Very early in the Democratic Presidential Primaries, I emailed what I thought was a simple idea to the Obama for America campaign. I received a standard form response. Let me briefly describe the idea below the fold.
THE IDEA IN A NUTSHELL:
This site lets somebody sign up as a Sponsor or a Beneficiary. Bamafactor is a play on Benefactor.
A Sponsor: Someone who has something to give (e.g. boarding, rides, food, etc). The Sponsor uses the site to say "I can offer the following to any Obama supporter".
A Beneficiary: Someone who has volunteered to undertake a specific campaign task and needs some type of assistance in fulfilling that task. The Beneficiary uses the site to say "I am going to xyz city to do abc, but I need a place to sleep, some food, when I get there".
Believe me when I say that the Beneficiary described above is not fictional. I have been to several cities on volunteer work for the campaign and I have come across volunteers who had no boarding and no money.
In my observation and discussions with several supporters and potential supporters, I observed the following:
Many people were energized by Barack Obama as a candidate and would like to support him in their individual ways. The normal channel of supporting a candidate presented challenges to these potential supporters.
One one side, you have people who wanted to travel around and help but found out that they could not do so effectively. They have the time, but they don't have the means - don't have cars or funds for air travel; can't afford hotel bills and don't much cherish the idea of sleeping in campaign offices. Babysitting became a NEED for people willing to walk the precinct and canvass. You get the idea.
On the other side, you have people who have the means to do all these (and more). However, they can't get away from work or other other personal commitments. These are not bad people, but they feel bad, inadequate, frustrated and unfulfilled in themselves because they are not able to do what they so much desire to do.
My idea was for the Campaign to find a way to bring these two groups of potential supporters together and let them help each other help the campaign. It seemed simple to me.
Like I said, I did not hear back from the Campaign.
So, I sat. And then I sat some more. And I waited for "someone" to do "something".
Later during the Primaries, a group of like-minded folks got together and started the "Obama Gears Recyling Program" called "OBAMACYCLE". While I enthusiastically participated in this initiative, I still sat back and hoped that (one day) someone will take my idea and do something with it.
Well, nobody did.
So, I redoubled my efforts and started reaching out to people far and wide, bouncing the idea off of them. EVERYONE agrees that it is a "great idea". The overwhelming response goes like this "Hell, yes. Why not?". A number of people offered to help get it started, but we really didn't do anything.
Well, here we are today, merely a few weeks from The REAL Thing. We still hadn't done anything about it. Well, no more.
Today, we are happy to announce the birth of The Bamafactors - an initiative solely dedicated to helping Obama supporters help other Obama supporters to better support the Obama campaign.
Please READ "WHAT WE DO" to get a quick primer into our thinking.
We do not pretend to know the legal, tax or financial IMPLICATIONS of participating in this initiative. We have tried to establish that this is a legally permissible avenue for political contributions and participation, but we can NOT guarantee that our information is correct. Please do your own homework before participating.
The Bamafactors does NOT accept or collect ANY donations. We just provide a forum for people to get together and help each other.
This is a work-in-progress and more enhancements will be forthcoming over the next several days.
We ask that you please help spread the word and provide any and all feedback. Thank You.