Day 337 - $18,734

OK everyone. Now is the time for our last push to reach our goal. We have less than a month left to reach one million dollars so if you are going to organize a GOM event - now is the time to start planning. Remember!!! March 25th is the cutoff. If you're going to send emails to friends, now is the time. If you are going to invite all your facebook friends, now is the time. If you are going to donate - or have your family/friends donate, now is the time. Come on everyone... we've raised almost $2ok!!! Let's not stop there! Let's reach one million just like we set out to do.

OK. So here's a challenge.... I'm working on a Give One Million for St. Jude video right now. I think most of you know that. You've probably seen all my other videos I have posted on Youtube as well right? Well... now it's your turn. For this last month everyone out there make a video telling the world about Give One Million and how we're trying to raise one million dollars in one year for the kids of St. Jude. Ask them to donate. Ask them to help. Ask them to make a video and pass yours along. Make it funny. Make it serious. Have it be just you. Make it with a bunch of friends. Anything (appropriate) goes. Just make the video and send it to me (by March 15th - the sooner the better). I'll then post it here on this blog, on FB, and post it on the GOM Youtube Channel too. Let's flood the internet with GOM videos and reach our goal!

Send videos to giveonemillion@hotmail.com

Talk Soon,

David

P.S. If you have a youtube account... subscribe to the GOM Youtube Channel!! :)

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Day 335 - $18,734

OK... so I'm pretty ticked off right now! As you know, I've been working on my latest GOM video the last few days (week). Well - the video editing software I use is Cyberlink Power Director Version 8. I don't intend to not speak well of anybody/company... but I have to say this: DO NOT USE Power Director! I spent $70 on it. With the sole intent to make GOM videos - and I have not been impressed. multiple problems all the time. Not easy to use. I've been very disappointed. This is the latest problem I'm having. Except the answer given isn't really a real solution!! I spent about 3 hours last night trying to fix this without luck. I googled and read every thread on the Internet... about ten times. I downloaded the latest drivers for my video card. I updated the latest patches from Power Director. Anyway - the reason I'm so ticked off is because I'm going to have to start over from scratch, and that means about 15 hours of editing down the drain! Whatever!

So I'm going to get some new/different software tomorrow, and hopefully we can get this video out before the end of the month.

Sorry to sound so negative... It's just a little frustrating.

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Day 330 - $18,734

So this week was a little crazy. Work has been crazy. I didn't get home from work until 10:30 last night. But I'm not letting that stop me. The good news is, we just went to 9/80's at my job - so I have today off! well... sort of... I had to log on from home for a couple hours, but for the most part I was off :)

So we started filming our video today! Melissa and the kids were kind enough to work with me and all the demands I have as the director. (Melissa is my Camera Woman - and the kids are going to make cameos.)

We have another long day of filming tomorrow, and then the editing begins.

Everyone keep spreading the word about GOM! One Million in One Year for the kids of St. Jude!

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Day 325 - $18,708

Well, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. If you remember... one year ago on that day is when the idea of Give One Million was born. And now over 700 Facebook fans (Hallelujah!!!), 5 Twitter followers (the whole Twitter thing didn't take off quite how I hoped...) almost $19k raised, a few fundraisers, and a couple Youtube videos later... here we are! Not too bad. We're not at a million yet - but we haven't stopped trying.

So we actually have quite a few things we're working on.... Ma Feldman has a bunch of things planned in Idaho - so for all the Idaho Give One Millionaires, stay tuned for that. I'm just trying to finish up this video I'm working on. We will be filming on Friday and Saturday. I'm working on getting extras, and actually landed a couple today... but I still need about 20 more. I wrote the Story Board tonight, and I'll be tweaking that throughout the week. Once we wrap filming on Saturday - I'm guessing it will take a week or so of editing to get it out. I'm not really trying to build this video up... I'm just talking about it a lot because that's really the main thing I'm working at the moment - so that's what's on my mind. hopefully since I'm talking about it so much, it turns out good.

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Day 322 - $18,625

Well, we made it to 700 fans for one day, but now we're back down to 699. I saw that we were up to 700 last night, and I was so excited. I came home tonight and even googled how to spell Hallelujah so I could show how excited I was on my blog and FB. Well, when I went to FB we were back down to 699. No worries though. We'll get there soon, and I'll save my Hallelujah for then :)

I've been staying up waaaaayyy too late the last few nights working on my next video. I finally finished with the audio portion of it, now I have to film it! So this is the official call for extras. I'm going to need some extras to film this video - so if you're interested please email me at giveonemillion@hotmail.com.

I'm getting a little nervous. I was talking to a friend today, and he was asking me how much longer I had left on GOM... And when I was telling him - it hit me that we really don't have that much time left!!!! We need to sprint the last little bit of this "race" everyone! Send all your friends emails. Email every person you can think of, and ask them to help us raise money for St. Jude somehow! Organize an event. Post on your blog. Just do anything these last few days! We can do this. It's not over til it's over!

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Day 318 - $18,599

Thank you to everyone that put on and came out to the work out on Saturday in Vancouver! According to my calculations... You raised $512!

As Nacho Libre would say: That's Fantastic!

So for the life of me... I can't seem to figure out how to pass the 700 fan mark on Facebook! I think I have maxed out my sphere of influence. I'm afraid my acquaintances have given me the "mute button". I hope not, but after almost a year of soliciting donations for GOM... I'm wondering if that's the case :(

I was speaking to a lady on the phone the this week who spent her entire 35 year career as a professional fundraiser, and she was telling me something I already know... and have been trying to address for some time -but when she said it... it just reinforced how true it is, and how I can't avoid doing any longer:

"You have to expand past your circle of friends and acquaintances. You have to do bigger projects that reach people you don't know. You can only hit up your family and friends so many times. Pretty soon, when people see you, they'll start running the other direction."

I've been trying to do that since I started this whole thing... but it's easier said than done.

Hmmmm.

So for the last couple months, I am going to try and do that. I see the Internet as a good medium to expand in that way. YouTube is a good way... I think. Videos are good. I'm working on one right now that I hope generates some buzz. What other ways can I reach people outside my sphere of influence? Any ideas? Anything you can do? If you're reading this and don't know me please help me by spreading the word about GOM to your friends :)

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Day 316 - $18,128

Thank you to all the donations that have been coming in! St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is doing everything they can to help cure cancer... and we're doing our part to help them out. We are almost to $20,000, but it's going to be $1,000,000 by March 25th! Just keep the faith! We can do this.

We've had friends that have had to deal with childhood cancer, and that's how we kind of got started on this whole project. But As I've gotten more involved, I read more and more stories about how so many kids are fighting cancer out there. And even though they are making progress, we still have a long way to go. I'm asking... PLEASE help me stop this! Please help me fight cancer, so we don't have to lose any more kids like AmyLynne.

Thanks for your support Nathlie! Best of luck to you on your marathon!

For everyone up in the Portland/Vancouver WA area... don't forget about the work out tomorrow morning! Bring all your friends and family to get fit and fight cancer.

I'm trying to work out details on how I can get down to Memphis before March 25th. Not sure how I'm going to do that yet... but I'll figure it out. I just switched to 9/80's at my job, so maybe I can take a 3 day weekend and drive down there. I'll let you know when I have more details on that. Also... give me a few more days to figure out what I'm going to do for my big Feb project. In the meantime everyone just tell all your friends to follow the GOM blog (put a button on their blog), follow GOM on Facebook, and Donate! :)

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