I met Josh Gray from Perfspot about 2 years ago. Since then, the social networking site he runs has more than tripled in size, mostly, according to Josh, because “we just listen to our users”.

There couldn’t be a better example of what the Internet is quickly becoming: a democratic, self-organized environment, where only the strong and valuable survive.

But that’s not what impressed me most about Josh. What impressed me is that on the night before his office closed for the winter holidays, during that time of year when most people stop answering their phones and start planning vacations, Josh called me to give me a $10,000 gift.

But he didn’t stop there. He then proceeded to ask his friends at ClearSpring to donate an additional $4,000.

Why would Josh do this—in a down economy, no less?

Because Josh believes in harnessing the power of people to effect change.

Josh believes in the mission of Privacy Council, the online organization we founded to simultaneously improve our lives and improve the environment.  Besides being a nuisance that fills our mailboxes, paper junk mail accounts for the harvesting of more than 100 million trees in America each year. Like his own company, PerfSpot, Josh believes that Privacy Council offers a unique value that will help its mission rise to the top of the Internet pyramid.

So Josh created a PerfSpot homepage takeover for the Privacy Council, and within hours of his launch, thousands of people from around the globe were busily helping to save 1 million trees in 2009. Josh’s gift represented the Internet at its best—web savvy and world passionate people sharing their skills and websites for the greater good.

This gift from Josh meant a lot to me, but it means more to our future generations. My hope is that my grandchildren will be able to experience the beauty of the same forests that I hiked in with my parents—instead of destroying this legacy by turning millions of trees into junk mail, most of which will be sitting in landfills for our children to deal with.

Help spread the word about Josh’s kindness, and the innovative campaign that he and the smart folks at ClearSpring put together.

As Josh put it, “Let’s save some trees.”