The Founding Troop fundraiser was huge success

Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:37:06 -0800

Welcome to the new thievey.org home page. I've created this is an attempt to make everything related to Club Thievey as opt-in as possible. For example, rather than emailing people, they can subscribe to this news feed. I've also put up the beginnings of the member page. You are welcome to your anonymity, but if you like, you can submit a name and company name to club@ this domain. I'll put up a placeholder image until you get your lemur.

I'm going to try to get a big bag of lemurs to bring down to Macworld, so if you are going to be there, let me know. When my plans gel a little more, I'll post them here. In the meantime, I thought you might like to know how we did.

Receipts are still trickling in, but one thing is clear: our initial membership drive was unequivocally successful. Understand that while my goal was to send out 100 lemurs in five days, it was a Quixotic goal. I never expected to come anywhere near that. After all, a day had passed and I only had four takers. Even the next day, when that number jumped to 14, it seemed an impossibly long road to 100.

You made the difference. You not only supported the cause, you spread the word. You wrote about it on your blog. You told your friends. You hounded journalists or, if you are a journalist, you picked up the story. We were covered by Daring Fireball, TUAW, Ars Technica, and even — I still can't believe it — Crazy Apple Rumors.

When the smoke cleared, not only had we met and exceeded our goal by finding homes for 114 plush lemurs, we'd raised over $12,000. People sent more than we asked for. Some people even made very clear they did not want a plush lemur or even to be named. We got donations in odd amounts with stray dollar and cents, which I interpret as indicative that people dug deep. People literally asked themselves if they could give a nickel more.

People gave up buying themselves new monitors, video games, and holiday gifts. I even had people on iChat trying to figure out what else they could sacrifice for the cause. I finally had to tell some people to stop before they gave too much. I was afraid people would wake up the next day with charity hangovers and regret participating.

Finally, a lot of people sent encouragement, both direct and indirect. People told me that they had only just learned about lemurs or their plight. People wrote in telling me that they never gave money to charity, that they hated charity, but that I'd introduced them to a cause they could finally get behind. It may even be that the educational and sociological effects of this project exceed even the financial effects.

The climax came when I got a letter from the Madagascar Fauna Group themselves. I've developed a semi-personal relationship with the group over the past few years, so I'd let them know about Club Thievey from the beginning. Of course they were grateful, but let's be realistic. They might live on steady diet of pocket change, but they're still a big organization. Surely whatever we manage to do is a drop in a very big bucket.

Not so. Even they were taken aback by the response:

Wow. This is extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. Donations are still coming in as I type. You've made an incredible, absolutely incredible, difference in online donations for the MFG in December. I don't really know how to express my gratitude to you and the donor community for coming forward like this. You know how much can be done with these kind of funds in a place like Madagascar. I can't wait to see just how much this will total by night's end.

Thank you for what this means to lemurs and all those who care about them.

I hadn't slept in a few days and was starting to get emotional. My dad sent a donation for my newborn niece, and I had to write a gift card. How do you explain to a baby an animal that is so endangered it might not exist by the time they're old enough to care? I tallied what we had so far and realized we'd hit $10,000. When I got that letter, it really hit home. I have a hard time crying at funerals, but it finally got to be too much. I started crying like a bitch right there in Zoka.

We gave away our 100th lemur at about 7 p.m. to Mr. Brett Peters of Williamsburg, Virginia. I tweeted the milestone and went home to take a nap. Then I took Thievey out for a victory lap to celebrate the new year. When I got home, there were a bunch more receipts. I shot off my acknowledgments and went to bed at 4 a.m. It has been a tremendous ride, and I owe it all to you. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

Goings On

The Founding Troop fundraiser was huge success