Thanks, y’all – best Web Challenge ever (or until next time)

Nerds, judges, nonprofits, well-wishers, sponsors, event-staff volunteers, caffeine…thanks for playing your part in enabling about half-a-million dollars worth of professional web development services to be freely given 18 nonprofits who’ll pay it forward many times over in services delivered to their communities. Blanket statements of thanks are warm and fuzzy, but they don’t sufficiently cover all who helped make the 2011 Twin Cities Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge the best ever. Time to name names.

Thanks, Senator Al Franken, for your gracious and good-humored visit. Thanks also to Tron Guy for likewise fitting right in.

We can’t sufficiently thank sponsors Benchmark Learning, TST Media and VISI for stepping up to support this event and its participants in their own meaningful ways. Benchmark Learning will again donate training to nonprofits and hosted our pre-Challenge speed-dating mixer. As they have since year one, VISI offered each nonprofit a year of free web hosting.TST Media, along with winning, donated NGIN, it’s proprietary suite of online tools, and lifetime support to Bloomington United for Youth.

Our in-kind supporters were plentiful and indeed kind, and we thank: Arthouse; Celarity, Chowgirls; CleverKate; CobornsDelivers; Ergotron; Gyropolis; HalloweenCostumes.com: Izzy’s Ice Cream Cafe; Jimmy Johns; Kowalski’s; La Belle Crepe; The Lacek Group; Northern Brewer; Peace Coffee; Pizza Luce’; Q.Cumbers; Solspace; ThinkGeek; Adam Turman; Unwind Within Massage; 1Password.

Big thanks to Nerdery founders Mike Derheim and Mike Schmidt for leading the kind of company where Mark Hurlburt’s mad-enough-to-work idea for a nonprofit nerdathon is embraced by all who work/play at The Nerdery. Beyond the dev team vols, plenty of other Nerdery staffers and friends came and stayed and helped keep things running: Jessica Mogen, Matt Tonak, Jodi Chromey, Dave Kam, Dave Bucklin, Karsten Lundquist, Mike Johnson, Anand Gona, Ericka Kimball, Max Kimball, Jaycie Kimball, Ben Kimball, Kaya Davis, Will Rees, Terri Dahlberg, Ginger Sorvari Bucklin, Larry Bucklin, Mary Ann Bucklin, Kai Esbensen, Annette Johnson, Eric Myers, Chelsea Mars, John Mathiassen, Jaeson Welch, Jim Grant, Brendan Beckham, Chelsey Mona, Hilary Heinz, Cassi Hanson, John O’Neill, Sean Latterner, Caleb Newby, Katie O’Neill, Matt Pacyga, Eve Poeschl, Ali Karbassi, Angela Norlen, Nick Teitz, John Shimek, Mike and Stephanie Woods, Jamie Lindquist, Greg Wurm, Bill Brakeman, Mike Derheim and Amanda Derheim, Mike and Heidi Schmidt, John Krenz, Gillian Reynolds, Ryan Kucera, Phillip Brand, Tom O’Neill, Mitch Buckland, Robert Savian, Tor Swanson, Sheryl Rosati and Amanda Anderson.

For letting us again rock-star their fine facility, we thank our hosts at the U of M Continuing Education Conference Center us, with particular thanks to Ken Gay, Mike Wybierala, Leslie Berry and Wendy Hanson.

Thanks again and again to the judges who picked 18 nonprofits from a pool of 46, and assessed the work of 18 development teams:

• Christine Durand, communication director, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits
• Christian Erickson, partner, Zeus Jones
• Dan Grigsby, founder, Drivertrain
• Dana Nelson, executive director, GiveMN.org

A very special thank you goes out to anyone I may have fool-heartedly forgotten. C’mere, you…