While researching an article, I happened upon an interesting fundraising effort put out by University of California Berkeley called Big Ideas. Along with the traditional methods that we expect out of academia, they are also tapping into the collective through ChipIn.

For those who don’t know, ChipIn is a fantastic fund raising tool that makes it easy to collect money for just about anything. Just enter the amount, the descriptions of the project and the date it is needed by and a few seconds later you’ll have a landing page and a widget to promote your campaign.

If you have a project and you’re looking for a way to bring your network to bare on the task, ChipIn is a great service to try out. Going back to Berkeley for a moment, I suggest taking a look at some of the projects that they have available, and putting a few dollars in if you see fit.