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Using Social Media for Social Good: Announcing the results of our charity drive

10 January 2009 in Outreach by Kate | View Comments

Firstly, thank you everyone for participating in our holiday charity drive.  We really appreciate it!

We received a total of 70 comments.  I’m going to up the donation by a little bit and consider it to be 100.  So, in addition to $100 going to Kiva, we randomly picked from the comments to give another $100 to.

All of the suggestions were really great ones, but we had to choose just one.

How we chose:

We used Random.org integer generator for the results.

And the winner is:

Heifer Organization

Heifer Organization!

What are Heifer’s goals?

Heifer envisions…
A world of communities living together in peace and equitably sharing the resources of a healthy planet.

Heifer’s mission is…
To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.

Heifer’s strategy is…
To “pass on the gift.” As people share their animals’ offspring with others – along with their knowledge, resources, and skills – an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.

Heifer’s History
This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for over 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.

Part of the reason Heifer is the winner is basic math: it had a higher chance of winning since so many people find this organization a worthy one!

John Maver said:

“My cause is Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org). There is something great about donating a live animal to someone that can change their lives. I am partial to pigs myself, but it is amazing how even a rabbit can make a difference.”

Shevus said:

“I would also recommend Heifer International. The best thing about them is that they have a built in philosophy of paying it forward. Each recipient of a donation from Heifer International agrees to donate the first offspring to someone else in need.”

Laura W said:

“My second one is Heifer International. Instead of giving hungry and poor people food, Heifer provides opportunities for families to raise food and create a living for themselves. It helps people to help themselves, not too different from Kiva. So a family might obtain a trio of rabbits from Heifer and in return, the familty agrees to provide some of the baby rabbits to another family so that they too can start raising rabbits. It’s a win win situation.”

Linnet Woods said:

“The ability to reach those to whom the tiny amounts we can afford to donate mean so much is one of the things I love about the Internet. What you are doing here is really lovely and I hope it inspires many others. I would like to support Heifer International at http://www.heifer.org in common with some of your other respondents.
Thanks for thinking of this idea!”

Nancy said:

“This is an excellent effort and Kiva is a great choice. In 2009 we can all strive to do more to help others. I also support Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org) as I see it as a sustainable way to help people improve their own lives. Good luck Kate with all of Other Side’s endeavors!”

Laura Fitton said:

“Wonderful idea Kate. Kiva is terrific. I also love Heifer.org and CharityWater.org (obviously :-) ).

Happy New Year and thank you for doing this!

Warmly,
Laura”

And Fiona D said:

“I think you should donate to Heiffer. They’ve got a great program that deserves support.”

Thank you everyone for your support!

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Using Social Media for Social Good: Other Side’s contribution to charity

15 December 2008 in Outreach by Kate | View Comments

[Update: We have ended our charity run! Thank you for everyone who participated.  To see which charity will receive a donation, please go here]

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

1 Thoughtful Comment from You = 1 Other Side Dollar to Charity

Kiva Microfunds
Image via WikipediaWe

As I mentioned last week, we’re going to be doing our own social contribution for the holiday season, and we need your help!  This requires no monetary commitment, only participation.

The Play:

  1. Add a comment below with what organization or cause you’d want us to donate to.  If you’d like to offer your reason for doing so, that would be great.
  2. Next week, we will tally up the number of comments we receive.  Each comment is then worth $1.
  3. This total will be divided in two equal parts, representing two equal donations.
  4. We will choose, at random, one of the commenters causes and donate one portion to that cause.  We’ll also ask that commenter if they’d like to describe their personal reason for donating to the cause (you can choose not to if you’d like).
  5. The other portion of the total will go towards Kiva, and organization that I donate to every year.
  6. If you’d like to donate more than a comment (a dollar amount to one or both chosen charities), by all means, feel free to either use the TipJoy button below or contact me here. (The comment will still be chosen randomly for the charity!).

Why Kiva?

I’ve always been drawn to microfinancing and it’s various forms for many reasons.

  • It offers an opportunity to people who have external barriers placed on them that prohibit their ability to make a living for themselves and their family.
  • It works for the little guys.
  • Most importantly, to me, is that the process works to instill a sense of independence in the recipients that comes from owning small businesses, being responsible and accountable for their actions.  This ultimately builds stronger, more motivated individuals, stronger families and communities, and more stable environments in a way that is much more permanent and long-term.

My mom, who is incredibly thoughtful and compassionate  in terms of giving back to the community in any way that she can, gave me a “Kiva gift” for Christmas two years ago.  I thank her for bringing it to my attention.

Disclaimer 1: Kiva’s model is a loan model, which means that eventually this donation will be paid back.  I assure you that it will be continually reinvested into the organization for various entrepreneurs around the world.  I will not personally profit from this.

Disclaimer 2: There will be a limit to the amount of money that we can donate, so, if by chance we get thousands of comments, we’ll need to bring down the donation amount :-) Hopefully everyone will still participate for the cause… and we’ll still need plenty of comments!

Additionally, please feel free to pass this along or Tweet about it!

So then, what’s your cause of choice??

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Boston Social Media Breakfast 11: Social Media for Social Change

11 December 2008 in Outreach by Kate | View Comments

SMB11 - Bryan Person

SMB11 was a great departure from the regular focus on social media in business (although that’s quite helpful) Organizer Bob Collins wanted to show attendees ways in which people have used many of the tools we use each day to give back to the world.

To start out, we all got to say hello to Bryan Person (left), the original organizer of SMB, who recently moved from Boston to Austin.

We then partook in an effort by the Greater Boston Food Bank and Tyson Foods called Hunger Relief whereby we were challenged to get as many comments up on the page as possible, and with each comment, Tyson would donate food.  Within four hours, we got two truckloads secured for Eastern Massachusetts.  So cool.

The talks started out with Gradon Tripp speaking about his efforts with his organization, Social Media for Social Change.  In October he held a Tweet up Fundraiser that raised $20K for Jane Doe, Inc that raises awareness of domestic violence. SM4SC New York is planned for April, with details on recipient organization to come.

The second speaker was Frank Days, who works for First Giving. He spoke of First Giving’s social media efforts, which have included blogging, twitter, widgets, etc.  The three things that they’ve learned so far after entering the space?

  1. Think about the demographic that you’re trying to reach, and match them to the medium.  Some efforts will attract more people that just plain don’t use social media tools.
  2. For First Giving, social media has <10% adoption rate, and email is still king.  Hopefully this will increase.
  3. They’re still going to test and learn!

The last speaker was Beth Kanter, who, through her own efforts, has raised thousands of dollars for various causes through tools such as her blog, twitter, social networks etc.  She works as a trainer for non-profits on how to use technology effectively in their efforts, coaches “digital immigrants” on how to use technologies for personal use, and basically does awesome work for people who need help.  I’m not going to begin so explain everything, so please visit her blog for more.

Two other efforts that were mentioned were Alicia’s Staley Foundation, which “support[s] cancer patients and their families undergoing treatment at Tufts Medical Center through education, advocacy, and immediate financial assistance,” and my own personal plug for DigiActive, which I talk about here.

A great session, and please be posted for Other Side’s own social media push for the holidays.  I had waited until this week to do it in conjunction with SMB11.  Coming soon!

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