Nothing In Life Is Worthwhile If It's Easy!

It’s now a certainty that I will have to set up a PayPal account to raise money for the Italian Red Cross if I want to keep a track of how much money I manage to raise along the way but I have a few questions that need to be answered before I do it so as I fully understand any potential implications of going this way. I sent an email off to customer services at PayPal earlier this afternoon but have had no answer as of yet.

I have not received a reply from Jennie off the back of my email reply to her yesterday evening but I am hoping she will be in touch soon. I am a little frustrated at the moment – not with the people with whom I am dealing but just the fact that I can’t seem to get the last bits finalised with the charities. It would be nice to be able to get everything set up, whichever way it has to go, so that I can tick that section off and move on to addressing the next task on my list.

In case you’re interested, the next task on my list is to start getting in touch with large organisations that have some kind of relevance to the charities I am raising for. I mentioned before that I was going to try and get hold of a list of vets and pet stores to push the Rottweiler cause and I have also decided it will be a good idea to see if I can find some contact details for a central area for the Armed Forces – surely they are the best people to be in touch with regarding the Help For Heroes cause.

The other two are a little more tricky in terms of target audience. I guess with the MSF it would be a good idea to try and get some involvement from doctors, surgeons and nurses, etc but also try and get humanitarian groups involved. I have no idea where to start with the humanitarian groups so any offerings of advice will be gratefully received but, if none is forthcoming, I will find a way!

As for the Italian Red Cross I know that I can try and liaise with the British Red Cross but I am not sure how much fruition that will bring. When I spoke with them about alternative channels for raising money for the Italian Red Cross I was told the appeal had ended so I couldn’t liaise with them in that way. I am just hoping that they have some form of contacts database that they may be able to contact for me to stoke up some interest – fingers crossed!

Failing that I am going to try and find some Italian orientated organisations in this country – again I have no idea where to start here but where there’s a will there’s a way! I have also been thinking about getting in touch with more media sources now – local newspapers, TV news broadcasters, national newspapers, dog magazines, French media, Italian media – the list goes on!

I got a phone call this morning from Sam at the vets again to inform me that she had heard nothing more back from the dog food company but would let me know as soon as she did – I am not too worried about this, it’ll all come good in time. It turns out that Sam also knows a reporter at the Chester Chronicle so suggested I could speak to them.

Facebook has wound me up tonight – they have groups on there for Rottweiler lovers so I thought it might be a good idea to send the members of these groups a targeted message informing them of my plans with the angle that I am raising money for a Rottweiler charity but, after about 50 messages, Facebook got all high and mighty and started warning me about spamming! I can sort of see the point but it’s frustrating to have such a good network to tap into shut off like that. I have tried sending a message to the group creator asking them to send a message to all members but have heard absolutely nothing back!

My group is still growing but not as quickly as I would like – the group now has 729 members and 2,019 invitations outstanding. I have been trying my best to raise interest but I guess it just takes time. I will wait until I get nearer 1,000 members and then send out another message to all members asking them to invite all of their friends – the way I work it out if everyone invites an average of 200 people then, at current levels, that would equal 145,800 invites so it is clear that only a small proportion of group members have invited friends to the group.

I am determined, however, to make this a total success so will persevere with my efforts. I now know I am in for the long haul and it will be hard work every step of the way but nothing in life is worthwhile if it’s easy!