What’s a Kachingle?

February 24, 2010 · Posted by in Environment 

Hi!

You may have noticed (or not) two slight changes to our site lately.

To the left, you’re seeing a tip jar. To your right, you’re seeing the word Kachingle. I’ll get to both of those in a moment.

Here’s what you might not know about our site — Laura and I like it. Kinda maybe too much. But we have no budget. So in the middle of doing all of the stuff that we actually want to do, like highlighting the interesting, the important and the stupid in the vast world of Boulder-related environmental news, we have to figure out how to make this little machine spit out a coin every now and then. If it spits out enough, maybe we can add cool features or go really big on something.

(And of course, a big part of this is sponsorships — so do click through to the sponsor in our big box on the right!)

So. The tip jar. If you like what we’re doing and you want us to keep doing it, it would be swell if you tossed a couple of bucks in there from time to time. I know it doesn’t seem super realistic, but it’s easy, it’s PayPal, and it’s not like we’re being jerks about it.

Now, the other thing we’re messing around with here is called Kachingle. It’s a kind of interesting “crowdfunding” thinger. Here’s the idea: You sign up, you commit to paying $5 a month, and that gets spread around to any sites you read that are using Kachingle. If you read us more than any other site with Kachingle, we get the $5. If you read another site exactly as much as us, it splits it. That kind of thing.

At the writing of this post, we have 10 “Kachinglers.” You’ll see that I am one of them. Yes, I am paying a little less than $5 per month to the site I blog for. Look up quixotic in the dictionary, ladies and gentlemen, and you’ll probably see a picture of Don Quixote. But that’s only relevant because nobody’s invented the word Daveburdocktic yet. (Or Daveburdiculous.) Yet!

I like Kachingle because I “set it and forget it.” That $5 a month would otherwise go toward terrible, nasty vices. Or cookies. Whatever. But the point is, it’s less than I pay for Netflix, and I know that bloggers who use Kachingle need the support (financial and emotional, for we are fragile little creatures) more than Chris Elliot does and, for that matter, no matter how many times I rent “Groundhog Day,” he’ll never thank me personally.

We hope you will become a “Kachingler,” helping to support online journalism in some of its different forms, including the time- and resource-intensive reporting that we hope to produce. After you become a Kachingler, you’ll also be able to share the sites you support with colleagues, friends, and family, and turn them on to the sites you visit. You can sign up as a Kachingler by “mousing” over the Kachingle Medallion on this page (up and to the right) and clicking on “Join Kachingle.”

But! As we’ve noted, if you donate a bunch to us, we will thank you personally! On video! And if you donate a little, maybe we’ll write an email. You know, we’ll kinda see how it shakes out.

Thanks for your continued support of Big Green Boulder — and thanks for reading this totally ridiculous post.

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Tip Jar

Like what we're doing? Got a spare sawbuck? Help us pay for site maintenance and reporting and we'll think happy thoughts about you sometimes. $100 gets you a personal, paperless thank-you video from Dave and Laura! $500 gets you... five personal, paperless thank-you videos from Dave and Laura and a tote bag!

2 Responses to “What’s a Kachingle?”

  1. Kachingle Blog : What’s a Kachingle? by Dave Burdick of BigGreenBoulder on March 4th, 2010 10:39 pm

    [...] What’s a Kachingle? [...]

  2. How To Aquaponics on January 21st, 2012 6:53 pm

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