#FundingFriday — How Your Five Bucks Can Change Our World

Call me an idealist. But I believe that together, we have the opportunity to make our world a better place.

I’m tired of hearing complaints about politicians and taxes and bureaucracy.

I’m also tired of my own laziness — of the moments when I read something inspirational online, tear up a bit, resolve to “do something about that soon”, and then leave the page to check and see if anyone has dm’d me on Twitter.

It’s a lucky thing for me that I’m friends with Matt and Colleen Swaim, the geniuses behind #FundingFriday. “Funding Friday” is a social media initiative to get all of us involved in making “micro” donations each Friday towards a directed (and reputable) charitable cause. Here’s the blueprint:

1. Every Friday, based on a specific need that we know either because it’s in the news, or because it’s been privately brought to our attention, or because it’s something that isn’t getting the attention it rightly deserves, we’ll post that need on this blog, as well as on Twitter, with the hashtag #FundingFriday and a link to where you can donate online. It might be a struggling inner-city Catholic school, a homeless outreach, a crisis pregnancy center, even a foreign mission.

2. Click the link and then make a donation, however small, to that cause. I’ll put $10 out there as a round number. If it’s a tight pay period and you can only give $5, or even $3, do it. If it’s been a good pay period, and you can give $25, $50 or more, that’s bonus. The point is, you don’t have to break the bank to make a solid impact on the organization if enough people participate.

3. RT to your entire list of followers and encourage them to join in.

4. While your payment is processing, make it a point to pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and one Glory Be for the intentions of the organization.

Simple, right? And yet when your $5 is combined with mine, and Matt’s and that guy you follow on Twitter, and his Facebook friends and theirs, in no time we’ve solved a problem. And we’ve each, in our own “little way” made a difference — for our world, but also for ourselves.

I’m convinced that if each of us reading this participates and if we share this initiative with our friends online, we’ll be looking back a year from now (having consciously prayed, given and perhaps fasted too fifty-two times — intentionally and together in solidarity, with conviction) and be amazed at the results that one small seed of inspiration — sown faithfully — can accomplish.

So before you leave to have lunch, check your Twitter feed, or even leave me a comment below, click THIS LINK and give $5. And then tell a friend, or five.

Can you feel it? You just changed the world!