Announcing our 2007 Holiday Project – A Month of Auctions

For the past two years, the Celebrity Baby Blog (www.celebrity-babies.com)has organized an official holiday giving project that includes ourreaders and our sponsors.  This year’s project is a unique opportunityfor our readers and sponsors alike as well as our featured charity.

Our 2007 Holiday Project is A Month of Auctions which willbenefit the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic & Institute (NBCI) at theCanadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in Toronto, run by worldrenowned breastfeeding advocate and pediatrician Dr. Jack Newman.  Theprimary function of the NBCI is to assist breastfeeding mothers andtheir babies with breastfeeding challenges. It also provides clinicaltraining for pediatric residents, medical students, nurses, andcandidates for those who intend to become International Board CertifiedLactation Consultants.  As the NBCI no longer receives funding from theCanadian government, it is in danger of closing, having already reducedits hours.  Even though the center is in Canada, their work and websiteis an amazing resource to all nursing mothers and those who wish tohelp them. (As a nursing mother, I have referred to www.drjacknewman.com many times.) We hope to top past years’ donations by raising over $4,000. 

For more information, click Continue Reading.

So how are we going to raise this money?

Beginning November 1, we will post about one auction prize a day for the entire month.Readers will learn about the auction prize via the dedicated post onthe main page of the Celebrity Baby Blog and via a graphic ad postedprominently on the site as well as reminders in our newsletter (whichreaches 5,600+ readers). They will then be able to go to the auctionsite and bid on the prizes.  Because the auctions will be on a publicsite, others will be able to bid as well.  The winners will get someamazing holiday gifts and the sponsors will get amazing exposure duringthe biggest shopping season of the year. 

I’masking each participating sponsor to pay a nominal fee inaddition to donating a minimum $300 retail value of product or giftcertificate.  If you like, it can be one or multiple prizes.

Here’s an update of our stats and reader demographics:

Wecurrently get an average of over 80,000 unique visitors per day, andserve over 136,000 page impressions per day.  No other baby blog getsthis kind of traffic. (That’s over 2.4 million visitors and over 4million page impressions per month!)

In our most recent annual reader survey (conducted in May 2007), we learned:

• 99% are women
• 74% have children (26% are under 1, 40% are 1-3, 20% are 3-5,
• 97%shop online (34% said 25-50% of the time, 33% said less than 25% of thetime, 23% said 51-74% of the time, and 8% said 75-100% of the time)
• 59% feel better about an advertiser if they see them advertised on CBB
• 44% have purchased a product after seeing it on CBB

The details…

• First come, first served so the sooner you respond, the more likely you will be to get your first choice of date so don’t delay!
• You will need to send the prize to the winner(s).
• The fee of $125 (weekdays) or $100 (weekends) is payable directly at www.canadianbreastfeedingfoundation.org. (Of course, you may donate more if you wish.)  Click on the "Donate Now"button in the left hand column and follow the instructions. When askedfor your "Fund/Designation",  please be sure to indicate that you wishyour donation to be used to benefit the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic andInstitute. (If you reside in Canada, tax receipts for these donationswill be issued on behalf of the Canadian Breastfeeding Foundation viaCanada Helps, which is an online donation service for non-profitorganizations.)
• If you prefer, you can send payment to me via mail or Paypal. Please note that we won’t be able to give tax receipts if you send payment to us.
• The auctions will be facilitated through a service like Charity Folks or eBay Giving Works. 
• Deadline for submission: October 25.

Bonus:The sponsor whose auction raises the most money and the sponsor whoseprize gets the most bids each get a free advertorial that can be usedanytime during 2008.

To participate, send an email to holidayproject @ celebrity-babies.com with the following as soon as possible:
-make your donation and include the donation confirmation number in your email.  You can do this now to reserve your date and then follow up with your ad creative.
-give us your top 5 choices of dates.

Then please send the following to holidayproject @ celebrity-babies.com as soon as you can afterwards:
-a write-up of no more than 250 words in a text file or the body of the email that includes a description of your product that you are giving away.  If you would like, it can be one or multiple prizes.
-if you would like to link to any URLs, include a list of which URLS you’d like which words or phrases should link to.
-1 low-resolution jpeg or gif that clearly shows the products being given away.  If you don’t have a photo of it, your logo is ok but please include links to the products on your site.  The image can be any size (under 100k) but keep in mind that in the post, the image will be reduced to thumbnail size (approx.150 pixels wide for vertical images and 200 pixels wide for horizontal images). When the reader clicks on them, they pop up full size.  Animated images are ok but we cannot run flash files. 
-Optional but strongly recommended: a coupon code that expires 12/31/07.

Please visit the website  www.drjacknewman.com for a complete overview of the clinic’s history, directives, services and staff members.

Comments

Just a note to say thank you! As a dedicated reader and proud Canadian (who, after many initial challenges, breastfed my beautiful daughter for 7 months only to have babe give it up overnight), I am thrilled to see CBB’s fundraising efforts helping on this side of the border. Big kudos for the great results you get each year & for helping out such an important resource.

I will be checking back for the auction items!

- Coeur on October 12th, 2007

Danielle
What a great choice for a charity! I have spoken to Dr Jack professionally and have referred many many families. He is wonderful and the commitment to making babies health more equal and reducing health inequalities by breastfeeding, is simply wonderful!

- lola on October 12th, 2007

Danielle – what a great idea and worthy cause. I’ve been BFing my son for 24mths and love every minute (ok..maybe not those 3 am feeds when my son declares, “I want Mommy Booby!!”). I’ve seen Dr. Newman speak on a few occasions and he and his clinic are wonderful. Here is a link to a blog that Dr Newman supports mothernurture.wordpress.com. A local midwife was asked to move to a different location to nurse her 5mth old son while watching her other kids swim and the YMCA. The mother filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Dr. Newman has offered to go and do the much needed staffing training. Please keep up the great work!!

- LuLah~ on October 12th, 2007

Thank you so much for all the info you provide to me. It really is useful. I wanted to share some stationery that was really cute for baby and mom. I found it at http://www.Expressionery.com. Hope you find something useful and cute there too.

- lisa on March 13th, 2008