Participate in the Blogger Challenge & Help Students and Schools

[theljstaff]

One of the best kept secrets about the LiveJournal community is how incredibly generous you all are. It's not just the fact that so many of you volunteer to help LJ out, or are such active participants in communities online. It's what you do to support communities offline that makes us so proud of what LJ is. (A recent example was the way you all

Comments

[soleta_nf]

I think in this case it's understandable. They can make a better effort to be inclusive when it comes to contests, but as a fund raising effort, I think it's great that LJ is doing it at all.

[soleta_nf]

LJ has made it clear for a while now that they don't make extra efforts to be inclusive of international users, so I don't expect them to start fundraising in other countries (though of course that would be nice). Hopefully they'll work toward that.

My main issue right now is with contests, as I think there must be a way to imagine them differently so that all users could participate.

[soleta_nf]

When I read it, it seemed clear to me that non-U.S. members are not able to get the certificate.

[spectralbovine]

Nope! I was confused too, but I think it's the fact that the charity only covers the U.S., not that non-U.S. users can't participate. Because it wouldn't make sense for non-U.S. users not to be able to use a gift certificate that 6A pays for.

[soleta_nf]

Right. I think they over-emphasized the non-U.S. thing then. The issue is letting non-U.S. people participate in activities. I don't think anyone would mind that the money is going to charities in one particular country.

[hinoai]

It seems to me that non US members are able to participate. The money just goes to only help US children. But that shouldn't really be a problem... helping people is helping people! If you're not doing it just because of country boundaries, then I find that rather sad.

[soleta_nf]

I completely agree. Someone else cleared that up for me, and hopefully LJ edits the post to make that clearer. I just got my certificate!

[txvoodoo]

Please read this

[finchburg]

Excellent advice.

[divabat]

Non-profits and charities have even crazier legal issues to deal with, so it makes sense that DonorsChoose, being American, would concentrate on American schools and not schools elsewhere. Doesn't stop the rest of us from helping, though.

[txvoodoo]

ITA 100% - it doesn't matter where in the world you help - there are people in need EVERYWHERE.