Three days ago a Reddit user named hiS_oWn started a thread suggesting that members of Reddit join together to buy one of those JetBlue promotional passes that gets you unlimited flights for a month for $600, and that they use it to run continental errands and for general adventure.

At some point someone decided giving Kickstarter a try, and so within a couple of hours there was a Kickstarter project seeking $600 in two days (the promotion was ending this week) to send one unemployed Redditor on a month-long trip. Within a couple of hours the money was raised, and before the clock ended the project pulled in $1,943, enough money to send three people, if that’s what the community decided to do.

The key to this entire project has been the communal self-determination that lead to its creation and that’s currently deciding the particulars of how this will be executed. Redditors are being asked to make their pitch for why they should be allowed to be the community’s representative, and a group screening process has begun. The Reddit folks are also creating what is essentially a project constitution: what sorts of missions should be allowed on this trip? Does someone who contributed $100 get to request a similarly scoped mission as someone who contributed $15? Everything is up to the members.

While building Kickstarter, we talked a lot about groups and communities using Kickstarter as a tool to solve their own needs — we always thought it served that purpose perfectly. This Reddit project is an incredible example of that, and it’s a perfect illustration of how Kickstarter can make Herculean efforts simpler, cleaner, and so much less of a headache.

We can’t wait to see how these trips develop and where it will take them. And fortunately we will get to follow along — apparently one of the chosen Redditors is a filmmaker, and will be documenting the experience. Sounds like a second Kickstarter project to us!