Do the most good!
Today is National Philanthropy Day! Today above all other days people will be asking you to donate. People tend to hesitate when it comes to monetary donations cause lets face it money is tight. Being a creative I find my self in a unique position to offer something more. Sure I could afford $10 or even donate blood ( all very important ), but what if I could create something that would raise hundreds if not thousands for a group or individual in need?
I find this story difficult to talk about or even brag about because I don’t want to take the attention away from the people who need it. But I think if I share this experience it might inspire others to offer their highly valuable talents to others and make a bigger impact than you could even imagine.
About 4 months ago I saw a post on facebook by Melissa Wiggins the mother of Cannon who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma. She went on to describe an idea she had for a t-shirt that would help spread the word about the lack of funding and medical advancements in childhood cancers (read the disgusting facts here). I could have liked the post, maybe even shared it and felt like I did my part. Instead I thought I would offer my talents and design the shirt. I reached out to Melissa made a few suggestions and I was soon contacted by Melissa’s friend Ashley who was helping the family.
We soon connected on the phone, and as a team we created a t-shirt that has sold over 1500 units raising well over $15,000 to directly benefit Cannon while opening eyes and raising awareness for other children fighting this way to common disease. We used a crowd-funding t-shirt site called Teespring to sell the shirts. This made it so there was ZERO out of pocket cost and risk for the family.
Lets break it down real quick. I charge my design clients $75 per hr for design. Cannon’s shirt took me a total of 3 hrs from design, edits, and launch. I could have donated $225 dollars to the Wiggins and they would have been beyond appreciative, but instead I took it a step further, aimed a bit high and raised more than any of us ever expected.
The point of this way to long post is that you can make a difference no matter what your talent is. There are people who could benefit from your skills with very little effort.
Find a cause, find the time, and make a difference!
Thank you for reading and if you would like to find out more about Cannon please visit his page and spread the word!