Rainmaker: Giving goes social with PayPal and Twitter.

While rumors of the startup bubble keep swirling, there are many projects that simply still can’t seem to get funded. Even when the idea is great, finding that right way to get the word out is often times difficult. Rainmaker is hoping to put a social spin onto funding by allowing you to quickly donate via PayPal, then tweet about the donation via your Twitter account.

While not providing anything that couldn’t be done manually, the hope is that a spin on the traditional “I did this” tweet will get information on funding out to the masses. Granted, if a Twitter power-personality such as @Sacca funds something via Rainmaker, that is going to gather some attention. But at a worst-case scenario, even if someone will very little Twitter clout (me, for instance) funds something, the funding is still done whether anyone is influenced by my tweet or not.

The idea is unique in its approach, but not necessarily in its execution. However, we’ve seen a number of things before that allow you to do the same thing as something else, but simply do it better. Flipboard immediately comes to mind, in that you could always read the news before, but it made the experience easier.

Bear in mind, also, that Rainmaker isn’t only for funding. As a matter of fact, the featured tweet when I viewed the site was a donation to relief in Haiti. Given that fact, Rainmaker has our vote for a useful product that also raises awareness.