Speaking of the Methuselah Foundation
Since I seem to be on the topic of the Methuselah Foundation at the moment, I should mention that I sat in with the cofounders and the rest of the Foundation volunteers for a teleconference earlier today. We were sorting out the order of business for current and future initiatives: I can't say too much about what's ahead, other than to tell you to expect more good publicity this year.
I'm currently working - with the kind assistance of Gina Miller, and as time allows - on promotional materials for the Methuselah Mouse Prize and The Three Hundred. We should be rolling out shirts, posters, and handout material fairly soon.
A good advocacy kit to assist people in talking to their friends about the Methuselah Mouse Prize is very overdue given the current number of donors. Word of mouth is a certainly a powerful way to bring new money into charitable causes and research prizes! A long list of items for the kit was suggested in the teleconference today, so I think that this will be coming together quite nicely before the end of the summer.
I am thrilled to hear you will soon be offering Methuselah Mouse shirts and posters. I would hope that you might be including bumper stickers as well (I read a ton of those things while waiting in traffic).
Another suggestion, if you don't mind, is if you are going to put the Methuselah Mouse URL on the shirts, how about shortening it a bit. Perhaps the MMFoundation. I don't know how many people will remember the full Methuselah Mouse URL if they see it while passing someone wearing their shirt.
On another topic entirely, I am astonished every day when I check to see the Methuselah Mouse Prize total. Even though it is good to see the numbers going in a positive direction, I am can't believe what a small amount of money has been raised. One good donation from a major celebrity or multi-national corportation could easily quadruple the amount that has been raised up to now. Is there any plan to begin making personal contact with companies or wealthly individuals (who have a lot to lose should they die)to attempt to secure some larger contributions?
Both short and long URLs have their benefits - long ones are often more easily remembered. We do actually have a short URL for the prize:
http://www.mprize.org
On the fund raising side of things: I can't say too much right now other than to comfirm, yes, there are plans. Volunteer non-profits move at a fairly slow pace, but they get there in the end. There are some interesting developments in the pipeline...