Networked fundraising

The online Pledgebank, which enables people to promote good ideas by saying "I will if enough of you will", has succeeded in helping launch a new campaigning organisation. It could have wider implications for the nonprofit sector and anyone trying to do good stuff without ending up driven off course by the wishes of funders.
Danny O'Brien's pledge was: "I will create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK but only if 1,000 other people will too." Tom Steinberg, founder of the Pledgebank host organisation mySociety, is emailing around his friends with justifiable pride to say:

What makes this unprecedented is that a brand new campaigning organisation with a self-sustained funding stream has come into existence effectively from thin air, and, crucially, without the benefit of any one rich person or foundation dropping thousands into it.
Pledgebank was uniquely effective in situation because if someone had just said "Will you set up a standing order of a fiver a month to my account so I can set up a new organisation?" nobody sane would have taken part.

Tom follows up this demonstration of the fundrasising power of new networking technologies with some simple network marketing:

I need some of your expert advice ..... my question is this - how can I go about telling the voluntary sector about this new way of doings things? I am an accidental member of the voluntary sector, and I don't really know the first thing about magazines, websites, news bulletins, conferences or any other way in which news spreads. Can anyone give me any tips?

Who could resist helping? My suggestion - besides various magazines in the field - drop a line to John Howes at the VolResource newsletter, now blogging here, and Ruralnet's xPRESS Digest.
The Pledgebank approach clearly has implications for anyone in the nonprofit world tired of the old round of funding and grant applications. It provides a more robust financial base, and perhaps the chance to keep the aims of an organisation less open to influence by a small group of investors. There may, of course, be other problems if pledgers don't like the way that things are going and start cancelling their standing orders. No bad thing if it makes social entrepreneurs and others nonprofit leaders pay attention to their supporters. OK when the pledgers are those who benefit from the campaign - as in this case. More difficult when the pledge is to help others who won't have a vote via their contributions. Maybe mySociety has something cooking on networked governance... and anyway not so much and issue when the pledge is for action rather than funding support, as many are. I suspect the secret is to aim low and make it fun too.
Forest Gregg succeed with his pledge to "start a free web service that matches teachers and learners but only if 4 other local people will join me at a dinner to talk about the idea and consider helping out".

Comments

[Tom Steinberg]

Let me know what network governance means, and I'll let you know if we have anything cooking on that hob!

[Josef Davies-Coates]

Tom, you shoud have a read of the excellent book by Roy Madron and John Jopling called "Gaian Democracies" which describes Network Governance quite nicely. Sadly the main website that had more info about the book no longer seem to be available.

Some basic info about the book is available at http://wiki.uniteddiversity.com/gaiandemocracies

[Josef Davies-Coates]

Just to add, thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine you can still read the online intro to Gaian Democracies :)

Also, check out this article on Liquid Democracy and the Delagative Democracy paper on http://open.coop/background+docs