I'd say leave everything behind for few days, go find someone who is in need of help and simply help them without expecting anything in return. It could be a poor old lady working in a grocery store hurting her back just to make few bucks or some parent worried about their dying kid.....just go out there and help someone in need of help.

Thank you very much. I'll try them.

Lets say I need to raise about $500k; how does the terms look like? If this question is already discussed, could you please point me to the url?

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/06/how-to-learn-abo... gives an overview of term sheets.

For numerical term sheet examples see http://thefunded.com

thank you Amund.