Tell the world "I'll do it, but only if you'll help me do it" - PledgeBank

What a brilliant idea!! Pledgebank will be massive influence for democracy. The last pledge listed on this page is particularly poignant.

About Pledgebank
You can listen to an MP3 of this instead.

Hello. I'm Tom Steinberg, the director of mySociety, the charitable group which is building PledgeBank. I've taken the unusual step of recording this introduction because PledgeBank is a slightly unusual idea. I've found that explaining it in person often works better than using the written word.

We all know what it is like to feel powerless, that our own actions can't really change the things that we want to change. PledgeBank is about beating that feeling by connecting you with other people who also want to make a change, but who don't want the personal risk of being the only person to turn up to a meeting or the only person to donate ten pounds to a cause that actually needed a thousand.

The way it works is simple. You create a pledge which has the basic format 'I'll do something, but only if other people will pledge to do the same thing'. For example, if you'd always want to organise a street party you could organise a pledge which said 'I'll hold a street party, but only if three people who live in my street will help me to run it'

The applications of PledgeBank are limitless. If you are a parent you could say that 'I will help run an after hours sports club but only if 5 other parents will commit one evening a week to doing it '. If you are in a band you could say 'I'll hold a gig but only if 40 people will come along'.

PledgeBank has been undergoing real world testing for a few weeks already, and there are already some successful completed pledges completely outside our original ideas of how people might use the site. One person gathered 20 other fans of a BBC radio series to lobby for its release on CD. Another encouraged 8 people who he'd never met to bury buckets in their own gardens to make homes for endangered stag beetles. And a member of an online community said he'd organise a 5th birthday party and now has 30 members of that community saying they'll come along.

PledgeBank isn't just limited to people who use the internet a lot. You can sign up to any pledge with a simple two word text message (in the UK only). Ideal for getting your friends in the pub involved, people in your street and so on.

PledgeBank is free, easy to use, and needs your involvement before we can launch. So if there's something you'd like to achieve in your community, in your place of employment, your university, amongst your friends, or in your street, please take a look at PledgeBank.com and create a pledge right now. Thank you.

FAQ

• To PledgeBank front page

Lists of pledges - Open

• "I will donate $65 to help 2 women in Niger (West Africa) become literate but only if 10 other people anywhere in the world will do the same."

  — Vickram, from Toronto, Canada

  Deadline to sign up by: 31^st January 2007
  5 people have signed up, 5 more needed

• "I will get this to the PM and show him we will not stand for horse slaughtering in the UK but only if 100 or more other caring people will do the same."

  — Julia Donald

  Deadline to sign up by: 1^st August 2007
  82 people have signed up, 18 more needed

  Country: United Kingdom

• "I will do all in my power to put an end to private firework displays in the UK but only if 10 other local people will do the same."

  — Pamela Alford, Resident of Station Ces, Ashford TW15

  Deadline to sign up by: 31^st January 2007
  4 people have signed up, 6 more needed

  Country: United Kingdom
  Postcode area: TW15 (view map)

• "I will HItch Hike to Morocco!!!! but only if 20 other people will donate £5 to the Indian 'New Life' Orphanage."

  — Jes Howarth, Student of Sussex University

  Deadline to sign up by: 1^st March 2007
  6 people have signed up, 14 more needed

  Country: United Kingdom

• "I will arrange for my MP to receive a copy of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" but only if 645 other people (one per UK constituency) will do the same for other MPs."

  — J Christie

  Deadline to sign up by: 31^st March 2007
  189 people have signed up, 456 more needed

  Country: United Kingdom

• "I will refuse to fill out the 2011 UK census unless there is a Cornish ethnicity tick box option but only if 1,000 other people will do the same."

  — Chris Jones

  Deadline to sign up by: 1^st January 2011
  59 people have signed up, 941 more needed

Successful pledges, closed to new signers (250)

Failed Pledges (336)

Successful pledges, open to new signers

• "I will ask my MP to pledge his or her support - and vote - to stop the clock being put back an hour in winter depriving us of an hour's daylight in the evening but only if 50 other people will do the same."

  — Victor Keegan, Writer

  Deadline to sign up by: 30^th January 2007
  67 people have signed up (17 over target)

• "I will write to the Secretary of State for Health and insist she looks into the nutritional benefits of freshly extracted fruit and vegetable juice but only if 15 other people will do the same."

  — Kris Talikowski

  Deadline to sign up by: 1^st March 2007
  15 people have signed up

• "I will Not vote for any political party that does not oppose national- ID cards but only if 20 other people will do the same."

  — Peter Lucas, advocate of democracy

  Deadline to sign up by: 1^st May 2007
  37 people have signed up (17 over target)

• "I will use Open Office all the time instead of Microsoft Office but only if 22 other people will do the same."

  — Cybersavvy, Open Source convert

  Deadline to sign up by: 1^st July 2007
  38 people have signed up (16 over target)

• "I will campaign for changes to the electoral system to make voting abstentions count but only if 10 other people will do the same."

  — Steve N, resident of Greenwich, London

  Deadline to sign up by: 31^st December 2008
  23 people have signed up (13 over target)

• "I will contact tony blair and get the shooting of my daughter looked in to again but only if 10 other local people will do the same."

  — jacqui probert, horfield bristol

  Deadline to sign up by: 2^nd October 2007
  15 people have signed up (5 over target)