27 months

Reddit.com, social bookmarking site par excellence, is putting a creative spin on online donations during the holiday season. Rather than asking for monetary donations, they’re encouraging people to donate their time instead. Interested volunteers provide information about their skills which is entered into their aptly named “Database of Awesome.” Volunteers are then matched up with a project from a pool of non-profits.

People who give a minimum of 2 hours of their time are eligible for some great schwag (read: prizes) from their partners. From FeedANeed.org:

Around this time last year, we were busy partnering with xkcd to raise over $3,000 for the EFF, a non-profit chosen by you as the recipient of our fundraising efforts.

This holiday season, reddit.com is launching its first Feed A Need project. Instead of asking for monetary donations, we’re asking people to donate a few hours of their skills & energy. So if you are a programmer, designer, artist, lawyer, geology professor, bacon cooker, or anyone else with a few hours to spend for a good cause please consider participating in this year’s Feed a Need charity drive.

To participate, fill out this form with as much information as possible. Your information will be entered into our “Database of Awesome”, and you will be matched up with a project for a needy charity. See the list of non-profits here, vote up your favorite or submit one of your own. You needn’t volunteer in order to help us choose the charities whose needs we’ll be feeding.

I’ve been a devout follower of Reddit’s irreverent, bacon-loving site for a long time. Now I’ve got just that much more reason to love them (sorry, Digg—what’s this about enhancing your revenue stream with another ad product? I’m afraid it’s over between us.)

Clearly, Reddit is onto something here. They already have a huge pool of tech-savvy users, and with the downturn in the economy, layoffs and budget tightening all around, what better way to give without hitting the pocket book? Kudos, Reddit.

My only suggestion would be to make this a year-round endeavor.