Posts tagged: Charity
Thanks to a friend for suggesting this week’s Friday PSA . . . Sharing Connections located in Chicago’s western suburbs.
With a vision to provide every baby with a bed to be tucked into, Leeanne McGrath founded the organization. Today, Sharing Connections collects and distributes furnishings to families in need from a warehouse. Here’s how to help Sharing Connections with a donation of time, furniture or financial support.
In researching a charity for the Friday PSA, I found the PSA Research Center, a site managed by Goodwill Communications. I grabbed the banner ad from the company’s site, which is a valuable creative and marketing resource both for non-profits and companies who want to partner with them.
Have a charity you’d like to see featured as a Friday PSA? Leave a suggestion in the comment box with the URL.
Tomorrow I’m going back to school at the front of a college class.
I’ll be teaching a 300 level marketing execution class for non-profits in The Academy for Excellence at College of DuPage.
When the scheduled instructor moved out of state, I got a call to step in a few weeks before the class started. I took some time deciding whether or not I wanted to invest prep time and teaching time in a job that pays, well, the going rate for a beginning community college instructor.
My motivation for accepting wasn’t the money. And, I have to admit I had a mild anxiety attack filling out my first job application in over 20 years.
I’m curious about what’s going on in the non-profit world. And, I want to test my systems and processes in a real-life lab. But more than that, I’m looking forward to seeing if I still have what it takes to teach and train. After all, when I left the corporate world 17 years ago to found my company, I left as a national sales trainer. I loved my clients, but I didn’t care for the commitment: 40% travel.
So, while I’ve made occassional presentations and speeches here and there, this assignment will put me in contact with a group of students whose progress I can track, nurture and observe at least for the four weeks we’re together. Watch for posts on our collective progress. And, if you have ideas or tips to share please leave them in the comment box.
An online charity event to benefit Unitus called Internet Marketers Against Poverty, is this week’s Friday PSA. Today, we’ll cover the mission as well as what I like about this campaign.
Campaign Mission: Fund Global Entrepreneurs
About Unitus . . .
Who they serve: the three billion people living on less than $2/day
How they serve: provide access to capital for micro-entrepreneurs
How your dollars go to work: $5.50 funds one entrepreneur
Portfolio: reaches over 2.2 million families through 17 partners in Argentina, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico and the Philippines
Goal: reach over 15 million of the word’s working poor by 2010
Charity Navigator Rating: 4 stars
Recognition: Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Award, 2005, 2006
Online Media Center: blog, press releases, new articles, videos, downloads, a press center and an enewsletter subscription
About the Campaign . . .
Launched just hours ago, the IM Against Poverty online charity live event runs through September 16, 2007. When Harris Fellman asked me to contribute a donation to the cause, I joined over 100 internet marketers who agreed to giveaway their products whenever someone makes a donation to Unitus online from September 13-16, 2007.
What I like about this online charity event campaign:
- missions match: internet marketers helping other entrepreneurs start their businesses
- no opt-ins for giveaways, even though I pick some extra subscribers when I participate in these giveaways, typically they’re the grab and go kind
- invites Internet marketers to join together in a community to make a global impact
- great exposure for the charity to an internet based group of donors they may not have been able to reach otherwise
- videos convey the story of the charity and the businesses involved
- Internet marketers get a link to their site; you get traffic and exposure for everyone who visits
- tracks donations online so you can follow progress
- matching donations from Shawn Casey double your contribution immediately
- 3 donation levels: $55, $110 and $275 each come with a package of bonuses
- each $5.50 donation funds one entrepreneur; even at the lowest level you’re helping 10 people
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Although I don’t often share personal messages to my ezine subscribers [get a backstage pass to what's on my mind], today I’m posting an excerpt from this week’s edition of MTN News as background for how I decided to come up with the Friday PSA Feature. What I left out in my ezine message is the project I was working on – “Buzz 41″ – an ezine communication to connect the district’s five schools with parents, staff, the community and the media – considered quite an advanced tactic for schools in 2001 . . .
September 13, 2007
Greetings!
It’s two days and six years past
September1 11, 2001. I’m the first
one to say it’s time for speakers,
marketers, etc. to stop mentioning
the date in their presentations and
publications.
For two reasons: it’s a day that bears
emotional significance that distracts
your audience’s attention and the
reference is overdone.
Why did I just break my own rule?
Two days ago, I got an email from a
colleague who was with me that morning
reminding me of our 9/11 experience.
Our client at the time was the local school
district. We had a meeting scheduled with
them for September 11 at 9:00 a.m. -
minutes my first grader, fourth grader and
seventh grader went off to school.
Being in the school district’s headquarters
and on the emergency communication
response team seemed the only natural
place for me to be at the time.
And, yet we were . . .
clueless, helpless, but hope-full.
A few weeks afterwards, I got an assignment
to photograph the cover and interior images for
the district’s annual report.
My subjects?
First graders releasing butterflies and
fifth graders replanting a prairie. Healing
and new life took the place of desperation.
Recalling that day and the few weeks
afterwards took me back to an emotional
spot I hadn’t visited in awhile.
Truth is, most days I’m so blessed and grateful
that I don’t even begin to realize how well off
we are in the U.S.
So, I’m starting a new Public Service
Announcement [PSA] feature. Every Friday
on my blog, I’ll talk about a charity and give
them free space. Most of the time, I’ll write
the PSA, but if they have one ready to go,
I’ll use that.
This week’s PSA is Unitus, a charity dedicated
to ending poverty worldwide by funding micro
businesses.
From September 13-16, you can contribute
directly to a cause that’s dedicated to
end world poverty.
Watch for more information tomorrow or
take a few minutes and watch the video now.