Last Thursday, I got an email from several of the people I know in Choose Austin First. They wanted to organize an effort among our members to help the relief effort. The ultimate result was the creation of a benefit day (which was today, Thursday the 8th). Participating businesses would donate a portion of their sales to the Red Cross Children's Relief Fund.
So, as these things usually go, I was enlisted to update the website with the current list. Over the following days, my role seemed to expand to cover tracking all participants. Since it was my email address going out as the "person to contact" if a business wanted to participate, it fell on my shoulders to keep track.
Additionally, the original thought was that this would be for restaurants. In fact, the concept was a partnership between Choose Austin First and the Austin Restaurant Association. But just as Choose Austin First started with restaurants, it quickly expanded into a much wider effort. The challenge is that for non-retail companies, donating a percent of sales doesn't really make sense. So it was decided that a "participating business" could decide their own donation level, be it a percent of sales, a flat amount, or any combination thereof.
In the week between creating the idea and the actual day, over 100 businesses signed up. Although the idea of Choose Austin First is to limit participation to Austin-owned, Austin-based businesses, given the circumstances all businesses were welcome to contribute. We even listed non-members on our site to make it even more visible.
Now, I've always believed in giving back... Site Street was started initially dedicated to non-profit companies. To this day, 20% of my clients are non-profit organizations receiving free or discounted services. But this was something different. I could sense a real energy behind the event.
Mark Negro of Mangia Pizza thinks we'll raise $100,000 which is really amazing for a local effort put together on no budget in just a week. For my part, I'm donating 100% of hosting revenues for that day. I figured that made more sense than basing it on "sales".