A new fund-raising initiative is about to launch: Seeds of Kindness: Shine Together! Like our previous iterations of Seeds of Kindness, this fourth one is going to reach out through multiple conventions, pony fandom livestreams, giveaways, and other spectacular events all throughout 2015. This year, we are pleased to kick off this fund-raiser for the Against Malaria Foundation with our fifth charity album: Shine Together.

Shine Together Release Party

Saturday, December 20, 2014, at 6 p.m. EST (11 p.m. UTC)

on events.yoursiblings.org

The album drops on December 20, and we are having a livestream party hosted by Ponyville FM to celebrate! For the limited time of the stream, an anonymous donor has agreed to match all donations up to $1,000, so tune in and donate, and it’ll count double!

The album. Shine Together is the culmination of months of effort on the part of many dedicated fandom musicians. Featuring twenty-two tracks of folk, rock, orchestral, and electronic jams recorded by charity album veterans and new blood alike, Shine Together offers over an hour of uplifting tunes.

We’re offering up this and our previous four albums for any donation at all that you feel appropriate. Because we understand that not everyone is able to donate, the album download will be freely available—a thank you to the fandom for its years of support, and a goodwill gesture to facilitate donations toward the Against Malaria Foundation.

Here, a preview of the album.

The charity. Half the world’s population is at risk of malaria. In 2012, about 627,000 people died of the disease, the equivalent of four Boeing 747 crashing every day with no survivors. On average, one person dies of malaria every minute. (WHO 2013) This has to stop.

Long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) are the most cost-effective means of malaria prevention. They protect physically against mosquitoes and also kill any that try to find gaps or rents in the nets. They also protect against dengue fever, yellow fever, and forms of encephalitis.

The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) supports local distributors by funding the hundreds of thousands of nets that are needed in LLIN distributions. It stands out because of its strong commitment to transparency and self-evaluation. AMF is one of the most provably effective charities in the world.

All the money donated to Seeds of Kindness goes directly to AMF, who will use it exclusively to buy LLINs. Donations are tax-deductible in the US, Canada, and most of Western Europe. Each donation will be publicly allocated to a specific distribution, and extensive tracking, predistribution, and postdistribution reports will be published online.

For further motivation why you should donate and why you should donate specifically to AMF, here a TED talk by Peter Singer and a TEDx talk by Toby Ord, explaining effective altruism.

The newsletter. To always keep you posted of our latest charity campaigns, please visit our website and subscribe to our newsletter in the sidebar. If you’re already subscribed but didn’t get our last announcement of this event, please check your spam folder, mark the newsletter “not spam,” and add us to your contacts to be sure that it won’t get filtered again. Thank you!