Serious question: Am I asking too much?

[mrmustang]

Serious question: I sent out the following email to roughly 40 people the other night, so far only two people have responded at all. So the question I have is, am I asking (or expecting) too much?

"Some of you guys know me as mrmustang, MCA director (Wyoming Valley Mustang & Ford Club), SAAC AdMaster, general pain in the rear online...LOL!!!. What some of you did not know is my support of certain charities (mostly Make-A-Wish and Children's Specialized Hospital in Philadelphia).

This year due to the most amazing generosity of a very close friend of mine, I've been offered the chance to donate a 1938 ProStreet Willys (yes, I know, not a Ford, but bare with me) to Make-A-Wish through the Spring 2010 Barrett Jackson auction in West Palm Beach with 100% of the winning bid going directly to the Make-A-Wish organization. On top of this, I've set a personal goal of raising an additional $100,000, again for Make-A-Wish. In getting the ball rolling on this, I created a web page (now after 9 weeks I have all approvals and contracts in place to go live) at the following url:

http://payitforwardmotorsports.com/


I now need your help in order to get the ball rolling, be it a general email blast to the entire membership, a posting to the web based forums and web sites, or whatever you can think of to make this turn viral on the web. I know what I am asking is a tall order, and that you are thinking I may be setting a dangerous precedence, but in reality, after reading the web site and checking out the donation link provided, you'll see that this is 100% on the up and up. Again, I am asking for your assistance, if you have media connections, send them a short message with a link to the web page, if you know of other groups with a large base, I ask that you do the same, forward them the link to the web page, or directly to the donation page. I have less than 8 weeks left before the auction, and 100K does not grow on trees. Finally, as you will see on the web page, this is not about me, not about self promotion, just a good deed paying it forward for the kindness they showed my family oh so many years ago.


That is about it, not sure what else to say other than regardless of your response, I do wish you and your family well.


Sincerely,

Bill ***********
aka:mrmustang"

Come on, two people responding, again, am I asking (or expecting) too much from people?


Sincerely,

Bill S.

[Ron61]

Bill,

I am sending this to a few people that I know who are deeply involved in charity work and they have connections with other people in other areas and I hope they can get it out to even more. The economy is going to be a problem here as our unemployment rate just shot to over 16%, but people are still doing the best they can to help each other. I looked at the site and that is a fantastic car. I wish you all the luck in the world raising the amount you are shooting for.

Ron

[mrmustang]

Hey Ron,

It's been suggested that the original email might have gotten caught up in a lot of spam filters. That and it was a little "too busy" and not to the point. I'm going to do a rewrite and resend. Will also be wording a post that I believe Brent told me he would ad as a sticky in the main forum. So I've got a little bit of work ahead of me. Maybe with the snow coming I'll be able to hunker down for a few hours and get my head on straight.

Appreciate your response as well.


Sincerely,

Bill S.

[Dan40]

Originally Posted by mrmustang

Serious question: I sent out the following email to roughly 40 people the other night, so far only two people have responded at all. So the question I have is, am I asking (or expecting) too much?

"Some of you guys know me as mrmustang, MCA director (Wyoming Valley Mustang & Ford Club), SAAC AdMaster, general pain in the rear online...LOL!!!. What some of you did not know is my support of certain charities (mostly Make-A-Wish and Children's Specialized Hospital in Philadelphia).

This year due to the most amazing generosity of a very close friend of mine, I've been offered the chance to donate a 1938 ProStreet Willys (yes, I know, not a Ford, but bare with me) to Make-A-Wish through the Spring 2010 Barrett Jackson auction in West Palm Beach with 100% of the winning bid going directly to the Make-A-Wish organization. On top of this, I've set a personal goal of raising an additional $100,000, again for Make-A-Wish. In getting the ball rolling on this, I created a web page (now after 9 weeks I have all approvals and contracts in place to go live) at the following url:

http://payitforwardmotorsports.com/


I now need your help in order to get the ball rolling, be it a general email blast to the entire membership, a posting to the web based forums and web sites, or whatever you can think of to make this turn viral on the web. I know what I am asking is a tall order, and that you are thinking I may be setting a dangerous precedence, but in reality, after reading the web site and checking out the donation link provided, you'll see that this is 100% on the up and up. Again, I am asking for your assistance, if you have media connections, send them a short message with a link to the web page, if you know of other groups with a large base, I ask that you do the same, forward them the link to the web page, or directly to the donation page. I have less than 8 weeks left before the auction, and 100K does not grow on trees. Finally, as you will see on the web page, this is not about me, not about self promotion, just a good deed paying it forward for the kindness they showed my family oh so many years ago.


That is about it, not sure what else to say other than regardless of your response, I do wish you and your family well.


Sincerely,

Bill ***********
aka:mrmustang"

Come on, two people responding, again, am I asking (or expecting) too much from people?


Sincerely,

Bill S.

This is strictly from memory so it may not be accurate but I seem to remember a response of 1 to 2 % would be normal. That's .04 to .08 responses. You're way ahead of the game and didn't know it. No help, I know.

[Jamo]

Bill...it's a great idea and I forwarded it to some folks. I didn't think I needed to respond to you, and I generally don't like to blast publically about what I devote my efforts to. However, given your thread here, you evidently wanted better feedback from the addressees, so here ya go.

I will say that I do get a bit pissed off when someone puts the arm on friends to help them with something they decided was great, and then get publically pissed for lack of responses. I just think it's a bit presumptuous. How do you know what the hell any of us donate to or help out with based on our own personal choices?

In any event...