Fundraising Tally, Big Thanks, And The Winners of the Butler Scholarship eReader Drawing

Last night the Drawing came to a close and now it’s time to announce the winners of the 5 eReaders and the autographed Dark Matter anthology. But first, I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who made this fundraiser successful.

We raised $4,520 from tickets sales and so far $490 in direct donations since the drawing began. We haven’t even calculated all of the donations sent in via mail yet! Right now the total stands at $5,010, which is simply amazing. Our original goal was just $1,000. Once we blew past that in the first 4 days, we set our sights on raising $3,200, the price of a Clarion West tuition. Once we met that goal, our next was to raise $4,950, enough for a tuition to Clarion Diego. In the last 30 hours of the drawing we sold 799 tickets and blew past that goal, too. Thanks to those of you who bought tickets and donated we were able to exceed our goals time and again. We appreciate your participation and generosity so much. Thank you.

Next, a huge, huge thank you to Jenn Brissett. Without her we never would have been able to pull this drawing off. She did all the technical wizardry on the backend and when problems arose (and they did… oh they did) she worked hard to fix them and keep the drawing going. All while doing her graduate work and under major time crunches. Jenn is nothing short of an angel, and we all so, so appreciate her hard work.

Thanks to the other folks behind the scenes who helped put this whole thing together: Candra Gill, who took care of all the other technical needs surrounding the CBS website plus was smart about everything; Nisi Shawl, Claire Light and Kate Schaefer, who gave support, advice, guidance, and time as we rushed to make this whole thing a reality; Pablo Defendini and Nivair Gabriel who volunteered to convert stories into ePub files to make them compatible with the eReaders (for which I am eternally grateful); Matt Kressel whose work on the KGB Raffle inspired us to try it here and who offered advice and technical know-how. And thanks to the members of the Carl Brandon Society board who gave the green light to begin with.

I can never convey enough gratitude to the companies that donated the technology. Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Spring Design all jumped at the chance to be a part of this fundraiser. Thanks for making such wonderful, tempting eReaders and for supporting literature in the digital age.

A big, big thank you to all of the writers and publishers who sent us fiction, poetry and essays to include with the eReaders. The full list is here. The eReaders were a big draw, of course, but your donations added an extra layer of awesome to the prizes.

Everyone who spread the word about this online, on social networks, via blogs, or by word of mouth: thank you.

And now, here are the winners: