Canadians of Canada: Where Should the Crackstarter Money Go?

As you may have read, Gawker recently raised $184,689.81 from readers (that's $200,000, less fees extracted by Indiegogo and Paypal) in an effort to purchase and publish a video of Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. As you may have also read, the people we were in touch with who had custody of the video have gone to ground. We still hold out hope that a copy or copies of the video exist and, that someone who has access to one of those copies likes money enough to share it with us. But time marches on.

While we're not exactly closing up shop yet here on the Crackstarter, it is time to make preparations for the likelihood that the video eludes our grasp. When we launched the campaign, we acknowledged that possibility and pledged to "donate every penny we receive to a Canadian non-profit that helps people suffering from addiction and its consequences." Several people have sent us their preferred candidates—the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force are the early favorites.

But now is you opportunity to offer your recommendations in the comments. For the sake of simplicity and elegance, our preference is to select a single beneficiary, so please limit your candidates to organizations substantial enough to absorb a donation of the size we are contemplating. And please don't muck up the discussion with arguments about the propriety of the Crackstarter or what assholes we are. What's done is done. Now you have an opportunity to help select the beneficiary of the extraordinary good will of the Crackstarter contributors. Have at it.

(Oh. There is the matter of "perks." People who purchased the Little Book of Rob Ford from House of Anansi Press should be receiving them imminently; we've already forwarded the fulfillment information. Several dozen people also selected a "public thanks" from the Gawker Twitter account; we'll do that soon as well. The other perks were contingent upon us getting the video. Hopefully we'll be able to fulfill those, too.)

[Image of Canadian flag defiled by crack pipe by Jim Cooke]