Tuesday, August 4, 2009

It's Bill Clinton as David and a Seattle non-profit as Goliath

Bill Clinton is a master vote getter, so it's no surprise that his non-profit Clinton Foundation is leading an online election to receive what could be a sizeable donation from the creator of Google's Gmail. But the tiny Seattle non-profit Literacy Bridge -- which has developed a small, portable audio device called a "Talking Book" -- is at least staying in the race against the 42nd president.

The competition was created by Gmail lead developer Paul Buccheit, who two months ago wrote in a blog post: "I'm going to donate a bunch of money, but I want random people on the Internet to decide where it goes."

The PSBJ's Clay Holtzman has details on the race -- being conducted on Google Moderator -- noting that The Clinton Foundation had almost twice as many votes (520) as Literacy Bridge (270).

It is a true David vs. Goliath battle. The Clinton Foundation had revenue of about $130 million in 2007, while Literacy Bridge (created by former Navy Officer and Microsoft employee Cliff Schmidt) had about $79,000 in revenue last year.

And it turns out that Literacy Bridge was actually the front runner until recently when the Clinton Foundation ramped up efforts, reports Holtzman. (You can't count out Clinton who has been called "The Comeback Kid" before).

The Talking Book is currently being tested in Ghana. The nonprofit says the low-cost device is designed to "improve literacy skills for children and adults, while also enabling knowledge to be shared with those who do not have access to text."


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