Do Lectures dream update

In the two weeks since finishing my Do Lectures inspired animation I have been mulling over how I could come up with the £1000 ticket money I need (forgetting about travel etc which I'll need on top). There have been a few days I've felt like just damning the consequences and whacking it on my credit card but that didn't seem like a particularly sensible solution (particularly as my finances are not exactly in a blissful state as it is). I thought about getting all my completed art pieces up for sale on Folksy (which I've been meaning to do for months) but then I can't guarantee I'll sell any pieces let alone sell them quickly enough to secure a ticket to Do Lectures before they sell out.

Last week I came up with a crazy but possible solution and tweeted my proposal:

If someone gives me £1000 now, I'll donate £100 per month for the next year to a charity of their choice.

That would means someone's favourite charity would get £1200 (plus gift aid) over the course of the next 12 months. Unsurprisingly no-one responded to my tweet but then today one of my close followers sent me a Direct Message which simply said:

"I'll give you £100; can you find 9 more?"

So I sprang into action and set up a mechanism whereby folks can make a donation to me via Paypal (I wanted to use JustGiving.com but you need to specify a charity upfront for that to work)

The idea is simple: instead of one person giving me all the money I need, ten folks give me £100 each and their charity of choice gets £120 (plus gift aid) in return within the next year.

I tweeted this new idea and waited ... so far *nothing* but then I tweet a lot so it would be easy for folks to miss the idea even if they follow me quite closely.

If anyone would like to help out then they can use the PayPal 'Donate' button on the lefthand side of this blog. If I get ten people donating £100 then I'll buy a ticket to Do Lectures and make a payment to a charity of each person's choice as per my plan above. Each person will also get sent an original doodle which I'll do for them while I'm at the Do Lectures. If tickets to Do Lectures sell out before I reach my target of £1000 then I'll give donors a choice of taking their money back or letting me go ahead and donate the money to a charity of their choice (but without my extra amount on top) - they'll still get a doodle from me to say thanks :-)

If I get anyone donating less than £100 then I'll donate to a charity of their choice with 10% added on top and they'll get a doodle too.

Theoretically I already have my first donation of £100 pledged by the person who gave me this idea ... so that's just £900 left to raise, hoorah!!