I’ve decided to split this blog into two sections for ease of updating.

As I come up with ideas I will update the Diary section to let you know what I am doing and why I have made some decisions, this will also provide a method for those of you out there with more (and probably better) ideas to jump in and suggest different approaches.

Once I have some measure of the success or failure of an idea, I will write up an article with the results.

I hope that made sense and now on to the main reason for this post…

The next few weeks will be spent in a hunt for publicity, but publicity for what? I could quite easily kid myself into thinking that people would be queuing up to read the story of a person trying to start a new altruistic business venture, but I know it probably isn’t going to happen (notice the “probably” there?, see I still have a small glimmer of hope).

But a mad, all encompassing challenge and a website to go with it, now that may make some people prick up their ears and listen, if only for a little bit.

Welcome to the Raise a Million challenge

Those looking at this site so far, I know you are out there, I’ve seen the stats, will already have spotted the Raise a Million web page in the header of this blog.

I’ve been working on the site for a couple of weeks, but I feel it is time to let it loose on the world. The main idea of the Raise a Million challenge is to raise a million dollars (no! really?) for charity over the course of a year.

I think the amount is eye catching enough to grab a persons attention, and because of the length of the challenge it can encompass many different fundraising approaches by simply adding the tagline “xyz is part of the Raise a Million challenge”. This would, hopefully, increase press interest in the challenge as each new fundraising idea is created.

I will be adding content to the Raise a Million site over the next few days and preparing Press releases (which I will publish here as well) for an initial publicity push.

But over to you. What do you think?

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Posted: February 5th, 2008 under Diary.
Comments: none

Introduction

It is usually the case, with me anyway, that the best or most altruistic of ideas come along when you have the least amount of capital to spend on them. In early January 2008 I decided that it was time to grow up and try to make my mark on the world. The previous year had been particularly bad for me so a challenge to keep me looking forward was definitely high on my agenda.

The project

The main thrust of this project is to help as many people as possible in as many ways as possible by becoming an online (and maybe offline as well) hub for fundraising activity and promotional ideas.

In the UK, to get charitable status, you need to focus on a particular area, such as helping the homeless or helping cancer patients, etc and must concentrate your efforts on that area alone.

I want to encompass a wider range of projects. I like the idea of being able to help build a school in Africa one month, and help Cancer patients the next. So our actual status will have to be one of the first things to look at.

About this blog

I’ve read a lot of books on business and marketing, some of them good, a lot of them not. Seth Godin’s books (and blog) have consistently had the ideas that made the most sense to me, but I have been unable to find any books or websites that follow a company from the initial idea and document what works and what doesn’t.

This blog will chart the ideas and the progress of founding an online charity startup with almost no money. I will try to list all the promotional and cost cutting ideas I come up with, and more importantly I’ll let you know what seems to work and what fails dramatically.

Hopefully by the end of the year, I will have helped a lot of people and have a sustainable company that can operate on into the future.

Here are some details of the subjects I hope to cover in upcoming posts, of course these may change or be moved around depending on what happens as we go forward, though I suppose that will be all part of the challenge.

1. Defining our purpose - what do we want to achieve.
2. Infrastructure - domain names, web sites and email.
3. Getting advice - for as little cost as possible.
4. Generating Buzz - Initial ideas to get people talking.
5. Getting Press - Attempting to get as much coverage as possible.
6. Social networks - Are they worth using?
7. Bringing in help - at what level do we need to start looking for help.
8. Strategic partners and joint ventures.

About Me

Let me start by saying that I am in no way an expert in start-ups, fundraising, politics or PR.

My name is Barry and I am a 30 something (I try not to think about the something part) programmer / developer with a degree in Computer science and over 10 years of freelancing experience.

So if you are looking for a step by step guide to making your fortune, then this isn’t the place for you and I am certainly not your guide. If you want to experience the ups and downs of a startup, share your support and see first hand what does (and more importantly doesn’t) work when it comes to promoting on a tight budget then this is the place to be.

I hope the journey will be eventful, and ultimately successful in making a mark on the world.

Posted: February 1st, 2008 under Articles.
Comments: 2