Are you trying to find motivation for where to donate your
iPad 2? There are plenty of opportunities in your own community. We’ll give you an example. I recently spoke with a fourth grade teacher in my area. Her class has two autistic children in it. They are wonderful
children, but it is sometimes difficult for her to be able to teach to their needs,
and with budget cuts, she no longer has teacher’s aides to help out. The iPad 2
has been very successful in helping autistic children learn in the
classroom—learning by touch is a positive tool for them. This teacher told me
she was applying for a few grants in order to get an iPad for her autistic
students to use. I told her about BillionGraves and the iPad giveaway event.
Her team should be easy to create: if she contacted her PTA and got parents and
faculty involved in this cause, she should be able to get dozens of people on
her team. Then, she could organize an event at her closest cemetery to get the
volunteers excited and involved in taking pictures of headstones. It should
only take a month or so to get the points she needs to win that much-needed iPad
2 for her classroom.
Why did we make our iPad Giveaway Event centered on
teamwork? Because teams can accomplish so much together. Curtis talked about
individual efficiency in a previous
post. He told us that the average time it takes one person to capture 1,000 images is
around 3 hours. With the goal of 100,000 images to win an iPad 2 for your
school or organization, it would take you alone 300 hours, or 12 and 1/2
straight days of photographing. If you even had as few as ten people on your
team, the team could reach 100,000 images in just 30 hours. A twenty-person
team could reach 100,000 images in three 5 hour sessions. The more people you
recruit, the closer your goal becomes.
You can organize a team within your family, among your
friends, in your community, or across the globe. Plan a few events to get
everyone excited and get them out to their closest cemetery to snap pictures.
If your team is all within your community, arrange a time to
meet at one of your cemeteries. Bring people who don’t have smartphones, too.
They can go ahead of the picture takers and make sure the headstones are
unobstructed. Make a day of it—when you finish one cemetery, caravan to the
next cemetery and get that one photographed, too! You can also bring donuts or
fruit to reward everyone’s efforts.
If your team is spread across the digital community, you can
still organize events, but at different cemeteries. Suggest a day that everyone
should go out and collect images at their closest cemeteries.
We suggest creating a Facebook group to help you get the
word out to your team, friends, neighbors, family, and community. Here you can
post meeting times and locations, inspiration for your team, etc., keeping your
team informed and motivated to win that iPad 2!
Facebook’s instructions on how to create a group:
- Go to your your home page and click Create Group in the left hand column. If you have existing groups, you may need to click More before you see this link.
- A pop-up box will appear, where you will be able to add a group name, add members and select the privacy setting for your group. Click the Create Group button when you're finished.
- Once the group is created, you will be taken to the group's page. To get started click the button at the top right of the page and select Edit Group. From here you can add a group description, set a group email address, add a group picture and manage members.
Invite people to join, share the group on your wall, and
tell your friends to invite their friends! Here is sample text you can use to
tell people about your BillionGraves group.
Join with me to earn an iPad 2 for
______!
All you need to do is sign up for
BillionGraves.com, download the free app to your iPhone or Android phone, and head
to your local cemetery. Take pictures of headstones and upload them to the
BillionGraves database. Our team will receive one point for every image we
upload.
If we reach 100,000 points, we can
earn an iPad 2 for ______.
And if our team uploads the most
images, we can win another iPad 2!
Sign up online at BillionGraves.com,
and add your name to our team: ______
For more information about Facebook groups, click here.
