Worlds Touch

Fund Raising -- Week One

We started the week with $165 in the bank with three contributors. We finish the week with $658, from 32 contributors. We received THREE donations of $100, almost half of the rest being the $5 we asked for.

What an amazing feeling! First of all, I was terrified on one level. I felt, as I always do, uncomfortable asking my friends for money. And not just my friends. I asked everybody on my email list, high, low and middle. I actually have another email list, my gmail list, and I may ask IT next week.

I created a Cause on Facebook. They won't let you invite more than about 60 friends a day to join, so I've basically maxed out with the friends I could ask there. We only have three members so far. No donations, but then I'm not sure that Facebook is a very good place to actually RAISE money. This is part of what this experiment is about.

We asked the members of our email list to contribute about three weeks ago, and have received only one-- possibly two-- donations from that appeal.

I also asked the three people on my planning team to do the same with THEIR lists. My BESTEST buddy Bonnie sent hers out right away, and one of her friends came up with a $100 donation for us.

Best of all, though, was getting feedback from some of my friends and acquaintances. Here's a quote from one of our former students:

Yes I do know the worth of your class and the world of

expression it opens for individuals to tell their story.

Everyone has a story that needs to be heard.

 

Your class was the most creative fun I had experienced in decades.

I just bought myself a cheap flip camera to play around with and I am currently

in the process of writing a screenplay about my adopted son who came to

America from a Russian orphanage at 9 years old.

Watch for the movie at your local movie theater in about 3 years.

And just people saying, "Great work, keep it up!" It was really heartening to hear that sort of reaction.

We still have a LONG way to go, right? We're only about 1/3 of the way to our goal. How to keep the momentum? How to encourage people to forward on to others? I'll be doing a send to my other list, and possibly trying to get some buzz on Twitter and LinkedIn. That's the week!

The Give Me FIVE Campaign

I'm trying to raise $2,000 for our next Movie-Making for Immigrants and Refugees Class. That would cover the computer room, flash drives and notebooks for the students and a little money to pay the teachers. The classes will also have a full group of volunteer/coaches who'll work one-with-two to help the students get their movies finished.

I've devised this email campaign: Give Me Five, to ask for just a little money for everybody I know, and asking them to send the email on to everybody THEY know, etc.

Here's the email I'm sending.

I am on a campaign! For the past year, I've been running a great course in digital storytelling for folks whose voices are underrepresented in the public discussions in America: The poor, the disabled, the immigrants and refugees.

Can you spare FIVE minutes and donate FIVE dollars?

Twice we've given this course-- very demanding to our participants: it requires four hours a week for ten to twelve weeks. We teach them good storytelling, camera usage with FlipVideo recorders, video editing with Movie-Maker, the editing software that comes on every Windows PC. Our immigrants and refugee class last fall improved overall English, created a group of committed friends, and made 9 movies.

You can see the videos from our class here:
http://vimeo.com/album/118185

Our goal is to raise $2,000 for the next class, starting on April 10th. I've got 500 names in my address book. If everyone gave just FIVE bucks, we'd meet our goal!

So take five minutes...head to our Chipin Widget at www.faihouse.org and click on the ChipIn Button on the right of the front page. Tell PayPal you want to pay with your credit card; you don't need to sign up for PayPal as much as they wish you would. And if you want to cover the PayPal cut, you could go right on up to SEVEN dollars! I'll be blogging about this campaign at my Worlds Touch Blog:
http://www.thetraveler.typepad.com/worldstouchblog/

Oh, and there will be a ChipIn button there as well. So check us out and give an immigrant a voice in the digital age!

http://www.faihouse.org

And thank you!

Trish

p.s. Can you forward this campaign appeal to your friends? A small donation from a whole bunch of folks will make this campaign a success for the immigrants and refugees who just want a chance to tell their own stories to the world.

I'll be blogging here every time there's a donation and every other day or so to let you know how the campaign is going. Or you can get the number of participants and their donations on the FaithAction web site. That little ChipIn widget will tell all.