Yesterday I introduced the first paid sponsor of the Mona Lisa Million Project – The very lovely Jay Mountford who runs a West Midlands Wedding Photography business, became the first person to take a paid sponsorship on the project – and I mentioned that it was a big deal to me!
It’s a big deal because today is the anniversary of the catastrophic magnitude 7 earthquake that killed 230,000 people, injured 300,000 and left over one million people homeless in Haiti – and it was this event that inspired me to set up the Mona Lisa Million Project.
I set an ambitious goal of raising $1Million by selling pieces of the most famous picture in the world, the Mona Lisa. I divided a million pixel copy of the image up into sections and the plan was that each section would be auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder. From the income the auctions generated I intended to give up to 80% of the profits to Haiti.
Sadly it was a little too ambitious and try as I might, I was unable to generate any paid sponsorships and the idea never really took off - until now!
We’re a year in now and the project has changed in many ways. Sadly, after a few months Haiti fell out of the public consciousness and I realised I needed to make some changes. To give the project a chance of success I reluctantly changed the way we support charities and introduced the Charity Challenge.
Although Haiti is no longer the main focus of the project I am very pleased to say that we were eventually able to donate some money to Haiti in the name of this site and its readers. And It’s now the readers of this site who decide which charities we support – and perhaps in the next Charity Challenge Haiti will be nominated again.
Despite the changes, the aim of this project is still to raise one million dollars and yesterday on the eve of the Haiti anniversary we took the biggest step towards achieving that remarkable goal when Jay became the first paying sponsor.
To me this represents the turning point and I aim to build on this breakthrough and push this project to meet its full potential.
I am massively proud of the Mona Lisa Million Project and have every confidence that it will be a success.
I am also proud of all my sponsors and the people who have supported me over the last year with comments, tweets and encouraging emails. Thank you all.
And thank you Jay for setting the example I hope other people have the confidence to follow.
Links to Haiti News:
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: adrenalynn_no
January 15, 2011 at 20:02
This is awesome! You are awesome! Jay is awesome! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawesome!!
Twitter: DaveFowler
January 15, 2011 at 21:26
Thanks Lynn, if I could bottle your enthusiam I could be a wealthy man!! It’s always lovely when you drop by… and thanks for the continued support.
{ 1 trackback }