What a great idea:

Crowdrise aims to make raising money for a cause not just easy, but also fun. Setting up a page to support something you care about takes less than a minute. Then, friends and family can be invited to be sponsors by donating any amount of money, large or small. You don't have to run a marathon. You can volunteer at a soup kitchen or do whatever strikes your fancy. But Ms. Wittenberg, who has already sent her e-mail to 33,000 runners based in the United States and will soon send one to the 27,000 or so based elsewhere, hopes that anyone running in New York on Nov. 7 will use Crowdrise to do it for charity.

Once your Crowdrise page is up, anyone can donate to it and join your team.

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Online Giving Meets Social Networking

By AMY WALLACE

Published: September 4, 2010

www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/business/05proto.html

LATE last month, tens of thousands of runners who are registered for this year's New York City Marathon got an e-mail from Mary Wittenberg, the president and chief executive of New York Road Runners.