I suppose this should have been more of my introduceyourself post but given a choice to use my first post to ask others for advice or to talk about myself, the advice is more important.
It's kind of like walking into a party. You want to assess the kind of party it is so you can conduct yourself appropriately to that party. Social media is not far off. In order to blend well, you need to know the the acceptable/unacceptable etiquette of the community.
I'm still very new but getting a very warm welcome from the steemit chat and from comments on my first post.
So, here's a little bit about my biggest passion.
Rabbits.
Yep, I know they aren't for everyone and if you are already disinterested, that's ok, I don't mind.
I've been caring and adopting rabbits for about 12 years now and I am connected with an online rabbit community and a plethora of rabbit rescues who do way more for rabbits than I ever could.
But I came up with an idea to turn a hobby into a helping hand for rabbit rescues.
The idea is Bunnyzine. Each month, I publish a digital rabbit magazine (pdf) that is free for everyone. It's in it's 3rd year of publication and I'm hoping, one day, it will achieve it's true purpose.
When Bunnyzine gets enough regular readers, I plan to seek out advertising, and I plan on using the money from advertising to help fund rabbit rescues/causes.
A friend of mine publishes a printed newspaper twice a month for a niche market (circulation 5000) where he pulls in well over $10k per issue (but much of that is taken in printing costs). So if I go by a readership of 5000 regular readers per month and aim for the same objective of $10k in advertising per month, I'd be able to distribute $1k to 10 different rabbit rescues/causes per month. It won't solve all their financial woes but it can certainly give a decent helping hand.
If we can grow big enough, perhaps Bunnyzine can become a full time job for me. I've discussed this with my team of volunteers and we never want to take higher than 20% of advertising funding to spend on Bunnyzine, we'd prefer 80% or more of the money going to rescues.
The way I look at it, they do so much already and they have to fundraise on top of it. If I can help alleviate one small part of their duties, I would be very happy.
I know, I know. People don't like ads. But I find that when it's someone advertising to you to make themselves money, your eyes become the product. But when that money is getting used to fund rescues, your eyes become tools that you can use for free to help bunnies. Essentially, I want Bunnyzine to be a conduit to those who have money (advertisers) to those who need it (rescues).
I'd like to do this with other animals as well but I'd rather get to a point where I can hire people who have as much passion towards other animals (like cats or dogs) as I do with bunnies because that helps ensure the content will suit the interests of people who love the pets that the magazine is dedicated to (like doggyzine or kittyzine).
I don't know. Call me crazy but, I constantly see gofundme posts for rabbit causes and pleas for financial help from rabbit rescues and I think that rather than constantly trying to draw from the same pool of supporters that only have so much to give and have to constantly keep soliciting for funding, this could turn into a bit of a band-aid solution that might give a rescue some breathing room, or give an injured rabbit a fighting chance instead of being given up on because of economical reasons.
There is more to me than just bunnies, but bunnies are at the forefront of who I am. If you ask anyone that knows me to describe me in one word. There is no greater answer than 'bunnies'.