Thursday, December 17, 2009

Bribing You for A Good Cause

Well, I'd wanted to post up a bunch o' art to go with this, but Technical Difficulties keep happening. And this is important.

See, there are a few things I do every Christmas. I put up the tree, I bake a dozen kinds of cookies, I watch all my Rankin-Bass Christmas specials...

and I donate to the Heifer Foundation.

I don't have a lot of donation-money, so I like being able to focus it in one place-- and I like Heifer because what goes around keeps going around, indefinitely. See, what Heifer gives people is livestock-- cows, sheep, pigs, bees-- and all the training and techniques they need to get the most out of their livestock. And what they ask in return is that people share that gift; the first female offspring (depending on the animal, sometimes the first several female offspring) must be given to another family in need.

Heifer goes beyond just assisting with livestock; they help organize environmental reclamation projects, community groups, and literacy classes. They put an emphasis on helping women particularly, insisting that women be equal partners in any received Heifer gift in even the most restrictive countries. And they do it all by working with local communities, building up goodwill and hope for the long haul. It's everything I'd tell people to do if I had money and any skill at organization whatsoever. So they get my donations.

Why?

Why am I telling you this? You may well wonder. Why the heck should you care what gets my altruism going?

Because I am totally willing to bribe you to make YOUR altruism work. Starting, well, now, if you give a donation of 10 bucks or more to Heifer, I will draw you a picture of a critter.* Any critter. You want a sheep? A giraffe? A hippogriff? I'll do it. I will! I'm crazy! And I'll send it to you, either as a high-res jpeg, if you're just wanting a file, or a card, if you'd like something a little more tangible. No shipping, even!

How?
How will I know you've donated? Because you're going to email me a copy of your receipt (with your credit card info and such removed, of course!)-- just copy, paste, and email to
carapacenator(at)gmail.com
along with what critter you want, and whether you want a card or a digital file. If you want a card, an address for the mailing thereof would also be appreciated. I won't share any of your info with anyone else.


So go buy a sheep or a beehive, or a stand of trees, and let me know about it.
I'd love to be totally swamped with critter picture obligations!


Fine Print

*Fine print about the piece- it will be drawn digitally, I keep copyright and reproduction rights,and I am open to comments about what style or color or whatever you'd like, though no promises here. I will do my best to make it a *good* picture, so if you like my art, you should be happy. Pictures will be 3 x 5 or 4 x 4 inches; let me know if you want rectangular or square, or I'll choose myself.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Great!

Kara said...

Yay heifer!

Anonymous said...

Fabulous idea! Give a man a fish...

Joy said...

Woo hoo! Love this idea!

Memories for Life said...

What a wonderful organization!
And so cool for you to "bribe" others to donate :)

Splendid Little Stars said...

That is so cool, Cara! a very good organization!

Unknown said...

how cool!

Anonymous said...

I adore this idea. n_n

Also, how strange is it that I haven't heard of Heifer before, and now like three artists I know are doing something like this? It just goes to show that art people are awesome I suppose. :)