I am reading a book by Dave Evans, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, because I am trying to get up to speed on using Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media for business purposes.  Wow - what a lot to learn!!  The exercise for Day One involves reviewing blogs and wikis to learn about them.  One of the examples given was the wiki for One Laptop per Child (ONLP).  I had heard of the program before but really did not know much about it.

According to the wiki, the mission of OLPC is “One Laptop per Child creates educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.”

The website gave the following update: “OLPC launched its second Give One, Get One (”G1G1″) program on November 17, 2008, following last year’s popular program which supported the production of over 150,000 XOs. This year the XO laptops will be shipped to donors through Amazon.com, and the program includes Europe. Visit laptop.org/xo.”

For $199, you can give a child in a developing country a laptop.  The Amazon page says:”Why give a laptop to a child in the emerging world? If you replace the word “laptop” with “education” the answer becomes clear. You don’t wait to educate until all other challenges are resolved. You educate at the same time because it’s such an important part of all the other solutions.  The XO laptop was designed especially for children. So no matter who they are or where they live, this computer has the perfect features and software to get them excited about learning. Just imagine how the world would change if every child had the tools to unleash their full potential.”

What a great project and such a low “ticket price.”  Check it out at www.laptop.org and perhaps your business can join the effort and give the gift of education. 

…And I still don’t really get wikis…

The whole social media thing is mind boggling to me!  I did not pay much attention initially because it seemed more social as opposed to business oriented.  Now I am hearing about the business applications all the time!  So…I spent a lot of time this week trying to figure out Facebook and Twitter as ways to get the word out about my work and the resources that I offer for both business and nonprofits as well as be in contact with people of like mind. 

I started a group on Facebook called Business Philanthropy - Do Good AND Do Well.  The purpose of this group will be to “share ideas with other entrepreneurs and small and mid-market business owners and executives who like you are committed to business social responsibility and who want to run more effective business philanthropy programs. Share ideas and learn about the many ways your company can support local and global nonprofits through strategic contributions (time, dollars, and inkind) and commerce to make a real difference in the community and grow your business.”

So please join the group and get in on the discussion!

Strategic Partnerships with Businesses

Got a little time - want to help an emerging entrepreneur from the comfort of your own office?  Today I got an email from MicroMentor seeking new mentors.  MicroMentor is a nonprofit program that connects emerging entrepreneurs with volunteer business professionals in mentoring relationships.

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I got an email today from Hands Up Holidays.  They found my site and requested to be linked with me.  So I went to their site to check them out and I REALLY like what they are doing!

Hands Up Holidays is a travel company based in London that combines eco-sightseeing with a meaningful taste of volunteering. Their website says their volunteer adventures ”are for you if:

• you are interested in having a break, want to explore a destination, and also give something back to a local community.
• you value meaningful interaction with other cultures - achieved through the medium of volunteering.
• you value small group or tailor-made sustainable tourism practices that directly benefit local communities.
• you do not have specific skills, but have a lot of enthusiasm and a positive attitude (OR if you do have specific skills, we will match your skills where possible.”

Sounds great to me.  I especially liked that they say, “It is our hope that after experiencing a Hands Up Holiday voluntourism trip, you will feel inspired to  volunteer for a longer period somewhere (even in your home town), or become a lifelong advocate or donor for the Community Development project you got involved with.”

Hands Up Holidays also offers corporate trips that blend both community service with relaxation or adventure. “This works well for companies that are seeking to both reward employees and also improve their Corporate Social Responsibility profile; ideal for:
- Incentive trips
- Team building trips

These trips are formulated after close consultation with your Senior Management and HR regarding the goals for your organisation.

Some of the benefits of such a trip for your company include:
- Higher staff motivation and employee loyalty.
- Social image enhancement of your company.
- Measurable results with a tailor-made project (we can include a team building component as well).
- Contribution to a better world.”

Hands Up Holidays is a founding member of the Ethical Tour Operators Group, part of Tourism Concern that is committed to sustainable tourism that benefits local communities and the environment.

I am looking for a great adventure for my 50th birthday later this year…I will definitely check them out as an option!  You should too!  Click here for their eBrochure.

Over the weekend I was in San Francisco attending Brendon Burchard’s Nonprofit & Corporate Partnership Seminar.  It was intense - over 27 hours of training in 3 days - but VERY good.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to partner with businesses and/or nonprofits - especially the big ones!

I first heard of Brendon at Christine Comaford-Lynch’s Rules for Renegades Summit in Irvine, CA last spring.  Brendon was one of her speakers and the main reason I chose to attend her Summit.  I was intrigued to hear Brendon speak as I had never heard of him before and wanted to learn more about his approach to partnerships because of my own work in this area.  Well…he was certainly high energy, a great speaker…and he had great content.  He talks about partnerships at the graduate level and uses business/marketing speak while doing it.  I knew I could learn a lot from him so signed up for the 3 day intensive.  It did not disappoint!

Brendon is his own best example of leveraging partnerships to grow his business exponentially over the past three years.  He wrote a great book, Life’s Golden Ticket, which I have read and really enjoyed.  And the level of strategy he developed to launch and grow book sales is impressive.  He established partnerships with three major nonprofits - Junior Achievement, Kiwwanis, and the YMCA - serving over 30 million people.  To oversimplify it, he offered them a percentage of his book sales in return for leveraging their distribution networks.  And that’s just where it starts - he speaks for them and about them, has helped develop leadership curriculum, has helped them develop partnerships with each other, and the list goes on and on.  His partners love him and he is one of their strongest promoters.  It has been win-win-win-win…..

If you want to do high level partnerships, this seminar is a must!

This weekend, I attended Christine Comaford-Lynch’s first Rules for Renegades Summit in Irvine, CA.   It was an inspiring event with world class trainers and over 200 business people in attendance.  One of the trainers that I most appreciated was Alex Mandossian - a marketing guru with many fabulous tips and strategies.  As a trainer myself, I enjoyed his energy, presentation style, and use of visuals and handouts in addition to the content.  As a new member of his “fan club”, I bought his Stick Strategies Program to learn how to develop new ways to engage prospects and customers in my business.  Alex also has a teleclass program on Virtual Book Tour Secrets that started yesterday that I was lucky enough to get in to learn cutting edge ways to promote my book, Business Philanthropy: How Smart Companies Give Back, which will be published this fall. 

I first heard about Alex from Christine Kloser, of Love Your Life Publishing and the Get Your Book Done Program.  Christine is my book coach and will be publishing my book.  Christine’s will be promoting her new book, the Freedom Formula, through a Virtual Book Tour that Alex is helping her with. 

Doing some research, I learned about Alex’s SmartStartGiving micro-giving program to benefit Kiva. According to the email I received after signing up for notification about future SmartStartGiving calls, “SmartStartGiving (SSG) is a consortium of micro-fundraisers with the objective to become the organization that funds the most Kiva small businesses in 2008.  The collective aim of SSG is to utilize the leverage of micro-fundraising to empower entrepreneurs in developing countries to uplift themselves out of poverty forever!”

Alex’s email also stated “In 2008, the final Friday of each month will be designated as “Kiva Micro-Fundraising Day”.  I’ll donate a minimum of $500 out of my own pocket and request micro-donations of $10, $20 and $50 from entrepreneurs on our SSG subscription list … just like YOU.”

The “micro-fundraising” calls start at 8am Pacific (11am Eastern) and will be 40 minutes in duration.  Here’s the remaining 2008 schedule is: June 27th, July 25th, August 29th, September 26th, October 31st, November 28th, and December 26th. Alex extends an open invitation to join in and pass on the word to as many entrepreneurial friends and colleagues as possible.

What a great idea!  Alex is helping raise the visibility of Kiva, an organization with the mission ”to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.  Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.”  He is also raising dollars from his broad network to support his efforts with the developing country entrepreneurs Kiva assists.  And, by choosing Kiva as the organization to support, the donated resources go to specific entrepreneurs, not into some big black hole.  Cool, eh?

I plan to be on his next teleseminar for SmartStartGiving and will make a donation - I like Alex and what he is up to…AND microfinance is the cause I selected a couple years back as the primary focus for Business Nonprofit Connections, Inc.’s philanthropic efforts.  Join us!

I rented the movie the Kite Runner over the weekend. I had read Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling book last year and was touched deeply and saddened by the story.  I worried the movie would no be able to do justice to it - and I am glad to say, that was definitely NOT the case!  The movie was very good.  I recommend it highly.

What was especially interesting to me (and something I had not seen before) was that when the DVD started, I had a choice of either playing the movie or playing the movie with a PSA.  A PSA on a DVD…???  Huh!?  So I chose that option to see what that was about.  Up comes the author briefly talking about his book but then moving on to highlight what is happening in Afganistan today and the important role NGOs (nongovernmental organizations = aka nonprofits in the U.S.) are playing.  Then the kicker…he goes on to say how the viewer can get involved to support this vital work and a web address appears on a black screen.  www.takepart.com.  What a great idea!  Caught my interest immediately!

So of course I had to investigate.  Seems there is a whole organization called TakePart that I had not yet heard of.  My Google search of the book title and take action…came up with a link.  When I got to this attractive web site, I read “The Kite Runner is a compelling and inspiring story that provides an opportunity to explore the political, cultural, and social dynamics of Afganistan.  TakePart is proud to privide a platform to both affest and discuss these dynamics.”

I started digging around on the site and really like what they are up to.  TakePart is a social action network for education, entertainment and social change via awareness, action and activism.  Their tag line is “Inspire. Connect. Act.”  They offer a free membership: ”Real change starts with people passionate about nurturing an action and dedicated to growing and spreading it. That’s what takepart is all about.  As a member, takepart gives you the action tools to make change:

• Organize and grow with like-minded individuals
• Connect actions to videos, blogs and media
• Add your own voice and content to the community
• Expand your resources with our action dashboard
• When you take part, your actions make a difference. Join today!”

The Kite Runner is only one of the movies they are featuring on the site.  All together, there are eight listed including: An Inconvenient Truth, Darfur Now, and the Visitor.  What a great way to learn and be able to DO something constructive to make a difference.  Check them out and sign up!  Learn more and be a part of the solution to our world’s problems!

When standing in the checkout line at Whole Foods, I periodically see a display with tear off tags ($1, $2, or $5) inviting me, the customer, to select a tag in the amount I would be willing to donate to the Whole Planet Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to create economic partnerships with the poor in developing world communities that supply Whole Foods Market stores with product by providing microloans to encourage entrepreneurism.  Microcredit is one of the causes my company, Business Nonprofit Connections, Inc., supports through various local and international NGOs.  So…what’s a buck?  A good cause that I believe in and it’s easy for me to take a tag and make a small donation.  Requires no preplanning, no strategic thinking, and I won’t notice not having that money.  Even if I wasn’t such a microcredit fan, it is still easy to do.  Combine my buck or two with the money from a lot of other customers and it can really add up.  This is a great example of a way any retail business can engage their customers to support the cause selected by the company, build reputation and customer loyalty.  Requires no big up front cash outlay by the company – just some signage and tags and a way to track donations in the cash register system.

Today in the Baton Rouge Whole Foods checkout line, I saw the Whole Foods Market 2008 Calendar for sale for $2.00.  What a deal!!  I needed a calendar to hang in my office and this one was the perfect choice.  It is a glossy page calendar with great photos from various countries and of Whole Foods team members with $13 in savings coupons inside for a super deal of a price…AND…100% of sales of the calendar go to benefit the Whole Planet Foundation.  On the January page of the calendar, it states that Whole Foods covers Whole Planet Foundation’s annual operating budget and that donations received by the Foundation are directed to microlending programs in the developing world.   The calendar reports on every photo page that “As of November 2007, Whole Planet Foundation has authorized over $5.9 million to support microlending programs in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, India and Indonesia with plans to expand to east Africa in 2008. This support has helped 14,429 entrepreneurs create small businesses in the developing world.   Average loan size is $157 with an average repayment rate of 99.8%.” 

Go buy your own calendar while they are still available! 

For information, go to:  www.wholeplanetfoundation.org  

I have been having trouble with my computer since I loaded Microsoft Office 2007.  Instead of doing the smart thing and taking my computer to some tech guy to run a diagnostic, I have been trying to figure it out myself.  Never a good move…  Anyway, I have spent a bunch of time on the Microsoft website lately.  While clicking around in the site, I found a link to Microsoft’s ”i’m Initiative” from Windows Live Messenger. (http://im.live.com/messenger/IM/Home/?source=banner_WLM_MSCOM_typing_DL)  There I learned more and liked what I saw. 

Every time you start a conversation using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of their advertising revenue with the social cause organization you preselect from their list of ten when you sign up to use their free service.  So how does it work?  “It’s simple.  It’s free.  You IM, we give.”  Microsoft provides instructions for how to get started.  First you download the Windows Live Messenger (8.1 or higher) instant messenger service at no charge.  If you already have it, there is a link that gives you information about how to proceed.  Then you place a text code corresponding to the cause of your choice into your Display Name.  They make it easy by providing the list of the ten organizations and the codes you need to use as well as graphics that make it very clear how to do it.  (http://www.im.live.com/Messenger.IM/runonce/default2.aspx?source=homepage) As per their example, if you wanted your Display Name to be “Tude Palma” and the contribution every time you IM to be made to UNICEF, you would set up your Display Name as “Tude Palmer *unicef.  Pretty easy, eh?

The ten nonprofits Microsoft supports through this initiative are:

·         American Red Cross

·         Boys & Girls Clubs of America

·         Humane Society of the United States

·         National AIDS Fund

·         National MS Society

·         ninemillion.org

·         Sierra Club

·         StopGlobalWarming.org

·         Susan G. Komen for the Cure

·         U.S. Fund for UNICEF

I think this is a creative example of cause marketing (for a free service) to build reputation and customer loyalty through Microsoft’s partnering with its customer base to give back.  They encourage you to use their service and then use some of their advertising budget (NOT their charitable donations line item!) to give back.  An interesting spin on advertising, eh?   If you are going to IM anyway either for personal or business reasons, using Microsoft’s free Windows Live Messenger, why wouldn’t you also set up your account to do good at the same time?  I have not done much instant messaging yet but I am definitely going to sign myself up with UNICEF as the beneficiary and have my network of consultants do the same.

My only suggestion for an upgrade here would be to make sure this is more widely known.  And somewhere on the pages about the Initiative to not only list the codes with the names of the 10 nonprofits selected by Microsoft, but also to give a one sentence description of what each organization does.  I personally am familiar with all of them except ninemillion.org but is everyone that might want to IM for free and give back?  Probably not.  At least the names of the nonprofits could be links to take you easily to their websites.