All outbound orphan letters have been sent.
We had a great letter writing month! Approx. 75 letters were created and they seemed to be very high quality!
Thanks everyone!
It had been mentioned in the past that at some point we might look into having one individual accept the responsibility to write to a specific orphan in an exclusive manner so as to foster a relationship between the two as opposed to the ad-hoc system that is in place where (very likely) each orphan will receive letters from multiple voices but not building a relationship. The normal intent of the letter writing is not just that the recipient gets mail, but rather that the sender begins to learn more about the recipient and their situation.
Is there any way to discuss this in more detail or implement it in the near future?
Yes, we can add the feature to the pool soon.
I think where we stopped is trying to figure out when we should put a child back up on the adoption list (after the sponsor is derelict in letter writing duties and does nothing).
So I think we will have a 'letter writing adoption list' of available children to be adopted (this would currently be all of them) , then a pool user may adopt-a-child for letter writing responsibilities. Once they pick the child the 'account' page would show who they are responsible for.
If they fail to write a letter within say: 60 days, for example, the child would be stripped from them and put back in the pool (in the adoption list).
I suppose thats all we really need. The children that are adopted wont be in the general letter writing list.
Maybe we send a reminder warning email after 30 days of inactivity reminding them they must write a letter within 30 days or lose the child.