Chip-In Review

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss anything or Follow me on Twitter

I came across a website recently that was trying to raise money for new equipment for a baseball team. They were using Chipin to facilitate collections.

The chipin system itself is very simple. You must have a paypal account to create a chipin account. Once you create your account you simply describe what you are raising money for and set the goal of the amount you are looking to raise. You put some snippet of code on your website or blog and chipin takes care of the rest. Users simply click the widget to contribute. They can contribute via Paypal or credit card.

It is an interesting and simple solution to a common problem for individuals raising small or large amounts off-loading the tracking/communication to contributors of how much has been raised and collecting funds.

I decided to try it out myself on my blog. If you notice on the right-hand side at the bottom, there is a chipin widget. I setup a very small goal of raising $100. Since today is 7/7/07 a lucky day by some accounts, I’ve decided to create a lottery pool to invest the proceeds of the chipin in Texas lottery tickets and subsequently donated to charity. I have not yet decided which charity to donate to. If anyone has any good ideas or knows of any non-profit that needs funds let me know via comments and I’ll update the chipin to reflect accordingly.