Passports with Purpose

On Monday night, I headed back up to my ex-neighborhood to attend Blogsgiving, a Seattle area bloggers’ fundraiser for Northwest Harvest. Prepared to drop in and flee – my usual reaction to a room full of mostly strangers – I ended up staying for a couple of hours while talking about photography, neighborhood blogging, publishing, Capitol Hill vs. West Seattle, and a lot of other things with my fellow bloggers. I had a nice time and it was for a good cause. And telling you about that event makes a perfect – if a bit hackneyed – segue into telling you about Passports with Purpose, the travelbloggers fundraiser for Heifer International.

If a room full of strangers makes me jumpy, a room with only three or four of them is fine by me, and they fast become friends. I’ve been meeting Debbie (Delicious Baby) and Beth (Wanderlust and Lipstick) and Michelle (Wandermom) for lunch or coffee or something for a few months now. We’re all travelbloggers of some stripe. Last month we hatched Passports with Purpose. It’s a raffle, the proceeds go to Heifer International and raffle winners get fabulous prizes. The whole thing is administered through First Giving, a fundraising site that make it easy for anyone to raise money online.

Now that we’ve done enough in the background to make it real, we’d love it if you’d participate. There are three ways you can help, though there’s no need to pick one, you can do all three.

1. Provide a raffle prize and publicize it on your blog. You’ll do the legwork to provide the prize, either by buying or making it yourself or getting a donation. I’m psyched, the nice folks at Joneswares have given a set of their merino wool long underwear to give away and you probably know I think long underwear is a travel essential. The goal? Something that’s worth at least 100USD.
2. Spread the word! We need link love and publicity to sell as many raffle tickets as possible. Hey, they’re only 10USD, the prizes are great (so far, and they’re still coming in!) and Heifer is a great cause. Write a post about Passports with Purpose. Post our widget (you can grab it from my sidebar or email me for code). Tell your network. Blog. Tweet. Sing.
3. Buy a raffle ticket. Did I mention they’re only 10USD? Buy two. Or five. Whatever works for you. They’ll go on sale December 1. At the end of the month, you could find you’ve won a Fabulous Prize.

Want to know more? There is additional information on our “host” site at Passports With Purpose. You can also contact me directly (pam at nerdseyeview dot com) or leave your questions in the comments.

We’ve got some great participants lined up so far, but we’re missing you. Join us?