Introducing @CheerfulGiver

For those familiar with @CheerfulGiver, please skip to the next section of this article. For those who are unaware, the primary purpose of @CheerfulGiver is to help others around the world through the generosity and power of the Steemit community with the giving philosophy of giving people a hand up, not a hand out. Empowering people so they can forever change their family tree is what @CheerfulGiver is all about.

This will be accomplished by individuals simply upvoting @CheerfulGiver's posts at first. The steem dollar profits from those posts will be given to individuals in need across the world. As the steem power of @CheerfulGiver grows, it will become a perpetual donation machine through the power of self voting. This may be the one time that we can all agree that self voting for donation purposes is a great thing! Please check out my first few posts:

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@cheerfulgiver/introducing-cheerfulgiver-lets-change-one-family-tree-at-a-time

https://steemit.com/life/@cheerfulgiver/help-others-by-upvoting-and-following-cheerfulgiver-a-hand-up-not-a-hand-out

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@cheerfulgiver/cheerfulgiver-a-hand-up-not-a-hand-out-kiva-account-setup-and-ready-to-fund

A quick update on OUR progress

In my previous post, I was seeking donations for Adriana Elizabeth, a single mother from Ecuador. Here is a link to that post: https://steemit.com/charity/@cheerfulgiver/cheerfulgiver-looking-to-fund-adriana-elizabeth-single-mother-from-ecuador

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is Adriana was fully funded in a matter of less than 2 days!

The 'bad' news, if you can even call it that, is I will need to think of a modified strategy for identifying individuals to donate to. I selected Adriana for two reasons. The first was her story. As a father of 2 boys (2 yr old and 2 weeks old), there is something about funding single mothers that I think is extremely important, both for the mother and her children. The second reason was that she had 30 days left to get funded. I assumed it would take several weeks to get the $1000 she was seeking which would be enough time to post, gather the reward, and donate it to her through @CheerfulGiver. The fact that she was funded in 2 days speaks to the generosity of others and that is awesome! ... but it does put a wrinkle in my plans. The good news for those who donated is the reward I will receive will still go toward someone in need, someone very similar to Adriana. Your donations did not just disappear.

A special thanks to @Stellabelle!

I want to give a special shoutout to @Stellabelle who greatly increased the value and exposure of each of my first several posts and comments through upvotes and resteems. You can see here that she has contributed more than 85% of the reward shares, which will allow us to fund our first individual much faster! As a new member of Steemit, we all know how important that is. Thank You!

Many others have contributed and deserve to be recognized as well! Here is a list of the top several upvoters from steemvp.com.

Thank you to each and every one of you! With all of your upvotes, the total combined reward pool is approaching ~$37. This is amazing for such a short time with a new account! Half of this will go toward steem power, leaving ~$18 to go toward funding an individual on Kiva.org (if I understand how the payout system works). If we do not get to $25 (which is the minimum Kiva amount for those who are unaware, see my previous posts), it is my goal to cover the difference so we will have successfully funded someone in the first week or so. I will write a post about that when it happens.

It will take a team effort!

In one of @Stellabelle's replies to me, she said that to do well I need to get "support from others who are like-minded" and that "group efforts generally do well". To get this project off the ground will take a team effort. Thank you for all those who have contributed so far. If you know of anyone who is like-minded and can help our group, let them know about our project so we can fund even more individuals in need! I am very excited about the potential to really help people around the world!