Site that allows fundraising for a gift?

[LampDev]

A few years back I came across a site that did something really remarkable.
A user would setup an account and would offer his/her services if a community of people would donate enough to buy an item they wished to have.

They setup a deadline of X amount of days/weeks and people were only charged if they met that deadline.

So a user would be able to say:
"I'm the developer of Software X... if you wish to have Feature Y on this software, please contribute to buy me Visual Studio 2005 which is $$$ amount. You have 6 weeks to comply."

... but in a less borgish manner. :)

It wasn't limited to developers, it was a service to allow anyone get a very expensive item by allowing contributors (possibly family members) to share the burden of the cost. An example would be a child wanting a PS3 for Christmas and the only way they could afford it is by allowing the entire family to pitch in and buy him that one gift.

Admit it, you know you'd rather have one bad-ass gift than 20 shitty little ones, right? :D

Has anyone seen anything like this on the web before? If so, where?

[quzar]

It's called topcoder.com Basically, it's like a freelancing jobsite. Most of the jobs are set out by companies that need things quickly or specifically. Oftentimes two or three coders take up a job and just end up piling up as a portfolio. I'm not sure if random people can put up money or not, but it's worth looking into.

[LampDev]

Although that is a really neat website and I'll be looking into that in the future, it's not what I was thinking of.

The site I had it mind had a very eBayish feel to it.

There was a product image on the top right of the page with a short description of the product underneath.
At the top left was information about the user who has requested the item, what it is for, ect...
Somewhere else on that page showed a time limit. Basically, if not enough people had pledged enough money for the item, it would not be purchased.

So it wasn't limited to only coders and I can't remember if it was strictly Paypal, though that might have changed since the time I visited.. if they even exist anymore.

I've been trying to think of some way to describe it simply and the best way I can think of is saying it's a sort of online fundraiser for good or services ... without the cookies, candy or popcorn. :)

I've been googling this thing for a week now. I'm starting to wonder if it exists anymore.