Dear friends of railway preservation:

Today-only The Seattle Foundation is hosting Give BIG to raise awareness and support for non profits. The Northwest Railway Museum is participating and any contributions to the Museum received through the Foundation's gateway ( http://www.seattlefoundation.org/npos/Pages/NorthwestRailwayMuseum.aspx) will be partially matched from a half million dollar stretch pool.

You can learn more about this initiative from a recent blog post: http://trainmuseum.blogspot.com/2011/06/givebig-to-make-giving-history-june-23.html

Contributions will be used to help complete the new Train Shed exhibit building in downtown Snoqualmie ( http://www.trainmuseum.org/RHC.asp ), the chapel car messenger of Peace rehabilitation ( http://www.messengerofpeace.org ), and for other collection care projects.

Please consider participating in any amount. Your contribution received until midnight Pacific time tonight, June 23, 2011 is eligible for the match!

This is an exceedingly rare opportunity: anyone's contribution is being partially matched without restriction as to size of gift, location of donor, or as to exempt use of the funds. So your tax-deductible contribution has never been more powerful!

Thanks for your consideration,

--Richard
http://www.trainmuseum.org

Thanks to everyone who participated in GiveBIG!

During the 17 hour event, the Northwest Railway Museum raised more than $16,000 in donations, which are being directed towards the Train Shed exhibit building and collection care. Many donations were less that $100 and were from first-time donors: we are honored for their faith in how we will spend their money. Next week The Seattle Foundation will announce the Museum's share of the $500,000 stretch pool that will partially match the individual contributions received on June 23.

Running a successful museum is an expensive undertaking and every contribution is appreciated whether it is $5 or $5,000.

Thanks again.

--Richard
http://www.trainmuseum.org/

It's events like these that we need more of. I have experience with a mental health advocacy group, and they use similar events to raise funds for their operations. Congrats, and maybe fundraising drives like this will become more common place. If anything, the group i'm working with now will need to do a fundraiser once we get our 501c(3) status, so maybe this pattern will be used.