November last year, I ran a Black Friday Sale. As an experiment, not at all sure what to expect.

I got to admit, I was pleasantly surprised and at that time I strongly considered making it a yearly tradition.

But I changed my mind. I’ll still do something similar during November. It’ll be a kind of hybrid Black Friday Sale plus charity drive. I call it: “Black Friday Charity”.

How will that work?

For me as the seller, it’s the same as a normal Black Friday Sale: Any product that normally sells for a hundred bucks brings in only fifty dollars when bought anywhere in November. I still give up half my income, so to say.

For you as the buyer, there’s a difference. And that’s because the savings are not passed to you, but to charity. You still pay the same hundred dollars for that product as you would today, but when you buy it in November, then half of that is a contribution to charity.

Privilege check

A very kind and wise good friend has in her subtle ways taught me to always think about privilege, and especially from various angles. I think you know who you are … (((thanks))).

For me, and probably many of you, a hundred dollars for almost three hours of high quality training video is almost a no-brainer. You consider whether it’s useful to you and if the answer is yes then the price won’t hold you back.

But that’s privilege.

Some live in countries where the value of a hundred dollar is totally different from here. It might be a significant amount of one’s monthly salary, or even multiple salaries. Some have through whatever reason fallen into hardship and need to struggle to come by. If you are one like this, if you were watching this space in the hope to see a discount because you feel you need this training to claw yourself ahead but can’t afford to pay full price, then this Black Friday Charity initiative hits you unfairly.

No worries. If this describes you, then please send me an email at hugo@juti.nl, with a short description of what block(s) you would have bought if they were discounted, and how that will help you, and I am sure we can work something out.

The Charity

I assume that you do want to know how your charity donation will be used. I spent a lot of time to come up with what I consider to be the perfect choice.

The starting point was easy. For obvious reasons, I wanted the charity to be related to leukemia. But I wanted it specifically to benefit future patients. And that made me choose to look for a good charity, that has to be exceptionally well run (no wasting our money!!), and that focuses on (and most important, spends most or all of its funds on) research into leukemia and its treatment.

The one charity that I found to best match those requirements is the Leukemia Research Foundation. You can check their ratings on the Charity Navigator site. I have full confidence that the proceeds of this Black Friday Charity event, wither just a few hundred or running into thousands, will be put to excellent use by this foundation.

Take my money!

I hope you’re as hyped about this as I am. And yet you will have to wait. It’s a Black Friday Charity, after all. And we all know that Black Fridays are exactly the month November. So don’t do anything yet, sit tight, hang on to that money.

And then, somewhere during the month of November, navigate to https://sqlserverfast.com/video and scroll down to see the available video courses you can buy. (Or you can just quickly go to the quick links page to save some scrolling). You can buy individual episodes, but I recommend buying entire blocks as that’s more value for money. You will need to have a Vimeo account, or create one. Make a free account, do not upgrade to paid, those tiers are only for creators.

I do really hope that, even those who decide to buy my courses just to support charity, will take the time to check them out. I believe there’s something of use in there for almost everyone. Or at least almost everyone who deals with SQL Server on a professional level.

What about discount codes?

I regularly distribute discount codes for my videos, through various channels. Some of those codes are only valid for a set period of time. Others are indefinite.

What if you have such a code? How does that interact with Black Friday Charity? That’s actually quite simple and I’ll show using an example.

Let’s say you have a 15% discount code. During November, you purchase a hundred dollar product to which the code applies. During checkout you enter the code and the amount due is reduced to $85. You pay and the product is yours.

In my sales report I see that $85 was spent. That means that I add 50% of that, $42.50, to the total donation for charity.

With or without code, half of all you spend in November goes to charity. Simple as that!

Feedback?

Please let me know in the comments below whether my idea sucks, is great, or somewhere in between, and why. Feel free to share suggestions or ask questions. I cannot promise I’ll always respond immediately, nor that I’ll respond individually to all comments. But I will try.