From the Puget Sound Business Journal, writer Clay Holtzman introduces us to the new charity started by Eugene Cho.
The group, One Day’s Wages, was granted status as a nonprofit in May and will unveil a website to accept donations this month. Founded by Eugene Cho and his wife, Min Hee Cho, One Day’s Wages is using social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter to seek funds. The nonprofit’s mission is not associated with any faith, the Chos said.
The concept is simple: Donate a single workday’s worth of wages — equal to $192 for an income of $50,000 a year — and have donors renew the pledge each year on their birthday.
“My wife and I want to do our part to impact the larger world,” said Eugene Cho, a blogger and Christian pastor at Quest Church in Seattle.
The nonprofit’s Facebook group, called Fight Global Poverty, lists an astounding 803,000 members. The Chos pledged to give $1 for every member of the Facebook group, up to $100,000, and Eugene Cho asked his 2,000 friends on Facebook to consider joining the group. From there word spread rapidly, he said.
“It is pretty stunning to us,” Eugene Cho said of the interest the concept has received.
One Day’s Wages has begun receiving donations but will not make grants until September after screening groups to be eligible to receive the donations, Cho said.
Cho said the idea came to him and his wife three years ago after one of their three children asked about poor children in a television commercial. The question resonated, so Cho and his wife pledged one year of their household income — about $68,000 — to fight poverty. From that, One Day’s Wages was born and the Chos increased their total pledge to $100,000, some of which might go to cover administrative costs for One Day’s Wages.
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