QUESTIONS YOU DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER: “Do You Have a Website?”

Here’s my latest article at Fine Art Views Newsletter called
QUESTIONS YOU DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER: Do You Have a Website?

Don't be too quick to hand these out!

HOW WOULD YOU RAISE $3,000?

Okay, I’ve dished out life learning lessons, advice and shared information on this blog for over a decade now.

And now I need your advice and suggestions.

I have a friend who needs $3,000.

Now wait–I’m not asking you for money, okay?

I’m asking for you to help me brainstorm a way to help her get that money. (Sorry–robbing a bank is out.)

My friend is a good person. She lives alone, in a room, in isolation (to do her work), doing translating work that supports and empowers indigenous people on another continent, people who want their land back from a government that has taken it away from them and destroyed it. (Think ‘Native American’ in another country, and in this century.) She works in hand with an ecumenical council in that country, translating their documents to make their work more available on their website and in their proceedings, and at the U.N. (Yes, THAT U.N.) She actually taught herself Portuguese to do this work.

She lives very low on the food chain.

She gets by on…get this…$6,000 a year. She has subsidized housing (the aforementioned room) and lives on food stamps. Her wants are few, she never asks for help and she is the most frugal person I know.

Half her income comes from a religious group who have supported her work for the last few years. This year, they said her work “…no longer meets their criteria” for doing good in the world, and turned down her grant proposal.

She did not ask me for help. She simply told me she is frightened, and this was totally unexpected. She is grateful that I’ve offered to help. I asked her if it would embarrass her, for me to write this. “No, not at all!” she exclaimed. “I’m so unfamiliar with how to think about this. I’d love to hear what other people say.”

So my questions for you today are these:

How can I help her get $3,000?

A jewelry raffle, with the proceeds going to her? Host a bake sale? Have her write an e-book on the work she is doing, and try to sell it? Sell stuff on Etsy or Craigslist and give her the money? Have a car wash??? (Remember we got a foot of snow here a few days ago.) :^D Ask three or four people who might be able to afford it, to write her a check? (I could just give her some of the money, but not all.)

Do any of you have any experience fund-raising for a person or a cause? What’s worked? What blew up in your face? How would you go about it, if it were a friend of yours?

If you needed $3,000, what would you do?