Writer's For The Red Cross Fundraiser

What is Writers for the Red Cross? This online event is intended to raise funds and awareness for the Red Cross and its work in communities across the country. We'll be auctioning off publishing-related items and services donated by authors, publicists, agents, and editors. We'll also have daily guest posts from authors about "What the Red Cross Means to Me" and a daily countdown of "31 Things You Didn't Know About the Red Cross" on the official event website. All donors who give over $25 will also be able to select one free book from a range of books donated and shipped by publishers for the event.

Writers for the Red Cross will go live in mid-February, with active fundraising running from March 1 through March 31. It is modeled on the highly successful "Do the Write Thing for Nashville" fundraiser in 2010, which raised $74K in ten days following last spring's devastating floods.

Why Writers? Writers share our commitment to community by bringing people together through their stories. And these communities continue to be strengthened as readers come together with writers in their local bookstores, in book clubs, online through social media…and through partnerships with national organizations with a similar mission of community: national organizations like the American Red Cross.

Why the Red Cross? If there were one word to describe the Red Cross, it would be "community." Each year, in communities large and small, victims of some 70,000 disasters turn to neighbors familiar and new - the more than half a million volunteers and 35,000 employees of the Red Cross. Through nearly 700 locally supported chapters, more than 15 million people gain the skills they need to prepare for and respond to emergencies in their homes, communities and world.

Is this an official Red Cross fundraiser? Writers for the Red Cross is an independent group of writers and publishing professionals who are working together in a loose affiliation to support the Red Cross during the month of March. The online Writers for the Red Cross event falls under an agreement that has been approved by the host chapter (Nashville Area Chapter of the American Red Cross) via use of the American Red Cross Third Party agreement. The American Red Cross name is used with its permission, which in no way constitutes an endorsement, express or implied, of any product, service, company, individual or individual or political position.

We encourage all groups wishing to organize a community event around Writers for the Red Cross to contact their local Red Cross chapter for additional information and support. To find your local Red Cross chapter: http://www.redcross.org/en/where.

What will the donations be used for? A portion of proceeds from the online Writers for the Red Cross event will go to the host chapter (Nashville Area Red Cross) and the remaining portion will go to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

However, groups organizing local community events can choose to donate proceeds to their local chapter (by check or online) or through the donation form on the Writers for the Red Cross website.