We have something very exciting to announce! Along with the Viewers Choice Awards, we are having a fund raising drive. Now unlike other boring whining fundraisers that other sites may have, this one will (hopefully) be fun, exciting, and short.
Background
AnimeMusicVideos.org receives the vast majority of its funding through donations. The site usually has two or three months of cash reserve on hand from regular monthly donations. If we accumulate more than that, we upgrade our equipment. If we have less than that, we chill out and wait for it to build back up.
Right now, however, we are hovering around the one-month reserve amount on hand. This doesn’t mean that the Org is going away. It just means that our usual “please donate” message needs a little awareness boost. With our recent hardware upgrade (Derobert has done an AWESOME job of getting that done for us, THANK YOU!!!) taking us from “totally filled up” to “we’ve got acres of free space for new videos”, we now have the perfect donation incentive.
The Contest
Our server upgrade has left us with a stack of old, unused, but perfectly functional hard drives. What better for us to do with them than to give them away! And not just “give them away” but give them away filled with the best AMVs ever!!
Right now, we have two sizes of drives capable of holding around 3250 videos or 5000 videos each. (Just think how long it would take you to download that many videos!) Each hard drive will be filled to capacity with the best AMVs found here on AnimeMusicVideos.org ordered by star scale. To determine who gets the drives, we are going to hold two simultaneous contests each week until we either run out of drives or we reach our goal of the site’s annual budget of $30,600, whichever comes first. Now for the gory details:
- 1. To enter the contest, you must be a valid member of AnimeMusicVideos.org.
2. No purchase is necessary to enter the contest. Members who wish to enter without a donation can send a mailed entry to the regular donation address. One entry per no-purchase mailed entry. Entries must contain the member’s username and user ID number to be valid.
3. Members may also enter by donation.- a. All eligibility determinations below will be based on the US dollar (meaning if you happen to donate in a non-US currency, it will be converted to US dollars before anything else happens below).
b. Each donator will receive 1 entry per US dollar received (meaning that if you donate $20, you receive 20 chances to win that week’s hard drive).
5. On Sunday, a drawing will be held for the 3250 AMV hard drive with the eligible entries received the previous week.- a. All valid entries will be pooled together and one winner will be chosen at random.
b. Once a winner has been chosen, the remaining entries will be discarded and will not be used for this portion of the contest in future drawings (meaning that the entries for week 1 will not be used in the week 2 contest and so on).
c. You may enter as many times each week as you like.
- a. The amount of the winning donation will not be known during that week’s contest (thus making this similar to a “blind auction”).
b. Donations for this prize are cumulative from week to week (meaning the amount donated from week 1 will be added to the amount donated week 2 to determine the winner of the week 2 contest; the contest for week 3 will sum the donation amounts of weeks 1, 2, and 3, and so on and so forth).
c. In the case of an exact tie in the winning donation amount, the member who donated first during this contest will be declared that week’s winner.
d. The winner of the 5000 AMV hard drive will not be eligible for that week’s 3250 AMV hard drive contest (meaning you can only win one hard drive that week).
8. Winners will be notified by email using the email address associated with their account and by forum post.
9. Prizes must be claimed within 14 calendar days of being notified.- a. Winners must provide the name and mailing address of where they want their hard drive to be sent.
b. To avoid fraud, claim information must be provided to admin@animemusicvideos.org using the winning member’s listed email account (please be sure your account information is up to date).
c. AnimeMusicVideos.org will provide the hard drive, packaging, and shipping costs for the prize.
d. Any unclaimed prizes will be returned to the prize pool after 14 calendar days for future contests.
- a. All eligibility determinations below will be based on the US dollar (meaning if you happen to donate in a non-US currency, it will be converted to US dollars before anything else happens below).
To further emphasize the importance of donations, Google ads will be removed for the duration of this contest. If the full budget amount is reached before the end of this contest, the ads will be removed for an entire year!
As an extra incentive to get the ball rolling, I (Phade) will personally match the first week’s largest donation received up to $1000. That’s right: if you donate a grand, I’ll donate a grand (plus you’re probably going to get a hard drive
). AnimeMusicVideos.org has survived on donations for years and we plan on continuing this tradition. We hope this contest will be a big success, allowing us to be here for years to come!
Thanks again, good luck, and have fun!!
Phade.
*** EDIT: *** Since we only have 8 working 160GB drives, we will end this contest on April 18. If you want in on it, your donation must be RECEIVED before April 19 gets to the United States, Eastern Time.
