A Prince Edward Island web designer is crowdfunding for a digital project he hopes will benefit research into diseases or other charitable causes.

Brad Pineau of Charlottetown has created Coding for Cures, a not-for-profit startup that will produce products with all the profits going to charities. Pineau’s day job now is owner and CTO of Timeless Medical Systems and Timeless Technologies, which are P.E.I.-based software development companies.

“I’ve always been sort of fascinated by how diseases are cured,” he said in an interview Friday. “It’s not something I could work on because I’m a developer not a scientist, and this is how I can help.”

Pineau explained that Coding for Cures will develop products that he believes will have a commercial market, and he hopes the sales will be aided by the fact that the proceeds go to charity rather than shareholders. The benefit to the charity is that money could come in a more sustained basis rather than just during a once-a-year fundraising campaign.

Though initially reluctant to reveal the product ideas, Pineau said he can say that the first product will be a web product called AdGrid, which will help website owners sell advertising space on their sites. The idea is to place a virtual grid over a website so the owner can help monetize the site by selling ads priced by how many segments of the grid they comprise.

“We have about 10 other ideas but they’re not as fleshed out as AdGrids,” said Pineau.

Since his mother has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, Pineau said the profits from the sale of AdGrid would go to research for a cure for the disease. The software will include a feature that would also allow buyers to select a charity to receive the proceeds if they would prefer a different beneficiary.

Of course, even not-for-profit startups need some seed capital, so Pineau has launched a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo, a U.S. crowdfunding site, with a goal of raising $100,000. It’s a flexible funding campaign, so Coding for Cures will be able keep all the money pledged by Nov. 9.

Pineau, his wife and a few other volunteers have already begun to work on AdGrid and are believe they could have a working model by the end of the year.  “We’ve already started on the product so I hope within two months we can launch for it,” said Pineau.