Independent, and supported by you.
DearestEllie is a private family memory archive: a free place where families preserve who someone is — their voice, their stories, their ordinary days — while there is time to ask, and where remembrance is never gated by payment.
Status
DearestEllie, Wilmington, North Carolina
Michael Davis, Wilmington, North Carolina
DearestEllie is an independent service operated by Michael Davis in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is not a 501(c)(3) organization.
DearestEllie is supported by voluntary contributions and sponsors. Contributions are not tax-deductible charitable donations.
Built and run by its founder, Michael Davis. Voluntary contributions and sponsors keep it running and compensate the work of running it. Supporters receive recognition only — never access to any family's data or content, and never influence over any family's archive.
What support covers
Voluntary contributions and sponsorships pay for hosting and storage, ongoing development, and the work of running DearestEllie — including compensating its operator. That is the whole model: families who can help, help; every family's archive stays free regardless.
Supporters and sponsors receive recognition only. Support never buys access to any family's data or content, and never buys influence over any family's archive — that rule is written into our guiding principles and enforced like the rest of them.
For organizations
Hospices, libraries, senior centers, and other organizations can sponsor free access for the families they serve. The short tour:
- Our programs — who we serve and how.
- Impact — live counts from the service, honestly small while we are young.
- Preservation & data longevity — what happens to families' memories, in every future.
- Accessibility — our WCAG 2.1 AA commitment.
- Partners — the organizations we work alongside.
- Leadership — who runs the service and how to reach him.
- Press kit — boilerplate, fast facts, and brand.