It probably sounds like Debbie, Michelle, Beth, and yours truly do little but sit around in each others kitchens eating excellent Seattle treats and washing them down with freshy brewed java or some nice green tea. I suppose there’s some truth in that, but the treats are fuel for big ideas and oh, we have them in spades. And right now, I am not going to share them with you except to say that we have exciting plans for Passports, V2.
I will tell you that this year was a bigger success than we ever could have imagined. When we closed the raffle page, we had raised 7420 USD for Heifer International. As of today, our winners are all notified – if you haven’t heard from one of us, I’m sorry to say that your name wasn’t pulled for a raffle prize. But your money did go to a good cause, I promise you that, and while you can’t make a short movie with it, wear it, or read it on the plane, I know four Seattleites who are overwhelemed with gratitude for your support and donations.
It was both very hard work and surprisingly easy to pull off Passports with Purpose. You may not know that we’d given ourselves a mere three weeks to set things up – to line up prizes, recruit sponsors, find bloggers to participate, to generally get the word out.
We had a handful of boring data problems. It was tricky to accept donations and make sure that they were matched with the right prizes – if you got email from one of us saying, “Hey, could I clarify what you wanted to win in the raffle?” well, that’s why and thanks for your patience.
Later, I became oddly addicted to Random‘s integer generator. I also learned that no matter what you read, the spreadsheet in Google docs and Excel for the Mac and the PC are not completely compatible.
While the technical problems were annoying, the human issues were nothing but happiness. For the duration of Passports with Purpose, my inbox was a happy place, full of offers to help and kudos and wow, you guys are amazing.
We’re done for 08. Again, if you haven’t heard from one of us, it’s because – really, I’m sorry, I wish we had something for all of you – you didn’t win. But we’re doing it again for 09. We’ll be setting up a survey that I’d love to have you fill out but if you’d like to leave some feedback for us about what we could do better next year, I welcome it – you can email me or just leave a comment.
7420 USD. I’ve said this before, but indulge me: That’s a WHOLE LOTTA LLAMAS! Thank you.
Heartfelt wrap. No need to apologize to nonwinners. This was an excellent opportunity to help others as part of a community. I really enjoyed the uke. I’m sure next time will be successful too. Already thinking about offering a trip to Canada to help the cause. Please share my congrats to the rest of the gals. Inspiring.
Congratulations to the Seattle gals with Purpose. You ladies did a great job in a short time. I look forward to participating next year.
You did good and you did well. Congratulations. I look forward to this year’s edition!
Congrats guys! Great job and looking forward to PWP 2.0
A huge congrats to you all on such a fabulous job at fund-raising for such a good cause. I’m so sorry I couldn’t have helped, but we’ve been on the road constantly in Australia with little access to the net and having enough trouble organizing ourselves let alone something for you. Next time! And you can hold me to that. But I was so pleased to see someone won Terry’s and my Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon book… 🙂 Not that we get royalties or anything, but nice to know it’s being read. 🙂 Congrats again!