and kick in pffft’s gift. Giving won’t cost you anything but the dollar amount you give. Small fees are taken on each pledge from our end of things. So, if you give $5, the Chip In/PayPal solution will give us about $4.60 (30 cent base fee + around 2%, so around 40 cents in fees).
- CHS will collect the funds and give the pot to the nonprofit with the most comments on this post by midnight5 p.m. on Dec. 19th. (UPDATE: New time due to several factors including our fun snow)
- One nonprofit per comment.
- One comment per person. We will be analyzing the comments and reserve the right to reject anything bogus.
- Nonprofits must be active in Seattle area. This means there is office or representative working within the city limits.
- If we hit group goal of $700, pffft will give an additional $400 to Northwest Harvest. That’s very nice of him.
Typical of any experiment, it’s a little complicated. The goal is give as a group, learn about some worthy nonprofits and have a little fun doing it. Hope you’ll join the Snowball.
great idea. but it seems like you should have to donate to have a say in where the money goes…
I’m guessing that we should focus on local neighborhood places to donate? If that’s the case, I suggest Jubilee Women’s Center http://www.jwcenter.org/ They provide long-term housing for homeless women, a clothing boutique, and have recently started renovation on a neighboring house to increase capacity. There is a small staff and the rest is done through volunteer work (for example, I volunteer a few hours a week manning the front desk).
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed it, but on my block alone I can point to 3 vehicles that people are sleeping in on a nightly basis. Jubilee helps homeless women by giving them a long-term place to stay, as well as weekly meetings with a care manager with goals that help these women become self-sufficient and able to move out on their own. They have a huge success rate, and can definitely use more volunteers as well as monetary donations.
That may have been the better way to do it. Kind of takes away the fun part of turning the final decision over to ‘the people’ however. Let’s see how it goes. I’ll probably wish I’d done it your way later :)
Oh and I donated $50, so I put my money where my mouth is in this case :P
I’ll throw in Lambert House for consideration. It’s a drop-in center on 15th for LGBT youth. Many of them are street involved. A good percentage of those youth were thrown out of their homes after they came out of the closet (good parenting!) or left messy and/or abusive home situations. It’s also the place where many queer kids get to meet other queer kids for the first time. It may also be the only place where youth feel safe to be out (lots of youth of color, trans youth and children of immigrants with less-than-accepting attitudes on queer issues).
I volunteered there for a few years. There’s always a great energy and lots of dramatics (hello, teenagers).
Lambert always operates on a shoestring. I’m sure the youth would appreciate the support.
Here are several Hill options to consider:
http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2006/10/8-nonprofits-that-
Not all have federal nonprofit status so look into that before making your vote
http://www.irs.gov/app/pub-78/
just made a contribution and it didn’t change
supposed to update every 5 mins. i’ll check to see what’s up.
it caches. i viewed in safari and it is up to date. We’re already at 45% of goal.
I like Real Change a lot, but if no one else joins me I’d fall back to Wesa’s suggestion. I’d never heard of Jubilee, but they sound terrific. (Hope it’s ok that I’m doing an instant-runoff voting system!!)
I vote for a food bank whether in the neighborhood or NW Harvest.
I vote for Jubilee Women’s Center too.
hmmmmm…. day 1 and we’re at 70% of our goal already.
but don’t worry, kids – this is just the level 1 goal. wait until we get to Bowser level goal!
My vote is to give the money to Unpaving Paradise, the project (that I’m working on) that’s raising the $150,000 needed to build a park at John and Summit. Since it’s not technically a nonprofit, the money could be donated to the P-Patch Trust and earmarked for John and Summit – they’re a fiscal sponsor for the project already.
I threw in a couple of bucks, so now my money’s where my mouth was…is?
ew, interesting idea. I haven’t used my vote yet, notice, so still thinking.
http://www.ppatchtrust.org/
I’ve heard good things about Providence Hospitality House. It’s First Hill, but that’s pretty close . . .
They say, “Our beginnings are simple, yet meaningful. We were conceived by the Sisters of Providence, who founded Providence Hospitality House as a ministry to homeless women with children. Since our inception, we have provided these families with a place to feel safe and supported and the resources to help them find their way. We define our mission in this way:
To provide a temporary home for women with children in crisis.”
http://www.providencehospitality.org
By the way, J: great idea. Thanks for putting this up.
TSB won one of these rally cries before, but never received the funding. The volunteers and youth in this program (from this community!) are incredible. And there’s a new website! http://www.theserviceboard.org
Lambert House. Yay teenagers! They need all the help they can get, particularly so when marginalized by family or peers.
My favorite local nonprofit is, of course, the NW Women’s Law Center (www.nwwlc.org), which does great work on the cutting edge of many issues, including women’s equality, gay rights, and choice.
I think funds should go to developing the community garden/park at summit and john. It is a real opportunity to build something distinctive for our neighborhood and provide a place for local food, local recreation.
I vote for the funds going towards the new John & Summit park!
Oh, I’m big time voting that the funds go to the John/Summit Park – We need that green space people!
Any time a new park like the one slated for John and Summit is installed it benefits each and every one of us in the community. People can see the park walking by, use the park when they like and it also benefits people in other parts of the city by giving them something to strive for as well!
So throwing my vote to the P-patch Trust.
I vote for the park!
I vote for the new John & Summit park!!!!
I vote for Unpaving Paradise!
I vote for the park.
one more vote for jubilee
My vote is for Community Voice Mail even though we’re not located on the hill 20% of our office resides in the best neighborhood in town (Capitol Hill of course!).
Community Voice Mail helps 40,000 people a year through partnerships with over 2,000 social service agencies in nearly 400 cities/towns in 21 states plus the District of Columbia. Located in Belltown, we’ve been helping the homeless in Seattle and beyond for over 15 years.
Our Mission: Community Voice Mail (CVM) helps people living in poverty, transition and homelessness rebuild their lives by connecting them to jobs, housing, information and hope. We do this by customizing and distributing communications technology via a national network of community-based services. http://www.cvm.org
I vote for Jubilee Women’s Center. It’s a close for me – between Jubilee and Lambert House, but with this weather, I have to go with Jubilee.
All done. P-Patch Trust it is. Hope everybody is happy with the outcome. I encourage you to consider making a pledge to one of the other nonprofits mentioned here. I’ve learned about a few new ones that I can definitely support going forward!!!
I am making a $500 donation to NW Harvest now.
Congratulations and thanks everyone. I’m sure P-Patch Trust is a worthy organization. To be honest, when I proposed this idea I kind of had in mind organizations that were providing direct food and shelter assistance to people in need, as economic times are tough. But I did notice this bullet on P-Patch’s site:
So although our contribution may not bear fruit (ha ha) until the spring/summer of 2009, I’m certain it is making a difference.