What could you achieve with a million bucks?

I just wanted to tell you guys about an exciting initiative taken by my organization that has big possibilities for a variety of open source projects that you might have been dreaming or scheming about.

While chatting to many of you at user groups, camps or conferences, it often comes up that I work in philanthropy and that we give tens of millions of dollars to Oregon nonprofits every year. Then some of you tell me you have great ideas for software projects that could make a real difference. Until now I've always had to reply that unless a nonprofit asked us for money, there was little that could be done. In a number of cases we have given money for the development of software (we currently fund a project that contributes code to Plone), but a nonprofit always initiated the request, even when partnering with a software development shop.

Now, for a short time, there is another way for such projects to become realized. My organization has initiated a new program to ask for ideas for improving the future of Oregon, and we're willing to spend up to a million bucks on one or more of these ideas. The campaign is open to everyone and to any idea, including ideas that involve software. The final accepted ideas will be open to the best people for the job, including businesses, like software development shops.

As you all know, if funds are used to realize one of your ideas, that result in improvement to an open source project, then this would would help not only Oregon, but also any nonprofit/NGO anywhere, or anyone with similar needs. It's a great opportunity to plant the seeds of an idea right here in Oregon and to help Oregon, but then for that help to go further afield as well.

And hey, this is a smart group with a lot of smart ideas about a lot of different things, not just software, so please share any ideas you have. And please pass the word to folks you know. Post your ideas anonymously or post them with your name, so that you'll be notified about progress on that idea and will be associated with it. And comment on existing ideas as comments show support. There is already a great Drupal-specific idea out there so please chip in with your thoughts.

You can find the announcement here: http://www.mmt.org/blog/whats-your-million-dollar-idea-oregon
You can post your ideas here: http://www.ideas4oregon.org/