Posts Tagged ‘charity’

03 Sep 2008

Competition Update

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Posted in Work | Leave a comment

It’s 3 days in to my charity skydive contest and so far, i’ve raised $79. So i’m almost 8% there :mrgreen:

Honestly, i wasn’t expecting people to be so generous in their donations… i thought maybe $5 tops per person but some people have donated $25/$35 which is great to see and i have to thank those who’ve donate so far :smile:

I wasn’t sure what sort of reaction this would get, but it seems to be fairly positive, i just need to work harder at promoting it.

I’ve also just completed a site which is going to be flipped and the cash put in to this. The domain was donated by one of my readers and i’ll talk a bit about the site tomorrow. It should fetch $100+.

Anyway, i’ve only got 6 entrants so far (last time i checked) in to this competition and at the minute, they’re all gonna get something pretty valuable ;-)

Don’t forget i’m giving away over $2500 in prizes including 4 x $50 CASH prizes along with a free revolution theme and 3 x yearly estibot memberships! Plus lots more (again thanks to my sponsors for all of the prizes).

All you gotta do to enter is either blog about the competition or chip in just $1 or as much as you can afford. If you do both you’ll get three tickets in to the prize draw at the end of the month :-)

31 Aug 2008

Skydive Charity Competition

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Posted in Work | 7 Comments

I’m doing a tandem skydive jump for Charity within the next couple of months. I need to raise $1000 this month and so i’ve called on the help of my blogging comrades and webmasters across the net to put up some cool prizes and help me launch a massive competition.

charity competition

Up for grabs are some fantastic prizes… the value of each prize is in red font. Here are the CONFIRMED prizes so far (i’ll be adding more throughout the month)…

  • $50 Cash (Courtesy of me) $50
  • $50 Cash (Courtesy of me) $50
  • $50 Cash (Courtesy of CollinLahay.com) $50
  • $50 Cash (Courtesy of Walsho.net) $50
  • 3 x Estibot Domainer Pro Yearly Memberships (Courtesy of estibot.com) $449.85
  • 1 x Revolution Theme – single use (Courtesy of Brian Gardner) $79.95
  • 125 x 125 button ad for 1 year on jonlee.ca (Courtesy Jonlee.ca) $600
  • 10 x 1 hour consultations with TheUniversityKid (Courtesy of TheUniversityKid.com) $750
  • 1 paid blog on TheUniversityKid.com (Courtesy of TheUniversityKid.com) $85
  • 2 x 1 hour blog consultations from TheNetFool.com (Courtesy of TheNetFool.com) $150
  • 5 x 1 copies of “Site Flip Guide” (courtesy of siteflipguide.com) $50
  • 4 x 1 copies of “Work Smart, Get Rich” (courtesy of ebook-rich.com) $60
  • 4 x 1 monthly buttons ads on smemon.com (courtesy of me) $80
  • 1 review on smemon.com (courtesy of me) $35

Total value of prizes so far = $2539

To enter this competition, all you gotta do is donate at least $1 to my Charity Skydive fund. You can do so using the ‘chipin’ widget on the sidebar or here. That will get you one ticket in to the draw to win some of those fantastic prizes above.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to donate or can’t afford to, you can blog about this competition, linking back to this post and that will also get you one ticket :cool:

If you donate at least $1 AND blog about this competition, you will get THREE tickets in to the competition which takes place on October 1st.

So please help me out and donate if you can ;-) By the end of the month, i expect to have lots more prizes and unlike a lot of competitions, this one is actually for a great cause, helping the Blind in Ireland (ncbi.ie) and if more than $1k is raise, i’ll be helping to fund as many entrepreneurs on KIVA.org as possible.

There’ll be pictures and video of the event going up, but i won’t be able to do it without YOUR help :-)

Some notes;

  • If you blog about this event, please send me a quick email with the blog post’s url just to make sure i count you in. Use contact form or email sean [at] smemon [dot] com
  • If you blog & donate, please send me your paypal email address & the blog posts url so i can confirm and you’ll get 3 tickets in to the draw.
  • If you simply donate cash, there’s no need to contact me, i’ll notify you if you have won any prizes using your paypal email address.
  • Draw will take place on October 1st and winners will be notified ASAP.

If you want to sponsor a prize, contact me. All sponsors will get their site’s logo on my custom designed t-shirt which will be worn for the skydive.

25 Aug 2008

Charity Skydive Competition

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Posted in Work | 5 Comments

Bit by bit, i’ve been putting together plans for a charity skydive these past few weeks. I’m now fully committed to it and definitely going ahead with the skydive – most likely in October, but i have to raise $1000 to do it first.

In order to raise the cash, i’m trying to think outside the box and play to my strengths… i do call myself an ‘entrepreneur’ after all… so i’ve come up with an online competition which will be running on this blog for the entire month of September.

Charity Skydive Competition

September is just one week away now, so i have to get some sponsors on board and get those all important prizes in order to get people entering this competition.

Potential Sponsors

Why should you sponsor prizes?

  • If you put forward a prize, you’ll get your site’s logo printed on the t-shirt i’ll wear on the day.
  • I’ll be posting pictures and video of the event (and the t-shirt – giving you some ‘unique’ exposure) on this blog and across all of my social networking profiles.
  • You’ll also receive several backlinks from smemon.com throughout the competition & after it.
  • The cash raised is going to charity (helping the blind – if i raise more than $1,000 it’ll be spent helping entrepreneurs on KIVA.org).

If you’re feeling generous, please get in touch and i’ll be delighted to add more prizes to the list and another logo to the tshirt :cool:

Potential Entrants

How do you enter?

  • On September 1st the competition will be officially launched and will run until 30th September.
  • To enter you must either donate cash (min $1) to the cause OR blog about the competition. Either of those will earn you one ticket.
  • Do BOTH (donate cash and blog) and you’ll get 3 tickets.

Why should you enter?

  • You’ll get to see me falling out of an airplane at 10,000 feet.
  • You can win some great prizes (i.e. $100 cash – more prizes will be announced next week)
  • All cash raised will be going to a good cause (i won’t be profiting from this).

Other Stuff

  • Once you donate cash & blog about the event i’ll need confirmation, so please contact me or email me directly giving me your paypal address and blog link url so i can confirm.
  • Minimum amount you can donate is $1, there is no maximum. However, if you donate more than $1, you will not get any more tickets i.e. $10 donation will still only get you 1 ticket.
  • Maximum number of tickets per person is 3.
  • I am not profiting from any of this and have put up cash and other prizes to the value of $200. I’ll be posting screenshots to confirm how much has been raised and where it’s all going.
  • If i do not raise $1000, the skydive will still go ahead.
  • Payapl address used for receiving/sending funds related to this competition will be skydive@smemon.com
  • All entrants must be over 18 – just to keep things all above board and cover my ass :smile:

22 Aug 2008

competition definitely going ahead…

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Posted in Work | 1 Comment

As most of you will know i’m trying to put together a charity skydive event and come up with something unique and creative online to raise the cash. I’ve come across some really quality sites and organizations….

KIVA.org for example – i came across these guys a while back but just forgot the url. KIVA is a website designed to help entrepreneurs primarily in developing economies to fulfill their dreams of starting or maintaining a business. This is one of my favorite charity websites and i’ve decided that should i raise over $1k, i’ll use the rest to fund as many people as possible on KIVA.

The problem i have with charity donations is that there’s just so many nowadays. LITERALLY every weekend in town there’ll be some crowd who just take over. Traffic lights, every corner, outside shops… it’s ridiculous and it’s something that annoys me. That’s just here in Monaghan, don’t get me started on Dublin – it’s a 7 day a week thing there and i often joke about whether Concern will have a 4-4-2 formation out today or a 4-3-3 (making reference to the seemingly strategic placement of these ‘chuggers‘).

Ok, most people who collect are innocent, good people trying to help a worthy cause (anyone with a clipboard is getting paid) but if there’s no creativity in the approach then i see it as a form of begging. If it’s a charity walk or swim or marathon or something it’s not so bad – at least you have reason to give.

It’s the idea and the thought that counts and that’s why anything different will always be more successful than the norm because people like me like something fun or new or creative.

For my skydive, i was going to set up an account with mycharity.ie or justgiving.com – but then i thought that’s not gonna work because i’m technically running a contest online… – people aren’t just donating to charity out of goodwill. Mycharity.ie have a 3% charge on transactions whereas paypal is free (with a personal a/c) if people send money funded by their balance. So that’s another small reason.

Also, i know a lot of my readers and people that may be interested in the competition aren’t Irish so if they see .ie links everywhere and Irish only charities it somewhat freezes them out…. so that’s where KIVA comes in. Should i get more than what i need, i’ll be funded people from all over the world with the remaining cash.

  • $1,000 = pays for skydive + charity payment
  • Any more than $1k = KIVA.org
  • Any less than $1k = EPIC fail :mrgreen:

No, if i should raise less than $1k, i’ll be going ahead with it but i might need some more time just to raise cash doing other stuff.

At the minute, i’m looking at about late-October for the skydive jump. All depends of how quickly i can get things organized. I’ll be looking for sponsors starting next week with a view to running a competition for the entire month of september, but i’m trying to put the shoe on the other foot and give sponsors more incentive to donate prizes, so that’s what i’m doing as we speak – fine tuning my pitch to potential sponsors :-)

20 Aug 2008

up, up and away!

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Posted in Work | 3 Comments

Fort the first time since this blog launched, i’ve FINALLY hit the 100+ subscriber mark.

That means 100 people per day are reading this blog either via automatic emails sent out to them or in an RSS reader. I get a further 200 unqiue visitors to the blog per day, roughly.

I’m always looking ahead though and i’ll never be happy with what i’ve got. At the minute, i’m putting together plans for a mega competition which will really help push this blog but also help charity.

I’m finalizing details on that skydive i was talking about and if i’m going ahead with it (i see no reason why not), i’ll definitely be using my position as a blogger to do something creative to raise the cash…

You won’t see me going round with buckets or collecting door to door – even though it is for charity. I’ll be doing something creative and using this blog as a launchpad for it all. I think it’s the only way and it’s better than simply asking people to donate cash for nothing in return – i feel that’s a lazy way out.

At the minute, i’m thinking of contacting everyone and anyone who has sponsored competitions in the past, filling them in on what’s happening and trying to get some sort of freebie off them (be it a free ad slot, free subscription or review etc… anything).

I’ll try and combine everything, then launch a huge webmaster contest with people making a minimum donation of $1 to enter. If they can’t afford $1 (i know some can’t), blogging about the competition will also get them an entry (same difference to me as if people blog about it, it means the competition spreads and hopefully other people will help donate).

Make a donation AND blog about the competition and you get 3 entries – so 3 chances to win something rather than just 1.

The skydive jump costs roughly $1k. It would mean i need 1000 people donating $1. If some people donate $2/$3 each it helps even further.

I know some people will be quick to hop on the ‘you get a free skydive and free blog promotion out of all of this goodwill’ bandwagon. Well, for starters, i’ll be paying for a custom t-shirt (with sponsors logos on it), putting up $100 in cash prizes, plus i’ll have to drive about 6 hours round trip possibly on multiple occassions if the weather is bad – so that’s easily gonna leave me over $200 out of pocket.

I also have the expense of my time – it won’t be easy organizing something like this and requires good communication and careful planning – i could be spending the time flipping sites or building them or blogging ;-)

Plus there’s the obvious fear factor involved – not many people would do this even if you paid them. So it’s definitely not a freebie or an easy ride for me – it’s the complete opposite :mrgreen:

Do you guys think this would work? Would i be able to get prizes to giveaway? Would i get people sponsoring me online? Or is it all just a waste of time and energy?!

If anyone has any more suggestion or comments, feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly :-)

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