LeanOnUs Fundraiser and Giveaway #LOU

We would like to say thank you to everyone for the support that we received during our fundraiser and charity giveaway. When I say "support", I'm not just referring to the donations that we received; I'm referring to all those who shared and put the word out for us too! It means a lot to our community and it's success. In total, including the extra donations, we raised £114 (approx. $175) which has helped to keep this site going from month to month. Even though we didn't reach our target, I will be contacting all those who entered the charity giveaway and making a list of their favourite charities/causes so that we can support them in future!

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LeanOnUs Fundraiser and Giveaway

As you are probably aware by now, LeanOnUs is run voluntarily. Up until recently, it has been funded solely by myself with a little help from my good friend, Shauna! So with Shauna's help we have come up with a combined fundraiser to help keep this site going and growing and at the same time included a giveaway that will benefit other causes. I will ATTEMPT to keep this brief but before I start...

The 'Thank You!...

We would like to thank everyone who has supported our community. We have received wonderful support in many ways. We want to thank those who have shared our site with friends and followers and those who have shared their personal experiences with us. A big thank you also goes to those who have provided personal support to myself in helping with ideas and/or encouragement. It really has made a difference.

With regard to the financial side of things, I would like to thank everyone who has donated to LeanOnUs or asked others if they can help. You can view the donations by clicking here and we thank everyone as it all counts no matter how big or small.

We would also like to thank those who have provided us with indirect/alternative financial help:

VoogDesigns who created and donated the amazing caricature to celebrate our 1st anniversary in June 2012.
Bruce Sallan who tailored 'Because I Said So' comic syndication to fit our circumstances by kindly agreeing to us purchasing one comic per month as opposed to one comic per week. AND for the next few weeks Bruce is donating 5 free comics for us to share with you!
My 'HootSuite Buddy', Stone Stedman for splitting the HootSuite costs with me and for offering his album at a discount to LeanOnUs so that we can give a free download of '3 Nights In Vegas' to all those who donate £6 or more.
MommyPerks for being our very first paid sponsor! woohoo (and her subsequent help).
John at Multi Gamer's Paradise, our very first LeanOnUs contact, for regularly sharing us with his league.
The Fairyhobmother for making a donation to the site instead of sending me an Amazon voucher.
Anglia Counselling for offering to donate a percentage of the proceeds from the LOU/AC counselling service back to the site.

What we aim to achieve with this fundraiser and giveaway...

As already mentioned, the donations that we have received have brought great financial relief. You will probably smile at this... but I have just purchased MS Office as I only have MS Works on my laptop. It hasn't been a major issue but every time I edit my HootSuite spreadsheets I have to convert my files. It's a little thing but it's aggravating and it eats into time.

In case you don't realise, LeanOnUs isn't a paid job for me; all the time that I spend site-building, networking, promoting etc is done in between me looking after my family. I'm not complaining as I do believe in what our community is doing but I really could do with getting in some extra support along with financial relief so that I'm not having to juggle my personal finances with the site finances. I realise that I'm not spending a fortune as some of you pay web-people but if I hadn't been able to take the time to build and maintain the site myself then LeanOnUs wouldn't exist.

Anyway, as I've footed the bill for the last year and we are now at the point where we need to expand/make improvements I really need to bring in more funding. I don't like to ask for donations as I realise we are all affected by the economy so if you are unable to help financially but know someone who can then please send them our way!

Some of the things that I would like to achieve with this fundraiser are to have a logo made so that we can obtain a trademark and to pay for website hosting for one year as this will be cheaper in the long run. I would also like to have enough funds on standby so that I can cover the monthly cost of the forums and any other costs that may arise.

So... we want to raise £2000. Of that £2000 we will be donating £300 to charity while approximately allocating...

£175 to cover FundRazr and PayPal fees
£200 to reimburse Shauna for the times she has chipped in when money has been tight for me
£100 for a year of hosting
£230 for a logo and trademark
£240 for a year of forum hosting, some advertising and misc site related costs
£260 for a basic laptop
£370 for '3 Nights In Vegas' downloads (estimated)
and £125 for 5 complimentary caricatures by VoogDesigns for those who make a donation of £50

The costs above may vary and I will amend them as the funrdraiser progresses.

How the giveaway will work...

When we have reached the target of £2000 on the FundRazr we will pick 6 winners who can choose where they would like the gift of £50 (approx $80 USD) to be sent.

To ensure that we can spread it around different causes, we would like entrants to have in mind a couple of charities/causes in case some of the winners pick the same cause. We will consider any cause but would like it to be an 'official recipient' as opposed to your granny's, neighbour's, uncle's cat and dog. No offence meant to your granny, her neighbour, or the uncle's cat and dog... but we need to consider that these donations are given on the trust that we will share it out responsibly. We would also love you to use all the entry options as this will also help support some of our community with their pages and help get the word out for them also!

If you have any questions or comments about how the funds will be used, how LeanOnUs works or about the giveaway send an email to us@leanonus.co and we will try to explain more fully. If you disagree on how I have laid it all out here please be nice as I'm trying my best.

Thanks again for supporting us and please enter the giveaway so that we can in turn support other causes!

Stone Stedman's "3 Nights in Vegas" CD is a truly unbelievable accomplishment! *never been done before or since! Spanish, French and English FLUENTLY (*which means no accent in any language.) Former Mayor of Las Vegas Oscar Goodman's second favorite song on the album is "3 Nights In Vegas". 13 songs on this highly overlooked world class album testify to the mastery of these different musical styles, Cajun, Tex-Mex, country/rock, adult contemporary, Top 40 and pop, totally convincing in every genre. The multi-lingual Stedman smoothly sings in French on the John Denver-like ballad, "J'aimerai Toujour," Spanish on two songs Enrique Iglesias-styled Top 40 song "Donde Vas" and Pop song "Di Que Si" pure Mexicana on "In The Middle" in English/Spanish on the Tex-Mex-meets Cajun "Come Home" country crossover hit "3 Nights in Vegas" and "Ready to Try," a pop song called "Pride," and the alternative rock song "Victims" which is probably the best song on the entire album if you like meaningful content. Stone Stedman is best known for decades of work on the Vegas strip and as opening act for numerous famous bands i.e. Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, Jefferson Starship...

Writing credits on all songs:

3 Nights In Vegas S.Stedman, D.Day, D.Behrend, D.Evans / Come Home S.Stedman G.Latimer / Victims S.Stedman S.Lecole / Donde Vas S.Stedman L.Cabasa / Jumbo Say S.Stedman L.Sterlin / Pride S.Stedman S.Lecole / Di Que Si S.Stedman L.Cabasa / Middle S.Stedman D.Evans / I Can Still Recall S.Stedman S.Baker / J'aimerais Toujour S.Stedman S.Lecole all other tunes S.Stedman ©