Musings on funding a public charity

Okay, these ideas don't just apply to the Methuselah Mouse Prize, though that's where my mind was when I was thinking of these things. These ideas should really apply to any public cause that is in the public's best interests, even and especially if the public is not aware of this.

Being a person who lives largely in his mind (some might say in my own set of fantasy worlds), I was pondering how I could help the Methuselah Mouse Prize succeed more. Of course, more money is always a good place to start, so, being a person of limited financial means, I immediately set down the what-if path of winning the lottery. As you can tell, this is going to be a trek into the eccentric and fanciful. Feel free to skip down to my conclusions.

Well, what IF I won the lottery? How would that help? We'll start with a nice round figure, say a $50 million payout (presumably from an actual prize of something like $110 million). I'll assume for the moment that my contributions to a 501c3 org are sufficient to obviate the issue of taxes.

So, how does my $50 million benefit the cause? Well, certainly it's in the right ballpark for making the prize successful. But was that the best use of my money?

There are a couple of things to consider here. One is worthiness of those receiving the benefits of this money. If I effectively fund the catalyst for curing aging and saving hundreds of millions of lives, and if I did so through "divine" intervention, then how does that world differ from the one in which I live in which I do not single-handedly fund this catalyst? People's minds are not changed; they have no ownership in the cure for aging, no claim to it.

Since we're speaking of a hypothetical world, I can't even say that those people themselves, their mere sentience, is worth performing this act for them. An act of power is not sufficient for me to really want to do this for them.

No, I expect something in return. I expect people to get involved in curing aging for themselves. I don't mind being the catalyst, but they need to participate as well.

Of course, if I donated $50 million, would that really stop others from donating? No. But if the prize fund were that large, and 99% of it were due to the donation of a single person, would you really feel inclined to participate?

Which brings me to the second thing to consider. How do you get more people involved? A prize is already a good start. As some have said, to a wealthy philanthropist, it provides the most bang for the buck. I could donate this $50 million, and expect about ten to twenty times as much to be independently spent by others. In this case, with the financial stakes so high, those others would be corporations, not individuals, for the most part, or so I assume, so the analogy with prizes of the past is somewhat strained, but let's assume the ratios hold. Wow, for $50 million, I inspired, over the course of perhaps a couple decades, about $500 million to a billion dollars in investment!

But is that really the best bang for my buck? For an issue like funding a prize to get a spaceship up to the edge of space--a technical feat somewhat analogous to creating a BB gun, where a 0.50-calibre rifle is an orbital launch vehicle and a howitzer is required to get to Saturn--it's somewhat difficult to imagine getting the public involved in such an effort. There are a lot of geeks out there, so it's not beyond reason, but it's hardly something to have wide appeal.

For a prize to create a human-powered helicopter, the appeal is even lower.

But let's get back to our wealthy philanthropist. We want to maximize the bang for our buck. How do we get the public to want to be involved, without feeling like they're just adding drops to a bucket already filled to the brim by me, the wealthy, and probably somewhat cooky, philanthropist?

The next thought I had, of course, was to just use the $50 million as a matching fund. But if you saw that there was $50 million in the matching fund, and only $70,000, or $200,000, had been donated, you'd probably be wondering why there's even a matching fund. Why not just put the money directly into the pot? I've considered time limits on the matching fund, to show people that I don't want to put the money in the pot, I want it back at the end. I'm daring you to put your own money in. But even this seems somewhat lacking.

Here's the problem as I see it. The MMP is currently "small". Sure, it's got about $70k in cash, and including pledged funds it's at over a half a million dollars! Half a million! That's not a number to be shy about. But it's just still not enough. More is better. More money means more credibility and attention. And $50 million would certainly draw a lot of attention.

So the problem isn't that I donated $50 million to the prize; the problem is that I donated $50 million to the prize. To have all the money come from one source just isn't going to help. Dr. Aubrey de Grey once commented that he wouldn't want someone to donate more than about 50% of what had been donated so far. His reasoning had to do with the expectation that this puts on the Methuselah Foundation's board to allow that person to influence policy.

I contend that another and perhaps more important reason is that such a large donation, especially once the prize is larger, actually is counterproductive to convincing people to donate their own money.

So, let's go back to smaller numbers, for the sake of illustration. Let's say I had a million dollars to donate. If I donated that million dollars, the prize total would go up to about $1,070,000, give or take. If we looked at the donation list, we'd see:

John Doe: $1,000
Thomas Anderson: $10
...
Jane Doe: $500
Jack Smith: $20
Mary Jones: $50
...
Jay Fox: $1,000,000

That number just stands out way too much. It detracts from the credibility of the prize, because it practically insults the comparatively small donations of others.

Of course, let's take an alternate approach of having a thousand people donate a thousand dollars each. Is this better?

John Doe: $1,000
Thomas Anderson: $10
Dave Jackson: $1,000
...
Chris Corbin: $1,000
Jane Doe: $500
Ned Meyers: $1,000
Mary Jane: $1,000
...
Jason Clinton: $1,000
Jack Smith: $20
Cindy Bright: $1,000
Jose Vargas: $1,000

It's better, but still somewhat bland. It shows a lot of people support it, but it's not inviting to big players, and the little players stick out like a sore thumb; more to the point, it's not reflective of the fact that we all have different means of supporting this cause.

So, where does my fancy lead me from here? Well, as I see it, we need a fairly even mix of amounts donated in various ranges. For a one million dollar prize, I'd like to see a few donations in the $10,000 to $100,000 range. But I'd also like to see a few hundred thousand dollars worth in the $1,000 to $10,000 range. And I'd like to see a few hundred thousand dollars worth in the <$1,000 range.

A breakdown like this is much more natural. It shows that a lot of people can support the cause: the legitimacy of numbers. But it also shows that big players can step up and do their part to advance the cause by leaps and bounds. At the same time, by not dominating the total, these big players do not obviate the need for the little players. Everyone's invited.

What's more, as the prize gets bigger, bigger players can step up without thwarting our momentum. At $5 million, we could even have a single donation of a million dollars and it wouldn't hurt the cause. One $1 million donation, two or three $250,000 donations, a dozen $100,000 donations, and hundreds of donations in the $2,500 to $25,000 range, with thousands more donations in the $100 to $2,000 range. A very healthy mix, and one we can continue to build on and attract everybody to our cause.

Conclusion:

At this stage of the game, looking over the numbers that have been donated so far, I think the biggest thing we need in the year or two to come is more little players. Quite a few have already donated $1,000 or more, up to a little over $5,000 in a single donation. In fact, approximately half of the money donated so far is from people/institutions who have donated $2,000.00 or more, and over 80%, in fact about 5/6 of the money has come from people who have donated $1,000 or more. This overwhelming discrepancy makes the $100 donations of people like myself seem futile by comparison.

If there's one positive thing I can pull from these numbers, it's that people/institutions donating in the $1,000 to $1,800 range are very well represented at the moment. But we need a lot more people in the $100-$600 range, and even a lot more people in the $10-$90 range.

This part's tough: it involves getting a higher quantity of donations. Which in turn requires getting to the hearts and minds of a higher quantity of people. People like you and me, everyday people with small checking accounts and the daily struggle to put food on the table. People who willingly make donations to the American Cancer Society because it's a good cause. Convincing a few hundred more of these people in the next year to donate should be a high priority. If we could get 200 people to donate an average of $50, and another 100 people to donate an average of $100, and another 40 people to donate an average of $250, that would only get us another $30,000. But it would add so much more legitimacy in numbers. Once we can get to over $100,000, much of it from the little people, the "comman man", as it were, then I think we'll have the legitimacy and appeal to move to the next step:

Once we've reached $100,000, assuming that at least a third of it is from donations of less than $1000 per person, then we need to start going for people of greater means. Businessmen, investors, etc. People who have $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 to donate to a charitable cause. Really, this step should not be ignored now, but I think that if we had a choice of audience, this one is better saved for later, and the people like myself of more limited (or more "realistic") means should be our current priority. We need to get "the people" involved; the people are more important than the money. Not just philosophically, but in the long run I think we'll be in a better position with a base that's larger numerically rather than larger financially.

Okay, some boring charts to make my point more visible.

In all these examples, the prize total is $2,500, and 40 people have donated.

In the first example, a single person has donated $1,500, and the rest of them donated in amounts ranging from $10 to $50.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, like your $10 contribution really matters, doesn't it? Yes, that was sarcasm if you didn't pick it up.

In this next example, a more homogenous mix is found. Fully 60%, 24 of the people, have donated between $80 and $100. The other 40%, 16 people, have donated between $10 and $40. The sum of the 24 people adds up to $2,200, or 88% of the prize. The distribution doesn't sound too bad until you see it. Very bland, with a lot of emphasis on big players, and no incentive for the little person to get involved. This is the big boys' club.


In this final example, we have one person who donated $500, about 20% of the pot. This is one of our wealthy philanthropists. 20% is enough to make a difference, but not so much (in my opinion) to degrade the contributions made by the more "common" contributors, such as myself. Just so as not to be in a league of his own, we see a $300 contributor and a $200 contributor. These three make up 40% of the "pot".

But the positive thing to note is that there are 31 people who donated less than $100 (and indeed, 30 donated $50 or less). When all their donations are summed, they contributed a little over 30% of what's in the "pot", a contribution almost on par with that of the three wealthy philanthropists, and with the 6 semi-wealthy people who contributed in the $100 to $150 range.


A lot prettier, no?

So what's all the fuss about? Well, next we should take a look at the graph for donations made to the MMP so far.

Which brings us back to marketing. The need for a better marketing strategy including a better web site. Corporate sponsorship, etc. As I once advised DG he should invest in a professional marketeer, but that is against his policy of strict volunteerism.

JD, I'm always impressed by your intellect and drive, yet I feel you would better serve "the cause" after digesting some relevant chapters of a molecular biology textbook - you certainly have the aptitude. More science grounding with your lateral thinking could yield some fascinating results.

Given the right scientific hypothesis one could bypass the arduous "Prize" model and raise money to outsource a specific project ala:

https://www.scienteu...m/jsp/index.jsp

It would only cost a few hundred thousand dollars (all tax deductible) but the investment group would get to keep the IP rights with which a big pharmaceutical could easily be drawn to in order to fund the millions needed to get it to clinical trials.

Prometheus - I've spoken to some top senior folks in marketeer land and they all tell the same story of absolutely rotten fundamentals for raising money for long payback LE projects. In general the comment is "nobody is willing to invest in green bananas" - they want the ripe/ready for market kind.

I've been around the fund raising barn more times than I care to think about. The fund raising climate will change - but it sure isn't there right now.

dg

Okay, here's the MMP chart. On reflection, it doesn't look as bad as I thought it would, but then again, my motive from the start wasn't to tell the Methuselah Foundation that they were doing a lousy job. They have been doing a great job given the intractable nature of public opinion towards anti-aging science. However, there is room for improvement.


(I color-coded the graph, since I'm anal when it comes to math:
Red lines are $2,000 and up.
Yellow lines are $1,000 up to but not including $2,000
Green lines are $250 up to but not including $1,000
Blue lines are less than $250)

First of all, if we look only at the donations in the middle third of the graph, it doesn't look all that bad. A little light on the smaller donations, but the rest of the mix is good enough to compensate.

The first third of the graph is excusable, since it was the startup phase when several $2,000 and up ("red") donations were made by the "early adopters". If you ignore the excessive number of "red" donations, that section looks pretty good as well.

However, that last third of the graph, if it continues as a trend, is not looking so hot. Notice the relative lack of "green" lines. These are our moderate contributors. Nothing so hefty as $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 dollars, but these contributors have been bringing in on average almost six times as much per person than what the people donating under $250 bring in on average.

Actually, the problem with the last section isn't so much that it has too few green lines, but that it has too many yellow lines. In that last third (starting right after the last red line), almost $6,000 was donated in yellow, but only about $3,500 was donated in green and blue combined. This is not to say that I think these $1,000+ contributors should not have donated. I'm simply saying that we are not doing enough to court the typical layperson here. Grassroots, people, grassroots!

The dates aren't taken into account here, so the graph is actually a little different. However, that's a topic for another day. Suffice it to say, momentum was high about a year ago. Momentum slacked off, up until the Slashdot article in June, 2004. Momentum picked up a little bit, but is back down lower than ever. I myself am guilty: I'm not doing as much as I could to talk to my friends, coworkers, and family, to get donations going. That will hopefully change in the next couple weeks, depending on when the new website goes live and includes my father's In Memoriam dedication, where I hope to get some donations from the very people I just mentioned: friends, coworkers (of my own and of my father's), and family.

Hi Jay- my comments are asterisked...

At this stage of the game, looking over the numbers that have been donated so far, I think the biggest thing we need in the year or two to come is more little players.  Quite a few have already donated $1,000 or more, up to a little over $5,000 in a single donation.  In fact, approximately half of the money donated so far is from people/institutions who have donated $2,000.00 or more, and over 80%, in fact about 5/6 of the money has come from people who have donated $1,000 or more.  This overwhelming discrepancy makes the $100 donations of people like myself seem futile by comparison.

***understanding non-linear human behavior is the key. The hardest thing to do is to help someone get to the point of donating even a small amount of money to MF. Once this is done, at least half of these individuals donate much more and more frequently. For example, it took 3 months worth of discussion with Abdias Ortiz - and then one day he donated $5. A month later I described the notion of The Three Hundred to him and to my astonishment he said "I'm in - put me down as the first $25,000 member". THAT is why we are following the -dimes to dollars to hundreds to thousands- model. Everyone wants it all to happen tomorrow (no one more than I) but if that was our only model we'd still have appx zero dollars. At least we now have $70k and >1/2 million pledged- instead of nothing...

If there's one positive thing I can pull from these numbers, it's that people/institutions donating in the $1,000 to $1,800 range are very well represented at the moment.  But we need a lot more people in the $100-$600 range, and even a lot more people in the $10-$90 range. This part's tough: it involves getting a higher quantity of donations.  Which in turn requires getting to the hearts and minds of a higher quantity of people.  People like you and me, everyday people with small checking accounts and the daily struggle to put food on the table.  People who willingly make donations to the American Cancer Society because it's a good cause.  Convincing a few hundred more of these people in the next year to donate should be a high priority.  If we could get 200 people to donate an average of $50, and another 100 people to donate an average of $100, and another 40 people to donate an average of $250, that would only get us another $30,000.  But it would add so much more legitimacy in numbers.  Once we can get to over $100,000, much of it from the little people, the "comman man", as it were, then I think we'll have the legitimacy and appeal to move to the next step:

***Our major thrust is to continue to encourage folks to become members of The Three Hundred. We are now averaging one new membership per week and at that rate we will be bringing in $50,000 per year in 6 months and so on. The way to do this is to have more and more folks making the smaller donations and then people such as yourself will gradually see the logic of it all and just dive in to MAKE it happen...

Once we've reached $100,000, assuming that at least a third of it is from donations of less than $1000 per person, then we need to start going for people of greater means.  Businessmen, investors, etc.  People who have $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 to donate to a charitable cause.  Really, this step should not be ignored now, but I think that if we had a choice of audience, this one is better saved for later, and the people like myself of more limited (or more "realistic") means should be our current priority.
***I continue to meet with higher net worth individuals and am working to help them come to the same conclusions we all have. Time and your and other's example will make it happen without doubt. But there are thousands of folks out there who could give 50 cents or 5 dollars - it's all good.

  We need to get "the people" involved; the people are more important than the money.  Not just philosophically, but in the long run I think we'll be in a better position with a base that's larger numerically rather than larger financially.
***Soon we will have a Methuselah Foundation UK established which will be the first of many international charitable affiliates to do just what you say here. You really do "get it" Jay.

Hey Jay - You need to add in the sponsors that Reason has worked so hard to secure to get a more complete funding trend. Our good friends at AOR, Sage KE and Canaca are in the yellow and green range. You should also consider the "matching funds" to be "as good as donated" :-)

Jay - your commentary brings me to mention the "Death Valley" syndrome. Almost all startups go through a period where they are constantly fundraising while they figure out how to finish R&D, create and box a product, price it, manufacture it and the find somebodies to buy it. After having done 12 startups I can tell you it's the extremely rare biz that doesn't go through this period. THAT is one reason why we are all volunteer. While we navigate any lulls, the prize still grows - ALWAYS...unless a prize is won - which is what we WANT - real progress.

There are many MF donors who finally decided to give because of the money staying "in the bank".

Hmm, as long as I'm trying to make constructive criticism and positive contributions, here's an idea that I came up with as I was "data mining" the donation listings on the "old" website. (I would prefer to use the data from the "new" website, but I can't sort it by date, and I'd rather not have to type in dates AND amounts just to get a decent sort out of Excel.)

As I was pushing numbers around, I noticed a way we can try to appeal to people who only have the means to donate $20 or $50 or $150 or $500. We can list what percentage of the money donated so far came from donations of what size.

For this, dates were not necessary, so I'm using the figures from the "new" websites donors list.

Donation per Person	Total Donations	Percentage
more than $2000	$32,437.50	45.6%
$1000 to $2000, inclusive	$26,979.84	37.9%
less than $1000	$11,768.51	16.5%
All donations	$71,185.85	100.0%

(I'm not sure if I'm allowed to embed tables, or if they show up correctly for others, so I can convert it to an image and edit the post if anyone has problems viewing it...)

As you can see, a little top-heavy. However, the good news is, this is encouraging for people who have the means to donate in the $1000-$2000 range, even if they don't have the means to donate $5,000 or $10,000 or $25,000 for this cause, a cause worthy of such donations if we can attract those with the means. A lot of money has been raised by people in the $1,000-$2,000 range. Just for the nice round figure of $1,000, a dozen entries are listed in the donors list; 22 entries are listed in the full $1,000 to $2,000 range.

But wait, there's more! (yes, that was supposed to sound like an infomercial, since this thread is becoming as long as one!)

What about The Three Hundred? I myself have only donated $100, yet five years from now I hope that figure will be at least $5,100, as per my pledge. (And perhaps even $6,100 or $10,100, as I would like to get a little ahead in my payments to make sure that, should something as unfortunate as another lengthy period of unemployment come my way, I won't feel like I'm shirking my responsibility if I can't pay for a year or two.)

Well, doesn't that throw my whole line of reasoning out the window? Once we have 50 members of the 300, five years from now the numbers will even more top heavy, with lots of donors having donated over $5,000!!

Well, yes and no. If things continue much as they have, then seemingly yes. However, it is my hope that as the prize grows, not just in pledged total but in actual cash in hand, the perceived credibility will rise and the number of smaller donations should increase. So in that sense, this should help balance things out.

But in a broader sense, perhaps a more accurate figure than the total donated per person is the average amount donated per year per person. For people who only donate once, just assume they've donated over a period of one year, so as not to shrink their numbers. But for the rest of us, 300 members or not, who donate year after year, this will allow us to see results more reflective of the typical donations.

Probably the most straightforward way of calculating this is to just run the numbers for each calendar year (which records you would need anyway, as a public corporation, no?), and then sum them up within their respective categories.

With this approach, a $5,000 donation in year one, followed by $500 donations a year for the following two years, will not show up as three averaged $2,000 donations (i.e. $6k in the $1k-$2k category), but will appropriately show up as $5k in the greater than $2k category and $1k in the less than $1k category.

But wait, there's more! Since you had to sum them up based on year anyway, then for the really curious, you could allow people to go to a detail page that outlines the breakdown year by year. Using 2003 as the first year, you'll see quite a few of the "heavy hitters", the $3,200 and the multiple $5,000 donations, etc. In the second year, you'll see more donations in the mid- and low-range. How it trends from here, we can only guess, but it will be useful for ourselves as well as our potential donors, and for addressing our critics! Well, I don't see any vocal critics yet, but as the MMP gains public favor, we can expect them to come out of the woodwork.

At any rate, such a detailed breakdown would show not only how the makeup of our donors changes from year to year, but it should show rather nicely the growth I'm expecting next year!

As I see it, this would be a good way of presenting our public face: In this case, with so many members of the three hundred, this would really boost the $1000-$2000 range as being the largest segment of our contributors. This would lend more credibility than to put on a public face where most of the money came from $5,000 or $25,000 contributors. An anti-aging venture funded by the wealthy will carry less weight than one funded largely by smaller donations of the middle class.

So, how would we do this? Well, I see a couple places we could put information like this. One place is at the top of the Donors list itself. The other relevant place would be in the Prize Details page, which already has tables of useful information. The latter location makes more sense as far as data presentation for curious number-crunchers like myself, but the former location seems like a better place as far as appealing to potential donors. If this list is presented properly, I'd say put it in both locations.

Err, I said "public corporation", but I didn't mean public in the sense that it's publicly traded. I just meant incorporated under the law, and answering to the government.

While I'm on the subject of presenting useful information... Is there a way to show the amount someone contributed to the prize, including money that was matched to their donation? If someone donates $200, expecting $100 to be matched as advertized, and then they look in the donor's list and it just says they donated $200, they're going to feel gipped (gypped?). They're going to want to see $300, even if it has an asterisk next to it or some other visible sign that $100 was really from a matching fund. It's a perceptual thing; if it were me, I'd want credit for having caused that $100 in matching funds to be applied.

Jay,

You have a way of explaining in depth your thoughts. It is very encouraging.

While I agree with you that a certain balance in donation sizes is part of the incentive to donate, I think the largest push comes from reading testimonials of donors. It was a combination of testimonials and common sense that convinced me to donate. Surprisingly it seems that testimonials from small donors are almost as effective as those from medium donors. Large donor testimonials have a way of carrying more weight because people tend to think that rich people are more wise. On the other hand, who says that large donors are rich.

I have also been thinking about projecting the prize size. It could be a powerful incentive, but it could also have a negative effect on donors. It could give them/us a sense of futility if the projection is to slow and a sense of uselessness if the projection is to fast. What is to fast and to slow is up to the individual donor. Mind you, I am not saying we should not try making a projection, but we must consider and observe the results of posting such a projection.

In my work as systems developer for other fundraising organizations, I have learned that it is not always a positive thing to make visible to the public, donations made to an organization. But since this is a prize, and there is a certain element of competition involved, I think competition between donors is a welcome thing. As you have so clearly explained, there is a back side. Many people will be discouraged by the comparably large donations others have made, but on the other hand, I am only encouraged that other people is giving more than I. It shows that I am not alone and that people believe in what I believe in. It makes my contribution how ever small, a valid contribution.

Your point about showing the matching funds amount by the donor that triggered the matching funds is a good one. There is then also a question if those matching funds should be attributed to the actual donor of the matching funds. Both could be done I guess, but what is right? Would it be misleading if the number is shows up twice in the donors list? Well, I guess it is just a matter of making the code and trying it out. If people gets mystified it is not good. If people just take it as it is, then great.

If you'll excuse a comment from an empiric science person:

The donor distribution of the X-prize was very heterogenous, or even followed the big donation scheme, and yet successful. (This does not suggest that homogenous distributions could not be even more successful.)

I think, what the prize is all about is not to enforce anything, but let the profit motive unfold. And to my understanding, the profit motive does not care where the money is from.

My point has more to do with the societal support of the goal of the prize. Space flight had been around for over 30 years when the X Prize was announced. Space flight, in and of itself, was not controversial. What was perhaps somewhat controversial was whether a private company could do it for a few percent of the cost of a government-run project. But this wasn't a societal taboo, just an economic hurdle.

Longevity research, on the other hand, is a very large societal taboo. Announce that your researching a way to cure cancer, and you'll be applauded. Announce that you're researching a way to add 5 or 10 healthy years to the human lifespan, and you'll be applauded. Announce that you're searching for a way to add hundreds of years to the human lifespan, and you'll be ostracized and ridiculed. There is a fundamental barrier we are up against.

If a single wealthy donor steps forward with $50 million, that person would be "marked" as an eccentric at best, and at worst a heretical, death-fearing crank grasping at straws. That's not to say that the $50 million wouldn't advance the cause. Quite the contrary, $50 million is still $50 million, the last time I checked. It's not worth as much against the foreign markets these days, but that's certainly no fault of the anti-aging community.

However, if this $50 million is supposed to be a stepping stone to gathering strong public support for a War on Aging, it would be far less effective, in my opinion, than if 25 people donated $1,000,000 each. It's half the money, but this is now no longer the project of an eccentric billionaire (or 200-million–aire?), but something that has the support of a wide range of wealthy people. It's no longer one man's shouting into the wind, but a "movement". Rather than 25 donations of $1,000,000, what if we had 100 donations of $100,000 each. Surely the support of 100 people speaks of much more than an eccentric man's thanatophobia. It's a fifth of the money, but doesn't it speak of something more respectable?

But rather than 100 donations of $100,000, why not have 50 donations of $100,000, 10 donations of $1,000,000, and a single donation of $10,000,000. It's $25 million, again only half of that single $50,000,000 donation I hypothesized. But doesn't it speak more of a cause worth supporting?

This is why I seek a more homogeneous mixture. It's not necessarily that it has to be a perfect bell curve or anything. But a more homogenous mixture of donations will show both the public, and potential donors, that there is already broad support here. It takes far less courage to join a cause which already has broad support.

Got your point. It's just that I've spent quite some of my young years banging my head against that "barrier" which makes us appear as being such "cranks". Sorry about the unproductive criticism. Don't let my pessimism get in your way [thumb] !

Perhaps MPrize should donate 10% of its cash assets to the Tsunami victims over the telethon. Who knows, George (Clooney) could give it a rap.

I've finally found the analogy needed to put this in the proper perspective.

Think of every donor as a "particle". Think of the amount of money donated by that person as the "energy" that that donor has added to the prize. Well, the neat thing is that the "momentum" added to the prize by that donor is proportional to the square root of the "energy" that that person added.

"Energy" and "momentum". I don't think that this is accidental. People speak of a "movement", such as the civil rights movement, or the free software movement. People speak of a movement that is gaining "momentum".

If one extremely popular, powerful, articulate figure joins a movement, such as the free software movement, it increases that movement's momentum, and it incites a lot of energy and "buzz" about the movement. But if thousands of small, nearly anonymous people join that movement, they add far more momentum, even if collectively they don't have the energy that the popular figure has.

If one person donates $100 million to the M Prize, it would add far more "energy" to the prize's total, to the effectiveness of the prize as a financial incentive, than would a thousand donations of $10,000.

Those thousand donations sum to a mere $10 million, one tenth the "energy" of the single $100 million donation. However, those thousand donations of $10,000 would add ten times more momentum to the movement, show far more support for the cause we are trying to establish in the public spotlight. A tenth the "energy", but ten times the momentum.

In the end, what really matters is the energy. After all, as a financial incentive, we really need between $10 million and $100 million in the prize.

However, people don't speak of a movement that is "gaining momentum" for nothing. A movement that has momentum maintains its momentum, and a movement that is "gaining momentum" is growing, is adding members at an ever-increasing rate. For the M Prize, part of that increasing momentum is the continuing donations.

So, build momentum, i.e. build a base and publicize the broad support we are getting, and new donations will continue to flow at a similar or higher rate, hopefully.

Getting lots of small and "medium" sized donations, such as $100 and $10,000 donations, will not get us to $100 million any time soon. Getting a million donors to put in $100, or ten thousand donors to put in $10,000, is a difficult task, and probably more difficult than getting a single donation of $100,000,000.

But, getting five hundred donations of $10,000, and ten thousand donations of $100, probably is a lot more realistic. It's a lot less money, but it builds momentum. And with momentum, we may be able to get a wealthy philanthropist to see supporting us as less risky than if we had very little momentum, notwithstanding the amount of money we may have collected so far.

I guess my idea of increasing the "standard deviation" of the size of the donations (on a logarithmic scale) addresses the idea of seeking a balance in increasing momentum and increasing energy. By seeking that balance, we can gain as much momentum as is possible given our resources, and we can gain as much energy (money) as possible given our resources. Without balance, we might be able to squeeze a little more money out in the short term, but hurt out long-term chances of attracting wealthy philanthropists. Alternatively, focus too much on momentum, and we won't grow the prize fast enough to be of any use.

So, we need balance. While I understand the importance of attracting a $100 million donor for the M Prize, or a $1 billion donor for the IBG, I think we need to keep a majority of our efforts focussed on getting a heck of a lot more donations of $100 to $10,000.

And for that matter, we could use another couple thousand donors of $10. I'm sick of hearing people whine that their $10 won't make a difference. I'd be willing to bet that there are at least a couple hundred people out there who have given at least a second's serious consideration to donating $10, before "realizing" that their donation wouldn't help. We could have over 400 donors right now, instead of less than 200, if people didn't let such self-defeating feelings get in the way. And wouldn't having over 400 donors speak of a lot more momentum than having less than 200 donors? Even if it meant we had $120,000 instead of $116,000, a seemingly insignificant difference in the prize's cash total?