Match It For Pratchett

Donation Jar Change Over

Up until now the Donation Jar has paid into my Paypal account and I've been tracking the donations. Given the amount of money coming via the Donation Jar (thank you everyone) Rebecca from the Alzheimer's Research Trust and I felt it would be better if it went straight into their account. As of 8pm this is now the case but there is a slight problem.

The Donation Jar was a feature provided Typepad (the blogging software that runs this site). It sent the donated money into the Paypal account linked to the email address set up in my Typepad profile. Which turns out to be the one, single email address you can associate with an account. So if I switch the email address to point to the Alzheimer's Research Trust for the Donation Jar, all messages from Typepad to myself would be sent to the Trust including anything from my other blogs.

Obviously not a viable option and a bit of an oversight by Typepad. If you let people have multiple blogs on one account, its not a great leap to assume that each blog will want to use a different email address. This is not a disaster as I've set up a Paypal donation button to do the job instead. This does go straight to the Alzheimer's Research Trust. The only drawback to this solution is that the amount of the donation is fixed at $20 where as the old Donation Jar allowed the donor to choose the amount. On the plus side, it now clearly states that the money is going to the Alzheimer's Research Trust before you complete your donation.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get some time to rework the HTML to make it look better and also make two Match It For Pratchett donation buttons. One going to the regular Trust donation page and a quick $20 Paypal donation button. Up until then please use the direct donation link or the Paypal button on the right.

Going Going Gone

Sky One's auction of the Luggage for the Alzheimer's Research Trust sold for £3667.42 (about $7280). Additionally the auction for Once More With Footnotes has also closed with a winning bid of $510 for the Alzheimer's Association National Office.

Thank you to all the bidders, winners and losers alike.

Lots and Lots of Money

A message from Andrew at the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

I’m pleased to be able to inform you that the tally of donations to the Trust given in honour of Terry Pratchett is:

£40,627.50 from more than 1,000 donors.

This includes a couple of major individual donations and a £540 gift from the International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, Florida, which was on 22 March.

We’ve already allocated vital research spending from Terry’s and many other donations. We’re desperately seeking more support. Applications for research grants from world-class scientists are still having to be rejected.

This is how much the Trust has actually received so doesn't include the Donation Jar or T-Shirts sales for this web site.

Thank you every who has donated and everyone who has blogged about Match It For Pratchett.

More Fundraising Over Easter Weekend

Orbital wasn't the only science-fiction convention working to Match It For Pratchett. Writer Jay Lake reports that NorwesCon raised $3403.70. Here are some photos of their efforts to Match It For Pratchett.

Good going, guys!

Thank You For The Comments

Lots of people have left comments with suggestion or remarks about the web site. These are a great help and I will try and address them all as soon as I can. Either by implementing the idea, addressing the issue in a post or by simply commenting back. Please keep it up, its always nice to have feedback.

Welcome Back

Welcome back everyone who was at Eastercon or Norwescon. I've heard that the Eastercon was a great success and that all the GoH were great. Though I'm reliably informed by an excited fan-girl that Mitch Benn was the highlight. More importantly, there were collection buckets and book auctions in aid of the Alzheimer's Research Trust. I expect to have information on how much was raised soon.

Talking of money,

Summary of Accounts as of 25/3/2008 at 9:34

Donations via MatchItForPratchett.org: $6764.1

T-Shirt sales (Completed and Pending): $1095.01

Costs (Paypal Charges): $-300.9

Total Raised via MatchItForPratchett.org: $7558.21

For information see Money & Accounts

Note: Each t-shirt generates a $10 donation to Match It For Pratchett. The eagle-eyed amoungst you will see that the total is not a round number. The odd $5.01 included is from the sale of other goods from Poosk purchased by people buying a Match It For Pratchett t-shirt. To avoid any ethical grey areas, I will be donating all such revenue.

Note: There is an additional $10.37 due to be included from the Google Adsense adverts displayed on the web site.

I have to dash out now and spend the day introducing one of my nieces to Nottingham and the legends of Robin Hood. Hopefully when I get back, the information I need to transfer everything Match It For Pratchet has raised to the Alzheimer's Research Trust will be waiting for me.

More Good Things Up For Bid On eBay!

I've just received a message that George RR Martin has put up seven books for bid on the eBay Match It For Pratchett fundraiser.

Have a look here: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZbenveniste

Thank you, George!

Spend Money For Charity

Online comic strips Narbonic and Skin Horse are selling off original artwork at $25 a strip. All proceeds to The Alzheimer's Research Trust. Thanks to From Rim To Hub for the tip-off.

Alternatively you can spend your money on a variety of auctions including proof editions of Good Omens and Only You Can Save Mankind, as well as various George R. R. Martin books. All proceeds going toAlzheimer's Association. Full details of the auctions here.

Money & Match It For Pratchett

The amount of money the campaign has taken through the Donation Jar has been staggering. The jar itself was just an after-thought, quickly added to the web site when I saw Typepad made it very easy it set one up. I only ever expected it to be a connivence for those who had Paypal accounts and for it to collect a small amount of money. In some ways this is true, much much more money has gone straight to the charity. However several thousand dollars in my Paypal account is more than I expected to handle and this has been worrying me.

To the rescue comes Rebecca, CEO of the Alzheimer's Research Trust. We had a good chat yesterday and the Trust is in the process of setting up its own Paypal account. Once its up and running, I will switch the Donation Jar so that it pays direct into their account instead of mine. All the money collected so far will also be transfered over. Because of the bank holiday and the hoops the charity needs to go through to set up their Paypal account this is not going to happen until next week. In the meantime I will continue to give regular updates and list each and every donation on the Detailed Accounts page.

The money from the T-Shirt's will still flow into my account and be forwarded on to the charity at regular intervals. However I will be updating the site slightly to make it clear how much of each shirt goes to the charity. (Its $10 per shirt).

Rebecca has promised to keep us informed of how much has been raised and she sends her thanks to everyone who has donated, posted on their blog about the campaign or simply told a friend about it. The response of Terry's fans around the world has been fantastic.

$35 Dollars an Hour

In the six days this site has been running, we have raised an average of $35 per hour via the Donation Jar and T-Shirt sales with lots more given directly to the Alzheimer's charities. As an hour of Alzheimer's research costs $25, for every hour Match It For Pratchett has existed, its funded at least one and a half hours of research. This is purely down to everyone's generosity, in money, in time and effort spent spreading the word. Thank you.

Summary of Accounts as of 21/3/2008 at 10:39

Donations via MatchItForPratchett.org: $4504

T-Shirt sales (Completed and Pending): $845.01

Costs (Paypal Charges): $-203.58

Total Raised via MatchItForPratchett.org: $5145.43

Full details on the Money & Accounts page.