Random Acts
On December 3, 2009, Misha Collins, used Twitter to ask his followers (aka Misha's Minions come up with ideas for a “minionstimulus” project. The goal was to obtain U.S. government stimulus money (funding to aid endeavors to stop an economic recession) for non-profit “minion” initiatives.
The pursuit of government funding was soon abandoned in favor of morphing into a privately organized charity group and website, started by minion Lisa Walker and then known as Minion Stimulus. After visiting the fledgling website, Misha appointed Lisa his Director of Charitable Affairs.
With Misha's prompting, the minions raised over $30,000 to help UNICEF's aid efforts in Haiti.
In mid-2010, with The Art Department as parent organisation providing non-profit status, the Minion Stimulus morphed into Random Acts - poised to conquer the world, one random act of kindness at a time.
Info from the FAQ for Random Acts
At Random Acts, it’s our mission to conquer the world one random act of kindness at a time.
On August 21, 2010, Misha launched the site, posting a self made video explaining the organisation's mission, and announcing on September 5th he would run to raise money for efforts in Haiti and Pakistan. The charity accepted one time donations and per kilometer pledges. Jim Beaver participated by pledging $50 a kilometer, and encouraged his twitter followers to participate as well. Misha ran for over 11 hours, covering 83 km (51.6 mi). He tweeted his progress throughout the day. An estimated $94,700 in pledges was raised.
Links
- Random Acts website
- @therandomactorg twitter account
- Misha's promotional video
- Misha talks about the project to SFX
- Supernatural's Misha Collins Wants to Catch People Off-Guard With Random Acts of Kindness by Seattle Post Intelligencer
- Misha Collins or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate Sean Penn by laurenist. A blogger who made a critical of the project's mission, which Misha responded to in the comments. Interesting discussion of the ethics of charity.
