1. To help contribute to what I view as being potentially important scientific research.
2. It has low odds of success; but if it does, the SETI@home team would be making history and the world would never be the same again.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.