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Client

Michael Merrell, Johnson School, Cornell University
email: mjm60@cornell.edu
phone:  603-781-9387

Tickets for Military Non-Profit

Objective

My proposal is to build a web-based non-profit organization that will help connect military members (both current and retired) with people who have tickets to sporting events that they cannot attend.  The site will work similar to craigslist in that it will be primarily a networking site to connect two parties; after the connection is made, the onus is on the two parties to work out the exchange.  The website will not allow selling of tickets in any manner; it is a platform for people to donate their tickets to military members as a way of thanking them for their service to this country.

I envision the site broken up along one major divide: those looking to donate tickets and those looking to find tickets (military members).  After that I think it would be best to segregate the site based on sporting league, town, and date of event.  Of course, ease of use and navigation will be paramount to make the site available to as many people as possible.  This can be defined further later by the project team.

This is how I picture the site working:

1. Someone with a ticket to a sporting event goes to the site and follows links to the correct donation spot (based on location, date, etc).
2. There they enter their email and some information about the tickets.  The email address will be kept confidential by the site and a remailer address will be designated for the posting.
3. A military member looking for a ticket goes to the site and follows links to the correct page for finding a ticket to an event (again based on location, date, etc). 
4. If tickets are found, the military member can contact the donor through the remailer address.  The military member can discuss who he/she is, how he/she has served the country, etc.
5. The donor can decide if and to whom he would like to donate his tickets, and they can arrange for the transfer of the tickets.

The site will be based primarily on the five major sporting leagues, Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Soccer (MLS) initially.  Depending on the success of the site, college athletics and other events may be added in the future.

The website will have some advertising, probably provided by Google Ads for ease of use, which will hopefully pay for the domain name and any small upkeep costs.  Any revenue above the costs of operating the site will be donated to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  It is possible that advertising revenue will never cover the costs of the website; in this case, Michael Merrell will pay the upkeep cost himself (if a partner cannot be found) for at least one year to gage the usefulness of the site and its impact.