By RICHARD DAWKINS
Added: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 UTC

UPDATE 12/30/09: Even though we've blasted our goal out of the water, Richard is still offering to personally match your donations up through December 31st, up to an additional $5,000! Less than 48 hours left in the fundraiser!

UPDATE 12/29/09: A magnificent gift of $7500 from Timothy Wood singlehandedly maxed out both matching schemes, from Richard Dawkins and Todd Stiefel. Our current tally, after matching, now stands at $121,916. Congratulations and thanks to all, for this splendid achievement. Because there are still two days to go before the end of the year, Todd and Richard have both independently decided to extend their matching offers, to the tune of a further $5,000 each. This means that, once again, donations from anybody else, until midnight Pacific Standard Time on December 31st, will be effectively TRIPLED.

Please donate here: http://fundraiser.richarddawkins.net


You did it! A huge thank you to all who helped us reach the goal of raising $100k for RDFRS before Dec 31st!

UPDATE 12/26/09: Todd Stiefel has offered to also match all donations from this point forward, up to the $100,000 mark! This means that each dollar you donate will be trebled! A donation of $25 is worth $75!

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We are coming into the finishing straight of our current pledge drive and I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed so far, to bring us over the $50,000 mark today on Christmas Eve. Our target of $100,000 was always optimistic, and now it is beginning to look rather unrealistic. But here’s a way to make it realistic again. In the closing days of this pledge drive, up until the stroke of midnight, Pacific Standard Time, on December 31st, every individual donation will be worth twice as much as its face value. This is because today I am giving a personal pledge to match every donation (up to a maximum total of $25,000). That means that if I end up paying my specified maximum of $25,000, that will mean that we have reached our target. In a sense you could say that, although the apparent total in the kitty so far is $50,237.06, the shortfall from our target of $100,000 is less than $25,000!

So, if you give $100, you will, in effect, have given $200. If you give $1, you will have given $2. And don’t for one moment think that $1 is too small to matter. Of course we like large donations, but we also, for technical reasons, have a need to show a wide base of support – a high total number of supporters (no matter how small their donations might be).

As you can imagine, producing high quality materials and ensuring their widest possible distribution is an expensive business, so we really do need your support to help us keep getting the message about science and reason across to as many people as possible. Every dollar you donate will be put to good use, and every dollar donated between now and the deadline will be able to work TWICE as hard and be TWICE as effective.

Every donation, large or small, makes a vital contribution to our work and is greatly appreciated.

Thank you again to those of you who have already supported RDFRS by donating. And thank you to those of you who are willing to help with this final push to try to reach our target, which will enable us to turn our plans into reality. We cannot do it without you.

Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your contributions to this website during 2009, for your intelligence, your insight and your wit; I’d like to thank you for your enthusiasm and support; and I’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Newton’s Day, Winter Solstice or whatever you like to call it, and a very Happy New Year.

Richard

Please donate here: http://fundraiser.richarddawkins.net

TAGGED: CAMPAIGNS, RICHARD DAWKINS

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