Rachel Rofe’
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What’s Going On In My Life

“No more money for you.”

Yesterday was a great day. :)

I finally got to meet Alexis in person (after partnering on a business together, haha!), see Craig again (who is so nourishing to my soul), and see Steve Pavlina again (who rocks).

I also got to meet Alexis’ two kids, Kaia and Noah, who are great.

Steve was talking about his blog, and I just got such an overwhelming urge to start blogging again.

So here I am. :)

A really fascinating concept Steve mentioned yesterday is “social currency”… and how people with social networks online are canceling out the need for money in a lot of cases.

For example, with Steve… he just did a 30 day music trial. And when he talked about it at his workshop, he got tons of help from people who read his blog. He got free Skype sessions, one-on-one help, and lots of feedback on the music he was producing.

When he went on a road trip, people who read his blog offered him places to stay as he drove along. (I was one of them – he stayed with Otto and I in Ashland.)

It’s truly a very fascinating way to look at things.

I’ve been noticing it too. The other day I had a wonderful woman contact me and offer to talk with me on the phone. She said she’d been noticing I was going through some tough times lately and wanted to offer some ways to make me feel better.

(Turns out she is a very well-read therapist, knows a lot about Myers Briggs and was using my temperament to teach me some interesting things, and has family connections that give her very “cutting edge” health information that’s about 2 years ahead of the media.)

I would have paid to connect with her if I knew all of that beforehand.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve been offered a lot of great things actually, just from people who knew me online.

It’s kind of a very empowering way to look at things.

There are many people (understandably) worried about the state of the economy. But I think a lot of people are forgetting that even if the money system goes completely kaput… we’re still all human. And social connections will save us.

Granted, I’ve always been an idealist.

But that being said – sure, we may lose material things… even maybe homes… but our basical survival needs can always be met, without having to rely on any bigger “outside force” like the government. We have our neighbors.

I remember once reading a story about Mother Teresa (she’s one of the top 3 people I admire most). She talked about when she came across a family who hadn’t eaten in days. They were STARVING. And when she gave them a (tiny) portion of rice, the first thing they did was split it in half to give their neighbors, who also hadn’t eaten in a while.

And then I remember this email from an American living in Japan, after they had that huge earthquake.

Wth all this fear-based talk, I think remembering things like this are very empowering.

           

How we raised $50k in less than 10 hours for charity…

I woke up this morning with energy running through my veins, still so excited about what we accomplished last night.

$50k. With less than 10 hours or so hours worth of work. 100% for charity.

Here’s the back story:

Back at the last Practical Profits event, another speaker, Wil Mattos, and I were sitting on a couch and talking about how much we like to do for charity. I was telling Wil of my dreams to build a school, then he mentioned how he wants to go help underprivileged children in Brazil (where he’s from).

We were feeding off each other more and more, getting more and more passionate about things that could be done to help the world. We decided we wanted to do something ASAP.

Our first idea was to get backpacks filled with school supplies to severely underprivileged children in Brazil. Wil sent me a video of the situation for some of those kids there and it was absolutely heart wrenching.

We asked the rest of the Practical Profits team if they would be interested in helping and they immediately said yes.

At first we were going to start a nonprofit. We did apply for it, but the paperwork takes a long time and we didn’t want to wait years to do something (though the paperwork is still in progress).

Wil mentioned that he knew of a charity, Spirit Of A Giving Heart, and that we could help them for our first project.

Spirit Of A Giving Heart helps children in an Indian reservation in Arizona. There are 618 kids in this school and they’re extremely poor.

  • 90% of them don’t have electricity…
  • They’re bussed up to 40 miles (one way) to get to school
  • 90% of them are eligible for the free lunch program
  • A substantial % of their families are below the poverty line
  • Many children are so poor that they have to live at the school, going home only for weekends and holidays
  • 50% of the children who start kindergarden are not ready for it
  • The children get a package of “Tribal” clothes once a year. The packages are becoming smaller and smaller, and last year because of funding they didn’t get their coats until February – way after they needed it….
  • Every year they’re allowed to ask for 2 or 3 things for their Christmas wishes. They ask for things most children take for granted – like pens, pencils, and notebooks.

Wil and I decided we would get backpacks for every single child in that school, filled with school supplies appropriate for their age level.

I had my assistant research some prices and we thought we’d have to pay $30k or so, shipped, for everything. We knew we could raise that and were happy with it. But one day Wil randomly mentioned to someone what we were doing and they mentioned told him of a nonprofit that specifically creates and fills backpacks for nonprofit charities. He followed up with that company, and they gave us a HUGE discount.

$14k for all 600+ backpacks, filled and shipped right to the school.

WOW.

Our plan to create the money was this:

  1. Ask our marketing friends if they’d donate products at a discount
  2. Create mini sales pages where each product would be displayed
  3. Sell limited quantities of the products, discounted, on a live webinar (with the money going right to the charity’s PayPal)

 

It was absolutely beautiful how many people were open to donating.

Here’s everyone who ended up donating, in alphabetical order of first name:

Everything came together so seamlessly and easily.

We kept getting pleasantly surprised. Marketers were donating products that were worth $1,000, $2,000… even $4,000.

I ended up creating mini descriptions of each product and then Wil plugged them into his shopping cart. He had it set up so that there was one main sales page, and people would just have to refresh it every time a product ran out to get to see the next product.

It was SO easy! He really did a knock-out job.

When we started the webinar, James Jones, Maria Gudelis, Keith Dougherty, and John Rhodes came on to support everything.

James immediately said he was going to eat all the PayPal fees for every single product bought so the charity would get 100% of the donations. (He is one of the most generous people I have ever met.)

We started selling products, and WOW. It was unbelievable. People were so excited to be there, to support the cause, and to get such great discounts.

Wil MC’ed everything (he was GREAT at it!!) while I announced the products.

At the end of the webinar sales were showing up slowly. There was so much activity on the PayPal account! The webinar ended up going 3.5 hours!

At the end of the webinar, Wil finally announced we were at $36k in sales.  Keith Dougherty spoke up and said, “I don’t like $36… I like $37. I’m going to donate another $1,000.”At that point I guess a few more sales came in, and we got to $38k. James said, “We should push for $40k!”

Wil said he would put in $1k, then James said he would match him. I said I’d put in another $1k, and then so did Maria and John, which got us $5k even more.

Then, with all the cash donations from other marketers we got even before the webinar… we were able to round up to $50k with donations.

It was UNBELIEVABLE.

So magical.

This whole experience has forever changed me. I told Wil and Otto… I’ve had a lot of achievements in life. I’ve been a cover story in a magazine, wrote a book, lost 100 lbs, and a slew of so many other things… but this is what I am the most proud of, by FAR.

It’s just amazing. I am so grateful for everyone who supported this.

It’s incredible. This went from Wil and I sitting on a couch to asking Practical Profits to help to a few hours worth of calling people, doing some tech stuff, writing a little copy, etc… to the webinar.

We worked a grand total (including the 3.5 hour webinar) of less than 10 hours.

And it didn’t feel like work.

Most people didn’t even get to mail their lists for us. At the peak of our call we had about 250 people. If we would have pushed more, who knows what would have happened?

All I know right now is that education is huge. Knowledge is power. And everyone who helped took part in possibly rewriting a child’s destiny.

Absolutely magical.

I feel so inspired and amazed at what humans are capable of. This has forever changed me.

           

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