Which comes first, money or participation? That’s the riddle, and the answer is that an event is the key to both. We oughta have a contest.
Here’s my idea. There is already a plan to send two messages to the new Executive Director of UN Women for IWD 2014, one from the women participants and one from the men. What if participants were given the opportunity to make a donation at the same time they post their message. Whether they make a donation or not, they also have the chance to designate an organization they would like their participation to benefit. If they do not designate, then the group they are participating in will benefit.
One quarter of the money received will go towards two prizes, one for the woman donee who wrote the most popular message as voted by the women, and one likewise for the man donee. One-eighth will go to Collective Communication, Inc. to fund development of InterMix. The final five-eigths will be distributed to the participating organizations according to how many participants they provided. The one quarter that is split between the top rated female and male donees will be divided according to how much money they donated. So if the woman gave $20 and the man gave $10, then the woman gets two-thirds.
The cool thing about this idea is that the contest will incentivize both the organizations and the memberships to participate. The hard part will be distributing the winnings to organizations globally. Is that a showstopper?
