A message from a company fluttered into my inbox this week, which delighted me. I reach people. And people think. Mission accomplished. Nice. 🙏
Dear Patrick!
Your fundraising campaign! I think it's very cool that you (like more and more people now) are raising money for a good cause. Since we are now inundated with donations and sponsorship requests, we are unfortunately no longer in a position to respond to many of them. But maybe you could briefly tell me about the special concern of your fundraising campaign? Why why why this topic? If you don't mind
Thank you very much!
Explain briefly, let's see. Short... my speciality. 🙂
I've always been a bit of an eco-terrorist. My company is climate-neutral (see here: Fridays For Future), I privately compensate CO2 through various projects (you can see this here: Contributor Package)I live vegan out of conviction (see also here: Everything from the beginning),... but it still doesn't really feel like active nature, species and climate protection.
I deal with this issue quite a lot, but it is really hard to say where money ever gets to where it is donated. And how much gets there. Even through betterplace or Facebook, up to 30% goes to "donation management". And nobody knows what happens to the money that arrives somewhere. Who donates out of conviction today? It's just an alibi to soothe the conscience. Who really finds out afterwards what actually happened to the money? Very few.
I'll cut it short, if you're interested you can find the detailed version in the blog. It will take you a quarter of an hour 😉 😉 I'll be back in a minute. https://paddys.de/regenwald-in-kanada/. I'm happy if you share the link. The more we become, the better.
Anyway, because I was bored with all that, I implemented the donation management on my blog myself and look for projects that I am 100% behind, where I also donate myself. And I collect donations via my blog. Currently, I am running my birthday campaign Rainforest in Canada. It's about financially supporting the Wilderness International Foundation so that they can buy and preserve more land. What I like is that they only spend 5% on administration, there's no budget for marketing, the rest goes into buying land, sustainable conservation in cooperation with natives and a lot of local education about conservation.
What I like about the rainforest project is the huge effect the rainforest has right now. When we plant trees somewhere, it takes 10-30 years for them to store any significant amount of CO2. The forest in Canada, however, is home to trees that are around a thousand years old and already store huge amounts of CO2. The amount donated so far is enough to protect so much forest that it stores far more CO2 than all donors together produce in a year. And I find that impressive.
I have a friend who writes me that she really can't afford it right now, but she donated because it convinced her. That moves me much more than a hundred euros from someone who doesn't even want to know what they're actually donating to. Honestly. Donate for the sake of the cause. Not for the donation receipt.
That is what gives me the most pleasure, to inspire people and get them to see conservation with more open eyes, to understand it and then maybe to live it a little bit.
Not everyone has to convert to eco-terrorism. 🙂
And obviously I can't have done anything wrong with my birthday fundraising campaign. Otherwise we wouldn't have collected over €2,500 a week before my birthday. The deal is done. On my birthday, I'll double your stake. As of today, we have already protected more than 5,000 square metres of incomparable habitat for all time.
If I couldn't convince you before, I hope I have now. And if that wasn't good enough either, take another look at the cover photo. All my photos are original shots from Canadian rainforests. If that's not worth preserving....