Billy's Birthday Mission

For the past 10 years, I’ve downplayed my birthday, but I want to make this year different. This year I am asking for your support to do some good and make a much bigger impact than I could by myself.

Haiti is in dire straits right now. After attempting to recover from 4 hurricane strikes, they have been hit by the strongest earthquake they’ve had in 200 years. It’s obvious they need help, so I (and hopefully you!) want to help.

I’ve set a goal to raise at least $1,000 $2,500 $5,000 $10,000 $15,000 for Doctors Without Borders from my network of friends and family (and their networks) anyone by the end of this month.  Also I want to get at least 100 people to donate! To do that, here’s what I propose:

I will do anything (within reason) to get you to donate. Anything.

If that doesn’t make sense, here are the 3 easy steps:

1. Answer: What can Billy do for me that will get me to donate to Haitian earthquake relief? (Or if you already have donated or were already planning to, what can I do to get you to donate more?)
2. Tell Billy what you want, how much you’re going to donate and to where*
3. After I agree, donate your money

*You can give to whatever charity/NPO you’d like, as long as its related to Haitian earthquake relief. Any money given to me will be donated to Doctors Without Borders. I highly recommend you donate to them though :)

Essentially, if you donate any amount of money, I will match you with a combination of my own money, time and energy.

This is an experiment, but either way, I will personally guarantee that at least $500 will go to Doctors Without Borders. I also will MATCH any donations made before Sunday (matching has ended! my contribution = $1840 + $360). I will still be offering my time and energy until the end of the month though!

So why am I doing this? Because money is the main thing needed in Haiti right now and what I can give isn’t enough. Instead I have time, knowledge, experience and personality (hopefully you like me enough to agree with that last one), all of which aren’t worth much to the people in Haiti but might be valuable to the people around me.

Although the issue is serious, I do want this to be fun and participatory. I want everyone to get more involved in philanthropy, as well as just being better friends with me (if you so wish!)  If you don’t know me, hopefully we can become friends!

I’ll take any ideas (I’ve listed some below), just ask or ask me for suggestions.

• If you aren’t friends with me or don’t live in Seattle, click here to go to the bottom for ideas that might work for you!
• If you aren’t in the greater Seattle area, I can do something virtually, e.g. call, e-mail, video message, or write a letter.

Everyone who donates will get at least some small token of appreciation from me. Even if you don’t want anything, donate any amount and let me know about it.

This is a chance for me to help you and for us all to do something good. So tell me what you want!

Things I can do for you:

• Want to set the mood for a party or Valentine’s Day? I can make you a killer playlist
• If you like any of my photos (http://www.flickr.com/photos/billyshih/), I can get my original high resolution files and print it out for you.
• If you or anyone you know needs help with their online business, I know a thing or two about online marketing
• Losing at Settlers of Catan and want to know winning strategies? I can teach you
• Move from Seattle and miss it? Commission me to go take photos of something for you. Digital, film or instant photo
• Have a camera but wish you took better photos? Let me teach you!
• Anything related to these subjects, I might be able to help:
  • Photo/video
  • Music
  • Online marketing, social media
  • Random nerdy topics (beyond the above)
  • Also, I’m an expert Googler (if you need me to look something up/research something!)
• Also, you can gift a favor to someone else

Just an idea, let’s see how far it goes :) Send me a request!

Details

I will be donating the collected money weekly, every Sunday night, ending the 31st of this month.

As for the tasks, I’m aiming to finish them all by the end of February, depending on the type and amount of tasks I get. Obviously if your task has a deadline, I will promise to finish it before then.

This experiment ends on January 31st, 2010.