It looked like Phoenix Rising was toast; we had dropped from 86th on Sept 10th to 136th and then all the way to 174th and had a meager 40 vote cushion with a day and a half to go……and then the ME/CFS Community erupted – propelling us all the way up to 133rd and allowing us to win $10,000. It was an amazing jump and we can’t thank the ME/CFS Community enough for your efforts.
NIDA’s story was less dramatic but in the end they were on the edge, too, at 87th place in the last day with just a 9 place cushion before they fell into the $10,000 slot. Again the ME/CFS community – from Norway and Sweden to Australia to the US – jumped in, and solidified NIDA’s position in the last frantic hours of voting bringing them $20,000 for the exciting OMI-MERIT project that you’ll hopefully be hearing about soon in these pages.
Next Year – In the past three years, Chase has poured about $200,000 into the ME/CFS community’s coffers…With the Chase rules this year limiting the number of votes that could be cast it was a tough year for the smaller non-profits. Next year, though, Phoenix Rising, as it has done in the past two years, will use its resources to bring Chase money to more well-deserving chronic fatigue syndrome non-profits. We’re committed to keeping the tradition of at least two ME/CFS organizations bringing home the bucks come Chase time and we’ve already come up with some new ideas :)
Thanks again for your help…