Help with exciting new primary school age project

Hey,

I would really appreciate all your help on this, as parents of primary school children!

I am in the early stages of setting up a project that works with charities, and intends to appeal to kids. As birthday party time approaches, the idea would be to ask his/her friends to make a voluntary donation to a charity of their choosing (from the choices we have on the site) rather than bringing presents (which may well end up gathering dust anyway). This would all be set up on the website, in a social-networking style.

They would get a certificate at the end of it saying that they had helped build Bill the Monkey a tree-house or whatever is relevant. The charities’ work would be presented in a very specific way (similar to the Oxfam ‘buy a goat’ model). We would help them theme the party accordingly (I’ll want help with game ideas at some point!), and the aim would be to educate a little bit, as well as to raise money for the charities.

Anyway I would like input on three things:

1 - Do you think children you know (aged 6-11) would be interested in this? What do you think would help them appreciate and enjoy it? I personally loved ‘adopting a whale’ when I was about 9, I think the experience may be similar.

2 - What kind of animals are they interested in/would they like to support? We want to work with humanitarian charities too, so – are they interested in anything relevant there?

3 - What would you like to get out of it, as a parent? What would you be looking for, when deciding whether to do it?

Thanks very much, I look forward to your input. PMs are fine as well as replies here on the thread.

PS I am posting this on a few different parenting forums – I’m just trying to get a good spread of opinions, I promise I will engage with all your replies individually.