How do you describe a fellow who takes a brilliant idea and, for all practical purposes, virtually gives it away because of a wager made whilst throwing back a pint–or more?

First, the back story.

A few weeks ago Andy and his dad were enjoying a sociable beer when they noticed a guy moving between tables with a “charity bucket” in hand. Here, in the states, we usually see this stuff at intersections. People going from car-to-car soliciting funding for one, presumably, good cause or another. It seems in the UK they do it in beer gardens.

Andy and dad started discussing the efficacy of this particular approach to fund raising. Was it really worth, to the collector and the charity, the time and effort required?

Being an online marketing kind of guy Andy told his dad he could raise more money online and with less effort and cost than the fellow going table-to-table. His dad bet him he couldn’t. Enter pride.

They made a bet, a high stakes bet. Andy would attempt to raise a certain amount of money–for charity–in a set period of time. If successful, next outing dad buys the beer. If he fails, Andy buys.

Ten-thousand American dollars was the agreed upon amount. To be raised by July 19, 2010. All proceeds to Asthma Research.

Now comes the big question. How? Charities typically employ two methods of fund raising. The first is the most common. A direct appeal for donations. The second, and less common, method is to offer something of value in return for a donation. Andy decided to take the second approach.

Fortunately he had recently developed a very useful WP Plugin, WPSyndicator. The plugin will syndicate your blog posts to at least a dozen important Web 2.0 sites. Great way to garner attention.

Some WP Plugins—particularly the better, more useful one’s—often cost forty or fifty bucks each. As he’s donating all proceeds from sales of WPSyndicator to charity Andy has reduced the price of the plugin to less than $10US.

Now, he could easily make some serious bucks from this handy product but instead, just to avoid paying for a pint, he’s donating all proceeds to Asthma Research, is Andy a “Drunken Idiot” or a “Superhero”?

As a long-time asthma sufferer I have a definite opinion.  I purchased it. You’ll have to judge for yourself.

You can learn all you Need to Know about WPSyndicator by clicking this link:

http://wpsyndicator.com/charity.php?e=hateasthma

Disclaimer: As you can easily see the WPSyndicator link appears to be an affiliate link. In this particular case I get absolutely nothing for promoting this product. Other than the personal feeling that my small contribution may make someone’s life easier sometime in the future. The affiliate link is used only for tracking purposes.