let the donations begin

Voting has ended and the EFF won -- now the donating has begun. Click here to donate. We've already gotten a great response; don't stop impressing us, reddit :-)

Donations will run until December 31st.

I've gotten in touch with someone at EFF and they're quite excited about this. More to come...

final hours before a non-profit is determined for the reddit & xkcd fundraiser

Click to donate

If you haven't voted yet, now is the time. The poll will end at 10pm Eastern (GMT-5) today; top scoring non-profit will be the recipient of 100% of your donations (and maybe even a bit of the "Splashy Pants effect"). At the time of this writing, the #1 non-profit is the EFF, but the Esperantic Studies Foundation, ACLU, and the Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science aren't far behind. Update: Voting has ended. The EFF has won.

It was a good thing this made it up on the front page, because we got some great suggestions for awarding our prizes. In light of this, we've modified things a bit:

• First 50 donors will each receive a signed XKCD comic and a signed reddit postcard.
• Top 10 biggest donors will also each receive a signed XKCD comic and a signed reddit postcard and a reddit shirt.
• #1 biggest donor will also be getting a reddit alien bobblehead (not this one, yours will be less broken -- we'll sign its belly too, if you'd like)
  
  
• 40 random donors (not in the above) will also each receive a signed XKCD comic and a signed reddit postcard. We have a PhD working on that complex randomization algorithm.
• Another 150 random donors will get a signed reddit postcard. One of us may even try to doodle a stick figure on it as a consolation for not getting an XKCD comic.
  

Thanks again to all of you who've gotten the word out on this fundraiser. And of course a big thanks to xkcd for continuing its trend of awesomeness.

Donations will start at noon Eastern (GMT-5) on Thursday @ http://reddit.com/help/donate

a collaboration of geeks, stick figure comics, and an alien -- for charity?

Click to donate

Two weeks ago, a headline made it up to the front page that gave me an idea: "Ok Reddit, we've proven our power with Mister Splashey [sic] Pants and that lady who wanted to go to Alaska. At what point, though, do we take this to a more meaningful level?"

Typo aside (I don't think Mr. Splashy Pants would mind anyway), powerhead brought up a good point, and a lot of you agreed. So the 4 of us here at reddit wanted to do something to help you all make it happen.

First we'd need a non-profit cause for reddit to champion, Splashy-style, but we knew we couldn't just pick one -- you should. Once one was selected, we'd need to give you an incentive to donate. I've printed 250 reddit alien evolution postcards that we'll all sign and mail to the first 250 donors we get.

But we knew that wouldn't motivate anyone, so we called upon a higher power: xkcd. After explaining it to Randall and Davean, they were all for contributing 100 signed xkcd comics, each with unique stick figure (Confession: I got the idea for the postcards from them in the first place). So once we could guarantee the first 100 donors would get signed reddit AND xkcd cards, we knew we were on to something (pity those 150 who get stuck with only reddit cards -- better comfort yourself with some xkcd shirts).

Hopefully you've still got some money left from all those Ron Paul donations, we're asking for a minimum donation of US $10. Absolutely 100% of your donation will go directly to the non-profit you all have voted for.

Donations will begin on Thursday, the 20th at noon Eastern (GMT-5) (I'll post the link here on this blog) and we'll accept them until December 31st, but I'm fairly certain we'll be well out of cards by then. We'll also provide a grand total on New Year's day after the campaign as ended.

Below is a reddit poll to vote on, submit whatever non-profits you feel are worthy. The format should look pretty familiar. Whatever project has the top score by 10pm Eastern (GMT-5) on Wednesday (the 19th) will be the championed cause and the recipient of the fundraising.

Tell your friends; the Internet loves non-profits like DonorsChoose and OLPC, maybe there's another equally great idea out there that could use the attention, but as always, we'll leave that up to you all...

Update: Voting has ended. The EFF has won.