This month, we’re honoring the most generous designers . We’ve already looked at Social Media Mavens . The series will run through the winter with more profiles of generous Tech Founders, Wall Streeters, Marketing Gurus, and Filmmakers.

This is the latest profile in Catchafire ‘s Generosity Series , a multi-month celebration and investigation of bold generosity with the goal of understanding its causes, its benefits, and how to inspire more. We’ll be interviewing a long list of impressive changemakers, who have demonstrated their generosity through acts of service, rather than exclusively through deep-pocketed philanthropy.

Were you surprised when you realized that you have this ability to raise a lot of money for good causes fast? We would like to know your take on why your supporters are so responsive to your requests.

I’ve seen my readers act generously upon intangible things, such as leaving comments or liking things on Facebook, but until my first Indiegogo campaign I never realized that they were so generous with their money as well. I think a big part of it was that during my first campaign I was threatened by a lawsuit and my campaign was more of an act of self defense. I didn’t want to go to court or have to pay this guy $20,000 in damages, so instead I turned villainy on its head and made it into a charitable fundraiser. When I first started the campaign, I was worried no one would donate. I thought it was too much to ask and I’d look silly after raising, like, 8 bucks. Thankfully my readers are supportive and fantastic, and we raised 1,100% of our goal.





Why is it important to have a museum dedicated to Tesla?

Tesla changed the world. He’s the father of the electric age and brought us into a second industrial revolution, but he’s unfortunately been forgotten in most history books. Building a museum is almost a way for us to retroactively honor his legacy. Furthermore, there’s no Tesla Museum in the United States, and Tesla frequently stated that he considered himself a proud American and this is where almost all his major accomplishments took place. In short: it’s a way for people on the Internet to right a wrong. Tesla was forgotten, but building a museum is almost a collective way for us all to say “Sorry we were jerks, Tesla,” even 70 years after his death.

This is the latest post in a series on generosity, in conjunction with Catchafire.

Last month we covered Edward Norton and his micro funding platform Crowdrise. They’re pretty funny, too. How do you think humor affects generosity?

Everything is more likable when it’s funny, even philanthropy. I’ve found that if I have an important message or idea I want to convey to my readers, the best way is to make the message as simple as possible and then saturate it with jokes about constipated goats, flamethrowers… things like that.