Not an uninteresting idea, but the $1k is just a tiny amount of money, eg. just 10x $100. It would be really interesting to have a (long-lasting) service around raising funds for open-source contributions and bugfixes and connecting users and developers. This could even look like a kind of reverse-kickstarter, where a number of people contribute money to a specific goal and only then find a developer/designer/... via the service.
As a sidenote: I always am a bit skeptical when i see links to a HN thread propagated in posts, primarily because it may bring too many new people here in particular if the post gets picked up by major news outlets. Nothing wrong with new users, but I think anyone interested in HN related topics learns of this site sooner or later anyway. The rate of submissions/changes on the front page has increased a lot during the last year and I'm a bit afraid where that will lead to (unless PG starts updating / trying a couple of things with HN, such as thresholds, categories, etc).