A Very Special Invitation

We've partnered with the Central Ohio Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (thank you Susan!) to offer you this very special invitation: to be a part of internet history and to help make Cystic Fibrosis a thing of the past (History)!

Simply visit our website - www.MakeCFHistory.com - and click on the "Donate!" link anywhere throughout the site to make a donation of any amount. 100% of all donations go directly to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. In exchange for your donation, we will place a rose (50x50 pixels) on our website in your name forever! Return to the site (give us a few days) to find your rose and your place in internet history!

Remember: We're not looking for a few people with a lot of dollars to give, rather a lot of people with a few dollars to give. We hope you accept our invitation - and spread the word!

If you are already a supporter of the "Make CF History" Campaign or of CF in general, thank you!! And our only request to you is for your voice - spread the word of this initiative to continue your great work to help find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis.

On behalf of my two nieces, thank you for your support!

Chad Eddy
Donate today @ MakeCFHistory.com

Susan to the Rescue

Michal Jordan once said:

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.

When I settled on the website and the concept of posting roses on the site ad infinitum (as long as donations came in), I ran into my next major hurdle: processing payments for the donations.

Through the use of PayPal, processing donations is easy. But I certainly did not want to handle the money through a personal account (for obvious reasons). Additionally, I knew that I could not make this happen to the extent I wanted all by myself - I needed a partner to help make this HUGE.

So, I reached out to the Central Ohio Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for suggestions and support. And that is exactly what I got. Thanks to the good people at the Chapter, they created an on-going campaign (called "Make CF History") and with it comes a donation form that sends all donations directly to the foundation for processing. Bingo!

And with that - MakeCFHistory.com was complete. And now for the fun part...getting the website and the concept out to the masses so we can get on with raising the money that will hopefully allow us to find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis!

Are you in?

Why MakeCFHistory.com?

I remember very distinctly in 1998 sitting on plane heading for Amsterdam and writing in my Day Runner all the things I want to do before I die. As an uncle of 2 young nieces born with CF, I knew I wanted to be an active participant in the effort to find a cure for CF. My initial thought was to create a non-profit organization geared towards raising money for CF. But since there were so many of those, I thought it would be better to work with them rather than to compete against them. So, I chose to participate in various annual events organized by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as well as other privately sponsored events. But something was missing...I wanted to do something BIG, something WAY MORE than just asking friends and family for sponsorship dollars for a walk or a climb up stairs. But I was not quite sure where to begin...

Should I organize a 10K? Or maybe a nighttime fund raising event? But none of these were resonating.

Then, in 2005 I saw the news about an aspiring high school student who raised $1 million for college tuition by selling the pixels on his website as ad space for $1 per pixel. His website (The MillionDollarHomePage.com) was 1,000 x 1,000 pixels in size, hence, he raised $1 million (actually more because he auctioned off the center square on eBay - brilliant!). Then it occurred to me:

If someone can raise $1 million dollars for college by selling ad space, can't we raise $1 million dollars for a worthy cause such as research for finding a cure for Cystic Fibrosis?

At first I thought about "The PageWithAPurpose.com" - a spin-off of the million dollar home page, but for a "purpose". Then, being a U2 fan, I joined the ONE campaign which is geared towards the fight against extreme poverty in the world. Their goal is to "help make poverty history", as in a thing of the past. And that was it - "make CF history"!! And so MakeCFHistory.com it would be.

So, in no way am I claiming to have invented the idea of using the internet to raise money, but I am trying the leverage to good ideas before this one to do what I have always wanted to do - raise $1 million for CF research. And with that, I am heading to blog-o-sphere for help.

Now, in the last year or so we're seeing politicians leverage the internet to raise millions of dollars in a day for their campaigns! Again:

If someone can raise millions of dollars over-night for a political campaign, why can't we raise $1 million dollars for a worthy cause such as research for finding a cure for Cystic Fibrosis?

We can - and we will! And I hope you join us!