Today, December 21st, 2011, is my wife Mary’s 40th birthday.  Being the great person that she is, she has chosen to donate her birthday to charity:water, our favorite charity.

Normally, when you donate your birthday to charity:water you have a party and people make donations instead of bringing gifts.  Without the party, the whole donations in lieu of gifts isn’t going to work.  So what I have done is surprised Mary with a special “virtual online party” by using social media and crowdsourcing.

For the past week I have been posting videos and pictures on her Facebook wall.  Those videos and photos were produced all over the world by all kinds of different people that I interacted with via crowdsourcing tools.  Mary had no idea who the people were in the videos, or how I got all of them to wish her happy birthday.  She was stumped.

Here is a recap of the best videos for you to check out:

• Wolf-man wishes Mary a happy birthday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDNMi0L2MAg
• Watch the crazy panda dance in celebration of Mary’s birthday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQQeSfHyoSI
• Mary’s birthday movie trailer/teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee4OYl1ee3E
• Kermit wishes Mary a happy birthday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9KmRQHNT8
• One of Mary’s fellow NASCAR fans drops by to wish her a happy 40th birthday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlXMLSeTAu0
• Happy 40th Birthday Mary from Ms. Chin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA9hgOwuGNI
• Spinning Happy-birthday sign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5GpTHhk0bo
• And finally, my favorite video is actually just audio of Christopher Walken calling Mary to find out why she thinks he’s creepy, and to of course sing her happy birthday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuaCAstMPIY

So now let’s keep this party going!

If you make a donation to Mary’s campaign for charity:water, I will source and pay the cost of a custom crowdsourced video for you.  The video will mention you by name and thank you for your donation.  I will then post the video to Youtube and then link that to your Faceboook and/or LinkedIn and/or Twitter account. I guarantee it will bring a smile to your face, and will perplex and impress your friends.

Here’s how this works:

Make a donation in one of the amount ranges below at Mary’s campaign page to receive your special gift.  In the comments of your donation, make sure you let me know what social networks to post to, and if you donate $50, let me know what video you would like from the choices below.

• $20-$49 donation:  I will type a personal message to you on Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter.
• $50-$149 donation: You get your choice of a customized video, similar to what I had done for Mary:
• Wolf-man
• Crazy Panda
• Kermit
• Redneck
• Ms. Chin
• Spinning sign
• Or some other zany video of my choosing
• $150+ donation: Christopher Walken will personally call you and thank you for your donation and the conversation will be recorded.

Please – go to her campaign page and donate now:  http://mycharitywater.org/Maryis40

If you want to learn a lot more about charity:water, you should watch Scott Harrison’s incredible speeach at the Inc. 500|5000 conference in 2011: http://www.inc.com/video/201110/inc-5000-scott-harrison-charity-water.html