Here is a NYT blog with a different summary of Jim's answer to the most relevant question, including the quote "quite staggering" with regards to the potential ad revenue. http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/craigslist-meets-the-capitalists/

I think quoting Jim's two words "quite staggering" instead of specifying a target amount of money as part of the key meme could be a good technique.

How about running AdSense ads from Google? Craigslist has considered that, Mr. Buckmaster said. They even crunched the numbers, which were “quite staggering.” But users haven’t expressed an interest in seeing ads, so it is not going to happen.

I think the most important thing our viral loop can do is convince the users that this is possible. If someone can be made to truly believe that this is possible, they should really want to help. Is an appeal to morality a good idea? I don't personally understand the morality of regular people enough to have any idea how to make such an appeal.

Reply to this post with any ideas for ad copy that help inspire belief in the possibility of creating money for charity out of nothing or different ways of shortening any remixes of the ideas in the following statement. Once we figure out the budget we can try Adwords testing to see which phrases are better.

Craigslist CEO Jim says we can raise a "quite staggering" amount of money if we tell him we want to save the world

Have you ever used Craigslist? Then Craigslist CEO Jim says we can help raise a "staggering amount" of money for charity if we tell him the world needs our help.