Correct me if I'm missing something, but won't this require that you raise $700k or so, so you can pay the taxes, and then spend the $400k? That strikes me as.

Correct me if I'm missing something, but won't this require that you raise $700k or so, so you can pay the taxes, and then spend the $400k? That strikes me as... ambitious. Also, the whole thing seems much more 'help me out of my problem!' than 'let me do something cool for you!' I think if you want a good shot of this working, you need to frame it very differently, and find a way to provide easily communicated value to the donors.