I spent the past 7 days sending out personal e-mails to all of the businesses, organizations and people that V.I.A. has helped over the past year, asking if they might be able to offer any sort of donation. And while we did receive some donations and I got back a few friendly responses letting me know that people weren’t in a position to donate (but that they wished they could) I also received a boatload of radio silence and one person who actually responded to my e-mail by asking me to “stop spamming him”. This is an event organizer who has had more than one of his events promoted through our site, somebody we have helped out and were hoping might in turn offer a small donation, or at the very least not a slap in the face.

Please don’t be that unappreciative person. If you run a business or are somebody who simply enjoys the site often then please show us that you care about what we’re doing for this city and consider making a donation. Because if you don’t donate, then nobody in our community will, and this positive thing, this thing that Vancouver has never seen the likes of, will simply disappear.

WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?

Your kind donation will be put towards our operating costs including our office rent, executive/administrative costs, site design/maintenance and hosting, accounting, promotions, events as well as the multitude of other expenses that come along with operating a federally incorporated non-profit that relies on the community that it supports to finance it. In the future our goal is to release an annual printed book as well as opening a community-minded retail space/gallery but in the short term our goal is simply to keep our web presence afloat and put on some more events in 2010, and we really do need your help to do that.

WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF IT?

Not only will all of our 2009 donors walk away with a good feeling about helping us out but your name (or the name of your business) will be laser etched onto our 2009 donor plaque and you’ll receive a set of 3 pins and a bumper sticker. At the end of our ten day donor drive we’ll be holding draws for thousands of dollars worth of giveaways donated by local businesses. By making a donation today you will be eligible to win any of the stuff we unveil over the coming days.

We have giveaways from a bunch of companies including Dace, Mint Records, Vincent Park, Girl, Arc’teryx, Furni, Crownfarmer, 32 snowboard boots, Dragon, Purdy’s, E’s, Medina, UBC Botanical Gardens, The MOV, 49th Parallel Roasters, Vancouver Special, Color Magazine, Vans, Westbeach, Endeavor, Arson and Orb.

One of today’s featured giveaways are these fine ladies’ pieces from Orb…

We’ve also got these 2K t-shirts for a lucky donor…

And some Crownfarmer t-shirts…

And these men’s pieces from Arson…

And a year subscription to Color Magazine as well as a package full of back issues…

And of course you’ll be eligible to win any of these other prizes we revealed over the past 6 days…

Stay tuned over the next couple of days as we unveil the rest of the prizes and bring you all of the reasons why we need you to help us out.

Click above to donate by credit card, or if you would prefer to send us a cheque please make it payable to “Vancouver Is Awesome Inc” and mail it to us at our office:

Vancouver Is Awesome Inc
208 – 950 Powell Street
Vancouver BC
V6A 1H9

A huge thank you in advance to everyone who makes a donation or who has supported us in any way! You are truly awesome.