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The GoodLetter Thursday, August 15, 2002
GoodThings, Inc. :: Stories, actions, ideas, and greeting cards that connect us.
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This Week's Feature
A Century's Worth of GoodThings
After 100 weeks of giving life to refreshing stories about the ways real people are making a difference in the world, we decided it was the perfect time to invite you to be a part of our own little centennial celebration.
Dear GoodLetter readers,
What is it about milestones? It's almost impossible not to get caught up with keeping track of numbers. I suppose they're really just how we all make sense of the passing of time and the meaning of our lives. We count birthdays. We count anniversaries. We count years on the job and the amount of time we've lived in certain places. We count fingers and toes, stitches and votes. We count goals, miles, minutes, touchdowns, home runs, free throws. We count wins and losses. We're so obsessed with numbers that we even count ties.
At GoodThings, we've got the same bug. For as long as you've been getting The GoodLetter delivered to your e-mail inbox, you've seen a number in the subject line of your weekly e-mail: GoodLetter #1, GoodLetter #30, #62, #87. Well, we've now reached that milestone of milestones, that ever-important triple digit, the oh-so-significant century mark, 100. But this week, instead of sharing a personal story about another positive grassroots idea, or a spirited non-profit organization, or a constructive corporate program or vision, or a person just like you who's using their passions to make progress, we decided it was time to ask you for help.
In some ways, the World Wide Web has made it easier for a magazine like ours to bring positive-minded people together. But it's also made things a little more complicated for us. The GoodLetter is a virtual magazine, so unless you print out your copy to read or share with others (great idea, by the way!), you don't have anything physical to hold onto the way you do with a print magazine. Maybe, in a way, that makes it seem less real.
The fact is, though, it's very real, and like anything else, it simply costs money to keep bringing it to you. But since the very beginning, we've felt very strongly about not having banner ads or pop-up windows all over our site and in The GoodLetter. We also have never wanted to limit access to any of the stories that are our site or in The GoodLetter by charging some sort of subscription fee, as many sites are now doing.
As you probably know by now, we launched our GoodThings Greeting Cards nine months ago. The primary reason is that we wanted to provide another way that our readers could share "goodthings" with each other without having to use a computer. We thought that sharing positive thoughts and ideas with other people using old-fashioned mail was a perfect off-line extension of GoodThings. Real people connecting in their own handwriting with the people in their lives. It's certainly one of the goodthings we've lost track of amidst our modern, fast-paced lives.
But we also launched our greeting cards to help us modestly underwrite the cost of bringing The GoodLetter to you every week. We now have 110 recycled-paper greeting cards that all of us here at GoodThings designed and produced, and they're all for sale on our Web site. Most of the cards feature words -- "Favorite GoodThings" -- that you've shared with us. Some -- like our "Colorful Voices" -- feature the real words (and support the arts education) of elementary school children. Others offer new ways to send holiday greetings.
Of course, if you're an avid reader of The GoodLetter, you've heard us tell you all of this before. Perhaps you've grown tired of hearing us talk about our greeting cards in "The GoodLetter." If you are put off by it, we certainly apologize. If it leads you to unsubscribe or consider unsubscribing to The GoodLetter, we're sorry for that, too. Maybe it is actually time we parted ways.
Lately, we've been reserving a place in The GoodLetter to talk about our cards for just a couple of reasons. First, we love the cards. Chances are, we'll never give Hallmark a run for their money, but we feel pretty confident that our cards give people a truly unique and fresh way to connect with each other. No greeting card copywriters, no tired clichés, just the words of real people expressing the things that make their lives extraordinary. And the other reason we promote our cards in The GoodLetter is simply because we need you.
Quite literally, if every one of our readers bought as few as five single greeting cards to share with friends and family, we could continue to keep bringing you "The GoodLetter" and spreading the word about the kinds of life-affirming, dedicated, passionate efforts that make the world so incredible. But we sincerely need your help.
So what can you to support us and to ensure that we'll survive? How can you help?
1 -- Buy GoodThings Greeting Cards.
Our online store is a secure place to shop, and we never share any of your personal information with anyone else. Did you know you can buy single cards -- not just packs of cards -- in our online store? You already know that your online purchase of our "Colorful Voices" cards goes to support youth arts education programs. Did you know your purchase of some "Worldwide Favorite GoodThings" cards supports organizations chosen by the people whose words we featured on the cards? You can always feel good knowing your purchase of our greeting cards helps us continue to spread the word about ideas and actions that are making the world a better place. And we ship all over the world! By the way, if you're one of the many people who have already bought a few GoodThings Greeting Cards and have a great story about how you used the cards, won't you drop us a brief note and share it with us?
:: See all of our greeting cards
:: See Colorful Voices cards
:: See Worldwide Favorite GoodThings cards
2 -- Nervous about making purchases online? Find them in a local retail store near you that carries GoodThings Greeting Cards. Check out the current list of stores
Don't see your favorite store on the list? Tell them about us and tell them how to find us on the Web at www.goodthings.com
3 -- Tell your company or non-profit that we can customize any of our cards for their use around the holidays or any time of year. We look forward to the opportunity to use the back of our cards to help your organization tell its story. We offer special non-profit rates and volume discounts. And the best part is, 10% of every customized card order goes to the organization of your company or non-profit's choice.
:: Holiday cards
4 -- Finally, so many of you already help! Every week, you tell other people about the stories you love.
Like Michael Wallach's GoodLetter from last week about bringing Israeli and Palestinian teenagers together (Detox for the Spirit) or George Watson's GoodLetter about how his dog brought him to terms with the important things in life (Dogs and the People Who Need Them), or Celeste Wilson's recent piece about fighting homelessness (That Human Touch) or Jessica Neff's story about her efforts to provide educational opportunities for Nicaraguan children (Becoming the Big Picture). Spend a little time in the GoodLetter archive, find your favorite GoodLetter, and tell your friends about it.
:: GoodLetter archive
:: Tell a friend!
Who are we at GoodThings? We're people who believe in the power of connection, in the strength of the human spirit, and in the good that can come from people who believe in making a difference in their communities. We're people with families and dreams, and we know you are, too. We feel lucky that you've chosen to read The GoodLetter and to be a part of something we care so much about. To celebrate this 100th GoodLetter, we're going to take a little break from publishing new GoodLetters. For the next four weeks, we hope you enjoy encores of some of the early GoodLetters many of you have told us you've loved so much. A lot of you may not have been subscribers the first time we ran them, so we hope you'll enjoy seeing how far we've come.
Consider this GoodLetter an official invitation to our continuing party, our centennial party, our 100th birthday. We sincerely hope you enjoy the end of your summer (or your winter, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere) and continue to discover ideas in coming GoodLetters that will surprise, delight, and energize you to do good -- even great -- things.
:: The Team at GoodThings, Inc.
Seattle, Washington
(Thoughts on this GoodLetter? Motivated by what you've read? Have you already shared GoodThings greeting cards with the people in your life? Send an e-mail to cards@goodthings.com -- don't forget to tell us your name, where you're from, and if we can use your words in a future GoodLetter or on our Web site.)
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