TFL Fundraiser for Mercy Corps
Last week I posted a message on TFL asking community members to test out the new fundraising software I'd developed for Mercy Corps, my employer, by making a few small donations. The response from the community was overwhelmingly positive. We hit our original goal of one thousand dollars, which I feared might be unreasonably high, in less than 72 hours, and several community members expressed a desire that we extend this longer. If you are game, I'm game. Let's see what we can do.
What is Mercy Corps?
Mercy Corps is an international aid agency based in Portland, Oregon. With over 3,500 employees working in more than 40 countries, we work to help people build secure, productive and just communities. We do that by expanding educational opportunities, helping build water and sanitation infrastructure, providing microfinancing to women starting small businesses and running food and nutrition programs to prevent malnutrition.
As I've mentioned, I work there, but I was a supporter and fan of the organization before I began working there. Mercy Corps works in some of the world's toughest places, including many that rarely make the headlines, and is committed to being efficient stewards of their donors' money.
If you are interested in supporting our fundraising effort, you can do so here. Your show of support would mean a great deal to me.
Update 10/25: I am moving the discussion of this from the forums to a blog thread so that folks interested in the fundraising project can still chat about it without interfering with the bread-centricity of the forums. I've also raised the goal to $2,500.
More to come...
Comments
I call upon all of you who have benefited from being a TFLer! Time to give back.. 5$-10$, can you please help!! C'mon, you have gotten plenty of benefits, expert advice and instruction, for free. Give back ..Thanks..
If you have the privilege of living in an environment where you have ample food for your family and a secure roof over your head, you should feel blessed or fortunate at least. These are trying times for many who normally wouldn't have to give a thought about the cost of a bag of flour or where they will call home next Month. It could be that the financial crisis we are all experiencing will awaken our sense of compassion and help us recognize that if times are hard for me, they must be really bad for many others.
We are not wealthy people. My wife and I are retired and live a modest life style. Learning to bake artisan bread has been a goal of mine for many years. Imagine my delight at finding this forum a few years ago. Like many others here baking good bread for our family and friends has become my hobby, my obsession some would say :>). The friendly and helpful community here helped me learn the skills to become a good baker. For this I am grateful.
The fellow that owns and runs this site has invested thousands of hours and no doubt dollars, developing and maintaining this site and making it user friendly for me. Most of us have come to expect things to be free on line. Really we know it isn't free. Someone must be paying something to bring this together for us. Do you ever wonder how or why Floyd has invested so heavily in this community? That is a question that goes to the heart of the man, and his wife. This young man and his wife care deeply about helping the World community learn to bake like our ancestors. What an amazing calling. It should come as no surprise that his day job is managing the under the hood internet operations for one of the most renowned world relief organizations on the planet. That's a big statement and a huge responsibility.You only need to browse the mercycorps.org web site to know he is committed to his calling.
The Fall fundraiser Floyd has positioned on the site is a personal thing for him. This isn't Mercy Corps asking for support, it's Floyd's personal request and invitation to show our support of him, for the benefit of Mercy Corps.
We donate to a few local charity's through out the year. I'm not really committed to any one in particular. After spending a little time on the Mercy Corps site and seeing the wide range of projects all over the world they are involved with, I'm going to take Floyd's simple statement of "Your show of support would mean a great deal to me." as a challenge. I plan to take some steps to make a difference with this fundraiser. To "Be The Change" as they say. It isn't a small thing that Floyd has done here for me and I want to let him know how much I appreciate it. This is a personal thing and I'm willing to go it alone if need be. However, I hope others will join me in this effort and keep kicking this can down the road. Together, we really can make a difference.
Eric
Thank you Eric for so eloquently expressing what surely so many of us, including myself, are feeling. I come to this site every single day and always find a wealth of knowledge and support. If I ever become a true bread baker, I will have this wonderul community and Floyd to thank for it. I am so happy to be able to show my appreciation for the hard work of Floyd and his wife by contributing to Mercy Corps. Its a bonus that I will also be supporting an incredible organization! So Eric, I happily join you in your quest to "Be The Change" and keep kicking this can down the road!
Cami
And to that end, I just created a personal fundraising page on the Mercy Corps website and linked it to my Facebook account. I have set a goal of $1,000 and am asking all my FB friends to help me accomplish it! I'll keep you posted on my progress!
Thanks, Cami!
Please let me know if you have any feedback on the personal fundraising page set up. As I've mentioned, we just rolling that feature out to our donors this week and continuing to tweak and tune it.
Thank you for your ongoing support, Eric.
Ditto..let's be the change! We, as a group can make a difference!!! Even $1 from every member who chooses this place to call home, will make a difference. I doubt any of us reading this are starving. You've all eaten tonight, or have food available.
A heel of your bread thrown into the garbage is a meal for some.
Please,
Betty
Floyd, I've wanted to send this msg. for days, but I've been navigating Computer Hades and have burnt my fingertips and fried my brains. I am just now coming up for air.
Can you please put the message back at the beginning of the forum? I, for one, would love to see that it is seen by the masses, and although you have a beautiful picture on the upper right, the draw appeal isn't there as it was from your plea.
Don't be shy now. It's the least we can do for ya; I mean, afterall, look at what you've done for us.
:)
P.S. Kudos to you!
I am swamped right now but... yes... let me try to come up with another way to call attention to it.
Thank you for bringing Mercy Corps to our attention.
Shiao-Ping
Thank you so much for your support!
Hey, we did it! Thank you all so much!
I'll leave this up for a little bit longer so folks can see that we hit our goal. Again, thank you much for all of your support!
I made my donation today for the Haiti disaster relief... I think I posted in the wrong forum thread... Oops...