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"A Big Texas Welcome!"

Your music has helped to inspire and shape Texans for decades. Put simply, you and your stories are part of what makes Texas great.

To do our part to make Texas great, we’re working with organizers and volunteers all over the world to bring Twestival to Austin on March 25. Twestival is a world-wide event which is working to raise funds and awareness for Concern Worldwide this year, a group focusing on educating the world’s children, particularly those who aren’t given access to any education at all.

Our hope is to make this year’s Twestival better than the last. We have big plans for the local event, and we have but one request of you: Join us!

We know your presence would allow us to reach a greater audience. And a single song from you and Trigger might even allow us to surpass our fund-raising goals for this worthy cause.

We’d love to see you there. Give it some thought. And call us!

Sincerely,
Twestival volunteers and fellow Texans

March your calendar! This year’s Twestival is slated for March 25, 2010!

Last year’s Twestival raised more than $750,000 for Charity: Water and other nonprofits all over the world.

In 2010, organizers and volunteers are turning the focus to education and the 72 million children in the world who aren’t getting an education for one reason or another. Organizers have selected Concern Worldwide to be the recipient of this year’s fundraising efforts because of their comprehensive and well-respected approach to education. This is an issue that involves many different elements; hunger, water, teacher training, building of schools, etc. Locally, we hope to harness the power of the global event and use social media to give people insight into this cause as well as raise much-needed funds.

Austin plans to make this year’s Twestival even better than the last!

So how you can you get involved? Volunteer. Buy your ticket (link to come) for this year’s event. And save your pennies to contribute to Concern Worldwide during an auction of Austin’s biggest names in social media, business and more!

Imagine that you lived in a place where water borne diseases were rampant. Your local water source is contaminated, and typhoid outbreaks occur whenever major flooding occurs - probably from sewage and contaminants entering your water supply. Thousands of people become ill, and many even die. There are no trained water staff to effectively treat the water to protect human health. Seems worlds away, doesn’t it?

It’s not -
You are right here in Austin, Texas, only the year is 1911 and drinking water is untreated. It wasn’t until 1915 when the State’s first sanitary engineer Vic Ehlers was appointed by the governor to make inspections, investigations, and reports of water borne disease epidemics, and the City of Austin was convinced to chlorinate their water in 1916. Typhoid from public water sources in Texas was eradicated as Mr. Ehlers traveled from town to town, educating water operators and engineers.

The Sanitary Engineering Division of the Texas State Health Department was subsequently formed to guide and develop the state environmental programs. In 1973 Congress promulgated the Safe Drinking Water Act, setting national drinking water standards.

We are fortunate. Right now, 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us.

By participating in Austin Twestival which supports charity: water, you can affect a change. This non profit organization is working with international partners including A Glimmer of Hope and Water for People to bring clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of the money raised goes to direct project costs, funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years.

Come have fun at our event, but you can really help us now by blogging, linking, tweeting, anything to get the word out! If you want to volunteer, send a tweet to @snax or visit our Volunteer page on the Austin Twestival wiki.

Show the world that everything truly is big in Texas, including our hearts!

** I apologize that the formatting in this post is confusing. We are restricted to use WordPress MU, which seems to be stripping it out. There is a more user friendly version of the sponsorship information here. If you can’t sponsor, I certainly encourage you to come to Twestival. Buy a ticket on Amiando.”

One in six citizens of the world does not have clean drinking water. The lack of clean drinking water is the source of wars, famine, and disease, and now millions of Twitter users have decided to do something about it.

On February, 12, 2009, over 100 cities around the world are hosting “Twestivals”, which are meetings of Twitter* users to benefit charity:water. We are asking you to take part in this historic event by helping make Austin’s Twestival the most memorable and beneficial. This packet will outline what is occurring at Twestival Austin as well as the benefits of being a sponsor. Mashable is touting this as the world’s biggest Twitter-driven charity drive ever, and we would appreciate if you would take part.

*Note: if you don’t know what Twitter is or does, watch this video.

What is Happening at Austin Twestival?

Raising money for people in need is a wonderful thing and we intend to show the world that Austin knows how to have a good time. We are meeting at Ace’s Lounge on Sixth Street at 8 pm. This venue fits 700 people in it and the manager Jason is doing everything to accommodate a successful event. What does this entail?

• A meeting of Austin’s most influential people in the tech, business, and philanthropic spaces.
• Entertainment in the form of sumo suit wrestling by party-goers.
• A performance by one of Austin’s premiere bands, T-Bird and the Breaks. This band came on the scene just last year and was already recognized by the Austin Music Awards as one of Austin’s Best New Bands and won accolades at ACL in the “Sound and the Jury” Awards. This will be one of their first performances of the songs from their new album,
• A presentation by Glimmer of Hope, a non-profit partner of charity:water that drills wells in Ethiopia.
• An internet livestream which will be broadcast with other notable worldwide Twestivals.
• A professional photo shoot of party-goers as well as onsite photographers.
• A silent auction and raffle to raise money.

The schedule is as follows:

8:00 Meet and mingle
8:50 A word from sponsors
9:00 Twestival Sumo Smackdown
10:00 Presentation by Glimmer of Hope
10:45 Performance by T-Bird and the Breaks

Sponsorship Levels
a.k.a. “The Tweet-for-Wells Twestival Auction”

Becoming a socially conscious business is more important than ever and sponsoring Twestival is a great way to introduce yourself to the increasing numbers of people using social networking while supporting a great cause. Since the lack of clean drinking water is a big problem across the world, we didn’t want to cap levels and risk filling them up. We are essentially auctioning off the most prominent branding spots to the highest donors in hopes that together, the Austin community will be able to donate multiple wells to the places that need them most.

Here are the levels of sponsorship. 100% of your donation will go to charity:water.

“RIO GRANDE” DONORS
(Goes to Top Three Donors by dollar amount)

Rio Grande donors will receive:

1. One of two banners above the stage where the band will play or next to the DJ booth, where the sumo suit wrestling will take place. These areas are sure to offer the most photo opportunities.
2. A text link as well as a banner ad on the front page of austintwestival.com. All footage will be livestreamed from this site and we will put archived footage for people to see later here as well. This site will be up and running for at least one year and will hopefully be revisited for Twestival II.
3. A text link as well as a logo on a separate “Photos” page on the austintwestival.com. We will archive our favorite Twestival photos here for at least a year.
4. The opportunity to speak for one minute during the “Thanks to Our Sponsors” time before sumo chaos ensues.
5. The ability to put shwag at a table at the event.
6. Your Twitter name in a tag cloud of all those involved. This tag cloud will go on a “Contributors” page on the site.
7. Crazy good karma. The idea that thousands of people are being saved because of your generosity.

“RED” DONORS
(Goes to Donors Four-Six by dollar amount)

Red Donors will receive:

1. A banner at the event either upstairs or in the front bar at Ace’s Lounge.
2. A text link as well as a logo on a separate “Photos” page on austintwestival.com. We will archive our favorite Twestival photos here for at least a year.
3. Your company name will be mentioned in our “thanks to our sponsors” session before sumo chaos ensues.
4. The ability to put shwag at table at the event.
5. Your Twitter name in a tag cloud of all those involved. This tag cloud will go on a “Contributors” page on the site.
6. Crazy good karma. The idea that thousands of people are being saved because of your generosity.

“BRAZOS” DONORS
(Goes to Donors seven-twelve by dollar amount)

Brazos donors will receive:

1. A text link at the bottom of a separate “Photos” page on austintwestival.com. We will archive our favorite Twestival photos here for a year.
2. Your company’s name will be mentioned in our “thanks to our sponsors” section before sumo ensues.
3. Your Twitter name in a tag cloud of all those involved. This tag cloud will go on a “Contributors” page on the site.
4. Crazy good karma. The idea that thousands of people are being saved because of your generosity.

“COLORADO” DONORS
($150 and above)

Colorado Donors will receive:

1. A text link and logo on a separate “Contributor” page on austintwestival.com. This will include a tag cloud of all those present and all those who donated.
2. Crazy good karma. The idea that thousands of people are being saved because of your generosity.

“NUECES” DONORS
($1-$150)

1. Your Twitter name in a tag cloud of all those involved. This tag cloud will go on a “Contributors” page on the site.
2. Crazy good karma. The idea that thousands of people are being saved because of your generosity.

HOW TO DONATE
(It’s easier than it sounds)

1.) Go to www.charitywater.org/twestival, make your donation while being sure to select “Austin” from the dropdown.
2.) Send your email receipt to the official Tweet-for-Wells Twestival Auctioneer, Brian Buser (@brianbuser) at brianbuser(at)gmail.com.
3.) Check the blog at http://austin.twestival.com periodically. Brian will be updating the blog with the top donors as we go along. On February 9th, he will announce the winner.

We will consider donor amounts for www.austintwestival.com banner space and links well through the event. In order to get your banner up at the event though, please make all donations before February 9, 2009.

RAFFLE SPONSORSHIP
(no money required.)

Austin Twestival will feature a raffle where party goers can place tickets in boxes next to items they would like to win. We will draw from each box to pick winners. This way, any item they win is something they would actually choose. We will feature all donors in an “Raffle Donors” section of the Austin Twestival website. To submit items to our raffle, please email Debbie Cerda at snaxxx(at)gmail.com.

For items worth over $300, you will be considered a sponsor. Please consider this.

MEDIA COVERAGE BEFORE WE’VE EVEN SOLD TICKETS
This event was already covered in TechCrunch and is sponsored by Mashable, one of the biggest blogs in the world. We currently have support from the Austin Chronicle and the event is already featured in do512.com. As this is a “tweetup”, many bloggers will be there taking pictures, sending messages via Twitter, and video recording the event. It is the biggest “tweetup” on record and it just feels good to take part.

We invite you to take part of this powerful demonstration of collaboration for the sake of the common good. Please email Michelle Greer at michelle(at)michellesblog.net if you have any questions. Thank you.