Penny Experiment - I need your help

[jeffrey]

I need to borrow some of your creativity and insight to help me with a new project that I've decided to start on the spur of the moment due to the way a group of teenagers reacted when I picked up a penny on my way to work at an Internet cafe. Basically, they made it clear that they believed that a penny is worthless and I've decided to try and prove that with hard work, creativity and a penny, that one can do a lot of good. My goal is to ultimately turn a penny that I found into 1 million servings of food for food banks.

Although I have some ideas rumbling around in my head in the short time since I've decided to do this experiment on how to get the ball rolling, I would love to hear your thoughts about what you feel would be the best way to accomplish this goal and the obstacles that I need to watch out for.

[disneysteve]

There was a guy a couple of years ago who, if I remember correctly, set out to trade his way from a paper clip to a house. Through a long series of barter transactions, I believe he did ultimately reach his goal. Perhaps you can do the same thing. Find someone who will give you something of greater value for your penny. Trade/sell that for something of ever greater value and so on.

Here is his website:one red paperclip
He did it in one year's time.

[LuxLiving]

My pennies want to cheer your penny on - how can they get in on the action?

[KTP]

This seems pretty easy now.

Step 1 get paperclip.

Step 2 dig around in sofa for change.

Step 3 buy house in Detroit.

[LuxLiving]

Your penny could get some sponsors.

[jeffrey]

I'm thinking that this will be a lot like debt reduction. Often the most difficult part is starting, so I started putting it together right away and getting it out there instead of laying out a complete plan about how it will get done. I know there are both advantages and disadvantages to this, but it takes care of that first obstacle of "getting started"

My next biggest fear is having the will to stay motivated when things don't work out exactly as planned, so it's something I need to consider.

One of my biggest fears is this will be discounted because of the one red paperclip site so I want to stay away from "trading up" if possible, or at least have it only as part of the overall concept.

I also want to show that helping others doesn't necessarily mean having to have a lot of money. I think I also want to incorporate coupons in purchasing the food and if it is possible to buy $267 worth of food for a penny, making the goal becomes a lot more realistic. It does mean that I will have to dramatically brush up on my couponing skills and also learn where in the US you can get the most value when shopping.

[jeffrey]

Sponsors are definitely a possibility, but in order to attract them, I need to establish the site first. The first big question is how can I turn the penny into more than one item of value?

[Kris10Leigh]

I was going to suggest asking people on the internet to send you one penny, but the cost of the stamp outweighs the cost of the penny, and that just seems silly.

I don't know, but I love the idea! I wish you luck.

[Broken Arrow]

In a similar vein, I received a charity letter yesteday from the... Leukemia society. In it, it had a nickel inside. The letter pitched that even though a nickel may not be much, it could return in spades, if enough people get behind it and each pitched a nickel.

I found it interesting because, like the paper clip story, what made it work was wide exposure somehow, and capturing people's attention and imagination.

But, how to actually implement something like that... well, I'm not sure. In the end, the penny is only a penny. But it's going to be the idea, the spark, capturing people's imagination that's I think is the key somehow.

[terces]

Good luck on your goal. Don't have any ideas for what you are trying to do but totally get it.

My mom is a penny picker upper. I remember when I was little we had a family friend who always threw his pennies into the street when he got them. My mom made a deal with him to give her his pennies instead of tossing them. It was a shocker for him when he saw how much she accumulated after a year.

[jeffrey]

I was going to suggest asking people on the internet to send you one penny, but the cost of the stamp outweighs the cost of the penny, and that just seems silly.

I don't know, but I love the idea! I wish you luck.

I think it might be possible to harness the value of the Internet (I'm still not totally sure how, but it may be in asking people to send coupons so that's it's possible to purchase food for as close to free as possible to give away to the food banks), but I think that will have to wait until I have money to actually but the food.

I have been thinking that it is important to set mini goals both to keep me motivated and to capture the attention of the readers. While it would be great to get everything at the end and give it all away at once, I don't think that is practical and would make it real hard to join me in the effort, but if I set s goal for raising $100 and then taking that $100 to buy food and it give away to food banks, then I think it will have a better chance of capturing people's attention and working. Does that make sense as a way to approach this?

[jeffrey]

I found it interesting because, like the paper clip story, what made it work was wide exposure somehow, and capturing people's attention and imagination.

But, how to actually implement something like that... well, I'm not sure. In the end, the penny is only a penny. But it's going to be the idea, the spark, capturing people's imagination that's I think is the key somehow.

I totally agree that the key to success for this will be finding a way to capture people's attention and make them want the entire project to succeed. Definitely not an easy task and I'm still trying to come up with ideas on how to achieve that.

I'm hoping that documenting my shopping for the food banks and delivering the food will eventually do that - I think that if I can show that one person can make significant contributions of food, it will tap into the people's imagination that one person can make a difference -- something I think we all strive to do.

Again, the hard part will be finding a core set of people that believe in the cause in the beginning stages when it isn't apparent that it will succeed to eventually get to that tipping point.

[mdcrim]

I read about a guy who would go to peoples houses and exchange their pennies and other change for dollars for no fee. Kind of like coinstar but without taking a percent. The reason this was profitable for him was that he knew enough about coins to know which ones were valuable and he was always able to find at least one coin in the batch to make it worth his while. Just a thought...

[jeffrey]

OK, my plan is starting to take shape and I need to know how realistic everyone (especially those coupon experts out there) thinks it is. The initial plan is to turn the penny into $10,000 and be able to buy 100 servings of food with each dollar spent That will make 1,000,000 servings of food. Is getting 100 servings of food per dollar realistic?

[jeffrey]

Any artists here (or people that know artists that you respect) that would be willing to donate a bit of their time and talent toward this project?