I feel like I just took a happy, laughing, running leap into the deep end. And only now that I’m here do I realize why this part of the pool is such a challenge. So what do you do when you’re in over your head? You reach out for help, of course.

Many of you know that my business partner (J. Money) and I launched a new project on January 1st: Love Drop. Each month we work to change the lives of one family or individual by bringing community together around the concept of micro-giving. Last month we were able to do some amazing things for Jill, a single mom in Chicago whose family had become homeless for the second time. If you’d like to learn more about that story, you can find it here.

Love Drop can be labeled as social entrepreneurship, which means it’s a (barely) for-profit business – we take out just enough from the contributions to pay taxes and run operations. It makes enough to be sustainable so we can continue to do it without going into debt. We love what we do, and we are honored to be a part of these families’ lives each month.

In January we brought in around $5,000, of which we gave Jill around $2,500, as well as many other gifts of goods and services from team members all over the world. For this month, February, we chose a recipient family that really, really touched our hearts, and in doing so we took on a challenge that is well beyond the strength of our team at the moment.

This family lives in my own city of Milwaukee, which I’m really excited about. Here’s the story in a nutshell: The Rewolinski family consists of a mom, a dad, and three children. The two older boys (Ethan, 7 and Alex, 6) are autistic and need constant attention. The family has been trying to obtain a specially trained service dog to help with the boys . . . especially to stay near Alex, who will attempt to run away at any time. They’re all ready to have a dog placed in their home by a wonderful organization called 4 Paws for Ability. I know it’s a fantastic organization because J. and I took a trip down to Ohio to inspect the facility and make sure it was awesome (which it was).

4 Paws works with the family to place a dog in their home, free of charge and with no waiting list. The one thing the family must agree to do is provide $13,000 worth of fundraising for 4 Paws, which is a non-profit organization.

And that’s where Love Drop comes in.

We made it our goal this month to help them raise the $13,000 necessary to get them started training with their dog and get it placed in their home as soon as possible. Great goal, powerful story, amazing thing our community can help out with this month, right? Right. Except with our business model, we’d have to bring in double that revenue in the form of contributions to make it happen. And we’re simply not there yet – we just launched this project a month ago, and our membership is still small.

Also, neither J. nor I have ever done any kind of fundraising before. Ever. You see, usually we keep it simple, and choose to work with those that we can easily help within the framework of our project. Bringing in $5,000 – not too hard. Bringing in 5 times that – ridiculously tough.

And since we help a new family each month, we have very little time to bring in the money. In this case, it means that we only have until February 28th to raise enough money to get this done. I think we’ve brought in close to $2,000 in the first week, which is good, but not nearly enough.

Before I tell you what we’ve decided to do about this situation, I want you to meet the family, and especially the two boys we’ll be helping. Alex is in the black shirt, and Ethan is the one with the full head of hair. Check out the video below to take a peek into their home. If you don’t have much time, skip to the last two minutes or so.

Just so you know, the way Love Drop works is that at the end of every month, J. and I literally go visit the family at their home and present them with everything that the community came together to help out with for the month. The Rewolinski’s live in my hometown of Milwaukee, just a few miles from me, and I don’t want to go to their house on February 26th and tell them that our community and our city could not do enough to help them get their dog. I want to go in there happy and confident, knowing that this city and our national network came together to do something incredible this month, something that will quite literally change their lives.

J. and I talked about it, and we realized that we aren’t going to be able to get this dog if we do things the normal way. But we do think there’s a way to bring in $13,000 if we work our tails off and have a lot of help from individuals and small businesses, especially those in the local (Milwaukee) community.

So here’s what we’re doing about it: We’re not going to take any money for taxes or operations for Love Drop this month – we’re going to funnel all of that money directly towards fundraising for 4 Paws so we can help this family get their dog. Every penny that we get this month will go towards the $13,000 needed for the service dog. Love Drop can take a hit in February . . . Ethan and Alex can’t.

There’s no way we can do this alone, though. We really, really need your help to get it done in such a short timeframe. So we’re asking you to pitch in however you can for Ethan and Alex. Here’s what you can do:

1) Give money through Love Drop
You can do this quickly and easily on our site here: http://www.lovedrop.us/get-involved. There are directions provided to subscribe monthly via PayPal, to do a one-time donation via PayPal, or give by credit card or physical check. We will make sure that everything we get this month (up to $13,000) goes straight over to 4 Paws and is accounted for correctly. If you’re an individual or business that gives a significant amount, we will include your information on our “Friends of Ethan and Alex” page here.

2) Give money directly to 4 Paws
If you want to make a larger, tax-deductible donation directly to 4 Paws, you can do so here: http://www.4pawsforability.org/donation.html. (Just make very sure to note that the money goes toward the Alex Rewolinski account.)

3) Spread the word
If you can’t help out financially, please help us spread the word this month by sharing this blog post with your network, or by sharing the story on Facebook or Twitter using the buttons at the top of the Love Drop homepage. If you have a blog, you can also join our Blogger Network, and we’ll send you an email with free content that you can copy/paste to share this story with your readers.

So that’s what I’m focusing all my energy on this month, guys. I’m not gonna lie – it feels really weird to write all this and ask for money and help from you. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it puts me in a really new and uncertain situation. But the fact of the matter is, my discomfort this month is nothing compared to what this family deals with on an daily basis, and if I can spend all my time in February making sure we come together to help change their lives, then I’m happy to do it. Yes, I’m in over my head – but I wouldn’t have it any other way right now.

I know this was a really long post, and I thank you all for reading and being a part of such a large group of caring people.

J. and I really want to make this happen for the Rewolinski’s this month. Thank you for helping us out – we truly appreciate it.

Much love,
Nate