21 Dec 2010 No Comments
Blog interview (Part 3) of the $55K Reddit Community Fundraiser
Charity inspires goodwill, as proven by a current fundraiser launched by the Christianity, Atheism, and Islam groups in the social news site reddit.com. Together, they’ve raised over $55,000 from among their group members (members are called “redditors.”) Reading the reddit group threads, it’s clear that each group fully supports the other’s efforts. They are donating to each others’ causes, commenting in each others’ subreddit groups, and some are generously donating to both causes. As r/christianity member maggieed states so beautifully, “The joint campaign has also shown that people of different world-views can come together and cooperate for the greater good without compromising their own individual beliefs.”
Reading through the comments left by donors on the r/atheism, r/christianity, or r/islam FirstGiving fundraising pages, it’s clear that everyone is in this together for the great cause of charity. One donor commented on r/christianity’s fundraising page benefiting World Vision’s Clean Water Fund: “donated to r/atheism, matching it here. Both good causes. Merry Christmas!” A donor comments on r/atheism’s fundraising page for Doctors Without Borders states: “Wishing you all a wonderful holiday, from r/Christianity.” One donor commented on r/islam’s fundraising page for Islamic Relief: “from r/Christianity with friendship and love. As salaam alaikum.”
For more background, read this story about the fundraising challenge in The Huffington Post. The complete time line, with links, can be found at the bottom of this blog post.
To date, the subreddit groups Atheism, Christianity, and Islam have raised over $55,000. This shows both the power of engaged community and collaboration.
We asked redditor Ahmed Mahmoud (tinkthank) from the subgroup reddit Islam (r/islam) if he could answer some questions about the fundraiser and the reddit challenge. Our questions and her answers are listed below.
1. What inspired you to join the reddit fundraiser?
The inspiration for came from the fundraiser drive that was originally started by r/Christianity’s maggied. I thought it was a cool idea, but it really got to me when I first came across a thread by r/Atheism asking atheists to donate and cross-donate.It was a friendly competition between the two groups and thought that was pretty cool. I wondered why can’t we at r/Islam do the same. When I first had the idea, my intention was not to “compete” against r/Atheism and r/ Christianity, since they have more subscribers than we do, but rather to join in and do what Muslims can do in the drive that seems to be uniting people of different religious and non religious affiliations. Incidentally I felt that this could be an opportunity for Muslims by joining in and providing a platform to help other people who are less fortunate while being a part of the wonderful community at reddit. I posed the question to my fellow r/Islam subscribers and the idea was well received. The subscribers chose Islamic Relief, a well known organization within the Muslim community and we decided to go with them.
2. Is there a goal in mind?
We have around 2,200 subscribers for r/Islam on reddit and I decided to set the goal for $5,000. Some subscribers thought it was too little, but I think its just about right. If we can get almost everyone on r/Islam to donate generously, we can reach that goal and if we do reach our goal of $5,000, we can always increase it.
3. How many have donated? Do you have a sense of whether or not the friendly competition inspired people to donate?
So far the drive is a little over a week old and 12 people have donated $870.00! The friendly competition has really inspired people to donate, we’ve had plenty of cross-donations from our fellow Christian and Atheist redditors as well as had Muslim redditors cross-donate to the Atheist and Christian fundraiser drives and I’m expecting more to come soon. I know some people can’t make a donation because they don’t have a credit/debit card and can make cash or cheque donations on their site at http://www.islamic-relief.com/donations/.
4. Has this changed your group’s opinion towards r/atheists or r/christianity in any way? Do you have a sense of how this fundraiser has brought together the three groups?
I can’t speak for everyone at r/Islam, but being part of t! he reddit community overall, you see acts of kindness that sometimes just blow your mind. You have complete strangers living in opposite sides of the country (sometimes, even the world) who have never met each other or known of each other show acts of kindness and generosity that I haven’t seen on any online community. So I entered into this with that expectation and I can confidently say that I wasn’t disappointed.
5. Why did you choose to use FirstGiving?
I had come across FirstGiving a long time ago. A family member of mine had linked me to their website to make a donation to Doctors Without Borders (incidentally happens to be the same organization that r/Atheism is supporting). I came across FirstGiving again when I saw r/Atheism and r/Christianity use it as a means of raising money. I saw that Islamic Relief has a donation line set up which made things even easier to find and set up. I never created a page on FirstGiving and when I actually started to set things up, I was amazed at how simple and easy to use the website has been in conveying our message while raising money for a good cause. Its also made it very easy and simple to link and cross donate to the other drives by r/Atheism and r/Christianity.
6. I’ve noticed that members of all three subreddit communities have donated to each other’s fundraiser. Why is that? Is there something unique about this fundraiser, your particular subgroups, or the Reddit community that inspires this kind of mutual generosity?
I think it has more to do with the community at reddit. Almost on a weekly basis, you come across stories of how an individual was t! ouched by someone who they’ve never met. There’s a strong sense of community and unity on reddit that isn’t based on any religious affiliation or ethnic background. Its solely based on being a part of this awesome community. Most redditors, from my personal experience, are smart individuals and I think that its made cross-donations simple because they see the good work the charities that we’ve chosen are doing for the community at large.
The complete background story about how these three fundraisers began:
On December 9th, redditor maggieed suggested in a new thread to the reddit Christianity subgroup, of which she is a member, ” if every member of r/christianity donates just $4.45, we can build a health clinic in an impoverished area that desperately needs one. Let’s do it!”
This conversation thread inspired the reddit subgroup Atheism to create its own fundraiser, as stated by member sjmarotta December 9: “Let the (sometimes pointless) animosity between our groups be used for good! Let the X-mas Wars and the overall battle for goodness in the world begin!”
R/atheism reddit member Denny-Crane was actually the first to set up fundraising pages, on both FirstGiving and JustGiving, for r/atheism to benefit Doctors Without Borders.
Because not all religious people are ok with giving to an Atheism-branded campaign,” says maggieed, she set up a FirstGiving fundraising page for r/christianity to benefit World Vision’s Clean Water Fund.
R/Islam group member tinkthank began discussing the fundraiser in the subreddit Islam group here. He set up a fundraiser on FirstGiving to benefit Islamic Relief.
