Habitat for Humanity, personal fundraising campaign
If you ever visit Teach42.com, then you probably have noticed that I’ve changed the theme once again. There are two reasons for the change: 1) I never really liked the look of the sidebars in the last theme and 2) I wanted to have a spot to put in a specific new widget, Chip In. About a week ago, I saw Beth Kanter’s tweet about trying to raise money to send a Cambodian student to college. I had been about to buy a new t-shirt on Threadless, but instead made a donation to her cause. She made it as simple as possible. I just clicked “ChipIn!” and paid directly out of my PayPal account. And then I felt really good for the rest of the day.
It got me thinking though… The fact that she was able to send two children to collage through raising funds on her blog, facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social sites really made a huge impression. I’ve built up a pretty decently sized social network online. How am I leveraging it to make a difference in the world?
So I decided that I was going to follow Beth’s example and begin a personal fund raising campaign for the holiday season. After a little soul searching, I decided to adopt Habitat for Humanity as the cause. Why? There’s a few reasons. The foremost reason is that my mother-in-law, 3 sisters-in-law and brother-in-law all were the beneficiaries of a Habitat house in Iowa City, so I’ve seen first hand just how incredible an organization it is. Their work has impacted millions of families both here in the US and overseas. In the wake of Katrina, Habitat has built over 1,100 homes in just a little over two years.
The only thing better than helping a family build and settle into a home that they built with their very own hands, is watching them turn around and help do the same for someone else. It truly is a special organization.
This holiday season I will be collecting $1,000 to donate to Habitat for Humanity. I figure if I can just find 100 friends and family members from this blog, Twitter, Facebook and Linked In to each donate $10, it should be a breeze to hit this goal. And what’s $10? One day going out to lunch? Two coffees from Starbucks? Half a T-Shirt from Threadless?
Obviously I’d be thrilled if you can donate more, but if everyone who reads this blog entry donates just $10 to Habitat for Humanity, we could help make one families dreams a reality.
Leave a comment


Glad it made you feel good! It makes me feel great to know that two kids will go to college in Cambodia and graduate to a better life. I’m so excited that you’ve launched a campaign! I’m going to go blog it right now!
Beth Kanter
11/5/2007
[...] hours and 15% to goal! Add What a fantastic community to be a part of. Yesterday I announced my first online personal fundraising campaign to benefit Habitat for [...]
24 hours and 15% to goal! - Teach42
11/6/2007
[...] site that lets you create a widget that people can use to send you money. I’m using it for fundraising right now, and you could easily do the same. Collecting money to send the 8th graders to Madagascar? [...]
Digital Passports » ChipIn: Great way to collect the cash!
11/6/2007
[...] won’t pretend that this is a worthy, tax-deductible cause such as the one recently launched by Steve Dembo, but here are a few reasons why it could be beneficial to have a student such as myself at [...]
the ADMIN pages » Send a student to NECC
11/6/2007
Stories like this one give a bright hope for the future of social networking, and hopefully will lead to a better understanding of how social networking can be beneficial.
Aaronius
11/8/2007
[...] info [...]
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Fundraisers.org « Bcooper1126
12/21/2009
Great idea and well done to you. Great way to fund raise.
John Reece
10/7/2010
Yeah its always great to hear of every day people just helping others. Great story
Online Fundraising
11/2/2010
We are actually running a campaign for Habitat for Humanity. Trying our best to raise awareness!
Thank you all for the good cause.
Paul Gawryluki
5/13/2011
fundraiser should also include donations of home improvement products for Habitat home improvement projects.www.SabinesHome.com
sabine
5/13/2011