I am President of Special Horses, Inc., a 501(c)3 charitable organization dedicated to helping smaller equine 501(c)3s with exposure and fundraising. While we in no way can cover all the PR and fundraising for any group, we try to help.

It started from my "Dribble Theory." Someone on the Chronicle of the Horse Forum would post about a horse in need, and I'd send in a small amount - not very much, maybe $5 or $10. But I would think, what if 50 people did that? 100? $5 is a dribble...but enough dribbles, and you've got a running river.

A chance remark from someone got me to thinking..the Chronicle Forum hosts a "Secret Santa" every December. And I thought, why not a Secret Santa for Horse Rescues? I envisioned it like a wedding registry - the group would have their wish list, someone would sign up to get that item. Great idea!

Except...I didn't have the web skills. But someone offered up her Norwegian boyfriend, who could design a site...she was a Canadian studying law in Australia, and the first version of the site was - you guessed it - in Norwegian. I learned to laboriously enter the wish lists. In my dreams, I had them organized by state, by breed - some way that anyone stumbling across the site could zone in on a group.

For all our efforts in setting up the site, that was as far as we got. My friend broke up with her Norwegian, law school beckoned, and I had a site I couldn't maintain.

So, the next year, I approached the Chronicle administrators and handled it the laborious, old-fashioned way: I started a thread, invited people to become "elves," and invited any legitimate equine 501(c)3 on the board to sign up. A few came just for that, but that first year there were about 10 groups and 3-4 "elves" per "Elf Team." I didn't even use an Excel spreadsheet.

December came and went...and not one, but several, of the groups told me that the money and items they received from Secret Santa made up the majority of their donations that month.

At first, that was exhilarating - to have made such a difference!! But then, it was sobering...if those "dribbles" were all that there was...

And so it got me to thinking, and started me along this path...