Joe Clark has set up a project called The Open & Closed Project, and he needs your help. He’s trying to raise $7,777 in order to allow him to work full-time at fundraising for this project for a number of months.

He’s not asking people to contribute lots. He’s wanting a large amount of people to contribute a small, affordable amout. Go without a latte one day: instead contribute to the well-being of humanity. Put like that, it doesn’t seem too much to ask, does it?

The project is to…

write a set of standards for the four fields of accessible media — captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing.Joe Clark

Proper research-based standards in this area will be of great benefit to anyone who relies on these methods to help them understand media. Please help Joe: please give a donation if you can. If you want to find out more about what he’s doing, visit the Open & Closed project site. But while you’re there, why don’t you give a donation?

Joe is a lovely guy, who cares passionately about making media accessible to people with disabilities. He always gets on really well with everyone, never has a bad word to say about anyone and works his flipping backside off trying to help others. At least most of that is true. He works hard to help people with disabilities. He may come over as cantankerous now and again, but that’s because he believes he knows best. He’s probably right.

As he himself puts it, someone who knows accessibility:

Knows who I am, agrees I’m right most of the time, but thinks I’m a twat nonetheless.Joe Clark

But he really is a good bloke. It really is a worthwhile cause. It really deserves a little of everyone’s cash. So why not pop along, and when you inevitably agree it’s a worthwhile cause, give a donation? After all…