8 Wishes - Viral Fundraising for Learning Disabilities

I was doing some research on creative fund raising through the Internet and found Paul Sanchez's site, 8 Wishes. He has the big idea to raise $1 million dollars for children with dyslexia and learning differences. As a person who has suffered from dyslexia and ADD himself he understands how it can hold people back. To raise awareness, he went on a 10,000 mile solo bike ride around the perimeter of the United States in 2004 visiting 13 children with learning disabilities and uploaded a video about it to a site called Metacafe (mine had an ad at the beginning about the air force - don't close the window - it gets better!).

Inspired by the ride, he made 8 wishes to raise money and awareness. You can see a list of the wishes here. One of his wishes has already been granted- meeting Paul Orfalea, the CEO of Kinkos who has a learning disability. Seeing Orfalea, who doesn't read e-mails (?!) made me think about how it takes all kinds of different business people to make industry work, not just one rigid type. Paul is hinting that another wish is about to be granted soon. He also wants to be featured by 88 websites, so I am glad to contribute!

As I meet more smart people who have been held back learning disabilities, it stresses to me the importance of making our education system more inclusive. Congratulations to Paul thinking big and for bringing visibility (in a super-original way) to this issue.

Comments

[T.]

Looks like he is pretty far from his 1,000,000 goal. Nice idea but execution?

[Stefanie]

True, but I am not sure if the under $5,000 in his counter is his whole total, or if it is just what he has gotten off of internet browsers through Chip In. Nonetheless, raising under $5,000 for charity is still more than most of us do... and he is giving visibility to the learning disability issue.

[Kristen]

Thanks for the post, Stefanie. We're grateful for people who realize that 8 Wishes is already reaching its biggest goal-- raising awareness through people like you.

$1,000,000 is certainly ambitious, but aim high and landing anywhere on the way will still be pretty great. We appreciate every bit of help along the way!