Hans Voss

Two weeks ago, MLUI was selected to participate in a fundraising challenge offered by Moosejaw and Patagonia through Crowdrise. We were thrilled to be a part, and it was great to see our good friends at the Leelanau Conservancy among the list of 20 national organizations.

Now the challenge has wrapped, and it was such an overwhelming success. We raised nearly $18,000 for our cause from more than 225 people! On behalf of everyone here at MLUI, I’d like to thank each and every one of you who donated. Thanks to you, we nabbed third place—which means we’ll receive an additional $2,000 from Moosejaw and Patagonia. Plus, our friends at Cherry Republic agreed to match any prize money, so add ANOTHER $2,000 to that.

So in total, $21,778 will support our efforts to raise awareness about threat posed by the aging oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac. It’s a threat that everyone who cares about our Great Lakes should know about. And now they will, as the money will support an extensive communications strategy to highlight the dangers while offering specific short- and long-term solutions.

We’d also like to thank Crowdrise, Moosejaw, and Patagonia for putting together this challenge. It was the perfect platform to kick off our fundraising efforts for this cause, and the friendly competition was a great motivator to spread the word. And thank you to Bob Sutherland at Cherry Republic, for his generous match that inspired even greater generosity in northern MIchigan.

Lastly, a big, well-deserved congratulations goes out to our friends and neighbors at the Leelanau Conservancy, who placed second in the challenge, raising nearly $27,000! It’s pretty amazing to see that out of the $110,000 raised by all the 20 groups in the challenge, $43,000 of that came from two small organizations in our little corner of Michigan.

Now that the dust has settled, the hard work begins. Stay tuned for news and updates about our pipeline campaign. Thanks to so many wonderful people, it’s sure to be a wonderful success.