A Fandom Auction to help Haiti recover

Hi! How are you? We hope you're well! What have you been up to?

We've been watching as fan-created and fan-supportive pages, communities, tumblrs, sites, projects, events and more have assisted people around the world, inspired people of all ages and done so much good for so many. (In other words, we've been busy!)

While it's been generally known for a while, we want to make it explicit that all Help_Haiti info can be used for other (noncommercial) purposes. In the next few days, we're going to go through all the informational/rules/setup pages here on help_haiti and explicitly state that the text can be used for noncommercial purposes (including any and all auctions/projects in support of individuals, communities, websites, charities, organizations and schools) under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

You can also now use http://fans.care to access help_haiti, and we'll be adding more tools and links to other projects over the next few months, and let you know how you can participate in making http://fans.care an important resource for all sorts of fans to get and share information about supportive projects.


Help_Haiti Policies by Heidi8 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.fans.care.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.fans.care/info.

Earlier this week, MSNBC posted a list of charities still involved in Haitian earthquake recovery efforts, compiled by the American Institute of Philanthropy, a leading charity watchdog. AIP issues letter grade (A+ to F) ratings of nonprofit groups; the following charities involved in Haiti relief received an “A” or “B” grade based on the portion of their budget going to program services and their fundraising efficiency.

Last year, most donations via this comm went to UNICEF, Partners in Health, The Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, with substantial donations going to the Clinton/Bush project, Yele, Heifer International and Oxfam as well.

We are sharing the urls and phone numbers with you in case you can do something in 2011 to help Haiti.

And just as a reminder, help_chile still has links to organizations rebuilding after Chile's earthquake last year, and help_pakistan has links to organizations rebuilding after their massive floods. If you have a link to a comm that is fundraising to help those currently suffering in Australia, or to help with their eventual rebuilding, please share them in the comments. ETA: We've been told that fandom_flood_ap is coming soon, and , qldfloodauction, waltzmatildah and owemebreakfast are already fundraising as well, to help Australians recover from those floods. More links may be added overnight, but I'm going to sleep and will add them tomorrow....

To all of you, thank you for all you've done to help those around the world, and may you have a safe and beautiful 2011.

Accion International 617-625-7080

Action Against Hunger 877-777-1420

American Friends Service Committee 215-241-7000

American Jewish World Service 212-792-2900

American Red Cross 800-733-2767

American Refugee Committee 612-872-7060

Brother's Brother Foundation 412-321-3160

CARE 800-521-2273

Catholic Relief Services 800-736-3467

ChildFund International (formerly Christian Children's Fund) 800-776-6767

Children Incorporated 800-538-5381

Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation 800-225-0292

Church World Service 800-297-1516

Compassion International 800-336-7676

Doctors Without Borders – USA 888-392-0392

Food for the Hungry 800-248-6437

Freedom from Hunger 800-708-2555

Gifts in Kind International 703-299-7532

Habitat for Humanity International – N.O. 800-422-4828

Heifer Project International 800-422-0474

International Medical Corps 800-481-4462

International Rescue Committee 877-733-8433

Lutheran World Relief 800-597-5972

Medical Teams International 800-959-4325

Mennonite Central Committee 888-563-4676

Mercy Corps 888-256-1900

Operation USA 800-678-7255

Oxfam-America 800-776-9326

Partners in Health 617-432-5298

Plan USA 800-556-7918

Project Concern International 858-279-9690

Salvation Army 800-725-2769

Save the Children 800-728-3843

UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief) 800-554-8583

William J. Clinton Foundation 501-748-0471

World Concern (Program of Crista Ministries) 800-755-5022

World Neighbors 800-242-6387

World Vision 888-511-6548

The Y (formerly YMCA of the United States) – N.O. 800-872-9622

Hi everyone!

This post is just to let you know that we haven't forgotten about you. We're still working on the logistics of putting together a big pinch-hitters post, or perhaps doing several smaller posts per category. Whichever it is, the post(s) will most likely go up next week, so we'd be really grateful if you could keep an eye on this comm. I was definitely overwhelmed at the answers we got to the last post, and people's willingness to help. ♥

To the people who have offered to pinch-hit on the previous post: if you haven't received an answer yet, that's probably because we haven't received an answer from the bidder in question. There is definitely an amount of mea culpa there - RL got in the way, and I apologise to the people who had to wait for an answer! But mostly, though, the previous post involved offerers who were kind enough to let us know they were defaulting - and it took us a bit to manage contacting the bidders in question.

In that light, I would like to point out we keep getting messages from people that either e-mails or PM notifications land in their junk mail (I have personal experience with the former, at least), so it might be a good idea to check your junk mail regularly, however you're involved in this auction, or in anything else, really. Also, if you don't receive an answer from me in 48 hours, feel free to send a reminder, or a comment somewhere in case I didn't receive your original message.

As for people who reported defaults on the appropriate post: I'm finishing contacting the handful of offerers left tonight - I'm not contacting each of the people reporting separately simply because we don't have anything to say until we receive a reply (in which case we will contact you asap), but we're definitely working through them.

Thank you so much for your patience, everyone. We really appreciate the support we've received so far! You're all wonderful.

(Feel free to leave your questions here!)

Hi everyone!

This post is mostly an update since we can't answer screened comments without temporarily unscreening them, and inform each of you personally.

At this point, we have contacted all of the offerers mentioned in the comments by PM and e-mail when both were available. Comments that have been posted in the past week were treated today, so we're obviously still waiting for some offerers to get back to us; answers from offerers we've contacted shortly after the previous post keep trickling in, as well, so you'll only find a short list with confirmed defaults below right now. We'll be posting a much longer list including the offers for which the offerers have not got back to us in about a week.

We're also up to date with the messages we have been sent - if an offerer got back to us (and thank you to everyone who did so quickly!), we've informed the bidder about the status of the offer. Because we've been told by so many people that e-mails and even PMs got lost, I've made a point of answering all incoming messages - unless they were a reply to a reply and everything was settled - so if you've sent us an e-mail or PM and have not received an answer, please do let us know so we can double-check that we have received it.

Without further ado, ( Collapse )

If you are able to help fulfil any of these requests, that would be absolutely wonderful. The offerers who have had to default did so with good reason, but it would be great if we could still give the generous bidders something in return for their donations. Some offers were intended for several bidders; if you can complete the offer for all of them, that's great, but we are just as grateful if you can help just one of the bidders. Hopefully, together, we can get all the offers filled.

If you can fulfil any of the offers, please let us know by replying to this post, and by which date you think you can complete it (we were thinking a month to six weeks seemed reasonable, but it might depend on the offer). A big thank you to everyone who has already contacted us to offer their services, and to anyone who can help! If you'd like to help but are unable to fulfil any of the above requests, there will be a much greater diversity of offers in need of pinch-hits in our next post.

Any questions/remarks/concerns are welcome as well!

ETA: We have a question! Does anyone have any experience mailing off baked goods? How would one go about that?

Hi everyone!

We’ve been contacted by a number of people whose offerors either haven’t contacted them at all, or haven’t contacted them for several weeks while they’ve missed the mid-February deadline. We know we have a bit of a backlog in getting back to people, and would like to apologize for that, but unfortunately the final procedures turned out to take more time than we anticipated (this should be solved in the next round) and RL got the better of us, as well. Apologies to anyone who had to wait for answers, and thank you all for your patience! Moving on to solving the issues, here's the procedure we'd like you to follow:

• Bidders:
  
  
  Here’s what we’d like you to do:
  
  
  Please leave a comment here saying you haven’t heard from your offeror at all or that they’ve exceeded the deadline without contacting you, using the following format (comments are screened, and since we can't answer them without unscreening them, please include your e-mail if you happen to not be reachable by PM, in case we need to contact you):
  
  
  My LJ name: My e-mail (should you have PM'ing blocked): Offeror’s LJ name: Thread of the offer: Offer that you agreed on (info necessary to a pinch-hitter): I’ve last contacted them/had contact with them (or any other info you want to supply):
  
  
  [Example of linking to a thread – please link to the offer, not your bid. This may seem random – and it is – but it’s the way we’ve saved the offers in our big file of doom, and it makes our lives a lot easier if you could stick to that.]
  
  
  Please, if you hear from your offeror after contacting us, let us know on this post, so we can remove you from our list.
  
  
  Here’s what we’ll do:
  
  
  We’ll send a PM/e-mail/both if we have them to your offeror. We know that a lot of offerors are late with their offers, but aren’t necessarily defaulting, so we hope that the offeror will be more inclined to reply to us, and will be able to contact either us or you to set a new date for the offer, and that we will be able to resolve it this way.
  
  
  
• Offerors:
  
  
  Here’s what we’d like you to do:
  
  
  We know that a lot of offerors are late with their offers, so please don’t be embarrassed if you are. Believe us when we say we’d much rather know you’ll deliver late than that you won’t deliver at all. Actually, we’d rather hear you won’t deliver at all than that you don’t reply to us. We know RL has funny ways of intervening, and we won’t hold it against you whatever your answer is, but would be thankful if you could let us know either way so we can try and come up with alternative compensations. If you are late/defaulting, we’d love it if you could answer to this post, using the following format (comments are screened):
  
  
  My LJ name: My e-mail (should you have PM'ing blocked): Bidder's LJ name(s): Thread of the offer: I won't be able to complete my offer and have/have not informed my bidder(s) (please specify). Reason (optional):
  
  
  Here’s what we’ll do:
  
  
  We’d love it if you could contact both us and your offeror. However, we also understand that you may not be comfortable doing the latter, so if you would prefer to only contact us, we’d be grateful if you could do that, and we’ll contact your bidder with further information. Please tell us which of these options you’re going for in your reply, so we know what to do as well. Remember that we prefer any reply to no reply, so we know whether we need to undertake further action.
  
  
  ETA: If you've already contacted your bidder(s) and have agreed on a later date, you don't need to contact us, though you are of course welcome to! If you do comment, do please always let us know whether your winning bidder is aware that your offer is going to be late, or whether we should contact them. Thank you!
  
  
  
• Final actions:
  
  
  Once we know which offerors will definitely default, we’ll put up a post asking for pinch-hitters. This will include offers for food, artistry and miscellaneous offers, so we’ll need any help we can get.
  
  
  Bidders, we may not be able to get you exactly what you bid for, but we’ll do our best to get you something you’ll appreciate, at least, if you offeror finds themselves unable to deliver on their offer.
  
  
  Potential pinch-hitters, we’d all be thankful if you can find the time to complete an offer that would otherwise not be filled. This is pretty much the most selfless role anyone can take in the whole process, and we wish we could compensate you in some material way, but know that we appreciate any help we get. We understand that some offers might be difficult to replace, but hope to come to some compromise between pinch-hitter and bidder that will make everyone happy.

We’d like to thank everyone for their participation/generosity, whether it be for their time or material donations, because people who need it are being helped thanks to you.


Please direct any questions/comments, etc, not relevant to this post to the questions post. Thank you!

ETA: Sorry, I haven't got a clue where the spacing on this entry went, all of a sudden. Nothing I do seems to fix it.

help_chile help_chile help_chile

And we are not going to host another full auction this month. The original thought way back in January had been to start another auction this weekend but the auction closing and confirmation procedures turned out to be a lot more cumbersome and time-consuming than we'd originally thought, and we need a different way to do it next time.

We're still working out the details, but halcyon_shift is in the process of creating a version of the Sweet Charity system that will be more efficient for Offerors, Bidders and the admins, and we expect to take it live sometime this month. The Lightning Round will stay on LJ entirely, and the new system will work on OpenID so you'll be able to use your LJ username on it.

Sorry about the delay, but we want this to work well for everyone, and Haiti will still need help for months and years to come.

Thanks for your patience.

In other words, this is a good news/bad news post.

First, the biggest good news. We have confirmed at least 85% of the donations! Unfortunately, that means that about $10,000 in donations are still outstanding. But we have broken the $100,000 line! Yay, all of you! \o/

Today is Default Day. That means that if you have not confirmed your donation yet, you are technically in default of the auction and:

a. You will not be permitted to offer items or bid in the next auction unless you get in contact with the mods via helphaiti.lj[at]gmail.com or by replying publicly to this post to explain why you fell into default. As someone who ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery almost exactly a year ago, I definitely understand that randomly unexpected and problematic things happen, and if there is a reason for why you weren't able to make your donation, or confirm it, on a timely basis, we will be understanding. If you do email us or reply here, please put EXPLANATION in the subject so it's easy for us to find.

We are aware that some people have emailed the help_haiti.lj email address but we have not confirmed their donation. Email is not perfect so if this has happened to you, we may need to work directly with you to come up with a different way for you to get your confirmation to us. Please comment to this post with EMAIL ISSUE in the subject so we can handle the situation. We don't want anyone to be deemed in default accidentally or inadvertently. Remember, we did not email everyone who confirmed a donation back - if we were cc-ed along with a list of the Offerors, we expected the Offerors to handle the confirmations. We did make a notation in our Database, though, so you are marked as Confirmed. If you're still concerned, though, please reply to this post and explain the situation.

b. On Sunday or Monday - once we get finished processing the confirmations that came in yesterday and overnight and while I am typing this post, and dealing with those with email issues - we will start to notify those who came in second place that they have the option to be the auction winner. We know many people bid on other items when they were outbid on something, so the second-place people are not obligated to take on the mantle of Winning Bidder, but they do have the option. The reply-to-your-bid will inform you of the next steps to take so you can become the winner if you want, and let you know how you can say no, thanks! instead.

Since it's going to take us a few days to finalize the confirmation-notifications, if you are currently in default but manage to donate today and send in your confirmation, it will be considered accepted and timely. You have at least twelve hours to manage that - but it might be as many as 36.

Offerors whose winning bidders have defaulted: I am among you! The winning bidder on one of my items hasn't been heard from - or posted in her LJ, or confirmed the other eight things she won. And it's frustrating and a little saddening. But we still love you and appreciate you and thank you!

If for some reason the person in second place isn't able to take on the Winning Bidder mantle, we would greatly appreciate it if you would re-offer the item in the next auction, which will begin later this month.

Offerors whose winning bidders have confirmed but haven't contacted you yet: Next week, we will put up a post so you can let us know. But it's possible that they are offline, busy, or just haven't had a chance to get back to you yet (I personally apologize to my lovely Offerors, and promise to get back to you next week!). It is possible that they won't, even after we remind them, and if that's the case, there's really nothing we can do to, except shower you with love and appreciation.

Winning Bidders whose Offerors haven't contacted you yet: Technically, they have until February 14 to create or ship whatever you won, so they are not in default yet. After February 14, we'll ask you to let us know if the Winning Bidder hasn't contacted you, and we'll get a Pinch Hitter to make good on whatever you won sometime this spring. And we'll shower you with love and appreciation.

---

Now, after the potentially-stressful bits, the good news. As news reported yesterday, LiveJournal has expanded its charity v-gift offerings to include two new Help_Haiti v-gifts, priced at 9.99 each. The designs are by comm member foxestacado, and 100% of all proceeds from the purchase of those v-gifts goes to Partners in Health. Also, the recipient of the v-gift gets an extra gift of two months paid time (unless they have a permanent account)!

Thank you, Team LJ!

And lastly, there has been some confusion about when and where Offerors can post their Creations. Technically, it's up to the Winning Bidder if their won item will be made public, but generally, Winning Bidders do allow the Offeror to post/share what he or she created. Prior auctions on LiveJournal usually result in the Offeror posting the item(s) on his or her LiveJournal - and in this case, linking to it from the helped_haiti community. If the item is done, you don't have to wait for February 14 - you can post it any time. If the Offeror and Winning Bidder agree that the deadline can be pushed to a mutually agreed-upon date - we're inspired by Douglas Adams, who once said, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Questions? Explanations?

We are only about $700 way from hitting $100,000 in confirmed donations!

So if you haven't donated, or haven't confirmed with your Offeror or the help_haiti mods at helphaiti.lj [@] gmail.com, today is the day to do it!

Also, helped_haiti is looking for some help in collating their daily posts of fics, art, vids, graphics, crafts and photos of people thrilled to open the City Grab Bags they're getting in the mail. If you're interested, comment to this post and let us know the two best days of the week for you to help through February, and any days that are impossible for you. It would be terrific to have more than one person per day, so don't not sign up just because someone's already claimed your favorite day of the week.