Another Contest Vivant - to WIN Reseach Money!!

[Tuha]

do we have a common strategy? What I would propose is that we nominate to each region only 1 organisation. if I understand good the rules only a winner from each region in the second round will get money. so to have more organisations in one region would be contraproductiv.
I think this competition will be even more difficult than Chase community giving (CCG) because only the winner get something.

 

[helen41]

The CAA needs 100 more votes, not per day, but total. I don't think we should try to get another charity in Eastern. If you want to help Eastern, get the CAA in the top 20. They haven't announced the contest yet so we'll see how many votes they get if they do.

I'm so sorry, I looked at the numbers, and wrote Eastern, rather than Central. I will edit my other post. I agree. Rocky Mtn is now in, and I will change my daily vote request to CAA for now to try to help. Still, in Canada, at least, it remains at 2 votes to get to the top 20. That is a huge opportunity to double donations that we don't want to miss out on either

 

[Sasha]

I would like to know where these 200-300 people voting for WPI every day are coming from and why they don't understand the contest. There's no point in any more votes now - they're well situated in the top 20 and we're tipping our hand...

I don't think we should assume that all (or even most) people voting are following Phoenix Rising or any other forum and that we here are in a position to control where most people put their votes. Maybe those people are WPI supporters and they are just going to keep on voting WPI no matter what.

It would be interesting to know how many people on Phoenix Rising are voting daily. I know we get 700+ people online most days looking at the site but I've no idea how many are voting.

This is what worries me about having a strategy that depends on our being able to influence people to switch votes from one charity to another once one charity looks safe and another looks like it needs help - I don't think we can safely assume that we can do that. I would rather have a sure big winner than be trying to push lots of horses in the race for smaller sums. I do think that having more than one ME/CFS charity per region is going to risk splitting the vote because lots of people who aren't following forums will see their favourite charity in there and vote for it no matter how poor its chances are.

 

[shannah]

There is someone hosting an event on FB with 259 attending sending out daily reminders to vote in the Vivant contest linking directly to the WPI Endorsement page.. This probably contributes to the ever increasing number of votes for WPI. I usually check in here first before I cast my vote to see which organization most needs votes that day.

Voting 4 Grants (WPI)

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121179681298558

 

[shannah]

IACFS is finally up for the Central region. It has 2 votes and is sitting at number 101. For the statisticians keeping track, is it possible to bring it into the top 20 within the time frame remaining?

 

[Sasha]

The rules of the Vivint contest - not like Chase!

Just a reminder about the rules of the Vivint contest - it's very unlike Chase.

In this "endorsing" phase, charities don't win any money at all. If they are in their region's top 20 by 11 June, they go through to the voting phase.

When the voting phase is complete, only one charity in each region will win a money prize. There is no second, third, fourth, etc.

The prize is $100,000 for each regional winner, or $250,000 for the charity that gets the most votes in the whole contest.

The voting phase is looooong... it's nearly 11 weeks (14 June to 27 August).

During the voting phase, Vivant will, for certain (as yet unspecified) periods of time, match up to $2,500 donated to any charity, to a maximum of $50 per individual donor.

 

[Sasha]

What should we do in Phase 2?

At the moment, WPI is in 1st place in the Pacific region but it is not miles ahead. Votes are as follows:

#1: 1,664
#2: 1,299
#3: 1,252
#4: 1,068

In the other four regions, 8 charities have more votes than the WPI. One has over 6,000 and two have more than 4,000. If you add together the votes of all of our ME/CFS charities, we have 2,200.

In Phase 2, it looks to me as though if we split the vote, we won't win anything at all (just my judgement). Although people are probably being relaxed about voting in Phase 1 and charities aren't really pushing for votes yet, we've only got Phase 1 to tell us how Phase 2 is going to go and if it's any indication, we've got to get behind one ME/CFS charity and just push, push, push for all those 11 weeks.

I think that WPI is the charity that everyone can get behind (if this forum is anything to go by!) and it is already winning in its region. If we back the WPI in Phase 2, I think we'll win them $100k and if we really, really back the WPI, we could get them $250k.

 

[Sasha]

IACFS is finally up for the Central region. It has 2 votes and is sitting at number 101. For the statisticians keeping track, is it possible to bring it into the top 20 within the time frame remaining?

They'd need 150 votes to get into the current top 20 in that region. I wish we knew how many people were voting in this!

Here is IACFS/ME's Vivint page link: http://www.vivint.com/givesbackproject/charity/1124. I've added it to my signature.

 

[Sasha]

I've just created a poll to ask people if they're voting daily in the Vivint contest - it's here. Please do the poll if you're voting so we can get an idea of the numbers on Phoenix Rising who are voting!

 

[Tuha]

At the moment, WPI is in 1st place in the Pacific region but it is not miles ahead. Votes are as follows:

#1: 1,664
#2: 1,299
#3: 1,252
#4: 1,068

In the other four regions, 8 charities have more votes than the WPI. One has over 6,000 and two have more than 4,000. If you add together the votes of all of our ME/CFS charities, we have 2,200.

In Phase 2, it looks to me as though if we split the vote, we won't win anything at all (just my judgement). Although people are probably being relaxed about voting in Phase 1 and charities aren't really pushing for votes yet, we've only got Phase 1 to tell us how Phase 2 is going to go and if it's any indication, we've got to get behind one ME/CFS charity and just push, push, push for all those 11 weeks.

I think that WPI is the charity that everyone can get behind (if this forum is anything to go by!) and it is already winning in its region. If we back the WPI in Phase 2, I think we'll win them $100k and if we really, really back the WPI, we could get them $250k.

I dont want to be too pesimistic but how i see the rules and with experience from Chase community giving (CCG) - in the second round we should focus on 1 organisation. The competition will take a lot of weeks and you remember what happened in CCG the last days - some organisations came from nowhere and they had on the end more votes than WPI - i think this situation will continue. I know that also other organisations need money but if we look on the popularity of the organisations - WPI has the biggest chance.i amsure that there will be some strong organisations in the second round and only the winner will get money -so it will be even more difficult than Chase community giving.

 

[Dolphin]

I did nominate IACFS/ME two days ago. It's supposed to be up in 24 hours.

Edited to add, I'm now thinking the problem might be that it's international.

I can see three in the top 20 in the Eastern region that have International in their title:
http://www.vivint.com/givesbackproject/vote?region=5&view=rank#center-view

 

[Dolphin]

I think the rules for Round 2 are now pretty clear:

http://www.vivint.com/givesbackproject/overview
Can I vote for more than one charity during the voting phase?
You can vote for one charity per day.

 

[Dolphin]

Like some other people, I'm concerned about splitting the vote in Round 2.

Firstly, I think it's fair to say from the Chase Community Giving data, that the WPI will get more votes than the CAA (and most likely any other ME/CFS/similar charity).

The WPI also seem to be in a weak region (although not as weak as Canada!).

It is hard to know for definite what to do: vote for WPI, vote for another ME/CFS charity, vote for a no-hoper charity in WPI's region to make the competition easier, ...

 

[Sasha]

I can see three in the top 20 in the Eastern region that have International in their title:
http://www.vivint.com/givesbackproject/vote?region=5&view=rank#center-view

IACFS/ME is up there now - I've added their link to my signature.

ETA: on the "endorse" page, Vivint only list the top 50 in each region - IACFS/ME is well below that in the rankings.

For now, I'm still voting for Rocky Mountain - WPI look safely endorsed but Rocky Mountain is only 17th in it's region and could easily fall below 20th place.

In Phase 2, I'll be voting for WPI every day!

 

[Dolphin]

For now, I'm still voting for Rocky Mountain - WPI look safely endorsed but Rocky Mountain is only 17th in it's region and could easily fall below 20th place.

Best of luck. However, I don't rate Rocky Mountain's chances of going anywhere in Round 2. And if we are talking about groups who might benefit from matching donations, I don't know that they'd get 50 donors of $50 (but don't know much about them); saying that some money might be better than none.

(Changing mind when typing) I suppose one thing about Rocky Mountain is that they might split the vote less in Round 2 than other groups. And it might be one less charity in opposition.

 

[Dolphin]

Is this the first Vivint contest ever? If not, do we have any idea how many votes it took to win last time?

 

[Dolphin]

(Apologies if this has been said before) I think we should try to keep the Vivint contest low profile on Facebook. In particular, best to try to avoid alerting the big vote-getters, to try to avoid them getting involved.

 

[Sasha]

Best of luck. However, I don't rate Rocky Mountain's chances of going anywhere in Round 2. And if we are talking about groups who might benefit from matching donations, I don't know that they'd get 50 donors of $50 (but don't know much about them); saying that some money might be better than none.

(Changing mind when typing) I suppose one thing about Rocky Mountain is that they might split the vote less in Round 2 than other groups.

That's useful to know - being in the UK I'm not familiar with these groups and how much support they are likely to get.

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't vote for any other ME/CFS charity in case it splits the vote in Round 2? If so, it's worth seriously considering. So far we've been trying to get additional (to the WPI) charities in their respective top 20s to get them the opportunity of matching funding and the chance to win $100k but my own analysis of the numbers has convinced me (!) that that splitting the vote in Round 2 would completely blow our chances of winning $250k for WPI and maybe even lose the $100k for them.

So maybe I should just be voting WPI. Hmm...

I really think we need a strategy on this but what it should be isn't mega-clear. But I don't think any other ME/CFS charity can win its region and going after these small amounts (which need matching funding in the first place) doesn't look good to me.

On balance, I think I should from now on, even in this phase, only vote WPI.

I'll continue to read this thread with interest as the views continue to come in!

 

[Dolphin]

Best of luck. However, I don't rate Rocky Mountain's chances of going anywhere in Round 2. And if we are talking about groups who might benefit from matching donations, I don't know that they'd get 50 donors of $50 (but don't know much about them); saying that some money might be better than none.

(Changing mind when typing) I suppose one thing about Rocky Mountain is that they might split the vote less in Round 2 than other groups.

That's useful to know - being in the UK I'm not familiar with these groups and how much support they are likely to get.

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't vote for any other ME/CFS charity in case it splits the vote in Round 2? If so, it's worth seriously considering. So far we've been trying to get additional (to the WPI) charities in their respective top 20s to get them the opportunity of matching funding and the chance to win $100k but my own analysis of the numbers has convinced me (!) that that splitting the vote in Round 2 would completely blow our chances of winning $250k for WPI and maybe even lose the $100k for them.

So maybe I should just be voting WPI. Hmm...

I really think we need a strategy on this but what it should be isn't mega-clear. But I don't think any other ME/CFS charity can win its region and going after these small amounts (which need matching funding in the first place) doesn't look good to me.

On balance, I think I should from now on, even in this phase, only vote WPI.

I'll continue to read this thread with interest as the views continue to come in!

One pointed I added to the original point not quoted above (as a plus for voting for Rocky Mountain):

And it might be one less charity in opposition.

Looking at the votes, it would seem feasible that two groups might win their region if the numbers continue to be low in Canada. And it wouldn't take many votes to get some no-hoper non-ME/CFS charities into the top 20 up there ...

 

[Sasha]

One pointed I added to the original point not quoted above (as a plus for voting for Rocky Mountain):

[And it might be one less charity in opposition.]

Do you mean that if ME charities get in their top 20s and we stop supporting them in Phase 2 then we've succeeded in keeping out non-ME charities? But I think that we would only have kept out the ones that would have not been competitive (i.e. those in 19th & 20th places, which would be no-hopers).

I also think that any ME charity that makes it through to Round 2 will have people supporting it - not everyone voting will be looking to us or anyone else for strategy - but if they only see the WPI in the contest they'll put their votes there.

Looking at the votes, it would seem feasible that two groups might win their region if the numbers continue to be low in Canada. And it wouldn't take many votes to get some no-hoper non-ME/CFS charities into the top 20 up there ...

I don't fancy our chances in Canada. First place currently is a Prader-Willi syndrome charity with over 1200 votes and we're in fourth place with 149. Prader-Willi have several charities in the running across the regions (they're winning big in the Mountain Region with over 6,000 votes) and they look well-organised. In total, Prader-Willi charities have got over 9,000 votes to our 2,000 ME/CFS votes. Even more worryingly, there's a Prader-Willi charity in the Pacific Region in fourth place, only 700 votes behind WPI.

WPI will not be safe to win in the Pacific Region if Prader-Willi folks get behind their charity there. They will be formiddable opponents. I really don't think we can afford to split the ME/CFS vote and we can only hope that PW split theirs! I think we must back the WPI and the WPI only in Round 2.