I
want to ask a question and then I might have to rant a bit, so please bear with
me.
Has
anyone tried fund raising through gofundme or other on-line crowd-funding
sites? Did it work for you and if so, how did you do it?
I’ve
had a site on gofundme for a month to raise money for my upcoming volunteer
trip to Kenya and I’ve had five people give a total of just over two hundred
dollars. I’ve posted to all my social media, I’ve added pictures and updates. I’ve
tried not to be a pest. I guess I would be okay with where I am at, coz I know
that money is tight and people have a lot of other things to donate to. But then
I look at what other people are raising money for and I just get pissed. How
are these other people raising thousands of dollars for their honeymoon or
their divorce or their dog’s hip surgery (and you know I would do anything for
my own dog – except ask strangers for money for his vet bills). Maybe I am
just naïve but I just don’t get it. I know that my cause – going to Africa to
help kids in need – doesn’t pull on everyone’s heart strings. And maybe some
people use crowdfunding for their wedding instead of expecting gifts at the
wedding (or registering at snobs-are-us) or some people were just never able to
put a dime in their 401K (or whatever they are called these days) and they need
that $10,000 to take their dream vacation after their last day of work as an
under-paid civil servant or they truly, truly did not see that their spouse was
a loser who was going to rake them over the coals in a messy, cross-country
divorce. Or any of a million other scenarios. And if you really want to share
your dirty laundry on the internet to make a buck, maybe I should applaud you
for having that kind of fortitude instead of criticizing you.
I
don’t know. I guess, thanks for listening (i.e. reading) and if you have any
insight I would appreciate hearing it. But now that I got that off my chest,
let’s move on.
Here’s
how my week came out:
1.
READING
a.
Read and comment on my assigned blog posts as a ROW80 sponsor. Done
b.
Read 50 pages of “Shantaram”. Read forty pages. I am in
awe of people who can consistently read a book a week. Do those people sleep?
Or work? Or shower?
c.
Read two chapters on “Ten Fingers, Ten Toes”. Read two chapters and only have three chapters left.
2.
WRITING
a. Write two blog posts here. Yes.
b.
Write three posts to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. Still at two for the week.
That seems to be the most I have been able to crank out.
c.
Attend the Green Lake Christian Writers Conference short-track sessions and
come home with the usual inspiration to tackle all this writing. Attended.
3.
REACHING
a.
Post one writing update to one of my social media daily, and figure out how to
keep track of this. I posted a couple times. I
could expound, but I think I am just going to stop sweating this one.
4.
PERSONAL
a.
Nonprofit organization
1)
Post three updates to my Go-Fund-Me page and share with social media. I posted one update and shared
it with all the social media. See my rant.
2)
I should update the business plan and print off a copy of it, but I haven’t been able
to find the most up-to-date copy. My
daughter is going to kill me. We are meeting in a couple hours.
3)
Try to get in touch with our contact in Kenya to figure out our itinerary while
there in October. My daughter
had a long talk with him on-line the other day and he is going to Skype into
our meeting today. Pretty excited to hear his plans.
b.
Physical - Walk on treadmill three times. Walked twice.
c.
Church – Type up a note for the weekly bulletin looking for mentors for our
college students and military enlistees, as well as a reminder to their parents
to get me their contact information. Yes.
d.
Alexis’s picture – Burn a copy of her graduation pictures onto a CD and either
mail it to her and get it to her grandma next weekend. Yep, and giving it to my sister today to take
to her.
What
can I come up with this week?
1. READING
a. Read
and comment on my weekly assigned blog posts as a ROW80 sponsor.
b. Read
fifty pages of “Shantarm”.
c. Finish
reading “Ten Fingers, Ten Toes”.
2. WRITING
a.
Write
two blog posts here and three posts to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”.
b.
Start
the proposal for my novel.
c.
Do
research on my new novel.
d.
Contact
my publisher about my third devotional.
3. REACHING
a.
Posting
to my social media has been a sticky-wicket of a goal. Let me try this. This
week I will post three updates one for each of my books to Facebook, LinkedIn
and Twitter. See if I can do that.
b.
Write
an update on my website. Since I just renewed it for another year, I should do
something with it.
4. PERSONAL
a.
Nonprofit
organization
1)
Finalize
(as near as we can) our itinerary for the trip in October.
2)
Try
again to get an article submitted in the local paper.
3)
Print
out a copy of the business plan and ready it for distribution.
b.
Physical
1) Work out three times
That
looks like enough. I hope to get back to the regular work schedule where I have
Fridays off (routinely my most productive day!).
 |
| Time to stop goofing around and get to work. |
Hmm, I'm not really sure what's going on with your gofundme. I've never used it, and I have seen people using it for what I consider frivolous things (just my opinion) but your cause is a good one and I can't imagine why more people wouldn't choose to support it. I know myself -- I have very little money to contribute to anything like this, so I wouldn't be able to, and maybe that's the case with a lot of the people who you're updating/informing/tweeting? I'm just not sure, but it does suck. :( (You may need to get new eyeballs on it. I've heard that doing social media stuff to the same audience is not as effective. Just a thought).
ReplyDeleteNice progress on your goals and good luck with next week!
Thanks for your thoughts, Erin. I have one last resort, and that is to simply go backwards in time and mail solicitation letters to the people who have given donations to my cause in the past and who I know do have the extra money in their budgets. I was hoping to get money from new blood, but apparently that is not panning out. Thanks again
DeleteMy nephew was involved in a relationship that went bad, but not before it resulted in the making of a beautiful baby girl he loves dearly. Both parents were in their late teens when their daughter was born.
ReplyDeleteThere were some messy custody things - they never married, so there were added issues - and eventually the child's mother was being investigated by CPS in our state. She had moved on to another relationship with a man who had two other young children, and they moved to a distant state to avoid further investigation.
My nephew was devastated, and defeated. He didn't have the means to get to his child.
Then, a relative of his baby's mother's began taking smartphone videos of abuses in that home. She shared them on social media, and with the authorities, and eventually there was an investigation and the children were removed from the home.
My nephew started a gofundme page for lawyer fees - he couldn't afford counsel - and for the resources to bring his little girl home.
He was, happily, successful, and, after much back and forth with social services in the state which removed the children, his daughter is with him, and beginning to heal and be happy again.
I think what helped was that he had an active social network, and news reports to show what he needed the funds for, and that it was a worthy cause.
People picked his campaign up and posted if forward, spreading the word even when they didn't have money to contribute.
So, maybe, you could try to do a public-interest interview with a local TV station, or have a friend interview you - and ask people to spread the news to their networks, so it can go in directions beyond your personal reach.
Hope that helps....I don't have much in the way of excess funds right now, after a summer of car repairs and an elderly fridge threatening to expire...but I might be able to scrape up a little, and I would be happy to spread your word if you post up your link.
Shan, thanks for the comment and I'm glad that this all worked out for you nephew.
DeleteI didn't want to post the link to my site because I didn't want fellow ROW80er's to feel obligated to help me out, but since you asked the link is: http://www.gofundme.com/yq9e8gg . Thanks so much for asking and for any help you can give me.
Shan is right. Sometimes you need to find additional ways to spread the word and also ask for help to spread the word. I will be glad to share your page. I am sorry I didn't do it sooner. Something else to remember the internet can be fickle and sometimes people get sidetracked. Don't lose hope!! Will keep spreading the word. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Cindy. If something doesn't work, something else needs to be tried, so I have put on my thinking cap and have some ideas. Thanks, though, for all of your support. The link to my gofundme account is http://www.gofundme.com/yq9e8gg.
Delete