THANK YOU

The OBA Indiegogo campaign just ended. Regrettably, we fell far short of achieving our goal of $50,000 to jumpstart the evolution of Our Black Ancestry into a subscriber based destination for African Americans seeking to discover ancestral roots in slavery.

To say that I am disappointed would be an understatement…. I thought that — surely — with 6000+ website hits per month and 1700+ souls on OBA Facebook pages, we would raise far in excess of what we did. (Imagine… if only all of those hits/members had contributed $25 each, we would have exceeded our financial goal four-fold = $200,000.) 

I can’t help but reference the fact that IndieGoGo has served over 100,000 projects  in 196 countries with successful projects ranging from the sublime (building housing, schools and wells) to the ridiculous (replacing somebody’s tooth).

I don’t want to engage in a “sour grapes” diatribe, but I do want to point out how mystified I am that the OBA campaign achieved such dismal results. Did we write our pitch wrong? Did we overestimate the level of interest? Did we underestimate the effect of a bad economy on people’s ability to contribute to meaningful causes? Or is genealogy just not a popular enough subject in the African American community? Are we satisfied with the existing “mega-providers” and just don’t care about supporting our own? (If you have an answer, I would really like to hear it.)

The GOOD NEWS is that the work of OBA will NOT STOP. 

To the 29 people who contributed to our campaign …. We THANK YOU will all our hearts.

We will use the $1001 we raised to pay hosting fees to the service provider of the OBA website for another year.

Beyond that, we are still solid with a partner who will digitize family records at no cost. (The first batch — HAIRSTON plantation ledgers — will be sent to them in a couple of weeks.) We also have a major supporter who initially promised to match public donations but has agreed (in spite of our dismal results) to move forward in funding the creation of a prototype site.

In the final analysis, I remain convinced in my heart that OBA’s work is blessed by the ancestors. As the founder and webmaster, I will never stop working to empower our future by honoring our past — discovering the dreamers who dreamed a better world for you and me.

A luta continua.