Update on Project 1

Last night I put up 6 more tear-away flyers at a few locations and replaced some old ones that were all empty (with updated information). I haven't seen much traffic come into this blog, but I'm sure that the flyers are doing its job at promoting the different animal rescue groups.

I'm still saving up money to get the small flyers to hand out ($130); I'll probably be able to order them in a few weeks or a month. That's OK though, because it will give me time to keep working on project 3 and get that one finished before I start spending time outside handing out flyers.

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Project 3: Squidoo Lenses (80% Complete!)

Since I won't be able to ask for donations to the general public in person at the moment (putting Project 2 out of the equation), I found another way to create passive income for the animal rescue organizations we are helping.


Some of you may not know what Squidoo is, so here is a definition from one of the creators, Megan Casey herself: "Squidoo is the popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy for you to create "lenses" online. Lenses are pages, kind of like flyers or signposts or overview articles, that gather everything you know about your topic of interest--and snap it all into focus." You too can create your own lens and see how fun it can be!

A cool feature about Squidoo is that they have tons of applications, which they call modules, that you can use to improve the quality of the sites. Some of these are money-making modules which work with other sites like amazon and eBay to make money for everyone. In short, whenever somebody buys an item in amazon, for example, that they found in that lens, the lens owner gets a share of the profits.

So here's the plan: we have created a Charity Quest Lens, which will remain there for as long as Charity Quest itself exists, and will work as the trunk of the tree. Different lenses will be created, one for each Animal Rescue group (and in general for every organization and charity we help in future quests), and they will branch out from the Charity Quest Lens. This way, all the lenses share traffic and they get more exposure. I was careful to look for their groups in the Squidoo Database before creating a lens, so that if they did, I could just link these new sites to the existing ones.

This project will increase the online presence of these organizations, and once the quest is complete (or earlier, if the groups request so), the proprietorship of their lenses will be given to them completely, so that they may keep profiting from it and also keeping regular maintenance of it.

These are the lenses created for these Quest (Project still in progress, so not all groups have lenses yet- patience please):
SPCA of Northern Virginia
Home Alone Feline Rescue
Homeward Trails (11/08/09)
Arlington Welfare League (in progress)
Rescue Angels (11/09/09)

Of course, it will take time before a dime is made from these sites, but they'll still serve the purpose of promoting the work these groups do and will help them reach more people.

Introducing the Squire and Knight System

Since the name of Charity Quest has sort of an epic connotation to it, every active member of this group shall be given different titles depending on their involvement.

The title of Charity Knight will be given to all active members of Charity Quest, and it represents the commitment of this person to volunteer his or her time and dedication to help accomplish the goals of Charity Quest.

The title of Charity Squire will be given to every and all supporters of Charity Quest. Anyone can become a Charity Squire, all you have to do is share this link with your friends, follow our official blog, and get in the conversation on Twitter.

You can brag about your newly acquired Squire or Knight Status by getting the Official Charity Knight and Charity Squire Field T-shirts. The money collected through these t-shirts will help fund different projects and aid our quests! Some of these t-shirts are designed with our current quest in mind, so by purchasing it you'd be helping us reach our goal of raising $5,000 for it!

Tear-away Flyers are Active

Last night I put up the first group of tear-away flyers. I only had 14 (I'm running a little low on ink), but I believe they have been well placed for the time being. Locations include:

A couple bus stops on Wilson Blvd

A bus stop in front of a McDonnald's
You can see there's a little competition for public attention going on here

A Safeway on Wilson Blvd
The environment felt a little crowded so I also put one up on the bus stop next to that Safeway

Ballston Metro Station
Only on the ART bus stops

East Falls Church Metro Station
About one third of all the flyers are here

The Virginia Hospital Center seemed like a perfect target but I wasn't sure if they allowed flyers on their bus stops or not, and the main lobby was closed at that time so I didn't risk it. I'll find that out on my own on my next volunteer shift.

I'll keep working on more websites to link this blog to before putting up more of those tear away flyers. For now let's just see how many people find their way to this blog through them- you might be one of them

Project 2: Donations Can (ON HOLD)

I mentioned earlier that I would find a collection tin or can that I could use to ask for donations while handing out flyers. The reason I am doing this is because not everyone can give a donation online. There are a couple reasons for it:

They don't trust the internet with their credit card information (fear of identity theft).
They don't have a credit card

Another reason I am doing this is to keep better track of my goal of raising $5,000 per quest (in the current quest regarding Rescue Animals, I'll be raising $1,000 for each shelter). I'll be handing out the flyers I talked about in my previous post while asking for donations. Once a can gets full with the 1,000 bucks (probably won't fit in there, but I'll find a larger container to put the money in for safe keeping) I'll go to the target charity or group (first one to receive help will be the Home Alone Feline Rescue since they are in urgent need of funds) and probably make a video of the delivery as well, so you all can enjoy the happy faces accomplished with your help.

I'll be doing it by myself for now, since everyone I know seems to be busy these days (suspicious...), but I am sure I can at least get a few bucks- and that's a start.

Here's a picture of the Official Charity Quest Donation's Can!



With this puppy (haha, puppy, get it?) I should be able to get this charity project out on the real world and start seeing some results! I'll update this post with the locations where I'll be handing out flyers. Until then, keep in touch!

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that even with the permission of these charities to ask for donations in their name, Charity Quest cannot do so because "Public soliciting can only be done by charities that are tax exempt under the section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and other organizations"(Charity Assesment, Q&A). Therefore, this project will be put on hold until a way to work around this problem is found. Who knows, this just might be the first reason we find to become a charity ourselves!

Project 1: Flyers

Flyers. It's pretty basic, straight-forward, cheap, and not too time consuming (as little as a couple hours a week will do). So here's the plan: with the information I found in the websites stated in the last post I created my own flyer. Here it is:



A second look at this flyer format let me know that it wasn't all too effective for the task at hand. It is 8'5"x11' big so even though it has tons of information about the rescue groups, it's expensive to print and rather inconvenient for a random person on the street to take and keep. I shall keep this copy because it can be useful for door-to-door missions (if I ever attempt that), but for the streets something smaller was in order. Using the same information but in a different format, I designed the following flyer:


It's only 5'5"x8'5" big, so people can conveniently fold it in half and put them in any pocket without it being too bulky, and it has all the information I want the to get. I also figured that I should put up flyers that worked without me being on the streets. That's right, tear-away flyers! Here it is:


I plan on putting this mainly on bus stops and a couple intersection posts, since I don't have enough money to print like crazy and cover every post in town. I'll see if I can put these in the main entrance of supermarkets to make sure tons of people get a chance to learn about it. These will go out as soon as I work out a few details and make this blog pretty ^_^

All the flyers have the link of this blog in them, so that more people can find it and learn more about this project.

Before I hit the streets with the small flyer, I need to find a fundraising tin. I'll look around where I can find one, and in case I can't buy one then I'm sure I can create something with whatever I find at Home Depot. Donations can still be done through the websites, so this matter won't affect the tear-away flyers at all.

I'll update this post as soon as I can.

Quest 1: Rescue Animals

In order to get the ball rolling, I have already decided what our first Quest will be: Rescue Animals.

As an animal lover, I believe rescue pets should be a big concern to everyone. There are millions of cases of abuse, abandonment, negligence, and many other harms to animals reported to the police ever year all over the United States. One big scary statistic I found was that 6 to 8 million animals enter the US shelter system every year, but only HALF make it it out alive. That is why I have decided to round up information about some local animal shelters and spread the word about their services. Besides, who can resist puppy eyes from actual puppies?



I collected information from some local animal shelters in the general area of Arlington, VA from this website: Virginia animal rescue and adoption assistance. Pretty handy website, since it lists tons of shelters in the state of Virginia. The only ones I found in my town (followed by their zip code) are:

SPCA of Norther Virginia, 22210
Arlington Welfare League, 22206
Rescue Angels, 22204
Homeward trails Animal Rescue, 22210
Home Alone Feline Rescue, 22206

These organizations stay afloat thanks to donations made by the general public directly to them, and they really need those donations in order to support programs like SPCA of NOVA's Spay Inc. through which they help people in this area find reduced cost spay/neuters and, when funds permit, they pay the cost for the operations themselves. And in general to stay ahead of unexpected expenses like animal healthcare emergencies.

So, without any further ado, lets get on to the Projects for How to help this Cause?