Great return on investment

A few years ago, after some careful thought about the best ROI for a charity of some sort, I came upon Nothing But Nets - where for a small donation they would provide anti-malarial mosquito nets through most of Africa (they have a neat distribution map on their web page). I've pretty much forgotten about that decision, though I do receive regular emails from the Nothing But Nets folks.

Today when I opened my email, there was a message from Seth Godin (kind of a thought leader in the techie world). He's been working for the last several months on something he calls the Domino Project - the aim of which is to stand traditional publishing on it's head. With all of the new tools we have available (computers, the Internet, Amazon.com, social media and others), why is it that we are doing things the same old way?

The message Seth had this morning is my first real indication of what his project is attempting to do. A group of A-list authors has gotten together and collaborated on a book called End Malaria. $20 from every book sold ($25 is the cost of a paperback and $20 is the cost of a Kindle version) will be donated to Malaria No More, who use the funds to distribute more nets. Note that if you buy the e-book version, 100% of the proceeds go to Africa.

Seth's Blog does a better job of explaining all this than I can, so hop on over and have a read. And donate. The very fact that you're reading this post means you can afford $20 to save some lives....