OLPC Shop

This is an idea that might be useful one day for OLPC or similar projects.

An OLPC Shop could sell a collection of gifts with a low to medium production cost but a very significant donation component under a protected brand.

Obviously the OLPC Shop should be a certified OLPC fundraiser.

People have to use the official banking account of OLPC and reclaim your part/costs from OLPC. There has been cases where people were selling OLPC tangibles/gadgets/T-shirts, you name it and OLPC never saw a single coin, it all disappeared in the pockets of these fundraisers.

Also, fundraising this way is a very very time intensive job. Attribute your time wisely. Every country has foundations so that people who donate money for the cause can get a tax refund. Before obtaining such a status, the foundations underwent a thorough screening by the financial authorities of the country. Set up a large enough fundraising event with such a foundation and have them take up contact with OLPC to make an arrangement so you can offer a tax - refund and still have all the money go to OLPC, after which you can reclaim part of your costs. If you and the foundation come to the conclusion the expected amounts raised are not worth the efforts, then don't and use your time better in other niches in the OLPC community or OLPC projects.

Goodgifts

• An OLPC Shop could offer, besides XO Giving, XO certificates, good gifts and Unicef supplies (e.g. school-in-a-box)

Other gifts

• The OLPC as an e-book reader (possibly without a keyboard and only e-book software). The retail price of the Kindle is $399, which could pay for a second OLPC (as in G1G1).
• The OLPC watch - for people who like to look at their "watch" at others with great care. (G1G1: get one watch, give one laptop)
• The Wikibooks puzzleball showing children with XO laptops and a Wikibooks and/or OLPC logo.
• One could cooperate with LimeWire and allow artists to sell their music through the software, e.g. with 70% of the revenues going into the Special Laptop Program. (A very plausible connection between "music" and music, one could say, which is also in line with the view that "replicators" [1] should be charities.) Artists could be given the choice to use DRM or to ask for payment in exchange for a "valid ownership tag" in the file, which would be playable without the tag. [2] Musicians could also accept responsibility for creating a major source of distractions for pupils, which could be seen as a reason to promote education (comparable to a voluntary CO₂ emission fee for airline passengers).

See also: Charityware/CSL#Electronic Publishing Charity Source License (EPCSL)

External links

• bookzilla.de donates the commission (5%) for books bought through the site to the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe).

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1. ^  A badly defined term, of course, and just a view, not the view of anybody specific.
2. ^  The German band BAP has made a song available for WorldVision ^{[Noh Gulu]}, The German Red Cross distributes a free CD every year before christmas ^{[herzen oeffnen]}, together with a money transfer order for donations.