One Daily Victory
As I am trying to set this organization up and ensure that we can truly help people in the long run, I’ve been telling myself I just need to get one small victory every day. I just want to know that I am making slow and steady progress toward being able to help people when I retire next year.
In support of that, I have started writing what I’ve done each day in a small journal. Now that I have started doing that, I am realizing that the people supporting us would likely appreciate it if I summarize those small victories in these entries at least weekly. While I may be able to establish a running kind of title in the near future, for now, I will list this week’s update here:
This week included updating our Patreon tiers and properly linking them to our Discord server. Now our Patrons will be assigned roles on the Discord server that match their Patreon tier. Each of those roles has a unique color assigned as well. I also posted a link to instructions from Patreon on how to link your Discord account to your Patreon account. I look forward to seeing the community start to come alive on Discord.
I also made sure that all of the social media accounts had a good title, description, biography, and profile picture. I also had them start following other accounts with interests or involvement in homeless support, advocacy, housing development, and/or veteran support. I even managed to join a great discussion on Twitter about solving homeless and garnered some attention for our program and our plan to do our part.
WE PAID FOR OUR AMBULANCE!! This was a big deal and all due to everyone that was able to contribute to our cause. We still need to get it picked up but the region where it was located is currently being hit by a blizzard so, that will likely have to happen next week.
We had to complete a document for the state of California that we will only need to submit every other year in the future. As a new organization, we had 3 months to submit it. I just wanted to get it done as soon as possible. LegalZoom also said they would add a notation to our 501(c)3 paperwork in an effort to expedite the processing.
I did some work in Photoshop to change up our logo from the very rough version I created just from my iPhone… I realized that the places I want to use this particular version (social media accounts) will always have the organization’s name right next to it. That means I didn’t need to have the words in the logo. We also thought we should bring in the Red, White, and Blue to show our direct connection to military vertans. So this is the current version we are working with.
Our new Social Media Profile Logo
I contacted a company here in Southern California (Weldtec) that does projects similar to our plan for converting the ambulance. At a minimum, they do good storage bumpers for the back end of the ambulance. I also attempted to contact a number of locations here in Yucca Valley that would make great elements for our program. Everything from workshop spaces to small motels. I am hoping to have meetings with some of these potential partners soon.
We had our second Board meeting this week. We agreed to add an additional board member and I will be working this coming week to get their information added to our “About Us” page. That brings us to four board members. We will be looking to add a fifth in the next few months. Ideally, we are looking for someone with a background in finance or a tax professional.
We also agreed to get a small vehicle to serve as an advertisement to raise awareness. It will also serve to increase legitimacy as we meet with future collaborators and partners on projects. It is a small electric vehicle, very low cost, and can easily be vinyl wrapped with our logo and QR codes.
Finally, I hope that this kind of post isn’t too much. I am hoping our supporters will find this kind of transparency and openness about our work to be a good thing. Some of these points are very small items and may be too “in the weeds” for some people. Don’t get too disheartened if that is you. I will be posting these weekly but I also plan to post any time we have big news to share.
With all of that said, is there anything you are hoping to get from these posts?
