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In case you missed the first (October) and second (November) 10% Blog Income Give Back, after doing some thinking at the beginning of October about what direction I want this blog to grow and evolve towards in the future, I decided that any income made from this blog would have more significance to me at a personal life values level if I knew that a portion were being given back to the following places:
- 1) The readers - Obviously, without you here to read my articles and interact with my ideas, there would be no blog in the first place (let alone blog income). As such, it is only fitting that you receive a portion of any blog income.
- 2) Charitable organizations - If you've read my blog before, you know that I'm a big believer in donating a portion of my money to charity. Each year, I donate between 5-10% of my income to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society as part of the Bike for MS fundraiser that I do. Beyond the good that is done by donating your money, getting used to contributing to charity is also a good practice to emulate the actions of affluent individuals (T. Harv Eker discusses this in his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, which I would definitely recommend reading if you have a few hours).
Because of these considerations, I've decided that each month going forward, I'm going to give away 10% of my net (after-tax) blogging income/profit to My Personal Finance Journey readers (5%) and to charity (5%). Listed below is how the process will work:
- After each calendar month passes, I'll tally up my net blog income and determine what Dollar value correlates to 10%.
- I'll post the giveaway (similar to this post you're reading now), and you'll have approximately 2-3 weeks to enter.
- Once the giveaway is over, a grand prize winner will be announced, and that winner will then select what charity they'd like to have 5% of my blog income sent to. Pretty cool idea, right?! I'm excited just thinking about it! I hope you are too.
- So far, I've been very happy with the success of the October and November 2011 10% income give backs.
- In October, $205 total was given away, with $100 being donated to the charity, GreenPeace, selected by the winner.
- In October, $201.40 total was given away, with $100 being donated to the charity, The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, selected by the winner. If you're interested, you can view the details of me going to drop off the check at the Food Bank by clicking here.
So, that's the overall flow of things and a brief recap of what's happened so far with the give back initiative. Now, let's get in to the specific details for this month's (December) giveaway.
Details of December 2011 10% Blog Income Giveaway
- $74.52 total blog income to give away - $37.26 to My Personal Finance Journey readers and $37.26 to the charity selected by the giveaway grand prize winner (see bullet point below for additional details on how the charity selection will work this month).
- $37.26 in prizes available to one reader can be redeemed as follows:
- 1) Grand Prize = $37.26 Amazon Gift Card or $37.26 cash via PayPal (since I just found out that international readers cannot buy much on Amazon).
- This month's giveaway is also to celebrate two happenings:
- 1) The coming of the time at the end of each year when people evaluate their performance in achieving their personal financial goals for the year that passed and look towards setting new ones for the coming year.
- As such, I'm requesting that entrants leave a comment below this post about a specific financial goal for 2011 that you either successfully reached or still need to work on in the New Year.
- 2) The milestone of reaching a total of 100,000 visitors on My Personal Finance Journey since this site began back in January of 2010. I'm very proud to have reached this milestone! And, just for the sake of a little friendly comparison, I looked at the SiteMeter traffic totals for WiseBread.com (a very good PF blog that I would highly recommend), and the amount of traffic that I've had in almost 2 years is the same as WiseBread experiences in 2 days! Pretty wild stuff! haha
- Charity selection for December's give back -
- Because of the success experienced in the November give back with building relationships with local charitable organizations (particularly the local Food Bank, Boys and Girls Club, and Alzheimer's Association offices), I've decided that for December, we'll keep how we select the charity that receives the 5% blog income donation the same as last month. Continue reading below for more details:
- Instead of having each entrant specify any charity in the world, the goal for this month will be for My Personal Finance Journey to develop a relationship with one of the 9 charities listed below. The Grand Prize winner will select which of these 9 organizations receives the donation on behalf of the blog. I removed the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank from the running this month since they were picked as by the winner for November's donation.
- Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Virginia
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Blue Ridge
- The Nature Conservancy
- Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville
- Meals on Wheels of Charlottesville-Albemarle
- United Way Thomas Jefferson Area
- Sexual Assault Resource Agency
- Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA
- Alzheimer's Association of Central and Western Virginia
- All of these charities were selected because 1) they are high quality organizations who do very good things and 2) they all have a significant presence/office in the area in which I live and operate this website (Central Virginia).
- I have contacted the local offices of these organizations and told them that they are part of the 10% blog income give back in December. After the Grand Prize winner is selected and the selected charity announced, I hope to be able to visit the local office of the organization, meet their staff, and present them with the money personally.
- It's been very fulfilling developing a relationship with the local chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society through the MS150 fundraising bike ride I do each year, and I'm hoping that this experience will be just as awesome! I look forward to seeing which organization is selected.
How to Enter the Giveaway - Deadline to Enter is Midnight, December 31st, 2011
Like last month, I've decided to use the new RaffleCopter giveaway management tool to handle sign-up facilitation for the December giveaway, so simply go through the steps listed in the widget below to enter the running for the prize.
There is no limit to the amount of points you can earn. If you refer 10 subscribers – your name will have accumulated 170 entry points! Or, if you link to the giveaway more than once, you can accumulate those 7 entry points multiple times. You can also retweet the giveaway once per day. In the event of a tie, I will be using a random number generator to select the winner.
Important instructions: After you complete an entry method, make sure to click and fill out the "I Did This" button in the widget so that I have a record of your points.
Remember, the deadline for entries will end at midnight on December 31st, 2011 (~3 weeks from today - the start of the give back). Good luck to you all! Please contact me if you have any questions. After the deadline for entries passes, the winner will be contacted via email to receive their prize and select this month's charity organization for the donation.
