Tonight, December 14^th, the Invisible Children community celebrates the UNBELIEVABLE.

For as long as I can remember, we at Invisible Children have had a new goal every six months…for the last 8 years. That’s a lot of goals. They’re always a little different, whether focused on Advocacy, Awareness, or Fundraising. But the one thing they ALL have in common, is that they ALL seem Impossible to achieve. If it’s NOT impossible, we are not interested in doing it.

I’ve always believed that if you shoot for the Impossible and don’t get it, you land on Unbelievable; if you fall from Unbelievable, you land on Extraordinary; below Extraordinary is Awesome.  So, at worst… you’re Awesome.

These are just a few of the Impossible Invisible Children goals you’ve supported us through:

1. Surrounding Oprah’s studio until she put us on her show, LIVE.

2. Getting President Obama to sign a Bill & send advisory troops to Uganda.

3. Raise $2M in 100 days.

When we gathered the interns, volunteers, and roadies & pitched the $2M goal back in August, we understood the ridiculous challenge we were undertaking—I mean, we were facing the collapse of the global economy, revolutions around the world & polarizing politics.

And we did not reach the Impossible $2M goal; but we raised an Unbelievable amount of money: $1.7M. That is the most we’ve ever raised in a fall campaign. And that is something to celebrate.

We know that lots of teams and individuals are still fundraising, so the Frontline fundraising site will remain up through January. We encourage you to keep going. All the money that is donated to the Frontline pages will still go towards the Protection Plan.

We applaud each of you who tweeted, donated, purchased a FREE TIMMY shirt or spent way too much time watching the Livestream. We shout and scream for all you Roadies, Movement interns, non-Movement interns, Team Leaders, Road Managers, host-homes, teachers, principals, club presidents, bands, and Fourth Estate Members who have sacrificed and pushed waaaaay beyond what you ever thought you were capable of.

And then there’s Timmy….that New Zealander who voluntarily imprisoned himself for 8 days and 9 hours. This week he more-than-proved his limitless dedication to ending this war.

But of course the biggest thing we celebrate is the success of the Protection Plan in Central Africa: We have seen multiple defections because the early-warning radio network is working. The LRA Crisis Tracker is breaking technological ground, and the Rehabilitation Center in Congo is up and running. And now YOU have raised $1.7M to make it even more effective.

We love you. We are grateful.

Love,

Jason

Tomorrow’s Livestream will be an extra special one.  With the Roadies returning to San Diego at the conclusion of the Frontline Tour, we will be hosting A Very Roadie Thanksgiving.

We will be broadcasting live from the office beginning at 1 PM PST with different Roadie teams hosting.  For our dedicated weekly viewers, take note: this is different than our usual 5 PM, one-hour broadcast.

Not only will the Roadies be sharing stories from tour, but we will be giving away one trip to San Diego to the top fundraiser/top fundraising team from the past week.  A big deal, everyone.

Tour stories, fundraising ideas, and holiday cheer – all assured topics to be covered.

Plan your day to reconnect with your favorite Roadies and find out if you’re getting a free trip to San Diego to be here the final day of the Frontline Campaign.

Frontline Fundraisers, this Friday is going to be huge.  As we announced last week, on Friday, November 18, we will be hosting an International Minute To Win It Day – with your support.

Don’t be confused, this is not the show hosted by that food fellow – this is one of the most effective and easy fundraisers to fund the Protection Plan. If everyone brings in one dollar, that is money in the bank for the Frontline Campaign.

Watch this video to learn more:

Be sure to document your Minute To Win It and send it to communications@invisiblechildren.com because the most creative effort will win someone a trip to San Diego to be here the final day of the Frontline Campaign.  

As an extra, any school that raises over $500 from their activity will get three Invisible Children films.

It’s about to get very real this Friday.  You have a Minute to Win It.

Today marks the launch of the Frontline Fundraising matching campaign.  An anonymous donor will be matching all donations made online or sent in to the office until the $100,000 is gone.

So, anything that gets donated will be matched on your fundraising page marked as a “matching grant.”

This money is going to go quickly – there’s a trip to Uganda on the line.  The team or individual that has raised the most amount of money on their fundraising page from November 2 – November 16 will receive an all-expense paid trip to Uganda to see everything that our fundraising efforts go to in northern Uganda.

To say that the Uganda trip is the trip of a lifetime would be doing it an incredible disservice.  We put together a short video from a former Uganda trip winner/current Regional Manager Sarah Chaplin to attempt to explain how insane your life will become if you win the trip we will be giving away next Wednesday.

Watch it, realize your dream is to go to Uganda, and get your fundraising on.

People, get excited because starting this Thursday, we will be launching a matching campaign for our current Frontline Fundraising.

That’s right. That means for every dollar you send in, an anonymous funder is going to match it. So if you happen to send in $5000, it automatically become $10,000.

Essentially, your money is worth twice what it normally is; in this economy, this is clearly something to flip out about.

This money will go quickly- once we hit $100,000 dollars the campaign will end. So plan your events and plan to get your money in so that it get’s matched on your fundraising page.

Great Lakes Roadie Amanda Gaebelein just shared this photo with us.

Yes, the principal is duct-taped to the wall, all cash raised for IC, get it!

We have just gotten word that the competition for tomorrow’s trip giveaway to Uganda is beyond close.  At this point, it is quite literally anyone’s game.

The leaderboard stands:

In our first livestream session for the Frontline Tour we announced the winner of the first trip to Uganda, Brendan Nahmias.

Brendan Nahmias of Chapman University raised $13,733. So if you happen to know this beautiful creature, shout out a giant congratulations. Not only is he incredibly dedicated to Invisible Children he is also just an all around amazing human being and we could not be more excited that he’s coming with us to Uganda.

As for the livestream, 511 people tuned in from all over the world to find out who the winner would be. Literally people from all over North America, Europe and even Asia watched. We hope you all enjoyed tuning in. And get excited, because this is only the beginning.

As for all of you still fundraising out there, now is your chance. The leader board is a tabula rasa and you have two weeks to make it to the top to win a an all-expense paid trip to Uganda. 

So get creative, get excited and get your funds in by October 19th at noon and then tune in to our livestream to find out a little more about why you’re fundraising and more about what Invisible Children is working on this fall. And, of course, who is the next winner.

Who know’s? It might even be you.

The countdown has started. Get fundraising.