In Which I Strive to Make Some Accomplishments

Since I've announced this mad, mad ambition of mine, I've had lots of people tell me they'd be willing to help out.  That's encouraging.  But it highlights one of the shortcomings of this plan: the lack of actual plan. 

That's been wigging me out for a while now, so I sat down the other night, and tried to come up with a reasonable way to tackle this that doesn't require me to quit my job or default on my mortgage.  Some of that is planning ahead.  A lot of that is asking for help.

First, I decided I want to be 10% of the way to goal by the time I hit my 30th birthday.  I hope to be way ahead of that mark, but if I have to spend a little more time upfront planning, then so be it.

I want to make 1/3 of the goal through regular volunteer commitments.  My regular AWIS stuff, and  a couple other regular gigs would bring me to ~25 hours a month, which will get me to 300 hours in a year.

I want to make 1/3 of the goal cash raised for charities. (See the side bar for some great ideas to start with!)  I'm hoping that I can do this by participating in ~ half a dozen different fund raising events and raising wild funds.  I have no idea if this will work.

And the remaining third?  I'm really counting on it being gifted. Some of this will be dragging my friends and family to events with me (doubles my efficiency!). I'm hoping some of it will be them taking on ambitious projects of their own. Some of this will probably be ad hoc stuff as it comes up as well (trail maintenance is seasonal work, science fairs are seasonal) which might fill in the gaps.

So, would you like to help? 
You can do several things.

• You can start saving cash, because it is only a matter of time before I start passing the hat.  
• You can take on your own volunteer or fundraising project.  If you donated 2.5 hours a month for a year, that would be 30 hours, or more than 3% of the goal! Even if you committed to donating blood as often as possible next year, that would be almost 7 hours.  For eating cookies!
• You can tell me you want to join me in one of my upcoming efforts. It would be nice for me to have people working with me on these projects (and thanks to those who have already).  I cannot emphasize enough, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I intend to have a wildly good time doing it.
• You could share your expertise in fundraising efforts with me.  That's some help I really need right now.

These would all be super helpful things right now.