[EDEQUITY] Girl site looking for a home

From: Isabel Walcott (isabel@smartgirl.com)
Date: Mon Dec 18 2000 - 17:04:08 EST


Hi everyone,

I have decided to find a home for SmartGirl.com, the site I have been
running as a business since 1996. I'd like to present the site as a major
donation to a suitable established large non-profit or educational
institution. Ongoing annual upkeep costs are between $100 and $200K. The
responsibility for raising the grants to cover annual upkeep will lie with
the parent organization, although I can help.

I am particularly interested in speaking with universities that are able to
work well interdepartmental level. The site can be used to produce
research on girls' issues and be a mouthpiece to speak to our 100,000-girl
community on issues like physical and emotional health, as well as teaching
math (analyzing survey data), technology (making and running the site) and
literacy (selecting editing audience submissions for publication). It's
understood, however, that not all organizations would be able to keep all
aspects of the website operational, and once the donation has been made the
parent organization can decide how to change the content of the site at
will.

The website has never had banner advertising and has always been kept
edited and partent-friendly. We have approximately 20,000 pages of
content, all written by our audience of teenage girls. We do not
discriminate against any political persuasion, we welcome girls of all
opinions, and from the beginning we have not shown pictures of girls on the
site, in an effort to avoid alienating any girl who doesn't look like the
girl in the picture. Our operating philosophy has always been to give
girls a place to discuss what's important to them -- so you'll see
discussion of celebrities and make-up on our site as well as discussions of
eating disorders and depression. Our motto is "Smart girls decide for
themselves".

We're already speaking with one university and several organizations for
girls, and we will make our decision based on who we think can provide the
best home for this enduringly popular, minimally-commercial, simple site
where girls have been expressing themselves for over four years.

If you have a contact name of someone who might be interested, please email
me at isabel@smartgirl.com.

Thank you,
Isabel Walcott
President and Founder
SmartGirl Internette Inc.



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