My lifes passion! input please.

[kurtyordy]

Cynabyte- weak attempt at joke. Cinnabun is a mall franchise in our area, not sure how wide spread they are.


I just reread everyones responses. For immediate changes I am going to:
1. add the 'about the project' link to the nav bar on the front page rather than below.
2. in that section inform people of pass through rate of money. I am proud to say that the every dollar goes to the kid. The charity is part of a larger mission and the mission covers all their admin expenses. So that is really cool.

For future:
1. allow people to directly donate on our site. Will have to look at logistics of this, but I think we can just sell a day, put it up as a product so to speak.
2. the other things I mentioned above.

Promoting:
1. started blog on blogger, copy the content over to myspace blog, got 3 visitors so far from that. I like the idea of started a group, will do so this week. The social sites I am aware of are xanga, myspace, and facebook. Any others? Does digg fall into this, I am still learning about digg.
2. posted recipe on ezine, but not approved yet, it was a shorter recipe and they have 250 word minimum, so a lot of it was fluff. I will post longer ones this week.
3. email blast to all my contacts.
4. myspace bulletin only one visitor from this so far.
5. food forums, love the idea, I will start this this week as well.

question- the financial burden of doing this, where would you put this?

Wow, this is all a lot more work than I thought it would be, I love everything I am learning.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[kurtyordy]

btw, I forgot to mention, so far we have had 71 visitors and Ornella has been sponsored for 19 days. I will keep you guys updated.

 

[Jorge]

You could setup a social network with ning.com its a service that let's you run your own SN around the topic you like to

 

[Bilgefisher]

2. in that section inform people of pass through rate of money. I am proud to say that the every dollar goes to the kid. The charity is part of a larger mission and the mission covers all their admin expenses. So that is really cool.

This is really impressive and a definite selling point IMO.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[phlgirl]

I think it is great that you have started this project - must be wonderful feeling to know that you are helping these children.

I have been looking for a small gift to send to each of our tenants, for the holidays.... I think I just found it. Will have to run it by my partners, at this weeks meeting, but pretty sure they will really like the idea as well.

Best of luck to you in your venture!

 

[Bilgefisher]

I think it is great that you have started this project - must be wonderful feeling to know that you are helping these children.

I have been looking for a small gift to send to each of our tenants, for the holidays.... I think I just found it. Will have to run it by my partners, at this weeks meeting, but pretty sure they will really like the idea as well.

Best of luck to you in your venture!

That definitely deserves a rep boost.++ Heck of idea giving a small gift in this manner to tenants around the holidays.

 

[kurtyordy]

I am overwhelmed by the support here for this project. Thank you all. So far, we are at almost 150 unique visitors, and Ornella has 55 days sponsored.

Still no word on the recipe approval from ezine. I was limited on what I could accomplish today between work, and working out an issue with the shipping labels in our shopping cart. Tomorrow appears more promising.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[kurtyordy]

Just a quick update-

Passed 150 unique visitors. Ornella has been sponsored for over 2 months now. Ezine approved my recipe yesterday. Wrote an article on Ezine to spread out my audience, no word yet. Have started seeing some adwords results.

I will keep you guys posted.

 

[Jorge]

Hey I just visited the site and I says that Ornella has been sponsored for 406 days is this accurate??

 

[kurtyordy]

Yes, we are definetely gaining traction.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Jorge]

Wow man!! Congrats!! :icon_super:

 

[kurtyordy]

Thanks. I will post tomorrow with results of a full week in action. I am still not seeing the traffic I want yet, but it is growing.

 

[Exodia]

From Idea to reality! That what action and passion can do for you.When you give 110% of your energy and effort this is what you get a wonderful idea. Love it keep it up.
:eusa_clap:

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[AroundTheWorld]

I did a write up about your site for my blog. It will be up tomorrow. Cheers!

 

[kurtyordy]

thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

I just finished an interview with the biggest paper in our local maket. That should hit either next Sunday or the following.

 

[kurtyordy]

I saw the write up on your blog. Much appreciated.

We are now up to 438 days. Much faster than I anticipated. We have had 4 big customers and roughly 20 average size orders getting us to that total. We broke 200 unique visitors today.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[kurtyordy]

Well, I finally returned from the ice age. Thankfully we were able to go to my inlaws so my kids and wife had a warm place to sleep, and no frozen pipes which is really nice.

Meanwhile, in the toasty world of cyber space, Ornella has now reached 508 day sponsored. Thank you everyone who helped make this a possibility.

On the PR side. There is a chance at me getting a write up on my companies internal website. This will go to approximately 2200 employees to see.

 

[kurtyordy]

I just added a link list to my blog for people who have linked to our project. So far I have Diane and Around the World. If I missed anyone else, please let me know. I would like to honor all those who have helped.

 

[kurtyordy]

Well, I slowed down a lot for the holidays because I have 4 kids, and they are the top priority. Sales dropped dramatically, so this clearly has not grown its own legs...yet. We are closing in on two years sponsored. I would love to hit that by the end of the year. That would be really cool.

I have slacked these past 2 weeks on the online marketing. I will resurge this week.

Still waiting on the local paper to run the story they interviewed us for.

Also still looking for other sites/blogs to write articles about us. Anyone interested, let me know, and I will create a back link to you from the project blog.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[kurtyordy]

We are still in the holiday slow down as far as sales go. I noticed someone has linked to me through thier facebook page. If it is someone from here, let me know, I would love to thank you with a link on the blog.

Found out the story in the paper will hit this Sunday!

 

[andviv]

I am one of those linking to your website from my facebook profile. Do not need to thank me. I also link to this forum and to my favorite charity.

.

 

[kurtyordy]

thank you very much.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[AroundTheWorld]

Your jars were a hit - I gave them as stalking stuffers....

and.... I LOVE the salsa! Thank you.

 

[kurtyordy]

Digg This!

To those who have been following my story here and would like to help out in a small way, please log into your digg.com account and digg this story. http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/214388

We finally got our first press. Hopefully the pr gains momentum from here.

Thanks for your help.

 

[andviv]

Congratulations!!!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[kurtyordy]

Thanks andviv.
We finished out the year 70 days short of 2 years sponsored. Not exactly where I was hoping to be, but it is still awesome. I just posted a video on youtube, my first ever. Here is the link if you want to see it, but no laughing.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LhK0YXZPJk"]YouTube - Feed Your Family Feed The World.com[/ame]

 

[Bilgefisher]

5 star rating Hope you make some more videos to spread your cause.

 

[kurtyordy]

Thanks, I am waiting for more content from the non profit to create another. I also realized that I need a mic for my computer. That way when I want to add my voice to the video, people do not have to look at my mug.

A little back story- When I came up with this idea about 2 years ago, my partner and I started working towards it and were hitting many roadblocks. Like I referenced before, there were a couple times when we were tempted to throw in the towel.

It was during one of these points that I went to church like I usually do on the weekend. I almost skipped. They said the week before that they were going to show a video of Bono. One of my concerns with this church in the past was that they had gone commercial, and lost their focus on Christ. I thought, oh this will just be about Bono and all the great work he is doing. All well and good, but why do I need to see it?

So I am going in with a bad attitude about what I am about to be fed, and my overall outlook on life was not great due to the roadblocks we were hitting. I am not proud of this mindset, I am just painting the picture as it was.

Well the video was of the interview of Bono by Bill Hybels. I was humbled and blown away. In one morning God came down and changed my attitude completely, and helped relight the fire under my but to get this off the ground. This project went from being what I believed to be the right direction for my company to being a passion for me.

Shortly after this I tried to find the video online to show a friend. Well I guess a that point there was some wrangling over the fact that their was some concert footage in with the interview. I had forgotten about it.

Today I decided to look again and lo and behold, youtube had it. Here is part one, there are six parts, so just keep following the parts in you tube. It is an awesome interview, and for those that are of the christian persuassion, it really slaps you in the head and says wake up. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilSef9kJapo"]YouTube - PT. 1 Bono - Hybels[/ame]

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[andviv]

Just as feeedback, I think you should add more information about what you guys do in the video... yes, I see some kids in not the best of conditions, I see your face and hear a nice song... I see a url... so? After watching the video I don't get any inspiration to go see the website. There is no challenge, no "you can make a difference" or "you will feed these children for life" or "These kids were about to starve, but you gave them life" type of message. I just digg'd it and sent the link to a few friends.

Oh, and the song was perfect, IMO.

 

[kurtyordy]

Thanks for the critique. Once I get a mic, I will make the changes. I just got tired of seeing myself on the video.

Thanks for the digg.