Help me lasso the Long Tail for charity

Okay, I need help from the greater blogosphere.  I’ve got an idea for a new non-profit organization, but I can’t do it by myself.  I need other people, who aren’t interested in getting rich, to help share the burden of getting it off the ground and keeping it alive.  The new non-profit will be named Localism and I’ve bought the localism.org domain (yeah, I couldn’t believe it was available either).  In my experience as a surfer and rock climber, the word localism usually has dire connotations.  I hope this venture can help change that a bit.  Localism can also infer a combination of local knowledge and activism–thinking globally and acting locally. 

In order to really understand the pitch that follows, you should already be familiar with Gawker Media and Weblogsinc.  I’ll assume that you are, but if not, you might want to get up to speed by reading this.  Also, the title of this post mentions the ‘Long Tail.’  If you’re not familiar with that phrase, you can come quickly up to speed with Chris Anderson’s original article in Wired and Robin Good’s summary of a Morgan Stanley analysis.
 

Place and topic
The basic idea behind Localism is the same as with Gawker and Weblogs Inc, but the primary organizational difference is that Localism will organize blogs across two dimensions–geographic location and topic.  So you’d find blogs about snowboarding in Canada, in the PNW, and in the alps.  Blogs about mountain biking in Hawai’i, Northern California and Vermont.  Blogs about surfing in Oregon and blogs about surfing in Asia.  Blogs about art in NYC and art in London.  Blogs about professional sports teams, since they’re so closely tied to location.  You get the idea–place and topic.

Revenues
Like Gawker and Weblogsinc, Localism will derive its revenue through advertising.  Because Localism is non-profit, ad placement purchases will be tax-deductible.  Unlike Gawker and Weblogsinc, Localism won’t take the majority of revenue.  I’m envisioning a revenue split along these lines: 10% to Localism to cover overhead; 40% to the blogger; 50% to a designated charity.  The blogger definitely needs to be paid, but I’m still not sure what the best strategy is…percentage of ad revenue, or flat fee.

The Charity
I’m envisioning Localism being able to dedicate the 50% revenue to a different international charitable organization each year.  Initially, since I have contacts there, I’m thinking of pointing the first year revenues at NW Medical Teams.  I’m open to alternate suggestions, though (I’m thinking along the lines of Ashoka, Right Sharing of World Resources, Habitat for Humanity, Mercy Corp, Heifer Project, Doctors Without Borders).  I don’t know if there’s a way to structure Localism so that this alternating of recipients can happen, but that’s part of the Help Wanted section below.

Bloggers and internal organization
I’m envisioning an organization that is similar to the DMOZ or wikipedia projects.  A bunch of people with topical knowledge coming together for a greater good.  Bloggers would be paid, but there would also need to be a board of directors that helps make decisions on who should blog, acceptable topics, what advertising can be accepted, etc.

Technology
I’ve personally used a bunch of different blogging/CMS platforms (MovableType, WordPress, TypePad, Bloxsom, Drupal, Blogger, Mambo), and I’m most impressed with TypePad’s combination of services, flexibility and usability.  If I had to dream up the ideal scenario, I’d choose TypePad to provide an in-kind donation of their services for Localism.  Barring TypePad, I’d look at other hosted services like Blogger.  Barring that, I’d start looking for in-kind donations from webhosts and I’d use MovableType or WordPress.  But, I’d really love to get SixApart on board with TypePad.

Help Wanted
Like I mentioned, I can’t do this alone, nor do I want to.  Look, projects like the Wikipedia and DMOZ have evolved through community cooperation, and I believe this project has the potential to do even greater good.  I believe there are plenty of you out there who have the time and resources to pitch in.  Will you?

• Need help (donation) with the 1023 form and any other filings needed to gain non-profit status.  Is this a job for a tax attorney?  I’m pretty clueless here.
• Need help getting the technology set up.  Anybody know Anil?  Send him a link to this post–like I mentioned before, I’d love to get SixApart on board.  The publicity alone ought to be sufficient ROI.
• Speaking of publicity…need help getting the word out.  Steve Rubel, is CooperKatz looking for any pro bono work in 2005?  Any other marketing and pr geniuses care to pitch in?
• Payment authorization issues.  Really need some way to accept payment from advertisers and then pay out to bloggers and charities.  A PayPal interface would be sweet, but barring than maybe there are some CPA’s willing to do pro bono?
• Jeremy and Darren, would you be willing to draft a ‘how to blog effectively’ manifesto that could be distributed to all new authors?
• Advertising generation.  This is really important.  The project needs people with connections, or barring that it needs excellent sales folks to nail down the relevant advertising.  To help ease the burden on volunteers, a dedicated portal like Blogads might be a great way for advertisers to aim their ads at the right blogs.  I’m not thinking of using blogads specfically, but rather builiding something custom, just for Localism.  Unless, of course, blogads can do that…  Henry?  :-)
• Organizational space.  The project is going to need collaborative webspace for people to work with.  Again, I’m looking for someone to step up with potential solutions.
• Organizational groundrules.  I know that what I’m asking for is a recipe for chaos.  Enough good thinking has gone on about scenarios like this, that I’m sure someone out there can step up with some pointers.  Howard Rheingold?  This ought to happen pretty quick, since I’m guessing that the comments thread in this post will get unwieldy.
• Finding potential bloggers.  The project needs articulate writers who are passionate about their topic.  I believe it’ll be easy enough to convince them to write for the project, but how do we find them?  Or will they find us?
• Design folks.  Need a cohesive design strategy that is ad-friendly.  I will be of no use in this department, so some of you design smarties are really, really needed to show off your chops.
• Need a board of directors.  Prolific bloggers would be great, but so would folks who have some experience pulling together an ad hoc community like this.  I’m thinking of folks like Howard Rheingold, Kevin Kelly, Dave Pollard, Robin Good, etc.
• What have I forgotten?

I understand I’m asking a lot, but I really want to get a truly collaborative effort underway here.  I’ll do whatever I can to help, but ya’ll are way smarter than me.  I think we can do some real good with this thing.  For the last couple of years, we’ve been talking and hearing about how blogs will take off.  Just in the past couple of  months there has been much declaration of 2005 being the ‘Year of the Blog.’  What better way to prove it than to use the medium for the greater good.  Shall we try it?

Leave your comments below, or email me directly (put ‘localism’ in the subject line), with offers of help or resources.