There’s about a month to run in the Gadget Drive we’re running to raise funds for a sound system for Mehan Orphanage. So far, we’ve raised $334…hold the presses! make that $578 (I just checked and saw an updated total)… of the $590 needed to buy the sound system. The administration page for the drive indicates we have another $30 in donations pending, which will take us over our target.
This is a great result, and I think we can do further Gadget Drives once we publicise this site widely and have more people involved.
One thing I’ve noticed about the Gadget Drive is there’s no instant gratification. It takes about 10 days from when you send in your donations until they are processed, a value assigned and the money shows up on the Gadget Drive page. It’s a pity, because having a responsive fundraising thermometer encourages others to contribute. I’ll be giving feedback to Gazelle (the company that runs the Gadget Drives) about this.
We plan to create our own donation widgets, which will let us set up special fundraisers, each with its own “thermometer”. That will give us a lot of fundraising flexibility in the future.