Help Feed People By Showing Off Your Vocabulary!
 

This is pretty cool:

www.freerice.com

I got 160 before stopping.

I wasn't sure on a couple, so I cheated and used Dictionary.com (although I had guessed correctly). A couple I had no clue on and took a WAG (got half of those correct).It empties your bowl after 100 and puts a "100" marker next to the bowl.

I'm currently at 780. :p

Why don't they just donate some rice? The whole "tying donations to some external act" thing never quite made sense to me.

Publicity.

People don't generally pay attention to causes unless they're already interested in them. This kind of a viral game gets people who otherwise are just bored at work/school/wherever into thinking about world hunger while thinking they're smart for knowing vocabulary terms.

Plus, the names at the bottom are getting a little advertising bump by being at the bottom.

Ditto on Erica's comment.

I doubt that their actual donations are directly tied to the numbers generated from their little game.

does it get harder as you progress? except for one, these arent very difficult

^^ huh? I had to look up a few of those. Synod? Carbonata? You know what these mean?

I didnt get those. all the ones I got my 10 year old niece could have gotten.

and uh...no, I dont know those

:rolleyes:

The money they spent designing the slick site could have been spent on rice.

Could have been donated.

Also, the site is, I believe, a tool to help bring attention to the cause. One must often spend money to make money.

Really? Let's test that theory. Send me a hundred and we'll see what happens.

Here ya go

Well would you look at that!



It worked!

What cause? World Hunger? If there is someone who has internet access and is unaware that world hunger is a problem, or doesn't currently care enough to be doing something about it other than clicking on an internet game, that person A) isn't going to stick around playing a vocabulary game for very long and B) isn't going to be suddenly motivated to search out ways to help. Sure, buried in the FAQ is a link to poverty.com, which itself isn't even a charity organization, though it does have links to actual info and places to help. But I can't imagine the number of people that aren't already doing something, AND go to freerice, AND bother to read the FAQ, AND click through to poverty.com AND click through from poverty.com to one of the other sites, AND take some sort of action having arrived at an actual charity/aid organization's site is going to be particularly high.

OK: it's a waste of time and money

It just seems silly. I'm all for bringing light to worthy causes, but I've seen so many of these "sit in front of your computer and click to save the world" gimmicks that I fear people will think they've actually DONE something by doing nothing and will be LESS motivated to actual action.

None of this matters. What matters is that I have a much bigger vocabulary than I realized.

Heh.

My vocabulary rocks. I, alone, will end world hunger.

I will keep my vocabulary to myself and let the illiterate poor starve

Let them get their own vocabulary!

I think that linking some sort of fundraising to some external event is good and may give people an opportunity to donate to a cause they were not aware of. If you make them aware of something and link it to something they are involved with, it can get funds for worthy causes.

For example....this season of basketball (practice starts Monday - boo ya!), the school I coach at was made aware of an organization called "Nothing But Nets". There is a huge problem with malaria in Africa and having simple mosquito netting on sleeping areas or on doors and windows into homes reduces the number of infections exponentially. So we have a thing going on so fans pledge a certain money value for each "swish" (nothing but net - get it?) we make in each game. The money donated goes to the charity.

There are lots of fundraising activities that I just don't get. The biggie - walks. I know there are plenty of people here who walk for charity, and I don't mean to offend anyone. I myself did the MS walk in the valley 2 years in a row. I've given money for walks in the past and will do it again. But deep down, I just don't get it. What does walking have to do with fundraising?

There used to be walks where they would tie the distance the person would walk to how much money they would raise. You'd plege a certain amount per mile that your friend would walk or run, and they would do as many laps as possible. That makes some sense, I guess. But "give me 20 bucks because I'm walking"? Why not just give 20 bucks, period?

I know, I know, you have to make a big deal out of things to get attention and money, it's just that someone walking doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I did it, it was fun, a nice day to be out, but what my walk had to do with money or Multiple Sclerosis I'll never understand. Human nature is odd to me sometimes...

Not to downplay the charity part but walking seems to have everything to do with building a community, even if it's just for the duration of the walk.

And, as far as the charity part, a big group of people walking does raise awareness. Awareness is the first step in a cause. Before October became pink-for-breast-cancer month, my awareness was raised about breast cancer by the various walks/marathons/etc. in which my friend participated. Not that I didn't know about it before, but that it was a growing concern with rising rates - I didn't give it much heed before that (and by the time my mom got breast cancer, what awareness of mine was raised beforehand did seem to help me parse the situation, odd as that mayy seem.)

Also, taking action - that is, doing something physical and tangible - is satisfying. Calling people to ask for donations - that's not particuarly satisfying. (At least, my short stint of telemarketing for donations wasn't for me.) But expending energy, as in the case of a charity walk, would have a psychological effect on the people who were walking. As in, "my steps bring attention and support for a cause." While I admit the two acts (walking and fundraising) are separate, the feeling of purpose is related, so it doesn't seem weird to me.

Good points, both of you, and LSPE, I think the idea that it's more satisfying is the best case to make for it.

I think it also has something to do with "earning" the donation - at least in the case of walks. If you just give donation, that's charity, and we (as a nation) hate the idea of people getting something for nothing. If someone walks for the donation, then it's more about rewarding that person for their accomplishment and less about someone sponging off the system.

Not to mention the walk will be helping the fundraising individual as well. They benefit from enhanced health in return for raising money.

I think we should have pie eating contests for world hunger

I love that idea €uro!

Maybe we can have a "sword swallowing" contest to raise money for the Westboro Baptist Church too!

:snap: :snap: :snap: