Newsletter for March 29th, 2011 - "6th ANNIVERSARY FUNDRAISER - FINAL DAYS"

1. Newsletter Editorial - 6th ANNIVERSARY FUNDRAISER: The Final 3 Days

It's 6am on Tuesday March 29th as I write this.  We're down to the final 3 days of our 6th Anniversary Fundraiser at DonationCoder.com.  As of today we have raised $11,673 dollars from 488 individuals.  A huge thank you to everyone who has donated in the last 28 days (and since we opened the site in 2005!).

With 3 days left to the fundraiser, my mission now is to convince those of you who have been sitting on the fence to take a deep breath and finally jump in and join us with a donation of any amount.  It only takes a minute of your time and you can donate using amazon.com or paypal.com or a number of other services.  In fact let me challenge those of you who like the idea of our site but who have not yet donated to at least do *something*.  If you are not comfortable donating online -- our address is on the website, send in some cash or a check in an envelope -- or just send in a postcard saying you like what we do.  But do *something* to let us know you want us to keep going.

We are sooo close to breaking the $12,000 goal line (which is double what we were originally shooting for and which would pay for 2 years of hosting and site administration costs) -- and even within glorious striking distance of breaking our 2009 fundraising achievement of $13,000.  If you're reading this now, then it's in your hands.  Your donation can put us over the finish line.

And if you need an additional incentive to make a donation -- in 3 days time (April 1 deadline to enter!) we are giving out a large assortment of prizes, including hardware, software, and coding/development time on an idea of your choice, as well as some rare and fun memorabilia staring our mascot, Cody the bird.  The giveaway is open to all donators -- you'll find a link to it below.

If you don't follow the DonationCoder.com forum regularly, our newsletters are actually a pretty good way to keep up.  And this edition is packed to the brim with useful links.  I hope it will also serve as the final piece of the puzzle to convince you to get up and join us with a donation.  We've actually been trying to do something new almost every day during the fundraiser -- a software update, a new utility release, or a member-written mini-review, and you can browse those below.  A big thanks to everyone on the forum who participated by contributing something.

Oh and if you've donated already -- thank you! And don't forget to post a little cheer in the fundraising celebration thread and join us for the final hours and minutes of the fundraiser countdown.