A Dinosaur Fundraiser

While chronicling the presence of dinosaurs in our modern world, I occasionally contribute to the trend. Aside from the dinosaur image that holds a prominent place in my apartment and the army of small figurines that swarm my cubicle at work (I'll follow up with posts documenting these), I recently performed an experiment that measured how popular our extinct friends really are.

I'm training to run the Chicago marathon this year and am raising money for the Red Cross. My original goal was $1500, and I spent a couple months repeatedly emailing my friends and family, sharing inspirational stories of the Red Cross, Facebooking and Tweeting the link to my fundraising page out across the universe. I was feeling pretty good about my efforts. In about two months of promoting my page, I raised 800 bucks (I have super nice friends). 



With three and a half months left until the big day, I felt confident that I would meet my goal.

Then, on the last Friday of July, an ex-colleague of mine who I haven't seen in 5 years messaged me that she saw my link. She said she'd be happy to donate, but in return she'd like me to draw her a dinosaur. Although I've never been much of an artist, and I think she was being sort of silly, of course I said yes. I could definitely draw a dinosaur for a donation to the Red Cross.

In fact, the more I thought about it, I wondered if it would be a good way to raise a few more bucks. I signed into Facebook and updated my status. I offered a personalized dinosaur drawing for anyone who donated to my "Do It For The Dinos" fundraising campaign which would go on for only five short days. I expected a couple more donations.

 In that five days, I received more than 30 donations, totaling $1025 (bringing me to $1825 -- 122% of my goal)

Over a thousand dollars raised in 5 days because friends, family members, and barely acquaintances wanted to get their hands on some limited edition dinosaurs drawings. Because people love dinosaurs (especially anthropomorphic ones). I have completed drawing half of those 30-something requests, and have given most of them to their new owners. The campaign is over, though I could be persuaded to do some more drawings for the right size donation.Here are some camera-phone photos documenting a few of my favorites.

All images are copyright JScribe "Do It For The Dinos" Red Cross Fundraiser