I first heard about Seti@home in early 1999 and thought it was a great idea. I know the chances of finding an advanced society that still use radio waves for communication was remote...but it seemed to be worth a try and I leave MY PCs running all the time anyway because they last longer that way.
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.