Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian is a heart
surgeon using his Internet marketing business to fund heart surgery for
under-privileged children in India. I met Dr. Mani via Roger Carr who was one of the core group of bloggers who I enlisted for a "blogger's campaign" component. At 3:00 am this morning, when were in 5th place by a 30 donor margin, I asked him for help and he told me, "Beth we're going to win." He helped!
I reached out to a core group of nonprofit bloggers in the beginning of the campaign, asking them to commit to writing 1 post or 1 post per week - whatever they could manage. I set up a wiki that included lots of text and photos so they could remix as they wanted or not. I included a sign up sheet too. I also used to document links to their posts as we went along.
As the campaign got closer to the finish, and more bloggers got involved, I also reached out to other bloggers. I found bloggers from other communities and created posts that might be relevant. For example, for Coolcat teacher blog, Vicky Davis, she wrote a post about the Sharing Foundation's computer school.
I didn't plan out all the topics and posts in advance. I let a lot of it evolve from the community.
One of things I did as a last ditch strategy was to email out a group message to various contacts and it seemed to have brought in some last minute contributions. I did the bcc of group emails. However, Google thinks I'm a spammer now and has disabled my email account. I'm not sure how long this will last - I read 24-72 hours. No good deed goes unpunished.
I need to figure out a way answer email ...
In the meantime, I have written on a blackboard 100 times: I will not spam for good.
I have not slept very much in the last two days and I am about to teach a social media workshop which I haven't prepared as well I as usually do because I spent the last few hours seeing this campaign to the end.
We finished in the top 4 (as far as i can tell), with 1711 donors and over $40,000. I am in shock, awed, and really happy!!
I owe this all to you, each and every one of you who helped this campaign go forward to success!
I will be writing up a huge big thank chronicling the best moments of the campaign - and from there also develop some lessons learned...
Yesterday after flying for four hours and having serious anxiety about not seeing the numbers, I pitched the young lady sitting next to me, a Harvard student. We got off the plane, I opened up my laptop with wifi and she donated. I said thank you and then found this awesome post from Chris Brogan. Thank you!
Now we are really in crunch time, and at a very scary place-- The On-line contest began weeks ago[it ends later today, the 31st, at 3 pm EST . We are in serious danger of being left out entirely--In the beginning we ran along smoothly at 1st or 2nd , and we are 5th, -- OUT
It is not the $$ that count, but rather the number of donors-- here's the leader board, and you can follow this race, if you wish, to its finish tomorrow! We hope not a sad conclusion !
One only need give $10. If you have already given , I am very thankful [we don't get names till long after] and am sorry for this intrusion, again. But , if you have not---please, please please -
Thanks for reading this = Beth has struggled mightily for weeks, but I wanted to make one last ditch effort- to get us out of < just > into the losers! Thanks loads for any help you can provide , and any friends you can involve.
Here's the deal. We need to be in the top four charities that get the most unique donors in order to win the $50,000 for the Sharing Foundation.
Essentially, I am asking YOU for $10 (USD) to help children in Cambodia. Donate here before the contest ends 1/31 at 3:00 PM EST.
This has been a labor of love and I've had lots of support from my generous network (thank you). I am just one woman along with many other generous people who want to make a difference in the lives of Cambodian children. I'm amazed at the power of the Social Web to help my charity get this far, but please don't let the $50,000 slip away! We're so close. I can't bear the thought of letting those children down.
The competition ends Jan. 31 3:00 PM EST. Please join the over 1,000 unselfish people who have donated to the Sharing Foundation and help make a difference in the lives of disadvantaged Cambodian children. Donate here.
When this is published, I'm be flying down to Austin, Texas for the Legal Services TIG conference to do a session on ROI and Nonprofit Technology and a workshop on Social Media. The ROI presentation is not focused on Social Media but will most definitely inform the panel at NTC. Notes for the ROI session are here.
We're in the final stretch of the America's Giving Challenge for the Sharing Foundation. It's over tomorrow at 3:00 PM EST. Right now we're number 5 on the leader, only 30 donors away from winning the $50,000.
If you're not sold on my charity - read this post. Essentially, I am asking YOU (and I mean you) for $10 (USD) to help these children in Cambodia. If you’re sold already, donate here.
The competition ends Jan. 31 3:00 PM EST. Please Donate here.
That's a photograph of the donation box at the Watt in Roteang Village where the Sharing Foundation has most of its programs. I photographed it in 2004. Phonetically, one may pronounce this "pouttch bautha", and it means "donation to the Buddha." I think about that photo when I think about a culture of giving.
The experience has shown me there are many different things that
influence ‘giving’. Economics. Geography. Religious beliefs. Personal
philosophy. And culture.
What makes some people dig into their pockets to contribute money to
help a nameless, faceless person who lives halfway across the globe -
someone whom they have never met, and very likely never will?
It’s such a fascinating ‘mystery’. I’ve discussed this many times with my wife, friends and daughter.
It probably distills down to the influence of culture.
“That’s why I don’t do memes; that’s why I rarely
refer people to other sites which may be calling for donations for
worthy causes. If I open that door, I will (and do) get flooded.“
Dr. Mani has a different view on influence and how it can be used for social good. Go read it. There is a connection here to something that Doug Haslam pointed me to on ThinkFree - "How Aggressively Should I Get Connected?" That's something worth a lot of reflection.
There has already been over $23,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of
over 850 people like Roger Carr and Dr. Mani. There is only a little more than 24 hours left to donate
and change a child's life.
Zena Weist is wondering about whether Chris Brogan's Twitter Pack Project can be defined as community sourcing which distinctly different than crowd sourcing. Here's what Zena is asking:
Define community sourcing
with me...help me expand on this post and live the definition along the
way. Once we have a definition that we are comfortable with as a good
enough starter, we'll post community sourcing on wikipedia.
<Beth's Fundraising pitch on>
There has already been over $22,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of over 800 people like Zena Weist and Chris Brogan. If you have not yet donated $10
(or more) to this important cause and asked your friends to do the
same, there is only 36 hours left to donate and change a Cambodian
child's life!
And, with almost 24 more hours, I will resume my normal blogging activity. I will continue to share my lessons about nonprofits using the social web. Promise.
One of the best learning opportunities in this campaign is to see how my awesome and talented colleagues who are ace marketers re-shape or improve my fundraising messaging.
I'm a longtime member of the Nonprofit Circuit Riders community. Don't know what that means? Here's a definition:
Circuit riders travel throughout regions of the United States and
parts of Europe providing technology assistance to nonprofit
organizations. As one organization providing such services defines the
group: “Circuit Riders are a community of people with technology skills
who help nonprofit organizations be more effective through the use of
technology. We share a spirit of generosity towards each other and a
commitment to social justice, a healthy environment and human dignity.
We hold a fundamental belief that technology and all of its benefits
must be made available to everyone” (MediaJumpStart, 2002).
If you're curious, there's a whole chapter about it in this book "Geeks for Good."
This is a wonderful community. The photo above is of me, Cheryl Hanback, and Joel Remigio from 2002 when we won the "Swimming Upstream Award" for the diligent staff person who worked on the Riders Conference to make it a success. The trophy was a retro trout fishing trophy." I know about the fish because I schlepped the darn thing through airport security in Orlando and it sat on my desk for almost a year, from April 2002 until March 2003. A proud reminder of my 15 minutes of shared fame with Cheryl and Joel.
Last night, Teresa Crawford, who one the "Dirk Award" that year posted this message to the Riders List.
I am not sure if everyone is following the ups and downs of Beth Kanter's online fundraising for the Sharing Foundation in America's Giving Challenge. It has been quite a learning experience for me as she
puts into practice all the how to's of online fundraising and documents it on her blog. This is exactly the kind of example we want to give to our clients.
Beth has given alot to the Riders community over the years - online and offline mentoring, organizing the Day of Service, blogging about all our great work to help nonprofits make the most of technology.
If anyone has been holding off on donating to the Sharing Foundation Campaign don't wait any longer. There is just 36 hours left to the end of the challenge and the campaign is in the lead by 16 donations. They
have a good chance of securing 50,000 for the Sharing Foundation. For this small organization which is doing alot of good in Cambodia a prize like this means new children can benefit from their education programs,
more young people can attend college and more families can move out of poverty.
Donate $10 or more to the Sharing Foundation through Global Giving Fundraiser set up by Blogger Michele Martin of the Bamboo project!
Teresa
PS: Beth did not ask me to do this. I figured this was one more network
to help put the Sharing Foundation over the top!
I just want everyone to know that I plan to continue to share what I am learning and after this contest ends on January 31st - minus the ask for the money.
Thank you for your support!
Britt Bravo's blog, Have Fun Do Good is full of stories, tips, and articles about social change and the social web. I've known Britt now for almost three years and have enjoyed working with her at Netsquared and Blogher. Not only has she been a generous donor to every personal fundraising campaign for Cambodia I've undertaken, but she also messaged out to her community to support this cause.
There has already been over $22,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of over 800 people like Britt Bravo. If you have not yet donated $10
(or more) to this important cause and asked your friends to do the
same, there is only 36 hours left to donate and change a Cambodian
child's life!
And, in 36 more hours, I will resume my normal blogging activity. Promise.
The luck of seven is an open-source, around the world project by noel hidalgo, a new york city based activist, organizer, blogger, barcamper and coworker. (Here's the official press release)
For seven months, he traveled to world to see all the seven continents, dive into the
seven oceans, and attempt to visit the seven ancient wonders of the
world. He used social media (blog, vlog, wiki, flickr, couchsurfing, twitter, myspace, dopplr, and facebook) to harness the collective knowledge of the globe, and reported weekly on seven topics of freedom. I was a donor to his campaign and he has contributed to the America's Giving Challenge (and let encouraged his network to support the Sharing Foundation).
He wrote a post called "Unshakeable Activism" where he lets you know that the $10 donation can truly change a child's life in Cambodia.
as my path wondered through southeast asia, i found myself on the
other-side of the world where the US dollar is the all mighty. for less
that $6.00 USD you'd can be served a mountain of food fit for a king.
little did i know that for less that $2.00 USD, my friend huixian and i
would eat lavishly for two days...
if huixian and i ate at her house every day, we'd spend less than $15 USD a week. that's less than $15.00 USD a week ON FOOD!!!!
i know it's hard to understand how we can make a difference in
someone's lives at the other end of the world, but those "help a
christian child" TV spots aren't that far fetched. "for dollars a day
you, can change someone's life..." except in this "advertisement" we're
not talking about a newly "saved" cambodian. We're talking about a "no
political or religious agenda; we work directly with village chiefs and
school principals to target their communities’ most pressing needs.
Gradually, we’ve hired and mentored fifty-seven Cambodians who’ve
assumed all leadership positions.” - Dr. Nancy Hendrie
I didn't realize that Noneck was a barcamper, so I just had to share this video I made at the Cambodian Bloggers Summit when we distributed the t-shirts from Citizen Agency that included the barcamp t-shirts. I gave some of the smaller ones to the kids at the orphanage - you'll see those at the end.
And Noneck and I also have something in common, while we are on the topic of food ... We both ate weird things in Cambodia. I was offered (unknown to me) a plate of fried ants and it looks like Noneck ate some frog.
There has already been over $22,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of over 800 people like Noneck. If you have not yet donated $10 (or more) to this important cause and asked your friends to do the same, there is only 36 hours left to donate and change a Cambodian child's life!
And, in 36 more hours, I will resume my normal blogging activity. Promise.
Peter Gulka Thank you for the donation and helping stay in the lead!
There has already been over $21,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of over 800 people. If you have not yet donated $10 (or more) to this important cause, there is only 36 hours left to donate and change a Cambodian child's life!
And, in 36 more hours, I will resume my normal blogging activity
Peter Deitz, of Social Actions, is an expert on micro philanthropy and social fundraising. In fact, my first post on this topic was a pointer to some of his early research. If you want to learn about this topic, you must read his blog and his slide presentations are not to be missed:
I asked Peter to blog about my campaign and he wrote a terrific post. He also shares that he wants to create a social fundraising wizard
Currently, I am building an automated wizard
that will assist in planning and implementing a peer-to-peer social
change campaign. The wizard will recommend platforms to use and best
practices for spreading the campaign through social networks. The
wizard will also feature an after-action survey covering the tools used
and the strategies implemented. This information will feed back into
the system that recommends platforms and best practices.
If the Social Actions automated wizard
helps produce peer-to-peer social change campaigns that compare to the
ones that Beth has created in the past year, then I will have
accomplished something significant.
Peter would like some help with the design. I will. Here's more.
Here's one thing. Build in something that helps you map the flow of donations to help analyze your network and campaign. Nancy White has shared some manual examples. It would be nice to have this built into the system in some way.
There has already been over $20,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of
over 700 people like Peter Deitz. There is exactly 48 hours left to donate
and change a child's life. Contest ends on January 31st at 3:00 PM EST.
Almost 7 years ago, at age 13, Pharoth came to the gate of Roteang Orphanage crying, with her baby brother Darith in her arms. Their Mother had died and their step father had disappeared, and Pharoth was living with the baby on the earthen floor under an aunt’s house in Roteang village.
She was crying because they had no food-she was making Darith’s feeding with one scoop of formula powder to 11 ounces of water or sometimes just feeding him sugar cane sweetened water. They had no clothes. The aunt would not let her go to school, which she desperately wanted to do, as she had to care for the baby and also work picking about 30 cents worth of morning glory daily for income for her aunt.
After negotiations with the aunt, the Sharing Foundation was allowed to admit Darith to the Orphanage and to provide clothes and supplies for Pharoth to go to the local school and a small amount of money weekly to the aunt to replace Pharoth’s earnings. With a Sharing Foundation generous sponsor who not only covers her school costs, but also provides moral support through quarterly letters, Pharoth was able to attend an English school in Phnom Penh.
When I was invited to keynote and lead workshops at the Cambodian Bloggers Summit this summer, I collected technology and nonprofit t-shirts to bring over. People responded generously. (so genersously that I had to pay for an extra suitcase to carry over all the t-shirts that were donated) and had enough extras to bring to the children in the orphanage.
There has already been over $20,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of over 750 people like Tara Hunt and Chris Messina. If you have not yet donated $10 (or more) to this important cause, there is only 48 hours left to donate and change a Cambodian child's life!
When you complain about your student teacher ratios, look at everyone gathered around the computer in this lesson!
Cambodian
bloggers (such as Mam Sari profiled in Beth's blog post) are dedicated,
but would you do as Mam Sari does to update his blog?
"He has set up a blog and has a Facebook profile, but to update them he has to ride his motorbike an hour into Phnom Penh. "
She's asking her network to one or two of the following:
Contribute the $10 -- If her school raises the most, the Sharing Foundation will give her $50,000 additional for the school. (She has already raised $19,000 with bloggers and facebook contributors.)
What
advice would you offer to Mam Sari about incorporating computer
instruction on a REALLY slow connection and with one computer connected
to the Internet?
Are there any web resources or books that you think I should send over to him to read?
Dream a little dream with me, if we had a fast Internet connection, what are the possibilities?
Answer the twitterpoll by replying in twitter @coolcatteacher the answer to this question, " How would you do web2.0 in rural cambodia with cell phone connection?"
I'll summarized the responses because I think this might be valuable information for ngos too. In fact, I'm going to ping a few colleagues ... Katrin Verclas sent me this useful link!
There has already been over $20,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge
raised through the unselfish giving of
over 700 people like Vicky Davis.
If you have not yet donated $10 (or more) to this important
cause, there is only 72 hours left to donate
and change a Cambodian child's life and maybe help us get a faster Internet connection!
Tim Davies in the UK writes Tim's Blog and we share lots of cross overs in our topic interests. (One series of posts that he did that I love are his one-page guides like this one about wikis.) He tweeted this morning about some quick reflections on social media ROI: To know ROI of social media compare to paper base outreach.
Printing 1000 leaflets doesn't mean 1000 leaflets get read.
But leaflets don't report back how many people have read it.
I launched a bloggers campaign and Twitter Wall of Fame as part of the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge. (To learn more about the Sharing Foundation, see this article) I've been reaching out to my network, and Vicky Davis is one of the people I turned to for to ask for help with the from her network of wired educators.
Yes, I hope they will contribute the $10 so we can win the $50,000 (which will certainly help us make improvements to our computer school and the Sharing Foundation's many other programs), but I am also want feedback about how to improve a computer program in a rural village in a developing country with really slow Internet. I know it is difficult without being there ..
The Sharing Foundation's Computer School was opened in 2006. Computer classes are held every morning utilizing donated laptops and desktops (that are hand-carried over by Dr. Hendrie on her quarterly trips) Students, picked by lottery, come daily for six weeks to learn word processing, spread sheets, and Internet use, on our one, slow connection, acquiring a useful skill for future employment. Computer education groups repeat on a rotating basis.
I observed Mam Sari, our head English teacher (and computer geek) teach a Google search lesson and captured video above. Mam Sary gets on the Internet via his cell phone
connection which costs the Foundation roughly $28 per month. It's slow, but he is able to teach a lesson to the
students about how to find supplementary materials for their school
assignments. One of the students asked if Google was the best search
engine. Mam Sary said, 'Yes, Google is the best." This is amazing because during my last trip in 2004 when I taught ESL, these students gave me a blank stare when I mentioned the words computer and Internet.
As I mentioned, the cell phone connection is really slow. I loved how Mam Sari introduced this to his students. He said, "type in your search term, click on search, and then you wait." Since we only have one Internet connection, all 15 students were huddled around the computer. Mam Sari did not waste this time, he engaged them in a discussion about the content they were searching. (The bad health effects of smoking)
Mam Sary also received several of the video
cameras Jay Dedman and Ryanne Hodson brought over to Cambodia last July donated by Doug from the video blogging community. (Jay and Ryan not only created this fantastic video about the Sharing Foundation's projects, but have also donated and asked other video bloggers to support the cause.) Jay and Ryanne taught him how to use the camera and I helped him again a month later when I was there.
That is Mam Sari. He attended the Cambodian Bloggers Summit with me. We participated in a small group role play exercise. Our group was assigned to "Social Media." First we
discussed the definition of the term. It became clear that social
media in Cambodia means "any media that can solve social issues."
Mam Sari was thrilled to learn about the
Web2.0 and is very interested incorporating some of the ideas into his
instruction, but unfortunately our very slow Internet connection doesn't make it easy. He has set up a blog and has a Facebook profile, but to update them he has to ride his motorbike an hour
into Phnom Penh. The connection is to slow for blogger or Facebook to load. If we had a better Internet connection (very expensive to get high speed Internet in our rural village), we could do more. For example, English lessons on Skype with students in US, post some of the videos created with the cameras on Youtube, use his digital tape recorder to create podcasts, student blogs, etc.
So, my question to Vicky's network is:
What advice would you offer to Mam Sary about incorporating computer instruction on a REALLY slow connection and with one computer connected to the Internet?
Are there any web resources or books that you think I should send over to him to read?
Dream a little dream with me, if we had a fast Internet connection, what are the possibilities?
There has already been over $19,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of
over 650 people like Jay Dedman, Ryanne Hodson, and Coffee with Doug. If you have not yet donated $10 (or more) to this important
cause, there is only a few days left to donate
and change a Cambodian child's life and maybe help us get a faster Internet connection!
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with the Sharing Foundation's founder, Dr. Nancy Hendrie, a retired pediatrician in her seventies to work on a couple of projects and get ready for the final phase of the our America's GIving Challenge campaign. Dr. Hendrie has been working tirelessly on this campaign using her social networks. (mostly offline and email) Yesterday, I had to chance to show her some online social networks like Twitter and Facebook as well as some tools like video blogging. She made the above video with my son, Harry.
Ten years ago, she didn’t want to spend her retirement years on the golf course. Instead, she started The Sharing Foundation. Yesterday, she showed me this article by writer Elizabeth Eiditz published in the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly about the Foundation's ten years of successful programs. Please go read it.
In the US, Dr. Hendrie leads an amazing community of volunteers that I'm proud to be a part of. In Cambodia, Dr. Hendrie has gradually hired and mentored fifty-seven Cambodians who’ve
assumed all leadership positions. The photo above is the Sharing Foundation's in-country director Chan Kim Leng, known as "Elephant" who grew up in the jungle and saw his five-year-old broth killer by the Khmer Rouge. Elephant oversees the Sharing Foundation's programs.Dr. Hendrie travels to Cambodia four times a year to work with Elephant, oversee projects and plan new ones.
Dr. Nancy is an inspiration! She's a shining example of never ending activism and a reminder that you're never too old to change the world. (Although she told me yesterday she might too old for twitter ..)
There has already been over $17,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of
over 600 people like Dr. Nancy and her five children. If you have not yet donated $10 (or more) to this important
cause, there is only a few days left to donate
and change a Cambodian child's life.
Roger Carr, Everyday Giving Blog, signed up to help me with a Bloggers Campaign part of the Sharing Foundation's Americas Giving Challenge, Today, I observed a twitter exchange from Angela to Roger. I thought she might be referring to our campaign, so thanked her. Yes, indeed Laura is helping us out. Thank you Laura!
Today, Jeff Pulver, a well respected member of the social media community and legendary on Facebook reposted one of my notes about the Sharing Foundation on his Facebook profile. This will most certainly help word of our campaign reach many new people. I was so delighted that I just had take a screencapture for my photo documentation and scrap blog I'm designing on.
Yep, it's working! Thanks Julia.
Anol Bhattacharya, repeat donor to the other socially networked campaigns I've run for Cambodia, not only donated, but made two blog posts (Soul Soup and here )and posted it to the Internet Times Ning Network created by Jay Cross.
Thank you everyone!
There has already been over $18,000 for the Sharing Foundation's America's Giving Challenge raised through the unselfish giving of
over 650 people like Anol Bhattacharya, Laura, and Jeff. This still time to donate $10 (or more) to this important
cause. Donate
$10 or more by January 31st and change a child's life.
Social Media: Adoption, Strategy, and Measuring Success
ZUP4Nonprofits has a two-part post (pt. 1 and pt.2) that discusses how to lay the groundwork for board signoff on an organization's social media in initiatives.
I Collaborate blog has a post about how to lobby for skype in your organization, if you're working internationally.
Nancy White answers a question posed by Laura Whitehead "Getting the most from social media for nonprofits: what would you recommend?"as part of a LASA Panel she is planning. Nancy raises a few questions about whether a distributed presence for organizations - splitting the attention of members between an organization's web site and social networking profiles is a liability or an asset. What I wonder is whether difference audiences are being reached?
David Wilcox has been doing a lot of thinking about re-inventing membership organizations or associations given that one can connect and meet people who share their interests online more easily with social media tools.
JournaMarketing has a post called "Why Your Blog Is Worthless without Connectedness" which harkens back to an ongoing debate we've had in this space -- is a blog just a web site or a community?
Michelle Murrain is doing a post about 100 free and open source software tools. Her selection criteria. Here's here write up on word press. By my calculations, she have almost completed the series before the NTC in March. Meanwhile, across the pond, Susie muses about GIMP. There's also the DiSo Project, an umbrella for a group of open source implementations of distributed social networking concepts.
NTEN's monthly roundup of tech resources called "Things We Like" (and I'll add to "fondle.")
Okay, now we're onto fondling APIs, google's to be exact. Via NTEN blog Google moves one step closer to making desktop applications obsolete with the release of the Google Chart API. The Wild Apricot blog offers a tutorial and a list of sites currently using the API.
Speaking of Google, check out this new doc uploader and this bookmark service that aggregates all social bookmarking sites in one click (for those of us tool fondlers who need more than one tool for each type. Guess you can't have too many social bookmarking applications.)
The NpTech Tag started as an experimental community tagging project in
2005. A loosely coupled group of nonprofit techies and social change
activists decided to use the tag "NpTech" to identify web resources
that would create an ongoing stream of information to promote and
educate those working in nonprofit technology. Many individuals tag
hundreds of resources each week. Through TechSoup's Netsquared project,
blogger Beth Kanter, was commissioned to write a weekly summary.
