LONDON: A British shoe-shop employee has raised over €30,000 euros (Dh123,280, $33,575) in first day through an online crowdfunding project to help Greece meet its IMF debt repayment due on Tuesday.
A day after its launch, nearly 2,000 people had donated to the IndieGoGo project “Greek Bailout Fund”, reaching 0.002 per cent of the final target of the €1.5 billion needed to make the payment.
“All this dithering over Greece is getting boring,” said 29-year-old Thom Feeney, the page’s creator.
“Why don’t we the people just sort it instead? The European Union is home to 503 million people, if we all just chip in a few euro then we can get Greece sorted and hopefully get them back on track soon. Easy.”
Should the project be successful, donors will receive perks ranging from a postcard of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, a feta and olive salad or a Greek holiday for two, depending on the size of the contribution.
“I can understand why people might take it as a joke, but crowdfunding can really help,” said Feeney. “I just thought, sod it, I’ll have a crack.”
Initially, there was a small Greek island on offer for anyone who came in with the full total, but IndieGoGo asked Feeney, who works in central London, to remove the offer as the Greek government had not agreed to it.
“A Greek lady emailed to say that she found that perk offensive, which I apologised profusely for, I certainly didn’t mean offence,” he explained on the page.
With publicity increasing around the project, the tally was increasing at around €5,000 per hour. That was, however, still some way short of the €9.5 million per hour required to hit the target on time.
Feeney, from York in northern England, promises to refund donations should the target not be reached within seven days.
