August 23, 2001 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Emmitt Smith has his work cut out for him. This season the Dallas Cowboys running back will be chasing the National Football League’s all-time rushing record, and he has also set a goal of helping schools, sports teams, and other youth organizations raise more than $22-million over the Internet in the next 22 months. Twenty-two has been Mr. Smith’s jersey number since high school.
Throughout his career, Mr. Smith has been active with a number of youth charities, and he says that the online fund-raising campaign will allow him to help more kids.
“The kids from Pensacola need my help just as much as the kids in Dallas, but I can’t possibly be in two places at one time,” he explains. The Internet, however, “gives me the opportunity to be in every state across the United States of America.”
The Help Emmitt Help Kids campaign officially kicks off in September to coincide with the start of both the football season and the school year. But school groups and other youth organizations can go to the campaign’s Web site now to sign up to participate.
Each organization will have its own Web site within the campaign site, and parents and students who are raising money for the organization will, in turn, have their own Web pages within the organization site.
From their Web pages, parents and students can send e-mail messages to friends and family members asking them to contribute, and can then keep track of how much money they have raised.
Organizations will keep at least 70 percent of the sum they raise. The rest will go to Mr. Smith’s Open Doors Foundation to cover the costs of the campaign and to help poor school districts that don’t have the resources to raise money over the Internet.
Mr. Smith and the companies he is working with to run the campaign, Advantage Marketing Group, in Irving, Tex., and Kintera, an Internet marketing company in San Diego, have lined up corporate sponsors to provide matching funds, which will allow some groups to keep more than 70 percent of what they raise.
Mr. Smith acknowledges that $22-million is an ambitious goal, but says that it’s not out of reach. “It’s a goal that I hope that we can meet. I believe it’s just going to take a total team effort.”
To get there: Go to http://emmitt.kintera.org.
