For Fun and Nonprofit

You will all be relieved to know that virtual worlds aren't solely inhabited by cutthroat profit seekers. Here's one Second Life citizen promoting virtual funds Charity Balls for big name organizations like Doctors Without Borders and St. Jude's Childrens Hospital. Check out the numbers - over 100,000 Lindens were raised at one of the events.
A couple of things worth observing here. First, accessibility to a Charity Ball is far easier in a virtual worlds than in our real one. I don't have to book a flight, a hotel room and a limo to show up - not to mention the clothes I'd need to purchase or rent. In fact, in a constructive world like Second Life you can actually *create* your own clothes and limo using their Linden Scripting Language (LSL).
Which leads to the second point, which is that a virtual form of this kind of event is "green" in the sense that people aren't using up natural resources to participate (jet fuel, car emissions, etc.) and at the same time more currency is disposable to actually donate since you didn't have to spend $5,000 just to get there.
So, between the possibility of getting more people to show up and at no expense to the participants, will we see record amounts of money being raised this way? Some of this may depend on what population sizes can be achieved in Second Life and other virtual or game worlds, but my guess is that in three years or less at least one prominent organization will be raising more money from virtual events than real world soirees. I would especially expect this from an environmental or conservation charity.