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Have you ever thought about doing a challenge to raise some money for a charity? How about doing it to raise money for the conservation of a threatened species? If yes, then you are absolutely going to love Edge Pledge!
Edge Pledge is a new initiative co-founded by Sam Marwood, an environmental scientist from Australia who worked in environmental policy for 12 years, and three of his good mates. He realized there is a lot of conservation work going on that is struggling to find funds to keep going. We had the pleasure to interview Sam, and he explained how Edge Pledge works: “We have a challenge generator, and just as animals are on the edge of extinction for different reasons, everyone gets put on the edge in their own different way. With our challenge generator, you answer a few fun questions and it gives you challenge suggestions. You pick three that you are willing to do and then you send a link to all your friends saying - Hey I am doing a challenge for this species, please donate to vote on which challenge you want me to do!” The challenge generator asks you a series of questions such as whether you are the adventurous type or prefer to be indoors. Based on your answers it gives you a list of challenges you can pick from. These challenges can go from going bungee jumping to getting a tattoo, performing a song on a packed train, or even shaving your head! There are dozens of suggestions you can pick from! The hardest one by far is going without coffee for three months (this might be a personal opinion).
After choosing your challenges you can then pick the conservation project you will be raising money for. At the moment, most of the projects target Australian species, such as the Endangered Tasmanian Devil or the Critically Endangered Southern Corroboree Frog. However, Sam Marwood tells us Edge Pledge is looking to add more projects to its portfolio: “We are slowly expanding our list. So far we have 10 environmental partners, so if you pick the chimp for example, the money will go straight to the Jane Goodall Institute to support chimp conservation. We would love to expand and support animals everywhere.” |
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After you have selected the three challenges and the conservation project you would like to support, you are ready to go! Share with your friends and family and ask them to vote on the challenge they would like you to do. After 28 days, whichever challenge got the most votes is the one you have to do (ideally providing photographic/video proof to your friends) – and all the money raised will directly contribute to the conservation of your chosen species.
Edge Pledge wants to make conservation more optimistic and fun, or as Sam puts it: “I think the issues facing our environment feels a little bit overwhelming; when you are at a dinner party with friends the conversation doesn’t usually last very long because it gets a bit depressing. I love the idea of giving people a way of helping out that is really simple, fun and tangible.” |
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This initiative is quite new, and has only been online for a couple of months, but it has been incredibly successful so far: “It is pretty exciting that something so new has managed to get so many people on board. We have had nearly 100 people taking on a fun challenge in just a couple of months. The voting process is proving to be a lot of fun for people. Our goal is to create a worldwide social movement and make a real difference for the environment.”
Edge Pledge has also made a series of extremely funny videos with Australian comedians pretending to be some of the species at risk of extinction. See below Ash London Interviewing Cal Wilson – a manta ray. So how about you? What are you waiting for? Go to https://www.EdgePledge.com/ and start your challenge today! |
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Published 5th November 2016 |