Crossing the Finish

This is the question I posted on the Facebook, Twitter, and some other social websites when I was doing the fund raising for the Aboriginal Children’s Advancement Society last week.

The fund raising was done in conjunction with a 10km running event, the “Run4Fun” organized by the Sun-Herald, a leading newspaper in Sydney.  All donations had to be made via the direct link provided by the organizer online.  It was a perfect way of using the internet to address the appeal to many within the shortest possible time, so I thought.

Whilst we started late in the fundraising, I was hopeful that the power of the internet would make a difference.  After all, we only targeted $1 each from 10,000 people.

As it turned out, we didn’t even receive one single dollar from anyone via this channel.  All the donations were from people we know personally.  Quite frankly, I was a little bit disappointed because it was such a good cause and there shouldn’t be any resistance not to do so.

Perhaps I could only attribute the following as reasons for the outcome.
a/ not enough time?  (the fundraising page was up just three days before the event)
b/ people were not familiar with the charity organization, and were too busy to follow through.
c/ people were skeptical about paying by credit card or paypal.

As for the run, it was fantastic, more so because it was my first time.  Having a chance to run into the ANZ Stadium for the last 100 metres with the audience on-looking was awesome.  It is like putting myself in the shoes of the Olympians running into the Stadium at the Year 2000 Sydney Olympic.

We ended up raising $710 for the Society. Thanks again to all those who had made this possible.

Live Life,
Junius
P.S.  the picture on the left was taken when I and my friend had crossed the finishing line.