We live in a world of numbers. To make good decisions, and be a good citizen, you need to understand the numbers around you, something that many of us struggle with.

I started the website www.IsThatABigNumber.com earlier this year. The home page invites the user to enter a "big number". It compares this number against numbers drawn from its own data base, and shows you a bunch of engaging comparisons that put your number into context. Feel free to go and try it out right now!

Users can take quizzes that test their "feel" for numbers, and explore connections between numbers drawn from real life: this reinforces a sense of magnitude, scale and context for the numbers around us. The site also features news articles and blogs selected for their relevance.

This project has been a labour of love driven by a belief that, rather than to complain, it is better to contribute to a solution. And there has been a wonderful response. Teachers have been particularly enthusiastic and several have reported using IsThatABigNumber.com in classes. We have had feedback from around the world that has been very positive. But there is much more that can be done to deliver more content, and in better and more engaging ways. The website needs to move from "promising", to "amazing".

With a little self-funded promotion, we now see 50 - 100 visitors a day, and we have 1400+ Twitter followers (@itabn_andrew). Many visitors spend relatively long periods on the website, clearly interacting with the content (one visitor called it "addictive"!) . It is wonderful that there has been such a positive reception to what is still a fairly basic facility, but there is a cost. Hosting a website can be done quite cheaply but it still is not free. It takes time and effort to maintain and develop. We're also keen to fund a wider promotional campaign.

That is the reason for this appeal to raise funds to make the content and the presentation even better, and to promote the website more widely.