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"Petey Needs a Wheelchair Van" is an Example
I previously wrote of an example of one of my fellow competitiors in the Next Internet Millionaire, who is an aide for a young man by the name of Petey. Petey has an incurable debilitating disease and in order to help him lead as normal a life as possible with the time he has left, Jason Marshall put together a giveaway campaign to raise money to buy a wheelchair accessible van.
While they didn't reach their goal of $15,000.00, they did raise $6,000.00, which not only puts them closer to the possibilities and may open up new opportunities, but it also helped those of us who who donated recieve some valuable information products, softwares, books, courses, etc. for much less money than we would have had to pay if we bought them at retail...Obviously you can see the WIN WIN!
When you Ask for More than Money
Well, this new grassroots effort takes this same sort of idea to another level. This time the disease doesn't have to be fatal and by either contributing our time, our connections or our bone morrow, we get a chance to save a life of a darling 26 year old Asian American woman and more!
Michelle Maykin dedicated herself to helping others by creating Project Michelle, an online/offline campaign focused on recruiting people to become potential bone marrow donors for others like her who have leukemia, so this drive reaches even further. Apparently, there is a major shortage of Asians registered as potential donors, which is a problem because they are the most likely prospects for donors that match others of Asian background.
My point is that this campaign can be used as an incredible template for using our skills and creativity to put together grassroots movements of as many people and entities as possible to provide for the needs of others less fortunate in our communities by leveraging the capabilities of viral marketing, blogging, email marketing and the Internet.
What makes this drive unique is that its purpose is not to raise money, but bone morrow donors. Think about the logistisical challenges, especially online, which, to the more traditional thinking person, might stop them before they start in putting something like this together.
So I invite you to study how this grass roots campaign is put together and how are successfully getting the word out, gaining volunteers and how they handle the logistics of creating drives in 5 major cities, as well as dedicated centers outside of those cities, that are tied in with the National Morrow Donor Program.
The Beauty of Social Media...
Over 38.000 visits are recorded on the Project Michelle website as of 7:00 PM today, which is a certainly a healthy number of visits.
Stickam.com sent the story out to their list of members in their newsletter today, which is how I was made aware.
If we each sent out to our social networking friends, and social bookmarked this blog on Digg, Technorati, Deli.cio.us, etc., or more of us blogged about it, chances are, the right match for Michelle would happen by the cutoff date of June 21st. In the mean time, thousands more people would be made aware of the Morrow Donor Program as a result of the miracle of people like us leveraging the incredible power of the internet!
Check back tomorrow for a PROVEN list building strategy:
Tomorrow, come back for another amazing story of leveraging the power of the internet. But in this one, you'll discover a unique business promotion that myself and five other GutZy Women from across the world join forces to massively build our lists. A strategy you can easily duplicate.
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