everything else.Haiti Donation
by Dirk Stoop
One month has passed since we started a month-long promotion to help Haiti. Thanks to our customers, we were able to make a significant donation.
One Month
On January 14, we started donating half of all Versions revenue to Doctors Without Borders for a month, to support their efforts in Haiti. That month is over and it was quite a success. Here's the wrap-up.
Rainmaking for Beginners
Most copies of Versions are bought directly on the Versions website. Our customers fill in the form on the “Buy” page, pay online and get their license code by email. Next to those ‘automatic’ sales, we also sell site and volume licenses through a personal process.
We're not the most sales-oriented bunch (we try not to be pushy), and the larger these volume sales are, the longer they take to close. With our self-imposed one month deadline, we put on our sales hats and managed to bring in some extra sales, including the largest volume sale in Versions' history so far. Those sales – or more accurately, those customers – added a meaningful boost to our donation.
Other Efforts
Since the earthquake, a lot of indie Mac developers gave generously. One of the first donations we learned about was made by the good people at the Omni Group. Their generous donation directly inspired us to put our crazy one-month plan into action.
Another awesome effort was Indie Relief. 141 indie developers made a massive sales push, donating their complete proceeds of a full day to Haiti.
Grand Total
We saw a slight bump in sales the day we announced our promotion, but had a pretty normal month of sales from there on out. We've rounded up the result, and pulled together additional money from other parts of Sofa's and Pico's businesses, putting the grand total at € 25 000. Many, many thanks go to our customers for helping us collect this much.
This amount has been donated to Doctors Without Borders through wire transfers in an account that's designated to directly support their work in Haiti.
Ripples
In the grand scheme of things this may be a drop in the ocean, but I think its ripples are reaching people in need. Above all, I'm very proud that we set aside our own needs – kudos go to our entire team, in Lisbon and Amsterdam – to contribute this much.