The $5 philanthropist - GiveMeaning

This weekend's article

2009-06-29T12:03:00.001-07:00

I am saddened and discouraged to learn that David Baines is attacking me yet again, this time using GiveMeaning Foundation's 2008 annual report as the basis for his attack. This blog was once a place I used to share my thoughts about the emerging field of online micro-philanthropy. I shared my thoughts, ideas and enthusiasm with readers but early last year, in fact, on the day of my 29th birthday, a columnist from the Vancouver Sun, David Baines, began writing what became a series of articles questioning my character and the integrity of GiveMeaning Foundation.

Baines and my anonymous internet blogging commenting detractors have spent the last year doing their absolute best to smear me, attack my character and question my integrity.

And no doubt, within some circles, they have succeeded.

As far as I can tell, what provoked this vitriol is at least in part my promoting GiveMeaning in the media by talking about myself as a "former whiz kid" and that I attracted so much positive media coverage including in Baines' own Vancouver Sun that, Baines & Co thought I needed to be taken-down several notches.

If you troll through my past, you will find many stories that one can use of someone who was arrogant, selfish, dishonest and more or less lost. That said, I'm sure if most people's lives are subjected to Baines level of scrutiny, those same things can be found of most people in their late teens and twenties, to lesser or greater extents.

I've always said that the media tells stories in binary forms. Either they build you up, and exaggerate your own story to the positive or they tear you down, again exaggerating the negative. When someone enters the public eye, they make a contract to accept the good with the bad.

When I started GiveMeaning, I started it because I wanted to be known for something other than being hired by Apple when I was 15 years-old. And yes, in GiveMeaning's first few years, when I was articulating a novel concept for the charitable sector, I used the "whiz kid" story to attract national press coverage to grow GiveMeaning's awareness. And I don't in any way regret that.

The last time, Baines wrote about GiveMeaning, he took issue with $645,000 of donations that came in through the foundation and were distributed to charities that did not have projects listed on the website. He asked the readers to subtract that donation, and suggested that the "real" amount GiveMeaning should have reported last year was $746,118.

Baines has always portrayed our numbers in the most skewed and negative light possible. This time around, he adds back in the $645,000 he asked readers to discount in the last article so that he can claim that our donations were down 63% year-over-year. Regardless of how he presents our numbers, the actual amount raised through the website is down slightly year-over-year to $728,165. Some of that is Baines' own self-fulfilling prophesy here. His continued negative coverage exacerbated with anonymous bloggers who seek any site that mentions GiveMeaning to post Baines articles and nasty comments about me has no doubt had a negative effect. But in what has become the toughest economic climate in the last few decades, and with his flurry of negative articles, our web donations were down only slightly.

But let's remember what GiveMeaning is: A site that facilitates micro-philanthropy. Most people donate $10, $20 at a time to the projects on our website. The whole point of the website is to pool small contributions together to achieve small but meaningful projects all around the World. And $728,165 in small contributions for projects all around the World is a huge achievement in micro-philanthropy,

Since last fall, I have stopped taking any form of compensation from GiveMeaning yet still serve as GiveMeaning's CEO as a volunteer. No expenses are reimbursed by the Foundation, nothing. Baines knows that my wife has long stopped being paid for her work at GiveMeaning, but continues to mention it.

At the end of his most recent article, he says that I still tell the "whiz-kid" story and that it's tiring and tired. I haven't done a single media interview since he began writing about me. In fact, I spent most of the last year trying to get over the hurt and pain of it all, and the last thing I've wanted is to attract more media attention, knowing that it's the positive profile that is - at least, in part - what makes Baines want to target me. When asked, I still give talks free to students about the importance of pursuing one's passions, but any reference to my past is rooted in that I started GiveMeaning not in a place of riches and wild success but rather pursuing a path that wasn't working.

But more than that, Baines & Co have achieved something that in some perverse way, I am grateful for. They have helped strip me of a layer or layers of skin that I have had since the whiz-kid story was first written about more than a decade ago. I no longer have interest in being a public person. That part of my life is over and done with. I have been humbled not by the actual vitriol of my attackers but my the process of struggling hard to keep running an organization that I care so much about, and have spent the last four years working hard at.

Baines concludes by indicating that he thinks GiveMeaning is an enterprise on the wane. He's right in some respects. My enthusiasm and energy to continue with GiveMeaning have been significantly deflated but I continue to invest my energy and resources in it, because of the positive impact it continues to have. Whether the sum total of our donation revenues grows or declines is less important to me than knowing that GiveMeaning continues to play a valuable role in achieving small but necessary impacts on communities here at home and around the World.

Update from the Online Giving Markets

2008-10-07T13:40:00.003-07:00

This is my second year attending the Online Giving Markets forum, a gathering of leading giving sites from around the World. Officially, the conference ends today (just before tonight’s Presidential debate) but there is a conference hosted by Stanford tomorrow that many of us will be taking part in.

In conference calls leading-up to this gathering, a number of participants from last year (which includes representatives from GiveMeaning GiveIndia, DonorsChoose and GlobalGiving) had been trying to achieve a “Quick Win” from this gathering that would create the potential for collaboration amongst our platforms. What we had been trying to do was determine a way in which for us to share our project data with each other’s platforms as a first-step to potential collaboration.

On a separate track but also involving discussions with technical representatives from a number of our marketplaces, Peter Deitz and his colleagues at SocialActions had been facilitating discussions on defining a philanthropy microformat.

A microformat is most simply described as a structured way of describing common data so that our data is easier to read by search-engines and 3rd party applications like SocialActions that want to make use of our data.

Throughout the conference calls and our break-out session yesterday on this issue, a concern that was expressed a lot was whether a compelling business win needed to be in place as an incentive for our individual marketplaces to do the work required to implement a microformat (or other semantic description schema) and thanks to Pawan Mehra of GiveIndia, we were able to agree upon a tangible goal that would drive usage of the philanthropy microformat.

Once a sufficient number of our marketplaces implement the microformat (which – from a technical perspective – shouldn’t be too cumbersome), we will submit the microformat to one of the two major search engines and engage in evangelism with the search engine folks to ask them to pilot including our collective microphilanthropy offers in their general search during December (the month of the year where most giving occurs).

This would increase the overall traffic to all of the participating marketplaces and – assuming we can get buy-in from one or both major search engines – provide the necessary incentive likely required for significant buy-in amongst our marketplaces.

More later. The conference is resuming after our lunch-break

GiveMeaning Voting System

2008-08-15T10:51:00.002-07:00

When someone wants to start fundraising at GiveMeaning.com, the first step is to submit a proposal at the site, outlining a specific goal that they want to accomplish.

It's then up to the person who submitted the proposal to gather 100 votes in support of the proposal. This system of collecting the votes is meant for two reasons:

First, it puts the onus on the person to recruit a sufficient mass of support within their social network because if the person submitting the proposal can't collect 100 votes, they are not likely going to be able to recruit sufficient donors to fund their proposal. Second, it helps eliminate proposals with vague or questionable objectives.

A number of proposals at GiveMeaning are for micro-philanthropy initiatives in Africa. Up until recently, most all of these proposals have come from people in North America who have returned home from travels with a promise to fundraise for a project that benefits a community they recently returned from. But we're now seeing a significant increase in proposals submitted directly from African NGO's.

Based on the content of their proposals, many of these organizations seem to think that by posting a proposal, they are submitting a grant proposal to be considered for funding.

Given that our site is fundraiser-centric (meaning that it's up to the person who submitted the proposal to gather funds within their social network to fund the initiative they are supporting), I think it unlikely that most rural African NGO's are going to succeed with micro-philanthropy campaigns but it's got me to thinking.

My question is this: Is there something that can be done to better leverage the proposals being submitted directly by African NGO's? Could we create a new system which focuses first on a more crowd-sourced approach to approving proposals?

For example, a more elaborate discussion system on each proposal could see greater clarification/detail emerge for each proposal. Instead of each vote being equal, people who have volunteered or traveled in the region could "vouch" for the local NGO, thus increasing its credibility to potential donors. A pledge-based system where funds are released only after a critical threshold has been raised could ensure that no project goes underfunded.

It's a real shame to see so many great proposals go unserved by our current process and I'm not sure that what I'm describing above is something we could do but if someone isn't doing this already, I think someone should be looking into this.

What are your thoughts?

What is it with me and Texan Congressmen?

2008-06-26T18:06:00.003-07:00

A couple of months ago, I saw a movie that became an instant favorite of mine: Charlie Wilson's War. Charles Wilson was Congressman for the 2nd Congressional District of Texas. If you haven't seen the movie, check it out.

Today, I checked out TMZ.com, a Hollywood gossip website that is one of my guilty pleasures. Under the title Who Knew Congressman Were Cool? there was a small post about US Congressman John Culberson, who represents the 7th Congressional district who TMZ mentioned Twitters from the House floor.

So I followed him on Twitter and got a follow back immediately. I went to his website and noticed that he was about to hold a live town-hall webcast.

Congressman Culberson was the first to tweet from the House floor (even though Blackberry's are frowned upon on the floor) and tonight made history with the first ever live town hall web cast by a US Congressman.

I was interacting with him through Twitter and his UStream chat just before they started recording on UStream and it was great to see him using Summize, USTream, Twitter, and some kind of group phone-bank conference app. Talk about convergence.

Here is the embedded link to the town hall which at the time of this post is still going on:

Congressman Culberson was in his office alone and what was remarkable was that not only was he using these tools but he was totally open (i.e. not screening comments and phoners) and connected to his Constituents.

Congressman Culberson reminds me of Charlie in that he is very confident in his positions, a great orator, and quick on his feet.

It's now 930pm and the Congressman is still holding court with his constituents and has a following on his UStream of slightly more than 100 people. He is a pioneer in "Government 2.0" and a great example of what constituent communications using Web 2.0 looks like.

My prediction is that Congressman Culberson will develop a cult following (I predict an appearance on Colbert or Stewart within weeks). He is authentic, connected and accountable to his constituents and the feedback from his constituents on the town hall was overwhelmingly positive.

Elected officials everywhere, take note.

Letter To The Editor

2008-06-26T14:54:00.003-07:00

I submitted this Letter to the Editor last week in response to an article written by David Baines in the Vancouver Sun. I wanted to give the Sun sufficient time to run the letter prior to publishing this response on my blog.

I am writing in response to David Baines' column published Saturday, June 14th.

In it, Mr. Baines makes statements that are irresponsible, misleading and frankly, mistruths. First, I am asking for a retraction for the completely false and defamatory statement that "a lot of the money raised by GiveMeaning ends in [my] pocket." This statement is completely without merit. Second, there is ample media coverage of my reasons for starting GiveMeaning, and I in fact have said many times
that I was in search of something meaningful to do with my life and career. To suggest that "I have stumbled from one business and personal failure to another" is false and derogatory.

As GiveMeaning Foundation's CEO, it is my responsibility to point out that after Mr. Baines finishes with his attempts at character assassination, he then turns his attention to GiveMeaning Foundation's most recently filed financial statements with the Canada Revenue Agency. He starts by acknowledging that revenue nearly doubled from
our 2006 financial year, and that 73% of all revenue collected by the GiveMeaning Foundation in this most recent fiscal year was distributed to other charities. It should also be noted that this percentage is of all the revenue collected by the Foundation, including donations made to our Foundation for distribution to other charities, and gifts made to our Foundation specifically to cover our own costs of
providing the free service of a charity conduit. Mr. Baines also notes that as a percentage of overall donations, our administrative costs, which are covered by separate donations, have decreased from 2006.

Mr. Baines himself acknowledges that this recent annual report as filed with CRA is a significant improvement over our first full year of operations. However based on the slant of his editorials on me and GiveMeaning, it would be impossible for his editorial to end there, so he ridiculously asks your readers to subtract $645,000 of donations that GiveMeaning Foundation gave to registered charities, from our
annual report. He asks this in order to justify finishing with the statement, "This is a pretty ugly picture." The only ugly picture is the one drawn specifically from Mr. Baines' attempts at re-writing our annual report.

To be clear, in addition to processing gifts made directly via the website to specific projects, GiveMeaning also accepts donations made into donor advised funds. The purpose of a donor advised fund is to provide an individual donor benefits similar to those experienced by people with personal foundations. Having a donor advised fund at
GiveMeaning eliminates set-up costs and administrative obligations incurred by those with private foundations. Donor advised funds are not a new concept. This service is offered by leading financial institutions such as TD Bank and Scotiabank. Tides and Vancouver Foundation also offer donors the same service.

It should now be clear to readers that Mr. Baines has not made any attempt to analyze GiveMeaning from any fair or balanced perspective and that he is using his column to attempt to attack our credibility.

We are incredibly proud of how much progress has been made in creating and launching from scratch, a new, more efficient model for charitable giving. It's unfortunate that Mr. Baines continues to attempt to discredit GiveMeaning, a service which has helped hundreds of charities across Canada achieve their goals without charging any costs to them or their donors.

Sincerely,

Tom Williams,
CEO, GiveMeaning Foundation
givemeaning.com

Obama Donor Fatigue?

2008-03-12T14:52:00.002-07:00

Most everyone knows that I am a card-carrying Obamite. Many of my friends also know of my mild depression after HRC's wins in Ohio and Texas.

As an Obamite, I've signed up at BarackObama.com and receive regular email appeals signed by either David Plouffe or Barack Obama. Most of the emails are genuine communiques but inevitably include an appeal to "donate right now" typically asking for $25 dollars.

The success of Obama's online fundraising has been widely reported with particular emphasis Obama harnessing the "Power of Plenty" by receiving many small donations from a mass of individual donors.

After Ohio and Texas, I know I'm already fighting "Campaign Fatigue" but I wonder to what extent "Donor Fatigue" is starting to set-in.

A successful online fundraising campaign needs multiple appeals with different messaging which the Obama campaign has done well but I suspect that we'll see a dip (and perhaps a noticeable decline) in Obama's online fundraising due to a potent combination of Campaign and Donor Fatigue.

As a means by which to counteract both fatigues, I would advise the Obama campaign to send out several emails with links to their favorite YouTube clips, websites and articles with no mention of an appeal. Have some candid YouTube clips of Obama like the dinner-party clips from a while back. Adjust the momentum of their outbound emails and start rallying the troops before April 22nd.

Animals versus Humans

2008-02-19T16:46:00.004-08:00

One of the most memorable nights I had last November in Africa was visiting with a couple that drilled bore holes (to provide clean drinking water) in Uganda. At the time of my visit, they were packing up to move operations to Sudan.

The couple was originally from South Africa and were very gracious hosts to me and my traveling companions. At their house, they were caring for a litter of newborn puppies, one of whom is featured below.

I remember my hosts complaining that NGO workers and other temporary workers in Northern Uganda who adopted stray animals should have the "decency to kill the dogs when they leave." I understood (though didn't totally agree with) the point she was making: That it's "far worse" to give stray dogs a home and a stable food supply only to then abandon that dog months later and force it to return to a life of disease, starvation and suffering.

Then, on January 1st, I was reading an article published in the Globe & Mail by Lisan Jutras (no longer available free online) which spoke about the problem of stray animals in vacation "hot spots" like the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Mexico.

As someone whose heart is split evenly between a passion for international development and animals of all kinds, I often feel a tug-of-war between my passion for animals and my passion for people. How (I often think) could I possibly invest resources in a few stray dogs when people in that same community are starving?

I wonder how other people who have almost equal compassion for animals as they do humans resolve or manage this tension?

here is a story about a rescue dog being flown from Iraq to the USA.

Obama and online fundraising

2008-02-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

According to Barack Obama's official website, more than 280,000 people have created accounts on BarackObama.com.

From those online accounts, 6,500 grassroots volunteer groups have been created and more than 13,000 off-line events have been organized through the site.

Over 370,000 individual online donations have been made, more than half of which are less than $25 donations .

And most interesting to me, personal fundraising pages (individual fundraising pages where you proactively recruit your social network to donate through your personal fundraising page) have raised over $1.5m.

Obama's campaign really emphasizes the "Power of Plenty" and demonstrates the power of grassroots fund-raising.

My critique of the Barackobama.com website is that the functionality of the fundraising page is that it provides no opportunity for me to link my blog (the site offers simple hosted-blog functionality) with my fundraising page, which seems to be a big missed opportunity.

Also, there is probably a ton of great social media buried deep within the site but no
way to easily search or browse other great stories of people joining the Hope Revolution.

Weekend reply

2008-02-02T20:49:00.001-08:00

Mr. Baines has published in the Vancouver Sun his fourth installment on his opinion of me and that of GiveMeaning and the work it has set out to do.

Baines told me when I first responded to him that as an editorialist, he was free to write his opinions. And so, in summary, his opinions appear to be:

1) I have gotten too much positive attention and praise in the media, most of which I don’t deserve;
2) I am most undeserving of praise because as a teenager and young-adult, I made some mistakes;
3) That before starting GiveMeaning, I ended a business relationship acrominiously and that story (or one side of it) merits publication and judgment in the court of public opinion;
4) That I naively bragged of my media savviness in an interview more than 7 years ago, which almost merits publication ;
5) And finally, that neither I nor GiveMeaning should be trusted because of the points above;

It is quite clear from his articles that Baines doesn’t like me and apparently a few former “friends” and associates feel the same way. But I am not sure this is worthy of 4 articles which are almost entirely personal and don’t establish any balanced or well reasoned arguments as to why GiveMeaning should not be allowed to operate as a registered charity financed by generous donations. Baines brings up the point that GiveMeaning’s donations have been subsidized by tax-payers. He repeatedly makes this statement knowing full well that the same is true of any other registered charity.

Baines has chosen an interesting time in my life to attack me: I have finally grown up. In his four articles, he has attacked me not for anything that I am currently doing now but for mistakes I've made in my past. This must be because there is no story in suggesting that GiveMeaning is up to anything other than trying to achieve and facilitate social good.

I admit I have made mistakes in my life. GiveMeaning is evidence that I have learned from those mistakes and am now devoting my energy to the betterment of others rather than myself.

Baines has no evidence of nefarious behaviour at my foundation or that it is not in complete compliance with CRA’s regulations. We can all take confidence in the fact that an investigative journalist of Baines’ experience has nothing but innuendo after 4 weeks of “research”. His primary innuendo is that the measure of GiveMeaning Foundation’s efficiency is the percentage of receipted donations which is transferred to other charities in the same fiscal period. To be clear:

100% of what is raised through GiveMeaning Foundation for projects listed on the website is distributed to qualified donees.
GiveMeaning has operating costs like any organization and like any start-up, costs are high in creating a new organization from scratch. Those operating costs have been funded by donors who recognize that overheads covered by GiveMeaning Foundation reduce the overheads of other charities, primarily struggling small charities.

We take it as a point of pride that we do not share or sell the names of donors and have had this policy from the very beginning. In fact, we state it clearly in the About page of our website and so I cannot release donors names. This is undoubtedly a prudent policy in a sector when too many charities sell the names of their donors.

Baines also mentions that before I decided to stop speaking to him that I offered him the opportunity to speak with some of our donors. This is true. I don't think it should be of any surprise that after reading his articles, that none of our supporters would wish to speak with Baines. Had he chosen to wait and speak with donors before writing his articles, I know he would have found what he says he's looking for: Donors who understand and respect the service we are providing. Given the personal nature of his articles and his reputation for a particular form of editorial, it should come as no surprise that I was advised not to talk with him. Note that this is the first time I have ever stopped talking with a person of the press.

To now enter Blake Bromley into Baines questioning of my or GiveMeaning's integrity only hurts Baines' case further. Blake is one of the most highly respected charity lawyers in Canada, if not the world. Not only was Blake Bromley proven innocent of the charges that Baines brings up, his reputation and professional practice thrives in spite of the assaults of CRA and David Baines. Baines fails to mention that Blake was also cleared by the Law Society which investigated the accusations as they would of a complaint against any lawyer.

One of the very few new things that Baines has written about today is a charity called Amazing Grace Foundation of which I am a director.

I have received no fees or had any expenses paid by Amazing Grace Foundation. Amazing Grace has received funds for specific projects, as have many other charities. The reason money didn’t flow directly from donors to Amazing Grace is because this charity (like others who use GiveMeaning) doesn’t have the technology to raise money via the internet nor does it have the money to fundraise. Instead he refers to a “circular flow of money”. What is circular about a donor coming to GiveMeaning.com and making a donation which is flowed through to Amazing Grace at 100 cents on the dollar and spent by Amazing Grace to achieve its charitable purposes? Perhaps by “circular” Baines meant “straight line”.

Baines has said that as a young man, I had some screw-ups and wasn’t as much of a “whiz kid” as I and some media outlets have portrayed myself as. Ok.

It is my past that has led me to my present. My past drives me to work as hard as I do. In the past, as Baines has made readers aware, I often ran or walked away from challenges and problems. That time is over. David Baines has only increased my resolve and inspired me to most certainly stay and continue to fight for this fledgling charity the Vancouver Sun has devoted so much energy and space to discrediting.

Ironically, Baines has said what I have known and spoken about for a long time. That up until starting GiveMeaning, I was more “famous for being famous” than for actually accomplishing anything. Baines has perhaps done me a service by bringing that weakness to the fore. It is a pity that in his zeal to tear me down he could not recognize that with the help of so many of you I am now finally building something great. I want to thank Baines for inspiring me to be both a better man and a better steward of GiveMeaning’s resources. More importantly, I want to thank you for standing with me in this time of trial.

Here we go again.

2008-01-29T08:12:00.000-08:00

Readers of the Vancouver Sun might have noted that Sun columnist David Baines continues to pursue a selective investigation of my past, this time beginning with a quote from a 2000 CBC Interview I gave seven years ago.

In it, I reference a CBC television interview done much earlier. I was featured jumping on a couch singing and dancing to a song. In the 2000 interview, I'm quoted as saying "Do you think I ever woke up in the morning, surveyed my apartment and said, 'Maybe I'll crank the tunes and jump on my couch for a while?' I don't think so." I spoke confidently and naively about my media awareness, going further with a comment that I told people "amazing, wonderful, and, in most cases, untrue stories about [myself]."

In this second column, Baines searches for investigative credibility in quotes taken from my father’s participation in the same interview. He said that I was “a prototypical child of the electronic age. He knows how to use the sound-bite. ... He will give you a sentence that will be tailored for you to put into your news broadcast. He is a child of the age in that sense."

The point in bringing this material up from seven years ago and then observing the amount of media that together with GiveMeaning I have garnered quite deliberately since, is to suggest that if I was "spinning" then, I must be spinning now. In a vain effort at making his point Mr. Baines brings up my short-lived employment at a firm called Whalen, Beliveau. I began there when I was 17 and ended a year later when the Vancouver office of the firm split to merge with another firm.

My entire salary was paid as an advance or draw against commissions. This simply meant that before I was entitled to any bonuses from commissions, all of my salary would be deducted and any additional expenses I incurred would first be repaid. Mr. Baines is correct that I did not close any deals where a commission was paid to Whalen, Beliveau, but this is because I was working to develop a new field of client, not because I didn't work strenuously on behalf of my employer.

Under the terms of my employment I was responsible for my own expenses and Whalen Believeau lent me the money to pay these expenses pending receipt of commissions. When Whalen, Beliveau split to join a new firm I was sent a letter by the Montreal office of Whalen, Beliveau demanded that I repay the loan. Since my employment had ended unexpectedly I had no income to do so and Whalen Beliveau ultimately did not pursue me further.

Quite separately, because this money was in fact a “debt owing”, and under the advice of counsel, certain of the facts are as Mr. Baines reports; specifically that I declared as income the advances I received and claimed the paid expenses. It is true that Canada Revenue Agency originally disallowed the expense claims on the grounds that I didn't pay them. It is true that I appealed that ruling, arguing that even though I didn't pay the expenses directly, I was liable to the firm for the full amount. The Tax Court decided that I had done everything correctly and Canada Revenue Agency did not appeal the court decision. It is not true that I didn’t “earn” this income as Mr. Baines quite wrongly suggests. I consider the matter closed although I am reserving the right to consider Mr. Baines assertions more formally.

In his first column focusing on me, Baines quotes a recent interview I gave to a Victoria-based newspaper called "Monday Magazine" in which the interview asked me "why aren't you more of a dick?" I responded with a column filling quote captured by Mr. Baines "I think because I was a dick," Williams replied. "This path I'm on now is only something I arrived at after having fully explored my own dickiness." But really there isn’t anything new here. I have been consistent and candid in suggesting that the motivation to start GiveMeaning lay in part to redeem myself and correct the course that I seemed to be headed-down.

And so, Mr. Baines speaks of my past grabbing thoughtless quotes from a teenager delighted with the new attention of the media. What a sleuth! He points to the typical failures of anyone attempting to find the right path to follow in his search for a worthy future. With GiveMeaning now a cause for celebration Mr. Baines is sure there is something wrong with the picture and so he has chosen to search in the past in an effort to discredit me and the work of GiveMeaning.

When Mr. Baines first called me, I decided to speak openly to him and spoke to him several times both the day before his first column and then a few days after it appeared. That won’t happen again.

If Mr. Baines had taken the trouble to read or watch any of the recent interviews in full, the ones particularly about GiveMeaning, he would know that I am in this for the long haul and I am in this completely. I am nothing if I am not open although people like Mr. Baines are quickly making me much less naïve.

As far as anything else that might appear on the web posted in an effort to capitalize on the cheap shots of someone who should know better, I would much rather you wrote me directly.

My response to David Baines' article this past Saturday

2008-01-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

A writer named David Baines called me on Friday morning to let me know he was writing a piece on me and GiveMeaning in the next morning's paper. Armed with our 2005 and 2006 annual reports we file with Canadian Revenue Agency, he recites publicly available numbers namely that we received $234,632 in tax-receipted donations (which are largely donations we received through our website for the projects on GiveMeaning.com) and another $730,350 from charitable foundations to pay GiveMeaning's administrative costs in operating the website in Canada.

He specifically states that I "refused to identify any of these donors" when in fact, I offered for him to speak with some of GiveMeaning Foundation's donors and yet he didn't take me up on this. I find it odd that Baines appeared to rush to publish this article, calling me for the first time the day before the article was supposed
to run.

Nevertheless, his main contention is that GiveMeaning Foundation has spent more money building the GiveMeaning brand and service than it has raised money for its projects. This is not only not in dispute but not surprising to anyone that knows anything about a start-up business. GiveMeaning launched its re-vamped website in late September of 05. Prior to that, our web presence was in Beta and very little transactions flowed through. The numbers that Baines is reporting on is our first full year of collecting tax-receipted donations in Canada for the GiveMeaning website. Given that our
average donation through the website is about $40, our first-year tally of money raised for projects is not surprising. It's also not surprising to anyone that understands the nature of a start-up that in the first few years of operation that start-up costs will exceed revenues. It took eBay eight years to make a profit.

Baines can't understand "why certain undisclosed charities would give money to pay overhead for what is essentially a charitable conduit." Foundations are investing in GiveMeaning because they recognize that the GiveMeaning service is helping charities of all sizes make fundraising easier and less costly. By supporting our work at
GiveMeaning, they are providing an infrastructure for all charities to use. He seems unaware that foundations regularly make grants to other foundations for capacity and infrastructure costs.

Of course I draw a salary and yes, my wife works as a contractor for GiveMeaning. Baines seems to think that GiveMeaning should run without staff and expense and that it's wrong for charitable foundations to provide GiveMeaning with the financial resources to build its service, a service used by charities of all sizes.

Baines seems unable to draw distinction between money raised through the GiveMeaning.com website for projects and money raised separately from donors who support our admin costs. When he says "Williams insists that, whenever a person gives money for a particular charity, 100 per of that money gets to the named beneficiary. That may be true, but it does not mitigate the fact that the vast majority of the
overall money collected during 2006 went to administration." By lumping together these two costs as one, he is ignoring the simple fact that the donors giving to our operating costs are doing so specifically FOR our operating costs and that donors giving through the website for projects have 100% of their funds passed on
the Implementing Organization responsible for carrying-out that
project.

It can't be laid out more clearly than what we have in our About Us section which reads "We charge nothing for donations collected online and even cover the credit card costs associated with each donation. We rely on the support of generous donors and advertisers to provide this service."

Baines leaves readers with his own judgement on what is or isn't philanthropy, passing judgement on a fantastic grassroots economic development initiative out of Uganda which trains Ugandan people to build guitars and then sells those guitars in North America to create self-sustaining, economic development and on Wild ARC, which is the
division of the BC SPCA that provides rehabilitation and care to injured animals. Baines doesn't think Sea Otters and poor Ugandan people fall into the class of "quality charities." He's entitled to his opinion but the whole point of GiveMeaning is to give grassroots initiatives an opportunity to find their audiences as we believe that any charitable initiative deserves to have the opportunity to better find and connect with supporters who care about those causes.

Baines' final point sums it up nicely. He says that "we have a responsibility to scrutinize all charitable endeavours to ensure that we are getting decent value for our dollar." He clearly doesn't think that GiveMeaning's service is needed, valuable or useful to the charities and donors we serve. And that spending money on a new way
of fixing a big problem is not warranted. He's entitled to his opinion.

Change Conference Q&A

2008-01-19T14:51:00.000-08:00

Last night I spoke at the 8th annual Change Conference in Victoria, BC. I asked those in attendance to write and submit questions about making the changes they want to make in the World and I would do my best to answer each question. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who asked questions. This morning, I spent some time answering each of the questions I was asked. Here are both the questions and my answers.

For those of you at the conference who didn't get a chance to ask me a question, don't worry about it. Add me on Facebook and/or email me at my name at givemeaning.com

Thanks to everyone who participated!

How do I find out what I am passionate about?
I’m sorry I didn’t do this yesterday. Here’s a good way of trying to focus in on what you care about. Start by writing down 10 words that describe what’s in your heart and head. From that list, create another list but limit the words to five. From that list of five, further limit it to three.

I find that this little exercise helps clarify the issues that I’m passionate about, so that I can focus on then learning about and doing more about the things that I’m most passionate about.

Music and leadership / making positive change is my life. How can I integrate the two to benefit others?

(Another question with the same answer:) What role do you think music plays in positive change?

Well as the husband of a Musician, I can tell you that I have witnessed the impact a Musician can make. When a Musician hears from a listener that their music got them through a tough-time, helped them grieve, helped them open their heart to love, all of these things are making positive change.

So I think that simply by following your music, by making music from your heart, you are capable of making change.

At GiveMeaning, we’re exploring an idea we call “MusicGivesMeaning” which would promote various artists’ shows in exchange for the artist agreeing to raise some money that night for GiveMeaning.

I believe strongly that every artist should also seek to nurture art in others, so I think in addition to making music, helping others develop their musical craft is a great way of making meaning.

Change superficial and prejudice/racists bullying.

I’m not entirely sure of the question here so I’m going to riff on “sameness.”

The people who make fun of others who are “different” you must truly feel sad for. These people are so desperately insecure that they spend a tremendous amount of their time worrying about how to stay the same. They are totally powerless So insecure are they that they obsess about “what is cool” and do their best to live up to someone else’s definition of this. For as long as they do this, they are empty vessels, depriving themselves of understanding and respecting themselves.

Dare to be different. Celebrate the fact that you are not the same. Embrace your individuality. And understand that anyone who is making fun of you is actually jealous of who you are. Don’t treat them with disdain or disrespect. Just have compassion for the fact that they have not found what you have found. Yourself.

I think I know change is a positive thing and I would love to do all I can to help what can I do to change – make a difference? Any ideas?

I think one of the things to be aware of is that Change can’t just be a project, it has to be a daily way of living. In other words, someone who spends an entire month involved in a specific project but then spends the other 11 months not being aware of their world around them, is making only limited change.

I suggest you start with trying to listen and inform yourself more of what’s going on in the world and then follow your tears. But while you’re looking for that, start by trying to be more compassionate to those around you. Who do you have a hard time finding time or respect for? Start there.

I believe we should “bring ourselves down” instead of bringing 3rd world countries up” (wealth wise) What do you think?

I absolutely agree that we should see to “bring ourselves down.” I think we need to find the right way to express that sentiment. I really don’t like the term “sustainability.” I mean, do you want a sustainable marriage or do you want a GREAT marriage? Sustainability lacks a certain enjoyment in my mind. So I challenge you to come up with a way of “selling” what you’re really talking about, which is about celebrating ENOUGH. As I said last night, “more is always more” but enough is enough.

But I don’t think our focus on ourselves and enough should be done at the expense of trying to help others. Instead of seeing it as “one or the other” I think if we focus on enough, the logical next step becomes “ok then, what do I do with the abundance” and the natural answer is to give your abundance to someone who doesn’t yet have enough.

So by striving for enough, we will be led to give our abundance.

What occupation do you think would allow someone to affect change? Teacher, politician, doctor?

Any job that puts you in contact with another human being, even if that contact is through art or the written word or over the phone, is an occupation that allows someone to affect change.

Because it’s not about the job you do, it’s about the person that you are and the way in which you conduct yourself and treat others.

Me and my friends are organizing a 30 hr famine @ our school and I was wondering if you ever have done one and if you have any advice.

I have never done a 30 hour famine. The closest I have ever been to that experience is being in Northern Uganda in this tiny little town where a massive feeding operation was underway. People had lined up all day in the sweltering heat to get their rations of about 1 months supply of the most basic food supplies. The experience led me to actually feel physical pain for what it must like to starve and I remember sitting in this tiny little shack eating Casava and beans with my hands and feeling so grateful for that food.

My advice would be that if you want an easy way to collect pledges for donations, you can each create your own personal fundraising page at GiveMeaning.com which makes the process of raising money for the 30 hour famine much easier.

What gave you the idea to start GiveMeaning?

A bunch of conversations with friends, led me to three conclusions. Most every single person I know cared about something but it seemed as though none of us were actually doing anything about the issues we cared about. When I started to try and understand why, I realized there were three issues that prevented most people from doing something or doing more:

When I give, I’m asked to give more: Many people are put-off (rightly so) by the fact that after they’ve given their time or money to a charity, they get many requests to give more. The number of emails, letters, phone calls - altogether I call it “charity spam” – just really pisses people off, and so they don’t give any more.

How do I know that my money is being used effectively? Many people don’t feel as though they know how their money is being used by the charities they give to. And increasingly, people who can’t have the confidence of where their money is being spent, prefer not to give.

I don’t have enough to make a difference: Even some of my very wealthy friends said that they felt as though even if they gave ALL of their money away, it wouldn’t be enough by itself to change the issue that they care about. So if they feel that way, my friends with $5 dollars to spare certainly felt the same.

So I wanted to solve these three problems because I felt if I could, that more people would actually want to give.

So we solve this at GiveMeaning.com in the following ways: When you give money or sign-up at GiveMeaning.com, we never share your personal information with the charity or organization you are supporting. And we at GiveMeaning, never send you emails.

Everything at GiveMeaning that you can give to or fundraise for is a specific tangible project. Instead of just giving to Poverty relief, you can give to help a specific family, build a specific school or water well, or send a specific class on a field-trip. And then once the funds are raised, you can keep track of how the project you are supporting is unfolding because blog updates, photos and sometimes video will be posted at GiveMeaning.

And finally, it’s about pooling each person’s contribution together with other like-minded people so that your $5 and my $50 bucks and someone else’s $500 can all add up to be enough to complete the project.

On your website, do you help small growing charities or just large ones?

We welcome every charity of every size at GiveMeaning.com. We particularly love to help the small, growing charities because they are the ones who need our support the most.

What do you think the pros and cons are of political and religious ties?

Oh wow, I could write an essay on this one! I think faith is a beautiful thing. What amazes me is how much most every religion agrees with every other religion. In terms of what it means to be a faithful person, to be a good person, most every religion asks the same thing of its followers. It’s the ideology of the religions that causes so much pain, suffering and conflict. And it’s the desire for some people in positions of authority in their religion to abuse their power for their own reasons/motiviations that can turn many people off from faith. What a horrible line to write. That a small group of people can turn another away from faith.

Similarly with Politics, many Politicians don’t disagree with their members of their opposing political parties but it’s the ideology (again) and the desire to hold on to power that leads to a tremendous amount of arguing for arguing’s sake.

Your question asked specifically about the ties to religion and politics. I think the more that one affiliates with a certain ideaology, the more unlikely they are to be able to find people who share their same beliefs and desires to make change. And in order to truly change the world, I think we need to reach across the lines that divide us, stop being “right” and “left” “Christian” and “Muslim” and start being brothers and sisters, people who share the same fears, the same aspirations, the same desire to make the World a better place. So I think it’s much better to have a respect for all and a desire to include everyone no matter their faith or politics in the effort to make change.

What is the issue you feel most strongly about?

I care most about helping others connect with their passions and helping each person achieve their goals of making meaning in the World. That’s why GiveMeaning.com is the perfect place for me because I get to help everyone no matter what the cause or where they are working.

We have a tight neighborhood and we get together in the fall for a block party. I’d like to introduce the idea of a sister neighborhood in Africa.

This is a great idea and myself and my team can help you connect with a village to support. The notion of a neighborhood supporting a neighborhood from another place is a fantastic idea. I’ll be in touch via email to help you on this.

What is the most difficult choice you have made in your life, and who inspired you to make the decision?

I have always trusted and relied upon my instincts so I have never deliberated in the moment about a decision for a long-time. In other words, the biggest and most difficult choices APPEARED easy at the time, because I have always trusted in my own ability to survive, no matter if my choice turned out to be the wrong one. I think, looking back on it, it’s the choice to have created GiveMeaning and put all my remaining money into it. There have been many moments in making that decision, where I worried it was the wrong decision or that it wouldn’t work, but I persisted because I believed so strongly in what I was doing. Where I’ve drawn my greatest inspiration is from the people I’ve met along the way of this journey. The people that are trying to make the world a better place in their own ways.

Why did you end up giving your fortune away after working so hard to achieve it?

Because giving away my money to help others is the best thing I could spend it on. But let's be clear, when I started GiveMeaning, I wasn't a tremendously wealthy man, financially.

To start-up a non-profit for microloans what are the first three things to concentrate on?

Geographic Focus: Where will you focus your lending:
Lending Criteria: Who are the target beneficiaries of your loans? (Single mothers? Children? Anyone affected by poverty?)
Banking Partners: What criteria will you use in selecting micro-lending banking partners? Reporting, Credibility, Communications capabilities? Etc.

How do I motivate my friends to see a good cause as something they should support?

I’ve said about selling anything that I’ve never sold anything in my life but I’ve had a lot of people want to buy things from me. By this I mean that for as long as you’re trying to CONVINCE someone that your cause is right and just, it will be an uphill battle. But if you can find a way for them to see that they WANT to be involved in that cause, then they will be asking you to join. How do you have them WANT it? By positioning that cause as desirable to them based on their existing values and interests.

I wish strangers on the bus would chat more. It’s so quiet.

I totally agree! So take the lead and start a chat! Make it happen. And don’t get discouraged if it takes a while to get people to open up. Here’s a random idea: On Valentine’s day, buy a bunch of flowers and get on the bus and give one out to each person, along with a little note saying “we’re all on the same ride together” or something like that. I tell you, these simple kinds of things become infectious.

Some people find change difficult, especially if its for a cause like becoming sustainable). Is it our job to convince them? Is it our responsibility to always foster change in others?

While I think it’s important to reach out to as many people as possible, I think it’s far more important to live the life you are talking about. The quiet example of leading the life that many others TALK about will inspire others around you. They will then ask you questions about why you live the way you do or care about the things you do.

First of all, we <3 u! Second, do you think there is a solution/change to homelessness and how should, if we do, come about it?

First, thank you! I <3 all of you. There is most certainly a lot we can do about homelessness. How many houses have extra rooms? How many of the families living in those homes talk about their compassion for the homeless? How many of those families would be willing to take a homeless person into their homes? There is a disconnect between what we say we care about and what we are willing to do about it. Think of all the extra beds in Victoria alone. We have enough roofs to end homelessness. Do we have enough compassion to open our doors?

In my school people generally only hang out or interact with people in the same grade. I would like to see more inter-grade interaction and inclusion.

I think that’s a great cause to work on. What can you do to kick-start this? Can you talk to the student leadership in each grade and ask them to get their friends together once a week for a social with people in a different grade as a starting point? Also, start thinking of what you will do when you are in the oldest grade in your school? How will you use that position to create change and leadership.

If you’re passionate about an idea and you’ve raised awareness locally and money for a large-scale problem, how do you go about making sure that money goes specifically into solving the problem and doesn’t get lost in translation? Especially if there are no charities for that issue?

This is exactly what GiveMeaning.com was built for. You can start your own project page at GiveMeaning. We will issue the tax-receipts to your donors, collect the money online and then find what we call an Implementing Organization who will agree to take the money you raise and spend it on the problem you’re trying to solve. They will then report by blog update, photos and sometimes video on exactly how that problem is being addressed with the money you raised.

How do you decide if an organization/group is for you? There are so many options! I want to volunteer in Africa in an orphanage but I don’t know who to go with.

My staff and I at GiveMeaning.com can help you with this. There is a friend of mine from Victoria named Logan Cochrane who runs a great small Orphanage in Ethiopia. You can learn more about it at kidshome.givemeaning.com No matter what your passion is, GiveMeaning.com can help connect you with an appropriate organization is for you.

Out of all of your experiences, what was the moment that touched you the most prominently?

There are so many moments but if I had to choose one, it was probably sitting in the Hotel Des Milles Collines (aka The Hotel Rwanda) listening to the birds chirp on a beautiful sunny morning the day after I watched the movie Hotel Rwanda in my hotel room. I had been traveling throughout Africa for two weeks, meeting people that we had helped through the GiveMeaning.com website. I wrote about the experience on my blog and said that I truly knew in that moment the power that each person has to change the World.

I have been trying to get more involved with local chapters of two organizations and I know I can bring some energy to these groups but there is a lack of interest. The events that ARE planned are generally in 18+ areas like pubs.
[Note: I summarized this email question.]

I think the first thing I would do is approach one or both of those organizations and offer to captain an under 18 specific group and ask for some support and resources by which to make this happen. If this doesn’t happen, I would gladly support you in creating an under 18 youth group for GiveMeaning.com.

Have my Children plz?!
That’s probably the one question where my answer is no.

Days like this

2008-01-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

So back in October, I blogged about a touching experience at a Cineplex Odeon cinema and featured a charity called Gordon House Youth S.E.A.R.Ch. that was responsible for getting the young man that I wrote about at Cineplex Odeon, his job.

Then, just before Christmas, I noticed that Gordon House Youth S.E.A.R.Ch. posted a proposal at GiveMeaning trying to raise money for 12 computers and wrote a follow-up piece on my blog directing readers to their proposal.

Gordon House needs the computers so that they can provide at-risk youth with a means of searching for jobs online, updating their resumes and providing basic IT skills development.

And yesterday, I got a call from a man named Sergio Vettese who works for Softchoice Corporation, a publicly-traded (TSX-SO) Toronto-based company, which describes themselves doing for IT what I'm trying to do at GiveMeaning. Here's what they say:

"A distinctive corporate culture developed at Softchoice, one that continues to promoted integrity, forward-thinking and individual responsibility as the basis for every customer interaction. To this day Softchoice Corporation’s focus on finding better ways to help customers buy and manage their IT resources remains the central motivating force behind everything we do.

Sergio has facilitated a donation of 12 Laptops to Gordon House S.E.A.R.C.H, thus fulfilling the proposal before it even got its 100 votes!

I'm most certainly going to turn this into a Podcast! It's stories like this that make all of us GiveMeaning giddy!

Thanks Softchoice Corporation!!!

Kenyan Situation Reports

2008-01-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Below are correspondences we have received from members at GiveMeaning who have posted fundraising projects at GiveMeaning benefiting communities in Kenya. We've asked each of our project founders to update us with what they are experiencing or their colleagues are experiencing on the ground to try and give you a perspective that might not otherwise be able to be obtained.

Because of the tribal violence, I have decided to remove any specific geographical references and any names of people mentioned in these reports. I hope to be updating this page with more reports in the coming days. These comments are infused with their own perspectives and not that of GiveMeaning or my own.

This update was received by a Kenyan-born Project Founder currently living in the US on January 3rd.

Dear Tom,
I come from Kenya, where i was born and raised. The reason i started to mobilize my friends to begin our organization [name withheld] is because i feel passionate about the plight of Kenya's children. What is happening in the Kenya is obviously unprecedented. The people of Kenya through history have been peace loving; always going about their businesses peacefully and trying to create a prosperous future through education and change. It is for this reason that they came out in large numbers to vote and exercise their democratic right, boy, they were cheated.

So many people have been displaced. Everyone i speak to in Kenya including my sisters and mother is scared. I have heard a frightened voice of my older sister, [Name withheld], an otherwise strong and courageous woman, quiver and afraid. For the first time she's of the realization that her marriage to a luo, a man she has married a number of years ago could have been a "mistake" and perhaps it might just bring death sentence to her and her entire family (something that was never a problem before). To think that her entire family could be a target is hard to fathom. Her family has lived in [location withheld] with several people of different tribal descent. Suddenly, she's become sceptical, afraid and dubious about her neighbors and what they would think of her.

In my home are of [location and details withheld] this problem has exacerbated the usual poverty and pauperism that has existed for generations. Speaking to my Mom, she said, "I have nothing to eat son; i have been sleeping without food for days." For an old woman, suffering from acute high blood pressure and arthritis, it is impossible to imagine my take about the situation. I have the money to send to her for food, but how? She cannot collect it because the service canters are closed. No food can be transported into the village; yet the village has been hit by a long spell of drought that has left the inhabitants of over 30,000 people with no much to eat.

Here in [location withheld] my friend in the small town where i live, just called me to tell me that his brother in-law and wife's uncle (both Kikuyus) have been hacked to death by an angry mob in western Kenya. My friend's wife would love to go home and attend the funeral, but how do you travel into a "war zone?" We are thinking of organizing a "Harambee" (pulling together) {fund-raising} to assist [Name withheld] with funeral arrangements. It was just the other day on New year's eve that i was at [name withheld] house where i had been invited to celebrate the start of year. [name withheld] and i had talked at great length about Kenya's after this disputed election. Never did i ever imagine that tragedy would hit this close.

War is destructive. If the leadership would realize that greed, power, pride and arrogance won't feed or bring hope to the hopeless, perhaps reason would prevail.

Sent January 2nd from the Province of Nyanza

"Thank you very much for your communication. Things do not look good here. The Opposition leader who was rigged out of the presidential election comes from my home Province-Nyanza. So the violence is intense here.The current president comes from a tribe called the Kikuyu and together with members of a tribe called Abagusi, they are the only people who voted for him. Now all the rest of the Kenyan tribes have risen against them, Rwanda style with pangas and arson (burning of houses). In my home area we live side by side with the Abagusi. Their houses were burnt and scores killed. It is amazing how people who have lived side by side for decades suddenly turn against one another.

A curfew has been imposed in several parts of the province and everything is grinding to a halt. There is no food, no public transport, no water because people fear venturing out to fetch it. People are just indoors fearing the chaotic blood letting. towards the event. Kisumu is a Ghost town as i write this and nobody can eneter or leave it."

Twitter could become the next Digg.

2008-01-06T15:00:00.001-08:00

I just Twittered this idea but here's the expansion to this thought. First the thought again: That Twitter should add the tinyURL function into Twitter. By doing this, it would be able to track which URL's are being Twittered and build the conversation around the URL's. Add my tagging idea I've discussed before and we're really cooking with gas.

And since we have more vested interest in our Followers than an anonymous commenter on Digg, the conversation stream around the story should be better quality.

Calling all programmers, the Twitter folk or someone already working on a really awesome Twitter-based social network, let me give you my brain on this. I just want Twitter to live up to its potential.

Obama and the Power of Plenty

2008-01-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

I call myself a "CanadiAmerican:" I was born and raised in Canada up until 15 when I moved to the US where I grew-up in the US until about 22. I went to the US as many immigrants do, to take part in the pursuit of the "American Dream", the one where you arrive with a nickle in your pocket and several years later, you're a millionaire.

I arrived as a 9th grade drop-out working for Apple Computer and while I didn't leave a millionaire, I became a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, charging thousands of dollars a day for my uneducated advice and telling CEO's and executives of major companies how to run their companies better and they were listening. I started companies, helped manage a half a billion of venture capital for some of the World's richest people and had all the material trappings of wealth.

I always say that "success requires a persistent misreading of the odds" (a quote from Tom Peters) for the odds were not that I had a good chance of having the success I did when I left home for California. But I was full of hope.

One of my favorite quotes is "“Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope”

I have always been interested in politics and I've watched many political speeches both of living Politicians and of those who have passed. I have watched grainy videos of Martin Luther King Jr, JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Roosevelt, (not so grainy) Trudeau and many other Politicians of a different time wondering if ever there would be a speech given by someone in my lifetime as powerful as theirs by a person as galvanizing and enchanting as them.

Instead, I have had to content myself with remarking how well a spin was made, an accusation or barb thrown, a defense or criticism made, a policy articulated. The closest I got was Jeb Bartlett created by Aaron Sorkin and Hugh Grant as Prime Minister of the U.K. I, like many people, had lost hope that a Politician would come around and actually inspire me. Until last night.

This speech moved me to tears.

His opponents' criticisms (e.g. his inexperience and naivety on foreign affairs) now seem to me part of his appeal. Of course, it shouldn't surprise you that a 9th grade drop-out who became a consultant to CEO's feels that sometimes, inexperience is to be coveted.

I often tell people the story of how the Polaroid camera was invented. Edwin Land was a Harvard-educated Scientist who tried to share his scientific experience while on vacation with his three-year old daughter. She wanted to see the pictures they were taking right away and he was trying to explain the process by which pictures are developed. Not having any of the inertia that comes from experience, she wasn't convinced that his explanation was the ONLY answer. Edwin was prompted to think outside the box and soon after, the Polaroid camera was invented.

With experience comes inertia. An acceptance of the "norm" the "status quo." A cold, calculating look at the odds as a means by which to determine whether to try.

"Hope is the power that gives us the power to step out and try.”

Last night, a Politician gave me and millions of other people Hope. His name is Barack Hussein Obama and I believe that he is now destined to become the 45th President of the United States of America.

Pragmatically, one can question whether it would be better for Obama to be elected President later after someone else who is more hardened tries to clean up the massive mess that's been made. As an investor, I was taught to never throw "good money after bad" but this assumes you are content to write the investment off. We're talking about a Country here, a Country that Obama reminded us last night has the potential to be great.

I don't think anyone wants to write off the United States of America. It's time to throw good after bad.

I've decided that I'm going to head down to South Carolina on January 26th.

I'm making the trip because I've never been as inspired by a Politician living in my lifetime as I have been by Barack Obama.

Before a biz model, Twitter needs some features

2008-01-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

With all of this talk about Twitter and it's potential to become a billion dollar business and what business model it should take, I'm thinking a couple features need to be added before Twitter can hit and more importantly maintain 100m users.

As a preamble, let me say to my most tweety friends who might have their feathers ruffled that I of course LOVE all of your tweets but consider the following:

At present time, when following someone, I have to take everything they're going to Twitter. This includes kids puking, drunken bar posts and conversations between two people that should be Direct totally lacking any context but for some reason are posted publicly.

Feature #1: Start tagging posts. They could even be one letter tags (#t = tech, #p = politics, #r = random stuff etc etc.) I could then choose when following someone, which of these types of tags, I want to listen to.

Feature #2: Allow Twitter users to rate others' posts. Reply to each post with a 1, 2, 3 or do it binary style "hot" or "not". This would build a Twitter Hot list that would be something to shoot for. Currently we have quantity over quality, and that poses a problem long-term. After all, how many of us respect people for how often they talk?

Feature #3: Build a Blackberry App! I Twittered this a little while ago to no reply but there is such a DOS/Linux command-line thing going on that so isn't retro-cool. Give me a slick interface that makes it such that I don't have to remember all of the command-lines. Command-line interfaces relegate the service to a more techie-oriented crowd, not the masses.

Feature #4: Last but certainly not least, get to the root of your service outages, missing tweets etc because if you're going to start charging or even adding advertising, QoS is going to be increasingly expected of you.

Of course, should you choose to implement these features, I'm available for consulting for a few stock options ;)

Looking for 12 used computers

2007-12-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

In late October, I blogged about Gordon House Youth SEARCh, an innovative charitable program here in Vancouver provide training and resources for "at-risk" youth.

In the blog entry, I talked about my first-hand experience with a client of their program and I'm happy to report that the young man I spoke of has now been hired-on full-time by Cineplex Odeon.

The organization has just recently posted a project proposal on the GiveMeaning website and is now seeking votes. You can see their project proposal here. Please consider voting for their proposal or better yet, if you're sitting on 12 computers of similar make/model and OS, get in touch with me and consider donating them to this worthy cause.

Your computers will help many at-risk youth connect with employers, keeping them safe and providing them a much-needed income.

Thoughts from Toronto

2007-12-19T15:21:00.000-08:00

Written from the back of my cab as I head to YYZ. Published a day later from my office in Vancouver.

“The chicken is involved, the pig is committed”

If an online community is just the “plumbing” that facilitates engagement amongst its members, what real value does the brand have?

Next year, you're going to be hearing a lot about CommunityLend. It is to consumer lending/borrowing what GiveMeaning is to philanthropy.

For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Used (Mark Twain). What is your six-word biography?

“The problem with the Bible is that it’s had too many Wikipedia edits”

Wiki’s fall short around capturing subjective knowledge. What is the tool that mediates the disagreements around subjective knowledge?

ScotchCamp was fun. But ScothCamp AFTER a long, wet dinner? Not as fun.

The most enviable thing about me? How many great friends I know and people I get to hang out with. Good news for the people I hang out with? Most of them know each other.

So here’s the deal with “Merry Christmas:” I’m going to share my celebration with you and I hope you’ll do the same with yours to me. What I don’t like is that in our desire for political correctness, we’re watering down each special celebration to this homogenous grey as Toronto slush, meta-celebration.

The problem with capitalism is it seeks infinite growth in a finite world. How much is enough? What do you do with the rest?

I think we're going to try and get a bunch of UI/UX people together and do a Design Slam for GiveMeaning in the New Year.

Merry Christmas my Toronto friends. See you soon.

First video blog

2007-11-21T23:04:00.001-08:00

At the end of the day (the only time I have to organize my thoughts), I am finding I just don't have time to write a blog entry. Too much going on and too much need to spend my precious down-time with Jess and family and friends.

So I've taken to video blogging and here is my first post:

Also, you can find me on Twitter where I'm micro-blogging my day.

We can take them with us but what good do they do us?

2007-10-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

My friend and fellow traveler, Joel Solomon is well-known in the social entrepreneurial world.
Joel has been a supporter (in all sense of the word) of many social entrepreneurs, especially in Canada and extra-especially in BC.

Joel has been in search of a kidney for quite a while and a dear friend of his, Shivon Robinsong (also a tremendous force) has agreed to donate one of her kidneys in what can only be described as the most generous act of friendship I've ever known.

Joel recently wrote an email to friends and colleaguesabout the challenges of organ donation
To Colleagues and Friends

The following is an excerpt from that letter:

"The point of this letter is to emphasize both the general and specific importance of all of us making the effort to sign up so that our organs may be used after our death, by others for whom they can be the gift of life. And for the extra courageous and hearty, there are organ and bodily donations that can happen while we are alive. Many people wait on lists desperately hoping for this miracle, and any of us may find ourselves or a close loved one in need at some point in ourlives...

...The sad fact is that a small fraction of the population has signed up to make such donations possible. At least by the laws in BC, without that few moments of paperwork, our body parts will simply go to the grave or crematorium.

Please go to the web site link that follows and sign up ASAP. If you live in another jurisdiction, take a few minutes and find out how you can do the same.

Consider forwarding this email to your friends, your facebook site, your network, post on your blog, or however you prefer. Let's create a wave of donors."

As the title of this blog entry says, we can take our organs with us, but what good do they do for us in the ground?

Changemakers in London, UK?

2007-10-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

I'm putting this out on the Blog. I'm going to be in London late in the afternoon on Sunday, November 4th through till early morning of November 6th on my way to Prague to speak at a conference.

Please email me privately any cool, interesting people I should be meeting that you know of.

If anyone is hanging out with Branson these days, I wouldn't mind going on a Hot Air balloon ride up and down the Thames with the guy.

Stamps / Sodacan update - Video complete

2007-10-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

This note is directed at everyone who sent stamps and soda-can tabs in support of my Blog appeal that I posted back in the summer.

My Gramma had just moved into a long-term care home and was understandably depressed. One of the aspects of freedom that she lost in moving to this new care-home was the ability to collect used stamps and soda-can tabs to send to the BC Guide Dogs Society

I didn't think there was a financial benefit to the charity that could be derived from soda-can tabs and stamps but upon further investigation, found out that BC Guide Dogs Society receives more than $1000 a year from this simple act. That's a lot of dog food!

So, given that my Gramma couldn't collect these stamps and soda-can tabs, I decided to take up a collection through this blog and made an appeal to the readers to "Send me their junk." Within days, stamps and soda-can tabs started arriving from post-marks around the World!

Unfortunately, before I could complete the project, my Gramma passed away but a few days before she died, I showed her a picture of a collage of some of the soda-can tabs and stamps that had been collected. She was very moved.

Shortly after her death in September, I finished the product and this Podcast is a must-watch for anyone who participated.

Many thanks to all who honored my Grandmother with their participation in this project.

Cineplex Odeon - Worth the ticket price at least this time.

2007-10-23T11:30:00.001-07:00

Jess and I saw the movie Rendition
This is a note about Scotiabank Theater where we saw the movie. At the top of the escalator, we were greeted by a young man in a wheelchair employed to greet people as they entered the theater. I don't know what it was about this young man but Jess and I were really moved by the fact that he was employed as a greeter.

I think we're all prone to griping about the cost of a movie ticket these days (not to mention paying $12 to sit and be advertised to for a good 5 minutes before even the trailers begin) but here is Cineplex Odeon employing people who have to overcome significant barriers to do their jobs.

I decided to learn more about how this program came to be.

I found out that a program called Gordon House Youth SEARCh (Seeking Employment and Resources for Change) provides training and resources for "at-risk" youth. Typically, I think of "at-risk" as being drug-addicted street youth, but in speaking to Julio Bello who is the Program Manager for this initiative, he informed me that "at-risk" covers a far wider spectrum.

Julio told me that when he began speaking with Jason De Courcy, the Operations Department Director of BC for Cineplex Odeon that Jason was very enthusiastic about being able to participate in placing Julio's at-risk clients at Cineplex theaters.

The program involves 8-weeks of on-site training which gives an opportunity for the young person to gain tangible, resume-building skills and make an impression on their employer. Julio told me that most of the people who enter the on-site training become employed by the sponsoring employer.

In speaking with a Manager at the Scotiabank Theater (where we saw Rendition), I'm told that there are six employees currently employed at that one theater who have participated in this type of job-training program.

I'm a big fan of this type of program and encouraged that Cineplex understands the community benefit (both to their employees and to its customers) of supporting this type of initiative.

I asked Julio what the program needs in terms of support and computers are in great demand. He needs to find 12 computers of similar make, model, OS etc that his clients can use for developing resumes, conducting online job searches etc. At present time, there is such a hodge-podge of old equipment that it's completely unmanageable. Any local computer merchant or company upgrading their computers want to donate 12 computers?

I'll give the donor tons of profile if they do.

Next time you're seeing a movie at Cineplex and see one of these greeters, please be sure to tell them and their managers what a great job they're doing!

Don't forget to pee

2007-10-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

I'm now back from Toronto. I have so many friends and interesting people I know in Toronto that any trip out there starts early in the morning and ends early in the morning the next day for every day I'm out there.

One of my favorite meetings was with my friend Salimah, an activist and journalist. Thanks only to Facebook status updates, Salimah messaged me to let me know that she was headed to Toronto for a few days and our schedules would overlap.

We got together at the Park Hyatt's rooftop bar on Thursday afternoon and started to catch-up. Our conversation traveled the world from Afghanistan, Iraq, India, New York and Vancouver. Salimah and I are cut from the same cloth. We're passionate extroverts who never miss an opportunity to evangelize our beliefs and passions. The conversation ran a million miles a minute and we both lost track of time. We realized we were both late for our next meetings and shared a cab back downtown.

As we continued to gab and snake through rush-hour traffic, we both realized we had to pee. Of course, the verbal acknowledgment only put more pressure on our respective bladders... The snails pace of our cab became more worrisome. At that pace, there was no way either of us would, well, make it. So we ran out of the cab in frantic search of a public washroom - which despite the fact we were smack dab in the financial district - seemed a fruitless search.

We left each other promising one another that next time, we would remember to pee.

The moral of the story? When running around the world pursuing your passion, we run ourselves ragged. It's impossible to take care of the world's work when we forget our own basic needs. So don't forget to pee.

Off to see Rendition.

Wow

2007-10-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

I'm very thankful for the kind words and messages of support I've received from people watching the Hour last night. Overnight, we've received dozens of new "proposals" for fundraising ideas at GiveMeaning.

Before we accept fundraising for a new proposal, we first require the proposal to collect 100 votes of support within 30 days of it being posted on the site.

This process of collecting votes helps us ensure that there is enough support for a new proposal.

It's up to the person who submitted the proposal to recruit those votes amongst their own social network of potential supporters.

So if you've submitted a proposal, thank you! Now it's time to start recruiting support for your idea. By simply emailing a link to your proposal, and asking them to vote, you can get the ball rolling.

Lastly, a lot of people have asked what they can do to help GiveMeaning. In all honesty, the best way to help us is to make a tax-deductible donation in support of our operating costs. You can donate online through GiveMeaning by clicking here

Thoughts after the hour

2007-10-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Taped the Hour this evening and now back at the hotel watching it online. The link I posted below in an earlier blog entry has the entire interview on their website.

I really enjoyed meeting George. He's a great guy, great mind.

If you're reading this blog entry having watched the show and have questions for me, don't hesitate to post them here on the blog or email me at tom [@] givemeaning [dot] com.

Thanks for watching.

The Hour - CBC tonight!

2007-10-17T09:08:00.001-07:00

I'm in Toronto rushing to a meeting but wanted to share that I'm going to be interviewed on the Hour tonight. It airs at 11pm on CBC.

Here's the promo clip which apparently doesn't work on a Mac.

Jess' album is out today

2007-10-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Jess' CD, Nothing Fancy is in stores today!

You can buy it on iTunes by clicking here and is in major retail chains across the Country!

To think that Jess was in the studio 3 YEARS ago recording the album and that it's just come out today!

I'm very proud of Jess. She's incredibly talented, hard-working and grounded.

I'm an incredibly lucky guy!

What GiveMeaning was built for

2007-10-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

Saw new proposal on GiveMeaning today.
Click on the founder (Jen's) name on the left-hand side.

This kind of energy is what keeps us all motivated.

My day so far

2007-10-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

Fly in to Nanaimo, BC last night after a long day. Had to stay the night because there were no flights that would get me in this morning in time to deliver a talk to a local Rotary Club.

Woke up at 630am to be at the Rotary Club at 7am. Only there was no Rotary Club. The doors were locked, the lights were off. No one home. They had changed their location two weeks ago but forgot to inform us of the change. Schlep back to the hotel and answer emails for two hours.

Drive a fair distance to a small school. Cab is late, stressed out that I'll be late... Out of energy. Nothing to say. Convinced *this* is the time where I just totally bomb. Feeling a cold coming on.

Have no idea what I'm going to say. And then I start.

And I know exactly what to say, and I roll on. Half an hour of my history and half an hour of "the bullshitter's guide to bullshit" which is an honest-to-goodness instructional session in using the commercial skills of persuasion in changing the world.

Everytime I speak to youth groups, I offer my brain to address any problem they are faced with in trying to change the world. The response to the offer varies place to place. This was the best interaction I've ever had. It was AMAZING!

We covered so much ground and it was very interactive.

My only regret was that I had a flight to catch and I had to hurry out of the school and didn't have enough time to talk with the students one-on-one.

These speaking sessions are quite selfish. No matter how tired I am, no matter what leads up to my getting there, I leave feeling totally energized.

I'm a horrible blogger. I'm making peace with this reality.

The inspiration for my generosity

2007-09-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

Today at 10:38am on my Mother's birthday, my Gramma passed away with four of her five children at her bedside.

Having suffered a mild heart attack, she was admitted to Vancouver General Hospital last week and on Thursday evening, I visited with her. I'm grateful that though her body weakened, her mind and spirit remained strong until the very end. I was able to have a heart-to-heart conversation and show her this picture, a collage we made of all the stamps and soda-can tabs sent in from so many generous people, some of whom I have never met.

We had scheduled to take all the soda-can tabs and stamps to BC Guide Dogs Society this Friday, and then bring a puppy to surprise my Gramma but... We're still going to do the video but unfortunately this video will be an in memoriam tribute to my Gramma.

PLEASE, take some time out of whatever you are doing and visit with your elders. Your grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, whomever. The Jim Pattison Pavillion at VGH was a wonderful place and they took such good care of my Gramma but there are so many elderly people left alone in their last days. We're one of the only cultures that doesn't value our elders the way they ought to be. Don't resolve to do it later.

Who deserves more celebration? Is it someone who gives $100,00 a year from an estate of $10,000,000 or is it the pensioner who gives the lion-share of her pension cheque to charities each month? Today, I celebrate my Grandmother's giving spirit. Here was a woman with very little who gave most of it away. She lent my Mother the money required for us to travel to California to meet John Sculley, Apple's CEO, which was the meeting that led to me later being hired by Apple. My Gramma really was the $5 Philanthropist. I will miss her tremendously.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the stamp and soda-can tab collection. I put my laptop on her lap in the hospital bed last Thursday with this picture in front of her. She had an amazing smile that I'll remember always. Thank you to each and every one of you who helped me do a great turn for the BC Guide Dogs Society and who joined me in celebrating one of the most important women in my life.

She was genuinely moved by our group effort. And so was I.

Vivian Elizabeth Macvey: God bless you. I love you.

Breaking news: The beard is gone

2007-09-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

Honoring my wife's request, I shaved my beloved beard tonight by getting a traditional "hot shave" with a straight razor at a local barber. I now look about 19. Pictures coming soon.

I'm off to Hollyhock tomorrow to attend Social Venture Institute.

I'll be posting my thoughts on the conference either from the conference or when I'm back Monday.

What a weekend

2007-09-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

I just have to say how proud I am of my wife, Jessie Farrell. She played in front of 30,000+ people in Moncton, NB tonight where the headliner was Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Tim & Faith flew in on their private jet from Nashville for the show. Jess' travel story? A tad less relaxing:

Jess left early Friday morning from Vancouver and arrived several hours later in Montreal for a connecting flight to Moncton. About half-way through the flight, Jess noticed that the plane made a sharp U-turn and shortly thereafter, the flight attendant announced that one of the two engines had failed and that they were going to try to make it back to Toronto. All the while, the incredibly panicked flight attendant encouraged/instructed everyone to remain calm.

They landed on the Toronto airport tarmac with precautionary firetrucks lining the runway at the ready and then had to turn their attentions to how they would be able to get to Moncton in time for their show. Somehow, Jess managed to get the last remaining seats on a flight from Montreal to Toronto and then Toronto to Moncton flight for early this morning. I wish I could tell you the saga ended there.

Upon arriving in Moncton, it became clear that Air Canada had lost all of the band's clothing and gear. So began another mad dash to the local mall for Jess to find something to wear, meanwhile the band had to borrow gear and equipment from other musicians and performed the show in their shorts.

All of that said, the show was - thus far - Jess' biggest show ever and she tells me it was incredible to perform in front of so many people. Later, Jess stood backstage just a few feet away as Faith began her performance. A real thrill!

I normally don't share too many aspects of my personal life on this blog but I can't resist talking about how proud I am of her!!!

The Year 2017 - What a letdown

2007-08-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Gayle Roberts is hosting the Giving Carnival this month and has suggested I contribute an entry on the "future of fundraising."

For those of you coming from the Giving Carnival that don't know me, I started GiveMeaning.com three years ago as a place for individuals and organizations to post project-specific appeals and provide donors with hassle-free, tax-efficient way to contribute and "evangelists" the means by which to promote the fundraising appeal online within their social networks.

The last time I contemplated the future, it was in 4th grade and I was convinced that by 2001, we would all personal robot assistants and flying cars. Humbled by my lack of prescience, I haven't sought to prognosticate since.

Let's see... In the year 2017, Bob Geldof will turn 65 and it will be two years after the Millennium Development Goals' first major milestone. I predict that Bob Geldof will launch the "Blue" campaign, rallying senior citizens to donate their "blue hair special" discounts to a newly formed organization called the Octagenarian Promise. But seriously folks...

I'm worried. Here's why:

1) Messaging & Delivery: First to delivery. In the early 1970s, it was inconceivable that a television ad could deliver a message in less than 1 minute. By the early 80s, that had dropped to about 45, by the mid to late 80s it was 30, and now it's conceivable to deliver a full message in 5 to 10 seconds. I'm the son of an English professor, I was a voracious reader until my late teens but now my eyes can't even stay focused on an entire newspaper or magazine article. This is not because of undiagnosed ADD but rather because of a "compression of messaging."

Now, when I advise consumer brands, I advise on how to embrace this compression of messaging because if the message of "buying this product makes you a happier/sexier/healthier person," that's all that's needed. But every fundraising campaign is also an awareness campaign, trying to actually inform and educate people.
I think education can still exist within hyper-compressed messaging but of all the
non-profits and other change-making groups I interact with, this issue is not a priority and for the most part, not on the radar at all. This is NOT just a problem for reaching today's generation 30 and under.

Absent making this a priority, I'm very concerned that many organizations will fail to earn their share of "conversational bandwidth" for both their organization and issue.

On messaging, take a look at this website for Camp Okutta and first click on the Shooting Range and then the Grenade Pit. What's incredibly sad is that when I saw the Shooting Range piece, I accepted it as reality that there was probably a kids camp like this somewhere in the US (sorry, but I envisioned this as "Blackwater for Kids.")

With "embedded reporting", pornography becoming mainstream, the content of the top-selling video-games, the rising popularity of characters like Nancy Grace and for that matter, Anderson Cooper, it's harder to shock us, to enrage us, to engage us. We now expect bad news, horrific imagery. We consume this unemotionally, disengaged. This means that our stories from the field are becoming "consumer news" in ways that don't provoke reaction in the same ways as before.

The problem is that if we in the non-profit sector "sink" to the levels of mass-media engagement, we're most certainly doomed but if we don't find a way by which to create our "content" in ways that people seek to engage, we're also in trouble.

2) Online fundraising risks becoming a victim of it's own success.

The more that online fundraising tools are embraced, the more likely that online fundraising (in most of its current form) will become less meaningful. In other words, the more emails we get from our social network, the more likely we are to see any appeal as "spam." When I started GiveMeaning three years ago, I made it clear that I didn't want to create a donor portal recognizing, that "most people don't wake up and think 'geez where do I want to give today?'" And I still believe that to be true. We're almost entirely fundraiser-centric, meaning that very few people come to our site looking to give away their money.

That said, I think one of the predictions I will boldly make is that we're going to see that online fundraising tools will plateau and perhaps even start a decline and that we'll start to see a rise in "donor-centric" sites.

This chart maps the popularity of five websites. Hugg, DonorsChoose, NetworkForGood, Kiva and Care2.com. The x axis displays the "traffic rank" (1 being highest) and the y axis is a 6-month plot of time. This graph shows that Care2.com (which has no online fundraising or donation functionality) leading the pack, followed by Kiva.org, then Hugg.com (a user-generated environmental news site), and then NetworkForGood (notice the "lumpiness" of website traffic") followed by a couple of big spikes for DonorsChoose during year-end and holiday season but falling-off after that.

For me, the future lies somewhere between Kiva and Care2. Kiva has managed to create micro-content that engages the small donor in repeat visits to the site and invests them in a specific outcome. Care2 is a site that provides news stories, discussion and other community tools to engage people around the issues they are most passionate about.

I see a migration from "reactionary" to "exploratory" in the online fundraising world where peer-to-peer funding will go from "asking" to "collaboration"

That's the direction I'm committed to taking GiveMeaning...

Lastly,the other point is that no organization should have to maintain a ten different profiles, accounts etc. The fundraising sites that are going to be still operating in 2017 are the ones that are publishing feeds from a central organization source. There will also be new "middleware" opportunities for vendors to manage donor communication but what is now called "Donor Relationship Management (DRM)" is going to be very different because it's going to be more about tracking all of these small micro-campaigns, both in terms of performance and media syndication.

So that's my vision. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is the Blue Campaign.

I think I might try a separate post on the actual fundraising industry but these are my thoughts on the future of online fundraising.

Changing the world - one milk carton at a time

2007-08-22T12:11:00.001-07:00

So about a week or so ago Jessie comes home from having drinks with a friend and informed me that we're never shopping at the convenience store below our apartment ever again.

These kind of pronouncements more often come from my mouth, so I was curious as to know what kind of injustice she had witnessed that would take the convenience out of the convenience store.

Apparently, Jessie asked the owner why they don't carry organic milk, he got defensive and said something like "if you don't like it, shop somewhere else" and so she promised never to shop there again. His argument was that "no one wants organic milk." Inspired (I suspect) from the liquid courage she had just imbibed, she brought other customers into her conversation, and proceeded to ask three people standing in line whether they would buy organic milk, if they stocked it. Either out of genuine interest or social anxiety, they all said that they would buy the organic milk if it was available.

She left promising never to return until they carried organic milk. Of all the stances to take, I'm not sure why Jess seized on this (again, perhaps it was the drinks) but a couple of days later, as we walked by our convenience store, one of the owners came running after Jessie and said "ok, we have organic milk now. shop with us again!"

So now of course, we're drinking a lot of milk in the household.

This story is a bit cheesy (cheesy, get it?) but it does contain two fundamental truths about changing the world:

1) Start small. Real small.
2) When they do what you want, buy a whole lot of milk. (i.e. reward the changed behavior by increased loyalty).

The lunchbag letdown.

2007-08-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

Just before going on vacation, I wrote this entry, wanting to talk about the issues facing "New Canadians" (a term I like more and more). I had intended to post while on vacation but wisely left the laptop at home. I'm now picking-up where I left off.

Let me start with a disclaimer: I am not an expert on anything I write about. I am writing to try and create a discussion around the issues facing New Canadians and a rationale as to why more of us ought to try to do something. I am hoping that people much smarter than I am will contribute comments and feedback that will set right my mistaken assumptions and inform us all. Disclaimer made.

In this post, I want to compare a donor dollar spent on Darfur emergency relief and a dollar spent on providing free after-school tutoring to Sudanese kids who have landed here in Vancouver as refugees. I hate these types of comparisons because - in an ideal world - we ought to fund both, but it's unlikely that the same donor will fund both programs.

The "on the ground" effort is urgent, extreme and well-reported in the media. The "here at home" situation is certainly not urgent nor extreme (in the same context) and thus not well-reported. Of course, if a family of Sudanese refugees have found their way to Canada, they are certainly much luckier/wealthier than their friends and family back home, right? Right. Well kinda.

I can't fault any refugee if they lose perspective eventually. (I know I would lose it quite quickly) Meaning that eventually, I stop comparing my current situation today, here in Canada, with my past situation back in Sudan. Eventually, I have to look at the fact that I am here now and I must survive and ultimately try to move up the economic ladder here in Canada.

So back to what to fund. The crisis is on and somehow this one refugee has landed in Toronto along with his two children. The children are placed in school in the grades corresponding with their age. Problem is that their education is at a much lower level than their ages. They've been in and out of school. Stop start for the past several years before coming to Canada. The school gives a bit of extra help, an hour a week but there's one tutor to 10 kids, all of whom are at various learning levels and english competency.

The two kids are falling behind in school and yet despite this, they are already more educated than their father. He can't help them. So eventually, they stop trying. They spend less time at school, hanging-out with other kids who have slipped through the cracks. Meanwhile, the father whose English is passable but by no means strong, finds himself unable to get work other than as a less than minimum wage laborer.

An entire post deserves to be written on the exploitation of New Canadians on farms, in nannying and other industries but let's keep talking about the father and his kids.

The kids drop out-of school and then walk down one of two paths: A life not unlike their father, working below the poverty line, their labor exploited or they find easier money selling drugs, find support and a sense of family in a gang, and then end-up incarcerated or dead.

Obviously the story I portray is one of extremes but the story I'm telling above is a composite of many people I've met here in Canada whose personal stories are far more sensational than this composite.

Now maybe your attitude is that they (the New Canadians) should be "lucky to be here" and "to each his own" and if they're unable to make it up the economic ladder, that's their problem. And at least on the last point, I might be willing to accommodate that view, if only it were a fair fight. But my Sudanese friend is "bringing a knife to a gunfight."

So then, if it's not a fair fight, and we're not investing in adequate resources to ensure that those that we purposefully annoint as one of us, as a Canadian, if they are not given the resources, then in a way, we are actually contributing to a new form of slavery.

Bear with me.

We know the basic requirements to move up the ladder. It starts with education and skills development. If these resources (which are inalienable rights of any Canadian) are not afforded to New Canadians, specifically recognizing that they can't just be "slotted" into society with a citizenship card and a rousing singing of O'Canada and God Save The Queen, that they need some form of "starter kit" that specifically addresses how to place them onto a level playing field, then we are in many cases signing-off on their enslavement.

Now if that isn't a compelling enough argument for us to do MORE, let me make a pure dollars and sense argument. I've seen some of the most generous giving for international development come from New Canadians who have managed to move-up the economic ladder, and who have contributed disproportionate amounts of their wealth (as a percentage of their income compared to "averages" of annual giving) back into the communities where they grew-up and in the surrounding communities. I've seen a lot of this giving done quietly and even without tax-relief and I'm proud to say that at GiveMeaning, we provide an infrastructure by which many of these grass-roots projects are being facilitated.

So here's a couple of solutions:

The biggest issue is not a lack of resources, but a lack of access to these resources. Back to my analogy of the starter-kit, if there was someone during the citizenship process who worked as a "case officer" for a New Canadian, who took the time to understand the specific needs of that family, and then accessed a central database of all service providers offering relevant and applicable services, this would make a MAJOR difference.

As I say often, there are 80,000 charities in Canada and more than 100,000 non-profit societies. In addition, there are countless grass-roots volunteer groups offering a myriad services but most of these organizations have zero budget for outreach or awareness.

Heck, someone should create a community portal aimed at New Canadians arriving from the same countries. Share resources, anonymously articulate problem employers, coordinate meet-ups, etc. Do it as a non-profit endeavor. I'm sure there would be lots of government grants and community grants available for such a site, and potentially even some corporate sponsorship.

So there's a start. Second, we need stricter laws protecting "migrant workers" and a review of temporary worker visas and the employers who bring in workers under this visa, and a better process by which workers can articulate grievances without fear of retribution.

So there it is. Not without hyperbole but not without merit.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Finally back in the saddle

2007-08-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm back. Despite having been back from an incredibly refreshing vacation for about two weeks, I have found it incredibly difficult to get back in work mode, having so thoroughly relaxed on my vacation. Every vacation I've ever been on has been a "working vacation" complete with Blackberry, MacBook and the OCD-inspired habit of checking of email every two minutes.

This time was different and I must say, I really needed the break.

So I'm back and I have more than a few stories to tell. I'll try and catch-up over the next few days but first, three small little tidbits that I'm pretty proud of:

While vacationing on Saltspring Island, we found out that my wife, Jessie Farrell, has been nominated for two Canadian Country Music Awards!!! To be nominated for Female Artist of The Year and "Rising Star Award" is really exciting and we found out by listening to JR FM while pulling our car into a Goat Cheese factory!

The next week, I found out that I've been named one of Marketing Magazine's "top 30 under 30," which I'm very proud of. It's good timing because I'm thinking about re-tooling my blog or possibly maintaining two separate blogs. One on philanthropy and cause marketing, the other on more technology, marketing and other rants. I want to invest more time and energy in blogging and am going to pursue this in earnest in September.

Lastly, GiveMeaning was mentioned in today's print edition of the Wall St. Journal (page D4).

So that's my exciting news.

Now, on to where I left off.

New Canadians

2007-07-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

Ever since the day I wrote this post, I've been thinking a lot about challenges facing New Canadians, especially those who are coming to Canada as refugees or who come in hopes of escaping poverty.

A friend and colleague recently introduced me to William. William is one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" and moved to Canada seven or eight years ago.

William has been running an all volunteer-run after-school tutoring program for African kids who are falling behind in school. And here's but one example of the problems facing New Canadians: Kids coming from other countries are assigned to school based on their age. So a 13 year-old kid who has just arrived from Sudan is being put in the same grade as a kid who has lived here all their life. That would be no problem if Sudan taught the same things and had the same level of education as Canada but how likely is that? Never-mind homework! Homework is at least somewhat reliant on having a parent able to oversee, assist or at least encourage the child in their studies but many of the parents of these kids never had the opportunity to be educated, leaving the kid alone to study and figure it out. What good is the chance at a new life if they're not supported with the basic ingredients needed to have a chance at succeeding in the new life??

So that's part of the problem. Here's part of the solution: William has been organizing a volunteer-run tutoring program for New Canadian kids struggling at school. According to him, it's pretty ad-hoc and in need of more tutors and in need of a permanent space (the church that they have been using gave notice that they can no longer host the group for free) but from my conversations with William and others like him, I'm beginning to come to a few distinct opinions that I'm going to share in separate blog entries this week.

In summary:

I'm going to argue that it might be a better "investment" for us to focus on the New Canadians arriving here from lives of poverty and conflict;

For those that don't give abroad because "charity begins at home," I'll outline a "two for the price of one offer" (horribly crass but used with the intent to provoke);

I'll expand on what I think is an evolution from "Immigrant" to "New Canadian" to "Canadian" and provide an argument that if we make the investment in the resources needed to make the transition to "Canadian" that we'll create new capital (financial and human capital) that will find its way overseas to address international development issues;

And finally, I'll try and express my thinking around the concept of "business planning" for giving.

Please join the discussion.

New features at GiveMeaning

2007-07-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to spend less time on the computer on weekends so I've got to make this quick. Last night, we launched several new features to GiveMeaning including the ability to subscribe to RSS Feeds for any cause, location or combination of cause and locations. So you can subscribe to a feed for everything at GiveMeaning addressing "poverty" in "Vancouver" as an example.

It's a great way to find out what's going on about an issue or community you care about.

Check it out.

The Pizza Hut story

2007-07-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a heartwarming story whose moral is that giving doesn't need to be overly complicated. If we as individuals and families keep our eyes, ears and hearts open to people in our own social networks in need... Well.. Read the story, you'll see what I'm getting at.

On another note, Peter Deitz held a "webinar" on "group fundraising solutions" today. He lumped together what I'll call "vertical micro-philanthropy sites" such as ModestNeeds, GlobalGiving, Kiva, DonorsChoose with "horizontal group fundraising sites" like FirstGiving, SixDegrees.org and GiveMeaning.

GiveMeaning is unique in that it's both a micro-philanthropy site AND a horizontal group fundraising site but as it applies to most of the other organizations in online fundraising and philanthropy, the two concepts are exclusive of one another.

Let me explain: ModestNeeds allows people to fund specific individuals who have applied for funding for specific personal needs. DonorsChoose allows donors to donate to appeals made by teachers asking for funding for specific school-related projects. All of these sites offer great "catalog's" of giving options all around one specific cause. These vertical sites are generally donor-based but augmented through tools that facilitate spreading awareness about specific projects on that site via word-of-mouth.

Horizontal group fundraising sites are first and foremost "fundraiser centric." This means that without a specific fundraiser instigating traffic to their own fundraising page, (little to) no donations will occur. A horizontal group fundraising platform gives a motivated individual the ability to become a fundraiser for any charity. Group fundraising platforms allow motivated "evangelists" of an organization to fundraise within their own social network (thus also augmenting awareness of the org amongst that network). Very few true strangers are going to donate to a personal fundraising page.

GiveMeaning is unique in that we are fundraiser-centric but because most every fundraising page at GiveMeaning articulates a specific project. Projects can be very specific like this one or more broad and focused really on raising money for an existing program of a charity like this one.

Peter Deitz has done an amazing job and provided a great service in comparing various online giving and fundraising sites but I think it's important to create greater distinction when making comparisons about services that in many cases are comparing "apples to lugnuts."

Another GiveMeaning member doing incredible things

2007-07-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

Just got in from delivering a talk at a noon Rotary club meeting on Vancouver Island. I felt as though my talk was very well received and I had two unexpected bonuses:

I got to see my brother and his girlfriend for a few minutes (currently vacationing nearby) and I got to sit in the copilot's chair on the flight back to Vancouver.

My colleague Nate sent me s link to the following video clip just a few minutes ago:

Geoff (featured in the video) and his girlfriend have been raising money for this project for less than a month and have already raised $4,000! What's more, because of the nature of the project, no tax-receipts can be issued but it hasn't restrained generosity for this project.

The project is a fundraiser for a woman named Natalie Mperheza and her children Bienfait and Kesha. They came from the DR Congo two years ago and now reside in North Surrey in a government subsidized apartment complex.

Natalie and her two young children left DRC about two years ago and immigrated to Canada. I have been talking and thinking a lot about the challenges that face new Canadians and will be writing and Podcasting a lot more on the subject.

Speaking of Podcasts, I uploaded a new episode last night where I interviewed Shawn Smith of "Agents of Change" who recently led a group of young people on a ride from Vancouver to Mexico to raise money through GiveMeaning in support of Kiva's microcredit funds. Shawn was very open about his experiences and it's worth a listen to anyone considering a "bike a thon" or ride as a fundraiser. You can download it by searching the iTunes store for GiveMeaning or come over to GiveMeaning and download it from our site.

Pigs on a Toronto street corner

2007-07-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Terri Polet (a fundraiser at GiveMeaning) called the office. She told me that her sister runs a hot-dog stand in Toronto and had been using one of our Pig-e-Banks to collect spare change in support of Terri's fundraising initiative

Her sister Marianne has already raised over $100 in spare change through her Pig-e-Bank . So yesterday, I posted a Facebook note and tagged many of my friends living in Toronto. I asked whether anyone would be willing to take a picture of the Pig-e-Bank at Marianne's hot-dog stand and the very next morning: voila!

I met Jamie Drayton at this year's Mesh Conference. He's started a site called "Be a Good Buzz" which is a user-generated content site posting heart-warming, inspiring content.

In Jamie's post about the Pig-e-Bank and Marianne's hot-dog stand, he included link to a video about Marianne who is a bit of a living legend in Toronto.

Go to Jamie's post and click on the video link.

I'm honored that our little Pig-e-Bank is part of Marianne's stand.

To see the project that the Pig-e-Bank is benefiting, click here

I love how a real-world action was easily instigated through Facebook.

Update: Send me your junk

2007-07-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

In the mail today, I received my first package of stamps in response to the recent request I made on this blog!

The stamps came from the good folks at Bluelime media and I'm most grateful!

After I posted my appeal, Darren Barefoot blogged about it and I'm pretty sure that the Bluelime folks heard about the appeal through Darren's blog. Many thanks Darren!

For those of you not familiar with my appeal, it's so simple: I'm asking that you cut the top right-hand corner of envelopes you receive in the mail and send them to me in the mail. Also, for you soda can or beer can drinkers, send me the "tabs" on the top of the can. Mail them to me here:

Attn: Tom's Gramma Fund
45 Dunlevy Ave, Suite 230A
Vancouver, BC V6A 3A3

My Gramma is no longer in independent living and the transition to a full-fledged care home has been very depressing for her and all of us that love her.

My Gramma recently told me that one of the things she most laments about losing her independence is that she can no longer send used stamps and soda-can tabs to the BC Guide Dogs Society. This great charity which provides guide dogs to sight-challenged people encourages people (especially seniors) to send stamps and soda-can tabs in to the charity who then sells the stamps and recycles the tabs and makes more than $1,000 a year from this simple act.

If I can collect enough stamps and soda-can tabsby July 31st, the BC Guide Dogs society might bring in one of their Guide Dog pups for a visit to my Gramma's care-home, something I know would cheer-up many of the residents there.

Please take a few moments out of your day to put aside your soda-can tabs and used stamps. I'll be sure to recognize each contributor on my blog and post pictures of the guide dog visit on this blog.

Many thanks!

Thank god for musicians?

2007-07-06T16:47:00.001-07:00

Musicians are saving the world again. It makes me laugh that Gore & Co are anointing as global ambassadors of the environment the likes of Rhianna whose lyrics to her latest single include:

"Get you where you wanna go, if you know what I mean.
Got a ride that´s smoother than a limousine.
Can you handle the curves, can you run all the lights?
If you can baby boy, than we can go all night."

Don't get me wrong: Rhianna is stunning. She actually looks computer generated. I will admit having actually paid to download her latest single and her music videos are... well... memorable. And while her singing might have me holding on to her every word, if she were to take an interlude to talk about the environment, I'd flip to the next channel.

You get where I'm going.

Live8 was a similar endeavor that brought musicians together in huge concerts to end poverty and rally the G8. Live8 actually had a pretty well-crafted message and yet the G8 members have cynically and callously lied to citizens around the world and not delivered on their much ballyhooed Gleneagles announcement.

liveearth aims to "trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis." First Al Gore "invented the internet" and now he's "invented the global warming movement."

The movement has been strong long before he started giving his slideshow. Don't get me wrong: algore has done amazing work in expanding the movement.

True, his SOS campaign will likely get a bunch of "contact points" from concert goers, to instigate further action but Make Poverty History has proven that after the "big kickoff", all of those emails with inspiring calls to action don't get acted upon that much.

And of course, I'm not a fan of carbon offsets, and if you want to know why, visit this website. If you don't click on the link (which is a great example of how to use humor and levity to influence change), I'll summarize by saying that I think offsets do nothing to change bad behavior.

The amount of money and emissions that this big kick-off will create is not in the brand image of "a different way" or of "doing things better."

I'm just saying that I think for the guy who invented the internet, he could do better.

Action

2007-07-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

Kevin Sites of Yahoo's Hot Zone wrote this blog entry describing how Christine Egger and her team responded to a story that he wrote about a young Nepalese boy named Yubaraj.

It's a fantastic success story all around.

Everything has changed

2007-07-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

After just a night in Montreal, I'm back on the train now headed to Toronto. I'm listening to Lucinda Williams on my iPod and as I opened a new window to start this blog entry, the song started. Appropriately titled: Everything has changed.

The song (in Lucinda style) is horribly depressing but beautiful:

Now I don't know where my faith has gone
Faces look familiar but they dont have names
Towns I used to live in have been rearranged
Highways I once traveled on dont look the same
Everything has changed. Everything has changed

Reading the Globe & Mail this morning, this song was the perfect soundtrack for an article on the front page that reported that the Liberals raised $531,141 from 4,365 contributors versus the $5.1 million from 45,192 contributors that the Conservatives reported during the same period.

The fundraising landscape has changed and what worked before doesn't work as effectively today.

My advice (perhaps self-serving) is that the Liberals need to license the GiveMeaning platform to create personalized fundraising pages for each candidate. Here's how it would work: E

ach candidate creates a page (within their own website) where their supporters are encouraged to sign-up as "virtual campaigners."

They send an email to their own social networks with an introductory note about why they support the candidate and encouraging them to donate. The link brings them to a fundraising page not unlike this one except branded in the look and feel of the rest of that candidate's page.

People can leave messages of support, and the candidate's blog entries, photos, video entries whatever are automatically imported with a notification being sent out to each donor when updates are made (like Facebook).

In targeting small donations, the two big issues are conversion rate and cost of acquisition. There is no cheaper, more effective program than GiveMeaning's fundraising pages. What do you say candidates and campaign managers?

A charitable music label

2007-07-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

On the train ride I've been surfing a bunch of articles articulating the continued demise of CD sales in the record industry. This is of interest to me for two reasons: 1) My wife is signed to Universal Canada and;
2) I suppose I helped contribute to the demise of record industry during my time at Apple many moons ago.

The latter point is a great story of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

Anyway, I think I've come up with the new business model for the record industry: A charitable music label.

We'll incorporate a new independent label but instead of structuring it as a for-profit, we do it as a registered charity.

We'll distribute the music free and collect donations for our artists. People will reward music they like. Get a tax-receipt and support good music that you like. I think there's something to this.

A beautiful weekend

2007-07-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

I am writing this entry on a train headed from Ottawa to Montreal. The wireless is awfully slow but I'm nevertheless impressed that I'm rolling through farmland, eating a meal slightly better than airplane food (when planes served real food) and surfing the web.

I was in Ottawa to attend a fundraising event for Giselle Mansfield and her fellow climbers. Gigi has been actively fundraising at GiveMeaning for about 8 months now... She calls the office often enough that most of us recognize the sound of her voice and we've all developed a bond with her.

I've said that if GiveMeaning had more Gigi's using our site, we'd be more popular than Google. She is everything a fundraiser needs to be: Passionate, doggedly determined, tenacious and relentless. So far, she has raised over $30,000 and at the event she held on the weekend, she raised over $10,000.

Giselle is part of an initiative of the Stephen Lewis Foundation called "Grandmothers for Grandmothers" where Grandmothers in North America fundraise in support of Grandmothers in Africa who are caring for their grandchildren (due to their own children being orphaned due to AIDS.)

In October, Gigi and several other women are climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. This was their last big fundraising event before they leave in October.

Jess and I came out for the event held in a small town called Dunrobin. Jess played a few songs and I gave a few words at the closing of the event. It was a long way to come for just one day but as I said at the event, we would have flown around the world to show our support for Giselle. She really demonstrates the power of one incredibly motivated individual able to get a lot done.

Jess flew back early on Canada Day leaving me alone in Canada' capital city. To be on Parliament Hill watching a beautiful fireworks display explode right behind the Parliament buildings was truly awesome.

I'm only in Montreal for the night and then headed to Toronto for a few days before heading home. If you're reading this and in Toronto, please drop me a note. I'm in town until Wednesday night.

Send me your junk

2007-06-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

I have been doing a lousy job blogging. Amongst all of my friends, there is growing consensus that we really don't want to hear how "busy" anyone is so I won't cite the b-word for why I haven't been doing the b-thing. Instead, I'll just tell you about my Gramma.

Without my Gramma (Betty), I wouldn't be here. Not the here here that every grandkid can say about their grandparents but the here in the story-line of "I got my start at Apple as a teenager" here.

When I got the invitation to meet John Sculley (my then hero) before he gave a keynote speech at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in May of 1993, my parents were just going through a divorce and we couldn't afford the cost of going to California.

My mum borrowed money from my Grandma (not a wealthy person by any stretch) and on May 15th, 1993, it all got going. I met Sculley, we exchanged cards, I met most everyone else in Apple's senior management team and the next year, I had a job offer.

Fast-forward to today: My Grandma is now 89 years old and has recently moved from independent living into a care-home. She is - understandably - not at all happy.

One of the things she had to give-up with her loss of independence is something I'm hoping you can help me with: She used to collect used stamps and soda-can "tabs" to send to the BC Guide Dogs Society. She displays a picture of a Guide Dog that the money made from her used stamps and soda-can tabs helped to train. It's already sad that she shares a room with two other women who are basically catatonic, and the loss of this ability to contribute to one of her favorite charities just exacerbates an already crummy situation.

So I called the BC Guide Dogs office because I was a little unsure of whether they actually wanted used stamps and soda-can tabs. In fact, not only was I unsure but I was entirely skeptical. I left a message in the very early morning (about 630am) on BC Guide Dogs' main phone-line and by 11am they had already called me back!

The person I spoke with told me that they make a thousand dollars a year or more from the soda-can tabs and stamps that they receive. What's more, the stamps are processed by visually-challenged people.

Here's what I'd like to ask of anyone reading this blog: Cut-out the top right-hand corner of your envelopes that you receive and send them to me along with any soda-can tabs. Mail them to me at 45 Dunlevy Ave, Suite 230A Vancouver, BC V6A 3A3

If I can collect enough of them by July 31st, 2007, there's a good chance that the folks at BC Guide Dog Society might bring one of their dogs to my Gramma's care home for a visit with her and all of the other residents.

It's such a simple request. It can help a great charity and bring a lot of joy to the residents of this care home, especially my dear Gramma.

I'll be checking my mailbox daily.

Have a great Canada Day!!!!

Show me the money

2007-06-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

Peter Deitz wrote an article for TechSoup today based on a survey conducted amongst GiveMeaning, ChipIn, Firstgiving, SixDegrees, and JustGive.org,

We each gave our own data and Peter then created a composite of "average results" which is a great first-step at providing more knowledge to those contemplating money using group-fundraising campaign services like what GiveMeaning provides.

I'd like to see further studies sub-segmenting by cause and even "outcomes" because I believe our (and I mean all of my colleagues services too) services serve specific types of appeals very well and others not so much.

Peter, I hope TechSoup compensated you for this effort, otherwise, we'll need to throw a group-fundraiser just for Peter to continue this kind of output!

The one thing I think missing/misleading from the analysis in terms of recommendations is that it's not a simple CAMPAIGN GOAL / AVERAGE CAMPAIGNERS * AVERAGE AMOUNT RAISED formula.

Appoint an "Online Campaign Chairperson"
I think in order for a group fundraising campaign to be fully-functional, the organization needs to appoint a group fundraising chairperson and that person should actively on Facebook/LinkedIn/MySpace or all of them and contribute regularly or at least semi-regularly to a blog.

Work with the chairperson to identify "best campaigners" within your org.
They should be identified by a combination of their ability to evangelize the campaign in their own words, have a big social network, and also be on one major social network and ideally be posting a blog as well.

Feed your campaigners a steady stream of "fresh" content
The campaign chair should be organizing meet-ups, and online group chats and be sending fresh "tidbits" for each campaigner to blog about. If you have a ChipIn widget on your blog but the blog isn't talking actively about the campaign, your donations are going to reflect that.

1-800-Got-Junk

2007-06-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Jess and I are about to move and we wanted to use the opportunity to de-clutter. In preparing for the move, we used some of our time yesterday to be mercenary in identifying stuff to throw away and give away. Within a few hours, every room was full of bags to dispose of. Problem was, we were identifying SO MUCH JUNK and couldn't dispose of it in our apartment's bins.

I had seen the ads for 1-800-Got Junk and knew that it had been rated as a great place to work and that it's a great local success story but had never used the service. First of all, the online booking process was incredibly elagant. Within minutes, I had booked an appointment for them to arrive a few hours later.

Instead of having to wait around all afternoon, we were given a two-hour window and a promise that we would receive a phone-call 15 minutes before they arrived.

We got a phone call an hour before, giving us plenty of time to go about the rest of our day.

The two guys were great! They were friendly, funny and professional. As they finished loading a lot of the stuff faster than we thought, they caught us going over old sentimental stuff that we were unsure of whether to let go. Recognizing the sensitivity of the situation, they left us alone to decide what to do.

Finally, unlike any comparable service, when we were in danger of being slightly over one price category, they worked to squeeze us in to the cheaper category. In doing so, they've only made me more of a fan.

It's so rare that a service lives up to its brand promise but this is the one that did.

I know this post is so evangelical that it sounds like I was paid to write it. I assure you that other than some "Junk Bucks" the guys left with us as an incentive to use the service again, I haven't nor don't need to be paid to promote their service.

My friend Michael Garrity wrote a post the other day about some service pretending to be a consumer-information service but instead is just propaganda for certain clients. And of course, there's the ongoing debate around PayPerPost and other services. What I liked about what Michael said is essentially great products don't need spin/propaganda.

You want to "engineer word-of-mouth"? Simple! Build a great product/service, invest in ongoing quality assurance, hire good people, infect them with enthusiasm for the company, treat them well, deliver outstanding customer service..repeat.

I'm a HUGE FAN of 1-800-Got-Junk. Organizations of any kind can learn from what these guys are doing.

Wii - More than you thought

2007-06-17T10:43:00.001-07:00

wii 2
Originally uploaded by mattclark79.

Haven't blogged in several days.. So much going on...
I found this picture on Digg today. It's of a young man, born with cerebal palsy, who is unable to walk or talk but able to play video game baseball against his little sistir with Nintendo's Wii. His face says it all.

Jess and I went to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul2Soul show last night. They opened with a cover of Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars." It was a fantastic night!

Okay then, how about Web 2.5.1?

2007-06-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Forgive my nerdy joke and my continual need to push the topic of "versioning" the web. I come from the good ol' days of 1.0.1a not just alpha, beta, gamma, omega. While Web 2.0 has certainly become a marketing jargon, let's respect that if we don't keep versioning past Web 2.0 (whether as marketing or real practice), we're saying we're not evolving. Web 3.0's real definition will likely be in a re-infastructured web, not in any particular application or technology. But back to the topic of reputation....

The first breed of aggregators (MySpace, Friendster, all of those b-2-b niche communities etc) tightly controlled the terms of use and looked at their membership as their asset. They built closed systems and governed their communities hierarchically. They decided what to show, what to promote, how to allow, and acceptable codes of conduct.

Two of the most successful community sites - Digg and Facebook - are both communities who have lost control of their community. Digg saw a mass revolt around what the community perceived as censoring but what Digg saw as prudent risk management. Most amazingly, Digg vowed its fate to the community, a noble if not dangerous move. Facebook experienced its own revolt (though not around an issue of legal liability) where mass protest around privacy issues led to watering-down and in some parts removing new functionality. Now with f8, they have truly opened up their site to 3rd party applications. Some of which (like those that allow monitoring of who has browsed your page) are contrary to the spirit and philosophy of the Facebook value-set.

The problems with being open or too open are:

The Wisdom of the Crowds isn't often wise: Have a look at the front-pages of Digg and YouTube. Count how many of the pieces of content most voted for by the crowd are of interest to YOU!
Community power is exploited: I have it, you want it. eBay sellers refusing to assign feedback until they get seller feedback first. Digg members selling their ability to rank a story. etc.
"Co-upping" is common. You and I both know that in order to thrive in a community, I need reputation. So we agree to mutually confer respect. It's not earned, it's negotiated. I don't know if I've just invented the term co-upping to refer to this common community practice but it's sufficiently descriptive.

My intent in yesterday's post was to say that we as community-builders and as aggregators and promoters of UGC must realize that we're now at a point where we must evolve or die.

Though I was about to go on to talk about what "real reputation management" should look like, it occurs to me that there is an interesting fix to the problem of Digg and YouTube. And it's already starting. Community aggregation services + Widgets * Facebook mediated-relationships = True Egocasting.

Michael O'Connor Clarke wrote a great post outlining some thoughts on a centralized infrastructure approach to reputation management. In his post, he said "When you "friend" me on one service, you're giving me a vote of reputation – saying, in effect, "this is one of the people I count among the good guys." This is only true when people are truly restrictive of who they count as friends. I can't actually vouch for many of the people listed as "friends" on Facebook. Just because I've seen pictures vacationing with their family, doesn't mean I know how they treat their kids.

But what I do know is what they like, what their tastes are, and to some extent their values (and no, this is not gleamed from what they entered in the "Religious views" field.

So with f8, each Facebook member can ego-cast what they find on the web to their semi-trusted network. They can do this because instead of trying to figure out and keep track of the fact that I'm weirdname07 at YouTube, literaryreference01 at Digg, etc, I know who you are at Facebook and it's there that you're broadcasting what you've found at YouTube, what YOU like there, to me and all of your friends at Facebook.

And this is the missing piece. I don't know if you're really my friend, but I know you're my go-to guy on brit-pop bands I'd never heard of. Most of your movie reviews don't disappoint and we actually have a relationship, established BEFORE you started sharing this stuff with me so I can razz you as opposed to trash you when I follow your advice to see "The Holiday". In fact, the whole pretext of the Facebook connection was that we somehow knew each other before we met again on Facebook. You're truly losing face to me and potentially our shared friends whereas if you're anonymous and unknown to me, you really have nothing invested in the relationship.

It's a bit of a departure from yesterday's post and I believe that there are some technological "holy grails" to pursue but in the meanwhile, a lot of this comes down to actually putting the commune into community. When reputation is an isolated number not an issue of real "face", the relationship will always be compromised.

Web 2.0 versus Web 3.0

2007-06-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

So I think I can summarize why Web 2.0 is coming to an end and we're ready for Web 3.0

Web 2.0 was about opening up User-Generated Content ("UGC"). The barriers to create and propagate content (including entire websites) have dropped so low, that we're awash in UGC. We have a handful of sites that have become dominant aggregators of UGC and their focus must now be connecting their customers to the content they want in the most painless way possible. The role of aggregator and mashups have created a new relationship for all media. There was VERY LITTLE actual technology built in the Web 2.0 world.

Web 3.0 will be technology-driven and about creating reputation and order for UGC. eBay's purchase of StumbleUpon, our creation and subsequent licensing discussions of our new UGC reputation management system all speak to the beginning of Web 3.0.

Web 2.0 will continue to propagate content. But there will be very few new winners though the Web 2.0 establishment will crown many new "micro-winners:" Winners who rise to the top within specific sites.

But the new play is in Web 3.0. And it should be exciting and refreshing that the discussion is returning to real technology. At least for some of us.

The art of Bullshit

2007-06-02T08:30:00.001-07:00

Last week, while at Hollyhock, I was promoting the need for bullshit within the non-profit community. That statement is immediately controversial and that's my point. Too often, the starting place in change-agent conversation is centered around "this is what I believe and this is why." A bullshiter has to start the conversation figuring out what YOU believe before (s)he can learn how to sell you whatever (s)he is selling. And I specifically use the word bullshit because what I suggest is stepping a bit further outside your comfort-zone about what you will and won't do for your cause.

Take for example, the most tasteless piece of news this week. That a Dutch reality TV show was airing where a dying woman would award her kidney to a contestant in need of a transplant. It has now been revealed as a hoax designed to raise awareness around the fact that "200 people die annually in the Netherlands while waiting for a kidney, and the average waiting time is more than four years. Under Dutch rules, donors must be friends, or preferably, family of the recipient."

This is perhaps the extreme example. This hoax got worldwide attention and created a global conversation (if only for one week) on the issues facing those in need of organ transplants. At the same time, it also created a conversation around our standards for reality television in a very post-modern way.

I'm headed to the airport now for my flight back to Vancouver.

Meshed

2007-05-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Mesh Conference is officially over and I'm both totally exhausted and completely inspired. I can honestly say that being here has changed my life. How many people say that about a conference?

I'm tired because since arriving on a red-eye on Tuesday morning, I haven't had a night that hasn't ended before 4am in large part because the conversations just kept naturally flowing, some slightly more cohesively than others.

While this may sound arrogant, I'm often asked to be the inspiring one. But in doing so (and investing so much emotional energy in everything I do), it exacts personal cost. The night before my talk, I really admitted how exhausted I am to my wife. I said I had nothing more left to give, and I truly felt it.

I dreaded giving the talk, and felt incredibly apprehensive. Moments before I was to talk, I found what I needed. I said "be centered. be real. be inspiring." I walked onto the stage and the first thing out of Austin Hill's mouth was the story of his younger brother who died of cancer. Both of us were grounded, both of us spoke from the heart and it showed. I felt uplifted and regained some confidence that I wasn't as empty as I had feared.

Instead of then leaving the talk and disconnecting again, I stayed open, I stayed connected. I talked with people differently than ever before, and I drew so much inspiration from them. I am leaving this conference with my heart and head full. But I am leaving with the resolution not to make this a transaction but an experience. This isn't about topping-up to deplete myself again. It's about learning what I need to do to stay full.

In the talk I was part of with Austin Hill and Rob Hyndman, I said something strange "I want to be a bum." At the time, I had no idea why I said that or what it meant. Last night (or more accurately, early this morning), I figured it out. It turned out to be the most meaningful thing I said in my entire time here.

Thank you to everyone who was part of the Mesh. I am truly privileged and grateful to have met you.

Steve Jobs said to John Sculley...

2007-05-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Mesh officially starts tomorrow. Year 2 (version 2?) of Canada's preeminent web 2.0 conference officially kicks-off tomorrow am. I'll start my participation off by posting this blog entry and knocking back a few with other speakers in the next couple of hours.

My experience is that some of the best tech visionaries I've met like to shoot first and ask questions later. When it comes to changing the world, this is almost always a bad idea. Steve Jobs asked John Sculley whether he wanted to sell bottled sugar-water his whole life or whether he wanted a chance to change the world. We who want to change the world need to ensure we don't do so by selling the electronic equivalent of bottled-sugar water.

There, I've just figured out what I want to say in the talk I'm giving with Austin Hill tomorrow morning. You heard it here folks.

Be the best ancestor you can be

2007-05-25T17:51:00.001-07:00

I'm up here at Hollyhock, my favorite place in North America. I'm attending a conference called the Social Change Institute.

Joel Solomon, a friend of GiveMeaning, spoke as part of a panel on Philanthropy and closed his remarks with the advice "Be the best ancestor you can be."

I think it's wonderful advice.

Late last night, Medea Benjamin delivered an amazingly inspiring talk. Medea is a co-founder of Code Pink. Search for her on YouTube.

Back to school

2007-05-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

Human Capital. Knowledge Economy. The ruler of Dubai just announced he is donating a modest sum to establish a new educational foundation in the Middle East aimed at "creating a knowledge-based society" in the Middle East. The amount he donated? Ten billion dollars.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister and ruler of Dubai and vice president of the United Arab Emirates, has announced that he is donating $10 billion to establish an educational foundation in the Middle East, BBC News reports.

Delivering a keynote address to the World Economic Forum, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said "There is a wide knowledge gap between us and the developed world in the West and in Asia. Our only choice is to bridge this gap as quickly as possible, because our age is defined by knowledge."

Quite right. Our age is defined by knowledge. Want to lift any country up the ladder of economic development? Best to start with an investment in building that country's Human Capital.

Now here's your chance:

As some of you might know, I met a man named Yves Habumugisha on my trip to Rwanda. He works in Rwanda and Burundi on behalf of Food For The Hungry's Rwanda office, an international development organization. Yves' passion and his knowledge and his ideas for community development inspire me immensely.

Over the last few months, I have been raising money to pay for Yves to complete his Masters degree in International Development.

Yves has been completing the degree by online correspondence but this last semester requires physical attendance at Southern New Hampshire University.

Food For The Hungry Rwanda is contributing USD$1200 plus the cost of his airfare and Yves was recently awarded a partial scholarship worth USD $1500. This means, including money already raised through the fundraising page I created, we only have CDN $1,740 left to raise!!!

This is one of the best charitable investments you can make. Without a doubt, investing in Yves education will have an exponential effect on the communities in which he works in Burundi and Rwanda.

As those closest to me know, I have fallen in love with Rwanda and am counting down the days to my return this fall.

We only have a few weeks to go before payment is due. Please give generously!

I will be attending Yves graduation in July.

Podcast episode 6 is up

2007-05-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

The latest GiveMeaning Podcast is up which can be downloaded free here at iTunes

This episode I start to address something I think we all need to be talking about a lot more: How the basic term "admin costs" have become so unfairly perceived by many donors, a perception that I readily admit project-oriented fundraising like what GiveMeaning does contributes to the negative perception around admin fees.

I also talk about my experience as a fundraiser using an online fundraising page at GiveMeaning and what I learned from the experience.

Anyway, have a listen and let me know what you think.

You have to watch this!

2007-05-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

An envoy appointed and a bit on CSR

2007-05-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

A bit groggy this morning. Woke up at 5:30am to speak at a Rotary Club meeting early this morning.

I found this story within the news section of the GiveMeaning site.

It's long over-due and it will be interesting to hear Mr. Giujin's official statements.

In other news, I found this article through my Google Reader this morning talking about different approaches to Corporate Philanthropy. Though it is specifically referring to Australian companies, it's good reading for anyone in corporate philanthropy as it raises the question that I think needs more conversation around: "Are corporate donors dealing with the real needs of the sector or are they more inclined to fund high-profile, simplistic, and sometimes ineffective, feel-good projects?" is the question asked by Niall Mulligan.

The answer should be both and at first blush, it might seem unfair to generalize but I do see this distinct dichotomy that the author flags. There is a new breed of community engagement consultants who are emphasizing "high-touch" projects that can mobilize their client's employees in ways that a three-year capacity grant to a sexual assault centre can't do. When these high-touch projects are designed more around looking and feeling good then around an impact/investment ratio, there is cause for concern.

I've been harping on this theme all week - the "feel good versus the know good" which may in fact be the perfect play on words.

On point, I'll leave you with this link from - of all places - PerezHilton.com. It's a strange day when Clay Aiken has got something poignant to say about what was missing from Idol Gives Back"

Abandon all hope, you who enter here

2007-05-08T22:01:00.000-07:00

A thirteen year-old stabs her best friend near fatally. My brother's high school three blocks from my childhood house is closed due to a man seen with ammunition. This was tonight's broadcast in Victoria, BC, Canada.

Anderson Cooper had tornado's and flooding in one part of the US and severe droughts in another part.

The Globe & Mail reported that despite massive gains in our economy, 1 in 8 children live in families under the povery line, and according to the same article, the instances of poor children are the same now in 2007 as they were in 1989, the year Canadians supposedly resolved to drastically reduce the number of poor children in Canada by 2000.

The likelihood of achieving anything close to the much-hyped Millennium Development Goals...

Meanwhile, somewhere in Africa, a white person takes pictures of little children, makes promises, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Say nothing of our culture, our priorities, what and who we worship, the pervasiveness of perverse and violent imagery that is truly warping our minds ...

Is all it futile? Probably. But it's my battle. I fight because it's what I consider worth dying for. The parts of Rilke that I read, I remember this (a horrible, bastardized paraphrasing): Writers write because they HAVE to write. They have no choice.

In answer to my earlier post tonight, there IS something wrong with mindless giving, with celebrity marketing, with all this complete and utter bullshit that has nothing to do with anything other than the marketing of a "feel good" effect.

If there's one group that shouldn't sell-out, it's those who are trying to save lives and change the world. Too bad. The path of least resistance is the road most traveled.

My pleasure, my inspiration comes from the crazies, the stupid, the irrational. They change the world. I will leave you with this.

Charity and Class Consciousness

2007-05-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

I found this blog entry through StumbleUpon today and I thought it worth sharing. It touches on the increasing "consumer mentality" of charity (consumer mentality and actual charity to many is an oxymoron) and despite the style's capacity to offend, I think it's well worth a read.

The big question from this piece (for me) is "do the beneficiaries care what motivated the funding of their assistance?"

This is far less simple a question that it first appears.

Do we really have to care? Does it make a difference if we don't?

Does anyone give a damn?

Something tells me this wouldn' work in North America

2007-05-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

I applaud the Viennese for creative fundraising ideas but something tells me this story wouldn't translate well as a fundraiser in North America. What do you think?

I walked a mile in Women's shoes

2007-05-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

This morning I walked a mile in Women's shoes in my hometown of Victoria, BC. The walk was in support of Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre and it was a smashing success!

I'm just short of $2,500 in donations made and still half-way there to having to shave my beard but I'm keeping my fundraising page open for a few more days. I've shaved my legs, pedicured my feet, walked a mile and had cat-calls from passers-by in my hometown. Isn't that worth $20 or $50? Click here to make a donation and show your support.

On my fundraising page, I also have a number of other photos from today's event.

And, if you know any woman who wears a size ten medium, she might want to bid for the shoes I wore in today's event. I placed them for sale on eBay in hopes that someone might want to buy my beautiful shoes.

Thanks to everyone who supported me. I'll be posting video from the event early this week.

Just in case anyone thought I was kidding...

2007-05-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the shoes I bought tonight for my 1 mile walk in women's shoes in Victoria this Saturday in support of Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre.

If you haven't donated yet, maybe this picture will compel you do so.

The pair of shoes I bought tonight are a sexy size-10 stiletto's. I'm either going to donate the shoes after the event to a women's shelter or sell them on eBay... Any one who can fit a size 10, email me if you want to place your bids today.

New Podcast Up!

2007-05-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

A new Podcast episode is up and available for download from iTunes! If you download it, here a few listener's notes that go along with this episode.

A few details to follow-up on from this episode:

[1:08] Here is the survey results I mentioned from Valleywag. I misspoke: Kiva was #4 out of 20.

[5:23] The guys I refer to can be found at GiveMeaning by clicking here

[7:17] The blog I refer to can be found here

[8:23] I was thinking about Ghana.

[11:30] Of course, the argument here about the "industry of aid" is that this is still economic stimulus for the local community. The point I didn't make clear was that this person's cynicism was the Westerners profit-participation in the aid-industry.

[16:12] I'm an idiot. I said "A Country like Africa." Africa is a continent not a country.

[16:58] Firm evidence I love to opine even when I know little about the subject at hand.

[17:07] Check out WorldOfGood here. Fair disclosure: They have advertised previously at GiveMeaning.

[24:29] Here is a link to the article submitted at GiveMeaning.

[32:33] I'm not talking about just "other atrocities" but any issue that needs the attention of the entire GiveMeaning community.

Fast-Food Philanthropy? Idol Gives Back

2007-04-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

In my Google Reader the other night, I found a post by Amy Tiemann at the MojoMom Blog entitled "Fast-Food Philanthropy" talking about the recent "Idol Gives Back" American Idol campaign to raise money for charities seeking to address poverty in America and abroad. I wrote the following comment in response to her blog entry:

Thanks for your post. I can only imagine the negotiations that went on behind the scenes between the orgs that are to receive this money and the producers of Idol Gives Back.

As is the case with many big appeals (e.g. Make Poverty History, Live8 etc), the actual highlighting of individual charities in a piece like Idol Gives Back would be fraught with the brand managers of those charities squabbling over how they are represented, worried that they would lose a percentage of the pie, as opposed to think about how the pie is increased from mass-media events like Idol Gives Back.

Idol is one of the most valuable pieces of television programming on the network, certainly much more watched than the late-night and weekend appeals put on by the big international charities.

The fact that IGB's appeal speaks and incites action amongst a group of people most likely not otherwise conscious of the plight of African Countries is indeed a good thing. And while it leaves people to get that "quick satisfaction" that placates their need to do more than "phone it in" the reality is that for many citizens, this is all they are capable of.

I have lamented the fact that most all big appeals have little to no meaningful feedback. Long ago, I coined the term "Return On Generosity" to refer to the fact that without this measure, most of us are unlikely to remain invested.

What's wrong with Fast-Food Philanthropy is that the producers have forgotten to include the "toy in the happy meal" that makes one want to come back and collect the other toys on my next purchase.

I hate ending on such a stupid analogy but hey, I'm hungry and I'm in need of some fast-food.

Made my first goal!

2007-04-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful day here in Vancouver, the Canucks won game 2 against the Ducks and I've reached my first goal in my fundraising drive for Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre.

In less than one week, I have raised over $1,100! What's really special for me is that I've received donations from a few total strangers! I have no idea how they found my GiveMeaning page (perhaps through the blog?) but really want to wish a special thanks to those people!

Another bit of personal news. My wife, Jessie Farrell has her first Country single (Let's Talk About Love) on the radio across Canada and though it's been playing for only three weeks, it's already at number 20 on the Canadian Country charts! And the single can be downloaded on iTunes!

It's a very exciting time for the both of us!

A day like no other

2007-04-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

Friday's are usually my slowest day. We have a team get together scheduled every Friday where we go for either a lazy lunch or a movie or something else meant for us to discuss the week and connect as a team. I try to keep my meetings light as a result. The morning started nicely as I read an email to my wife that I had received late last night from someone that had heard my speech in Campbell River. It was great validation of the immense amount of myself that I give whenspeaking at schools.

My policy is to try and meet with as many people who ask for my time as possible. And I must admit, sometimes I feel (especially with all the other demands on my time) that I should be more strict with my time but I've always believed that for every meeting that I feel misused my time..That it will all balance out.

A man called me last week saying he was from an African country and telling me that he was a survivor of torture and wanted to do some things back home for other survivors. He was scheduled for 10:30. Yesterday afternoon, a local Vancouver man called and said he had read some press on GiveMeaning and wanted to meet quickly just to learn more about what we do. I was more reticent to accept (not wanting to schedule anything that might make me miss my time with the team). I told Ruby (my assistant) not to agree to anything.

The man from Africa was late this morning. I was busy with a number of end-of-the-month issues so was happy to have the extra time. When he arrived at my office, I was still distracted with administrative tasks. I asked him to tell me his story. He apologized in advance, saying it was very difficult to tell his story. I started to focus in on him. As I did so, I noticed aspects of his physical appearance that made me think he had some physical disabilities.

Over the next two hours, he recounted his life from 2 years old to a man of 30 something. I had originally written an account of his story but have decided to delete it as I know I can't recount his story to you. What I can say is that this man sobbed through his life story, and saddened me with a story that filled me with hate, cynicism, and shock (in the truest sense that I was left without words, thoughts or even ability to respond to what I was hearing). This is a man that has been repeatedly tortured to inches within his life and harassed and intimidated even after fleeing his country and arriving in Canada.

This man came to me not asking for anything for himself but wanting to help people worse-off (I quite frankly can't even fathom how that's possible) than him, still living in his home country. He has every right to be entirely self-absorbed, tell his story to garner financial support for himself and his family and yet he's tenacious in his desire to support people who he feels need the support more than him.

I introduced this man to colleagues here at GiveMeaning who met with him separately to talk more about the specific project he wants to do back in his home country.

Ruby told me that the man who had called yesterday looking for "20 minutes" (I have never had a 20 minute meeting with a stranger in my life). I relented begrudgingly. Meeting with him would mean missing my time with the team but something in me told me I needed to meet with him.

By the time he came to the office, the team was leaving the office, leaving me to man the phones by myself. I apologized for having to interrupt our meeting but sitting in my office and listening to how I answer questions about the site is probably one of the best introductions to everything that GiveMeaning is. The more we talked, the more I wanted to say to this guy, in part because I was certainly robbed of my normal pretenses (i.e. armor) from the man I met in the morning.

In one of the phone calls that interrupted the meeting, I told someone about my fundraising page for Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre. At the end of my meeting, I ended the first meeting how I almost always end first meetings about GiveMeaning: "Hey, just go on the site and if you see something you like, make a donation or if you can't find something, submit a news story or your own project proposal." He responded by emptying everything he had in wallet on the spot. It ended up being $400. I was totally and completely floored.

The next meeting after that was a friend of someone who works here at GiveMeaning who , upon hearing about what GiveMeaning is all about, wants to create a free radio ad for us! By the time that I started my meeting with him, I was (and am still) emotionally run-down. The generosity of spirit that I am exposed to, and the serendipity that occurs in my life on an almost daily basis day chose to fully whack me over the head today.

I am incredibly blessed. For all who ask why I do what I do, the answers are above.

Khartoum Booms while Sudan Burns

2007-04-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

This article was posted a few minutes ago at the GiveMeaning site.

It gives us the real deal on how to end the Genocide in Sudan: Restrict its oil exports, and bring the Sudanese government to its knees.

Is it any wonder that President al-Bashir continues to smugly defy diplomatic efforts and UN resolutions? As long as China pumps Sudan's oil, nothing significant can occur to stop the Genocide.

As a young boy, I stood outside Shell Oil stations with my mother with signs that read "Product of Apartheid." The economic pressure that came as a result of this kind of boycott was a significant contributor to the end of Apartheid.

Why not boycott China's products until they come around? I see all of these activist efforts to lobby our Governments but it's not our Governments who need convincing.

What say you?

In Campbell River

2007-04-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

I arrived into Campbell River this afternoon. I'm pretty sure that the pilot of our small plane forgot that there were people on board as he essentially dive bombed us onto the runway. An adventurous beginning to day.

I spoke at a secondary school here in town this afternoon and was saying to my friend Ryland that I never really know whether I made an impact or not. Though it sounds cheesy, I really do believe that inspiring just one person justifies the expense and time that these trips cost. I find that most students prefer to ask me questions one-on-one, not in the actual Q&A session but today, I had two great questions asked of me: 1) Do you have any pet projects? (Answer: My fundraiser for Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre and my Project to help raise funds for Yves) and 2) Who do I look up to?

That question really got me thinking. Though I admire parts of various high-profile people, there isn't one person I really get totally excited about. As I thought about the question more, I realized that the people that I really admire are a lot of the people that I find through GiveMeaning. Guys like Logan Cochrane, and Chris & Jeannie and so many other people all around the world doing amazing work and following their passions.

Just a few minutes before writing this blog entry, I noticed that one of the students who attended my talk this afternoon has already created a new proposal at the site. Click on her name on her proposal to read more about her. She is a great example of what I mean by being inspired by many of the people that use GiveMeaning.

The cynic in me says that this sounds like I'm pandering to GiveMeaning members but I promise I'm being entirely sincere when I talk about the inspiration and motivation I draw from our community.

Just finished speaking at a secondary school here in Campbell River. The last time I was here was in transit to Hollyhock on Cortez Island which is a quick water-taxi away from here. My hotel looks out on the docks where the water-taxi is and as the sun is starting to break, the urge to just jump over there is rising.

For those of you that don't know Hollyhock, click here. GiveMeaning is one of the sponsors for the upcoming Social Change Institute.

I jump at the opportunity to go to

You can make my beard disappear!

2007-04-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I've had my beard for quite a while. In Entebbe, a vendor said it was the (and I'm quoting exactly) "most glorious beard" he had "ever seen" and asked me to promise him never to shave it. In exchange, he gave me a slight deal on the replacement digital camera that I bought at his store.

Though I am remiss to break my word to this man, I am willing to quite literally sell-out. For a price.

I've decided to walk a mile in women's shoes (literally) in support of a Victoria, BC based charity called Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre.

I've created a fundraising page (at GiveMeaning, naturally!) to collect donations and if I raise $5,000, the beard comes off.

I'm sure that if my wife or my mum had an extra $5,000 to spare, they would gladly give the whole amount. But the whole point of a GiveMeaning page is about pooling together small donations to accomplish the bigger goal.

So, if you want to see my face again, click here and give generously!

I'll keep y'all posted.

Proud of the CBC

2007-04-20T17:23:00.001-07:00

I've been horrible at updating the blog lately. So much going on! I'm currently in Kelowna and running out the door to a dinner but wanted to express my pride and respect for our CBC!

CBC is one of the only broadcasters I know of that refused to air video of the "manifesto" left by the despicable mass-murderer who requires no further mention.

Their reasoning can be found here and it is well worth a read.

I know that there is an intellectual debate to be had that is framed in the "if everybody else is showing it (or it's available elsewhere) then so should we" but this is a man who interrupted his killing so he could co-opt the media in further propagating his hatred.

While I understand how altogether valid intellectual debate can put many people firmly the "Grey zone," I respect the ability to be guided by a more specific sense of taste and values (again resisting the debate about the role of values in broadcast decision).

The media has given this vile thing what it wanted, media attention and an "iconic" status. It is psychologically impossible to deny that his reliance on being the most talked about news story this week was in part what drove him to commit this act.

This same "co-opting" of the media I speak about this week is the victory that Terrorists understand in their media strategy.

I'm very proud of the CBC's decision and I hope others will take note.

These guys are my heroes!

2007-04-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

I have never been so excited about a group of people or an idea (other than GiveMeaning) as I am about the guys at DirectCurrentMedia

They are producing a series called 4Real that uses celebrities to bring exposure to some of the most amazing human beings on earth! I've blogged about my cynicism about pairing celebrities with cause.. What makes these guys different is that the celebrity is nothing more than the eyeballs. This is not about showing their halos, its about them just being participants in the experience.

The people that are featured on 4Real are community leaders who have made and continue to make massive progress on behalf of their communities despite conditions and environment conspiring against them.

I had a meeting scheduled with them yesterday afternoon and then brought them out for drinks late last night.

These guys are just getting going but I predict will be a major force.

First Podcast

2007-04-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally gotten my first podcast uploaded to iTunes. For those iTunes users, you can download it from them here here
or if you don't use iTunes, you can get it here

The interview was recorded with Gavin Hollett, one of the founders of Opportunity Aequa, a Victoria-based non-profit that has raised nearly $15,000 through GiveMeaning to build soccer fields and bring soccer equipment to kids in Ecuador.

I blogged about Gavin just before he left for Ecuador but had no idea that he and the team would do such a good job of blogging while in Ecuador.

Their project is the best example of delivering their donors a "Return On Generosity." Go to their page and click on the "Blog" tab and read through their almost daily posts.

The Podcast is the first of what hopefully will be a regular series of interviews of project founders on GiveMeaning. Please let me know what you think of the Podcast.

Massive thanks to Ryland Haggis of RedPilot for creating the Podcast!

Pearson Part 2

2007-03-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my trip to Vancouver Island and my visit with some of the students of Pearson College. If you really want a glimpse into what I experienced and saw at Pearson, you should take time to experience the following video.

This does some justice to how I feel about my short (too short) time at the college. On the plane home yesterday, I was reading the Times Colonist and came across the following from an Obituary:

There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept; truths we don't want to know about but have to learn; people we can't live without but have to let go... You may not think the world needed you, but it did. For you were unique: like no one that has ever been before or will come after. No one can speak with your voice; say your piece; smile your smile; or shine your light. No one can take your place for it was yours alone to fill. Because you are not here to shine your light, who knows how many travelers will lose their way as they try to pass by your empty place in the darkness... There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real.."

This Obituary was for David Allen Llyod McKenzie, born December 20, 1988, died March 30, 2004. When I read this Obituary on the plane, looking at the picture of a beautiful, smiling boy, and thinking about how unique each of the youth at Pearson are, I couldn't help but cry.

I am reminded of the scene in the movie "The Constant Gardener" where Justin Quayle (played by Ralph Fiennes) is in a village with some aid workers and then a militia attacks, razing the village and killing anyone they can. Chaos is everywhere and Justin and the aid workers race to a taxiing cargo plane to escape. A small child is running towards the plane and Justin is desperate to get the child. The aid workers and some part of his own self prevent him from grabbing the child and the scene ends with the child vainly running alongside the plane.

Pearson's 200 scholarships represent a ride on that plane for many of the recipients. Without a doubt, for all of the students, it represents a gift that carries the burden of "to whom much is given, much is to be expected."

My talk was much shorter than usual (about 45 minutes) and much more focused on the actual GiveMeaning site and how the students could use it. After the talk, I spent some more time with my host and a colleague of his and then walked towards the area where by taxi would come. As I waited, a class had just gotten out and streamed past me. It was an incredibly emotional moment for me because here was this amazing student body in all of its diversity walking together, laughing and chatting with one another.

The Obituary made me desperate to go back, to show them this boy who had been taken way too early, and to plead with them not to wait, and never to waste this gift. Never before have I been exposed to so much potential. What they do with it is their decision.

But you watch the video I have linked to in this post, and you realize that many of them have already started. That there, words are not merely words but a transference of experiences, cultures and attitudes. Never before have I been so jealous of my brother Hugh (a teacher at a school in Victoria).

I have a great respect and gratitude for my hosts and the staff and students at Pearson College. To make a donation in support of their operations, please click here

Had I been here before...

2007-03-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

I'm back on Vancouver Island near Victoria at Pearson College. This is the description from their website:

"Pearson College is a unique two year pre-university school for two hundred students selected from around the world based solely on their personal merit, potential and demonstrated commitment to engage actively in creating a better world."

Though I'm from Victoria, I had never heard of Pearson College and hadn't driven out this way for over a decade. I passed the McDonald's where I commiserated with a few fellow teammates over the bitter loss that made me end my soccer career, I passed Fort Rodd hill where I loved to visit with my childhood best friend, and then came to Witty's Lagoon a place where I remember a beautiful day of Bird Watching, identifying Sand Pipers and King Fishers, whilst walking through beautiful trails.

In short, this unintended turn onto memory lane made me quite emotional and I still had no idea where I was going. I arrived early at the college and my host Sean was in a meeting so I headed to the guest house that they graciously arranged for me to stay the night in. I haven't said how I got here. Almost every day I get a random call that turns into a magical experience. It is the ultimate definition of "viral." My host here at the college was sent an email asking him to donate to a member's fundraising page at GiveMeaning. He made his donation and then spend some time surfing around the rest of the site and then found my blog. From there, he invited me to speak both to the college and to some of the faculty and staff. I was in Toronto when I received the email on my blackberry and without knowing anything about the College, immediately accepted just based on the tone of his email.

If I had known about Pearson College, I would have likely had set my sights on trying to get in here as opposed to dropping-out. Though given my academic transcript and the antagonistic relationship I had with most every teacher I ever knew, there's little chance I would have ever been even considered for this place.

There are many things that bring me joy these days. But there is nothing more inspiring, more energizing, more fun, more rewarding for me than engaging with youth.

I'm very much looking forward to speaking with those that show-up at tomorrow's lunch-hour.

GiveMeaning's new site is launched

2007-03-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

At 6am this morning, we launched a brand-new version of the GiveMeaning website.

As most of you know, we here at GiveMeaning have been hard at work on a new version of the site since last September. We have codenamed this new site "SaveAnything" because one of the most significant new features of this site is that you can submit any news story that addresses something that needs "saving" to the site, tag the story based on what causes it's addressing and geotag the story (i.e. pinpoint the exact location of the story).

The original inspiration for GiveMeaning was from a news article that I read written by Christie Blatchford about a boy named Randall Dooney who was murdered by his father and step-mother. I was so shocked and horrified that this kind of abuse was known but not prevented in time that I wanted to DO SOMETHING about what I was reading. I went online but there was nothing I could easily find. While I spent hours looking (I wasn't working at the time), most people would spend a few minutes and if there was no gas to ignite that spark into action, it would just be a spark.

So now, there is a place where any news story in the world, no matter how local or global in context, not only can you raise awareness about that issue but by submitting a proposal, you can actually DO something about it, rate other proposals, see active projects that might match-up with the story and talk amongst a community of people that care about this news story. Later, we'll add other contextual relevance.

For the first time in many years, I've been able to apply my brain for new technology to my passion for philanthropy. When GiveMeaning first came onto the scene, it was an innovative use of existing technology for the philanthropic sector but it wasn't from a tech-execution perspective anything new. Here we have with this launch a number of new innovations that contribute to the general web world as well as the philanthrosphere.

A more thoughtful rating system
Most of the social bookmarking sites are strictly binary: You either agree or disagree on that story. On most social bookmarking sites, I find myself mindlessly clicking on stories based on a headline. Mindlessness will actually degrade a user's reputation on the site.

What we've done is created a real demand on the user to actually think about the story before rating it, knowing that it's not how many people have rated the story but how the community agrees with your rating of the story that influence your rating. In other words, we want people to submit a story that says "look, I feel that this a very important issue but the quality is rather week however it does detail the crisis in Darfur in a way that hasn't been covered before." You may rate the story's importance as a 5, its quality as a 2 and the informativeness as a 4.

Because we ask that when a new story is submitted, that the person submitting the story credit the actual writer of the story, the forth rating box is the "Source" rating which is scored by the credibility (based on past ratings) of BOTH the writer of the article and the person who submitted the story at GiveMeaning. Soon we will be able to show the actual ratings of individual writers and bloggers on an issue by issue basis (as determined by the GiveMeaning community).

Individual members of the community are not rewarded based on the number of stories they submit but rather based on their ability to be respected for their contributions and the accuracy of those contributions by the community at large.

This rating system is now applied across everything at the site. The reason I am excited about the rating system for new "proposals" and active projects is that it creates a feedback loop amongst the community to the "founder" of the proposal or project. Previously, if the community thought that the proposal addressed an important need but lacked detail and quality of the proposal, the proposal would likely just "die on the vine." Now, the feedback loop is there which will hopefully inspire project founders to think through how and what they present to the community in a new way.

The map feature is "just a mashup" of projects but is nevertheless very compelling visually. The ability to zoom-in on a tiny town in Malawi gives a whole new context to the project.

A new approach to tagging

We've developed a new collaborative tagging method for all media on the site that I really like. My big problem with leaving tagging something up to the person submitting the story is that this invites tag-spam and inaccuracies. I am guilty of bad tagging of my posts because I'm trying to tag based on what I think will get the most search-engine hits not what is actually most accurate for the story.

So what we've done is that as a logged-in user of the site, you have the ability to vote for the top 5 most accurate tags for that item. You can also "flag" tags that are either inappropriate or poorly submitted. As more people take time to tag the content on the site, the "related projects and proposals" will get a lot more accurate too.

Speaking of tags

The new search system on the site uses a combination of "Location" and "Cause" to help find things that interest you. So for example, by typing in Toronto, I see all the places near Toronto in the location cloud and in the "Cause" cloud, I see all the tags that have been submitted on content located in Toronto. Or, I can type in a tag like "womensrights" and see all the locations in the world where content has been tagged with that description.

We have a bunch of improvements and a new Q&A and About Us section that will launch in the next couple of days. Minor and major improvements will be made in the coming weeks. But I'm thrilled with this new release. We move away from being a site focused purely on "give money to this cause" and more of a place where you can come to find out about what's going on in your own backyard or about a community or cause that matters a lot to you.

Start submitting stories and let me know what you think!

World Water Day Walk

2007-03-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

After a great night of celebrating a very good friend's birthday, Jessie and I woke-up very early and quite groggy to go to Stanley Park to attend the World Water Day walk organized by Starbucks and Ethos Water.

I haven't actually attended an activist/awareness walk since I was a little kid. It was either because it just felt this way or because it was bordering on reality that as a kid, I felt that I attended some kind of walk or rally every single weekend. On the way to the event, Jess and I were musing whether - or more realistically - up until what age we would drag our kids to the events we were participating in. I remember particularly a Noam Chomsky documentary that my Dad almost quite literally dragged me to. I still can't comprehend most of Noam Chomsky's lectures so my ability to stay engaged at 9 years-old was even more limited. That said, I am now thankful that I was forced to go as opposed to finishing that lego castle.

I must admit feeling rather ironic attending a Water awareness event (in which we walk 4k to acknowledge how far many people have to walk to get clean water) in a rain-forest with not one but two full bottles of water in my coat pocket (I had brought a bottle of water and then had been given another at the event).

There were about 50 or 60 people walking at this event in Vancouver, which for a rainy early Saturday morning, was a pretty good turn-out.

As I write this, we are minutes away from the deployment of the brand new site. We are all so incredibly tired... Check back tomorrow morning and it should (providing nothing happens in the next 20 minutes) be up and running.

She's due any minute now!

2007-03-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

Friends and family, colleagues and strangers!!!! I am over the moon to tell you that tomorrow morning we're going into labor! Alas, not the birth of my first child but the birth of a brand new version of the GiveMeaning site. It is radical both in its technical execution and its contribution to the "online social network" and "philanthrosphere" worlds.

The entire GiveMeaning site will be brought down for 24-36 hours as we migrate to both the new source code and a whole new set of servers.

Look for the new site Saturday afternoon or evening.

To everyone who has contributed to its development, I am so proud of us! To all of our families and friends who have suffered through our stress and long hours, thank you!

To the community of GiveMeaning members whose feedback over the past two years have contributed to the genetic code of this new site, we are grateful.

To those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, go to our new site anytime Saturday. We'll likely "soft launch" this for a week or so to figure out the response and then announce it to the world.

It's time to SaveAnything.

World Water Day - What It Means & How you can help

2007-03-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today is "World Water Day" an internationally recognized observance of the World's water crisis that grew out of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.

In recognition of the day, I would like to point your attention to two projects at GiveMeaning that are building water-wells in African countries.

The first is an initiative that is very grass-roots started by a guy from Victoria, BC who has been building wells in developing countries for some time now. You can see his project here

The second is an initiative supporting Lifewater Canada, a very small grass-roots charity doing great work in Liberia. You can see their project here

Please consider donating to one or both of these projects and encouraging your friends to do the same.

Also, check out worldwaterday.net and join us in one of the many walks happening this weekend. Me and a few of the other GiveMeaning team members will be walking in Vancouver.

Ricky Gervais saves Africa

2007-03-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

This is the best spoof of "celebrity compassion" and cause marketing ever done. And of course, it's done by Ricky Gervais. Stay around till the very end. It's absolutely priceless

Home sweet home

2007-03-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I have been traveling across Western Canada to meet with local charities, students, youth groups and others interested in bettering their worlds (plural because a lot of our worlds are quite different from one another).

Kamloops, Kelowna, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Brandon. Unfortunately, we couldn't fit any cities in Saskatchewan in this trip though I really want to travel to Regina to understood the poverty crisis in a certain part of the city which - according to some accounts - is now worse than that of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

I had intended to blog from every city but I have a legitimate excuse: My wife. Now before you take me to task for being so totally lacking in chivalry, please allow me to explain myself. My wife, Jessie Farrell, is a country musician who was recently signed to Universal Music. She was given the opportunity to open for Emerson Drive who are currently the top-selling country band in Canada. And of no coincidence, her tour stops were in Kamloops, Kelowna, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Brandon. Being the opening act on any tour is by no means glamorous. While Emerson has a great tour-bus and a dressing room full of food and drink, Jess has a rented minivan and sometimes a bottle of water.

So here we were leaving Kamloops at 2am leaving for Grand Prairie (about a 9 hour drive). As soon as we pulled into each town, I would begin my day of meetings and presentations and then as my regular day would come to a close, I would then start my second job as Jessie's "Roadie" which would keep me on my feet until we loaded into the Minivan headed to the next city overnight.

The Emerson tour ended in Calgary last Saturday so we drove from Calgary Sunday afternoon back to Vancouver. We arrived (thanks to daylight savings and the roads being closed due to avalanche warnings) back in Vancouver on Monday morning at 5am.'

This week has been exceptionally busy not only catching-up from being on the road but also because we're preparing for what is a whole new version of the GiveMeaning.com website. I had hoped that it would be launched yesterday but the tech gods have not been smiling on us. It's now a certainty it will be sometime next week and I can't contain my excitement! We've been working on it non-stop since last September. I'm proud of what we have now and while there is plenty that was innovative about our use of technology applied to the charitable sector, this is the first time where truly innovative technology is being built and applied to the GiveMeaning site. You'll see what I'm talking about next week and hopefully agree with me!

I'm now here in Victoria bringing our "Party Pig" a massive bamboo version of our cardboard "Pig-e-Banks" for a fundraising event in support of Village of Hope a project on GiveMeaning benefiting women in Rwanda. I've been here all day for a variety of meetings today and at lunch, walked into a White Spot (for my American friends, I can tell you that White Spot beats In-&-Out burgers by miles) which I remembered from my childhood. I remembered being about 9 or 10 with my family eating a "Pirate Pack" at the exact same table as I was at today. It was an unintentional nevertheless much valued trip down memory lane.

I popped-in on the folks at Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Center, a great organization that uses GiveMeaning's personal fundraising pages for its annual "Tri-athalon of Compassion" and also met with Rumon Carter a very dynamic guy who used GiveMeaning last year quite successfully and has started a new project that is close to getting enough votes to start fund-raising.

This post is getting quite long and I haven't even talked about the highlights of the tour. I'll do that in a separate post over the weekend. It's now time to get going to the fundraiser. Please keep your radio stations tuned to your country music station and listen for "Let's Talk About Love" by Jessie Farrell!

Yubaraj

2007-02-27T08:34:00.000-08:00

I'm back from Manitoba and as I look outside, it appears it's going to be a gorgeous day here in Vancouver. In my last blog entry from Manitoba, I had written about how thrilled I was to see Kevin Sites link to a project at GiveMeaning from his Hot Zone blog.

For those of you who don't know Kevin or the Hot Zone, you can learn more here

Kevin had written a story about a young boy named Yubaraj who was supporting his family by working as a parking attendant in Kathmandu. Kevin wrote about Yaburaj as a boy who accepts his responsibility but wishes to return to school.

Christine Egger, a reader of Kevin Sites' post, was so moved by the story that she decided she wanted to do something about what she had read. She found GiveMeaning and started a project to raise funds for his education.

She had raised a bit over $1,000 but the page had been pretty inactive for several months and was becoming time to close the page down to new donations.

But then, last week, we got word that Kevin was going to post an update on Yubaraj and link to Yubaraj's project page at GiveMeaning.

Sure enough, he posted this update and the response has been fantastic! In the last few days donations have been pouring in and donors have been emailing their own friends encouraging them to donate as well. The Yubaraj project is now 50% of it's goal and still going strong!

Through many phone calls and emails, I feel like I got to know Christine and I know how important helping Yubaraj is to her. She has made this her mission and to see this outpouring of support for Yubaraj through GiveMeaning makes me happy for both Yubaraj and Christine.

For GiveMeaning, Kevin linking to Yubaraj couldn't have happened at a better time. We are now days away from launching what is basically a whole new version of the GiveMeaning website. Without spoiling the surprise, I will say that the new site is designed around the deep belief of mine that people are most likely to do something in response to a story the one Kevin wrote. GiveMeaning wants to facilitate that desire in an even more direct way than we already do.

The site launch date has become a bit of a running joke but we're determined to get it as perfect as we can before launching it. It is coming within the next couple of weeks.

And now for something completely different

2007-02-25T17:36:00.000-08:00

Alas, so true.

Starting life in Brandon, Manitoba

2007-02-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

I'm here tonight in Brandon, Manitoba to support my wife, Jessie Farrell, who is starting her tour opening for Emerson Drive. I arrived from Toronto a day earlier than her (we had both been in Toronto earlier in the week) and checked out a local country music talent competition last night at the bar where Jessie will be performing tonight.

I'm very excited about Jess' show tonight. She plays tomorrow in Winnipeg and then rejoins the Emerson tour in the second week of March for dates in Kamloops, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton and Fort McMurray.

I've had an incredibly hectic week myself starting in Toronto with some great meetings with both old friends and new. Amongst some of the new friends I met this week were Owen Charters (the new executive director of CanadaHelps.org), Adrian Bradbury (the co-founder of GuluWalk), and Peggie Pelosi (principal of Orenda Connections). I also had the chance to meet-up with some old friends, Mark Dowds and Darian Kovacs. It was great to see them and have a night-out on the town up until the point where I was convinced I had lost my credit cards (turns out they were at the hotel all along).

I had some very exciting business meetings (the most exciting of which I can't talk about in a public forum) and every-time I head out to Toronto, I feel like more of Corporate Canada gets what I've been talking about for the past two years and that more and more big charities are slowly starting to acknowledge that while they might want to own the donor relationship donors increasingly don't want to be owned by anyone.

While in Toronto, I saw Jamie Aaron, the founder of Shift. Jamie reminds me a lot of me when I was younger. In fact, I found out that he and I started our careers in a similar fashion: He managed to convince Apple Computer in Markham to give him a co-op position, I managed to get Apple Cupertino to give me my start. Jamie is surely going to be a major force (for lack of better term) in whatever he does and it's increasingly looking like that force will be used for good. Jamie basically was dissatisfied with the co-op placement opportunities he and his peers were being offered so he decided to start his own placement agency, reaching out to socially responsible and progressive companies and non-profits and playing matchmaker between interested students and these orgs. GiveMeaning is one of the organizations that accepted co-op placements through Shift and I met some great candidates earlier in Toronto. The person I was most impressed with was actually the youngest of the three candidates. I have done a lot of hiring over the years and I'm always amazed at how few people seem adequately prepared for the interview. What impresses me is when someone has researched the company (s)he is applying to and makes the interview as much about the company hiring the candidate as the candidate hiring the company. It's unfortunately rare to find an applicant who does this and so it makes even more of an impact when you find someone who does.

Lastly, I'm excited to say that Kevin Sites (of Yahoo's HotZone) has mentioned and linked to GiveMeaning tonight! Christine Egger, a reader of Kevin's had been touched by this story that Kevin had posted to the Hotzone and wanted to do something about the subject of that particular story. She found GiveMeaning and created this project to raise money for Yubaraj, a young boy living in Khatmandu. I'm hopeful that this exposure will help her reach her goal.

Well, Jess is on soon so I better head over to the North 40 Saloon!

For Pod 3

2007-02-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

As promised, here is the video interview for Pod 3. Hope the Pig-e-Banks are working out for you guys this weekend.

For Hugh Boyd's Pod 3

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Cowtown becomes Pigtown?

2007-02-09T11:40:00.001-08:00

This post was made by Hannah Lee & Anna Martin, our dynamic duo bringing GiveMeaning to communities across the Country.

So this is what a snowflake looks like!

Anna and I are deploying the Valentine's Day Piggy Box Campaign in the Calgary area this year. From the moment that we touched down from the airplane, I immediately loved the vibe of Calgary. It has a homey feeling to the city and I feel like I am at home. The pace is really nice...no one's in a big hurry to get anywhere but it feels like everybody gets the job done.

I must admit that I have never been so cold in my life. As Anna and I walked from store to store, we had to weather the snow and the storm. My fingers felt like they were going to fall off from the frostbite that was setting in. But, thankfully, after walking in the snow for 6 hours a day, we got to go back to the hotel and go for a hot tub. The soak was my saving grace.

It has been an eventful time in Calgary, and a highlight especially for me, was meeting Evan and Gabe (the project founders for Have a H.A.A.R.T. - tinman.givemeaning.com). Their own personal passion and dedication to getting their project completed was inspiring. Anna and I had a great conversation with them about their project, charity and the whole world of giving.

I am heading back to Vancouver tonight and am already missing Calgary. Although I have felt like I have been in the Artic for a week, I will miss the warmth that I have felt from the city and the people.

Yes, Hannah this is what a snowflake looks like.

I was surprised to find out that Hannah is new to what most Canadians experience every winter and that is a whole lot of snow! I found myself thankful to be in the role of "Canadian Tour Guide" as I have lived in Alberta before and I was able to navigate the streets of Calgary with ease.

Our time spent in Kensington Market and along 17th Ave was well spent. Businesses welcomed our Pig-E-Boxes with great enthusiasm, typical of Calgary's reputation of being the "city of hospitality".

Calgarians even went to the extent of going along with "Where's Pig-E?",our version of "Where's Waldo?" last night at the pub. Hannah and I asked if people could casually place our Pig-E-Box in places around the pub. Please take a look at some of our pictures and see if you can find Pig-E.

All in all we are happy to say that our time in Cow Town was great fun...who knows maybe Calgary will soon be called Pig Town.

Giving Carnival - Do Donors Really Choose?

2007-02-06T21:29:00.000-08:00

Sean over at Tactical Philanthropy has started a group dialog amongst philanthropy bloggers called a "Giving Carnival" where we individually submit articles on a common topic and they are then linked-to from a central page for interested readers. You can learn more about the Giving Carnival here.

The topic he has asked us to speak to is that of "[Online] Resources For Donors," a perfect subject for a guy who runs the "leading social network for donors"

I hate reading blog posts that are more advertorial for someone's own site or service so while I will certainly explain GiveMeaning.com, the website I started two years ago, I will keep my evangelism of our services to a minimum.

I'll start by talking about my own frustrations as a donor, which was what lead me to start GiveMeaning.

The reality of it is that most of us don't wake up in the morning thinking about where we want to donate our money to. Online giving is not likely to become an online daily habit the same way CNN or TMZ.com (a sad admission of mine) is.

Geez, where am I going to give today?
For me, I'm someone who more often reacts to something I see in the news than pro-actively giving my money away. So three years ago, when I read a series of articles of a murder trial that made me weep with anger and pain, I resolved that I would do something meaningful to try to ensure the circumstances in which this little boy was killed would never happen in this Country.

The next day, I went online and tried searching for nonprofits in my community that were tackling child abuse both from an advocacy and government watchdog perspective and from a counseling and rehabilitation perspective.

Information at my fingertips? Overloaded or underwhelmed
The "first generation" of online donation portals (e.g. Network For Good) frustrated me no-end. Keyword searching brings either too many or too little results and then I'm left to read through pages of information trying to discern exactly what each of these nonprofits do. All in all, searching for "charity profiles" ends up almost always on unfortunate ends of the extreme: either way too much information or way too little.

Undeterred, I decided to "let my fingers do the walking" and placed calls to agencies that I found in the Phone Book. I couldn't get my phone call returned. And here's an important point. There are 1,000,000 nonprofits in the US. Hundreds of thousands in Canada. The ones I'm most interested in supporting are not the national agencies that spend millions of dollars on fundraising campaigns but the small, community-based charities that are often chronically underfunded.

An uneven playing field
Getting my phone calls returned, I later learned, was not because they didn't want to talk to me. It was that because of their lack of resources, the same person doing the fundraising was the one doing the counseling and managing the office. Forced to choose between a donor call that may never go anywhere and a traumatized child in need of immediate care, the decision is simple. But these organizations, the ones that I believe many of us donors want to donate to, if they can't identify themselves to us, how will we know to give to them? The answer lies unfortunately in the professional fundraising industry which presents a charity with the conflicting dilema of having to evaluate whether 40% of a semi-successful fundraising campaign is better than 100% of no fundraising campaign, only to draw the ire of donors who chastize them for high fundraising costs.

So if the "charity portals" under or overwhelmed, and I couldn't get my phone call returned, what then?

But before I tell you what I did, I should articulate my other frustrations, the issues that I believe we all share these days, and ultimately, I believe these issues are conspiring against our generosity at all levels of giving.

"Moving Me Up The Ladder? More like me pushing the ladder away from my window!"
So had one of these organizations returned my call promptly and I had felt compelled to donate to them, experience unfortunately conditions me to expect a never-ending stream of solicitations sometimes blatant and sometimes masked as "donor updates" but which ultimately end in an appeal. Take for example the internationally respected charity that I donated to back in November (by sending them a check in the mail) and 3 days after World Aids Day, I receive not one but two four-color glossy, two-sided post-cards "urgently asking for your continued support." Two days too late, and two too many. While I have all the respect for their actual programs, this kind of waste (a waste of my donation, a waste of paper, a waste of theirs and my time) is turning me and millions of donors like me off.

"Return On Generosity." Where is it?
Maybe it's my days as a venture capitalist but I treat my for-profit investments the same way I do my charitable giving. I demand a "Return on Generosity." Without it, why should I ever give again? Online, this has been addressed by many charities (especially charities focused on international relief or development) by creating "Ethical Gift catalog's" and other "anecdotal" messaging most of which comes with fine-print that articulates that the charitable gifts you are purchasing are not actually the items you are purchasing and that you're just giving to their general activities fund. New websites like ImportantGifts.org are attempting to create portals around this concept, all of which I feel, if these items being "sold" are largely anecdotal, is absolute hogwash. To think that these types of "ethical gift" give donors anything more than a "good feeling" is naive.

That's why Kiva, GlobalGiving and DonorsChoose are all high atop my list of respected online giving options, because they indicate exactly where your money is going.

But what are the costs?
DonorsChoose charges a "fulfillment fee" ranging between 15% to 25% on each project funded through its organization. GlobalGiving states that between "85-90% of your money goes directly to the project you choose to support." Kivadoesn't appear to charge fees currently but says that it intends to become self-sustainable by 2008 through "the implementation of a number of income streams which may include optional transaction charges to lenders and low debt capital fees to Field Partners."

I'm amazed at how off-putting even modest transactions can be to many donors. I think the word "admin fee" has become such a dirty-word, tarnished more often by outrageous fundraising expenses (which are distinct from administrative fees) such that many potential donors believe that any intermediary charging anything other than the basic credit card fee is highway robbery.

The problem of the $5 Philanthropist
Whether you have $5 or $5,000,000 to give away, you won't solve the problem alone. Pierre Omidyar's wife loved collecting Pez dispensers. Prior to eBay, finding other Pez dispenser collectors to trade with was near impossible. Prior to GiveMeaning, finding other donors who wanted to support the same initiatives as you was just as difficult.

GiveMeaning's response to donor frustration

I created GiveMeaningin response to these frustrations. Here's what we do. We allow anyone to create a fundraising page to achieve a specific charitable goal. The "founder" of the project submits a little write-up of what they want to achieve, and why they think it should get funded. Some of these projects are started by charities fundraising for specific projects that they've identified but the majority of them are started by people unaffiliated with an organization. What we've created is the beginning of the web's first real online marketplace for charitable giving. I say this because someone can come along and post a project and then GiveMeaning will go and find an organization qualified, willing and able to accomplish the goal(s) that has been defined by that project. With over 800 projects on the site that span the globe and the gamut of causes, we've never had a problem finding a suitable organization for any project.

The Power of Plenty
The project page concept brings together like-minded donors to pool their donations together. We call this the "Power of Plenty." Donors (many of whom have never met each other) pool their money together to accomplish the specific project. And whether I gave $5 and many others gave $500, the feeling I get in seeing the project accomplished is just the same as the donor who gave the most.

Anonymity and Return On Generosity
Our privacy policy is dead simple: We won't and we don't. We will never share your information with the charity that receives the money (unless you specifically ask us to) and you will never be solicited by GiveMeaning. As for a Return On Generosity, the only requirement that we impose on organizations that receive money from us is that they upload photos, video, blog updates, etc to their project page so that donors (if interested), can track the progress of their project.

GiveMeaning does all of this without charging any transaction fees, even covering the credit card fees associated with each transaction. We can afford do this because corporate sponsors who buy advertising on these project pages to align their brand to these specific accomplishments (without ever allowing "disingenuous sponsorship.") For our sponsors, a project page is like sponsoring a golf tournament or dinner except that instead of their brand value being forgotten after desert, their brand is intimately connected to this specific outcome for the months of fundraising and then many months thereafter as donors continue to check-in on their projects.

Who's in charge? Donors need to be empowered.

What bothers me about the vast majority of options that exist to facilitate online giving is that they are providing the donor a menu of choices to chose from as opposed to a breed of solutions that empower the donor. In other words, the majority of these services is still driven by a fundraising agenda as opposed to what the donor wants to fund. For those who hope to target only the "consumer philanthropists," who are content to buy Water Buffalos that don't exist, this might be good enough. But what I'd love to see is a crop of donor-centric services that smartly use the power of the internet (and associated technologies) to bring about a whole new donor-lead revolution in giving. For as long as all that we (the online charity services) are doing is giving the donor a choice of pre-selected donation options, we are not serving them properly. The internet has the potential to be a disruptive force that changes the charity sector for the better but as long as the online services mimic the status quo, this opportunity will be lost.

GiveMeaning has started to move this way by allowing literally anyone to start a project with the promise that we will find the charity best qualified, most willing and able to carry-out the specific goal as defined by that donor but this should be just the beginning.

Wisdom

2007-01-29T22:43:00.001-08:00

It starts with an idea.
But the more you think about it, the more muddled it becomes.
It's then that you choose to give up, or do something.
If you give up, you'll never start again.
If you do something, the first thing you do is admit that you fail your expectations.
It's once you accept the failures you have that you can start to succeed.

You will claim greater success than you believe you have accomplished.
If you don't feel this way, there are problems.

Give yourself entirely. Don't do so abandoning those and that who are there for you unconditionally.
Be present. It is doing this that will exact its greatest toll, that will challenge you more than any other challenge.
It is in being present that will guide you and reward you.

There are no rewards in doing what you do, when you are doing this.

The only reward comes when you have only seconds to savor what you have done.

It is when you draw your last breath, when you ask your final question, that the reward comes.

When darkness comes

2007-01-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

After returning from a trip to Ikea, we noticed our neighborhood was looking "a little dark." It took our combined powers of deduction (which apparently, even when combined, didn't add up to much) a few minutes to figure out that our neighborhood was in the midst of its second power outage in six months.

Both our phones and both our laptops were totally out of juice... It was as if the heavens were insisting (if not forcing) us to spend at least part of our weekend totally unplugged. And well, it was entirely enjoyable. Jess made music, I trudged through Easterly's "White Man's Burden (all hail us searchers!!!) which requires a bit of trudging if you're not an economics major, and we had a relatively early night.

Sunday, we went to Blood Diamond which I had intended on skipping. I didn't want to suffer through a sensationalized drama of events that I'm way too emotionally connected to (I can watch CNN for that). But with the story of the film's director angrily that I had blogged about earlier in the week, I decided to give the movie a try.

For those of you have seen it, email me personally. I have an idea that is nothing short of revolutionary that each of us can do easily, if you were affected by the movie as I was.

I hope that should Blood Diamond be recognized by the Academy on Oscar Night, that whomever accepts the award(s), uses it as a platform to challenge all of the assembled celebrity audience to stop their gratuitous promotion of the Diamond Industry. Because it's not just blood diamonds (where blood has spilt caused by civil war and arms trade financed by "conflict diamonds") but equally damning is "dirt diamonds" which is the "legitimate" exploration of diamonds using slave labor and inflicting the most hazardous, hellish conditions on the poorest of people in African countries. Your diamond might be "clean" from blood but it is often not clean from the dirt and misery inflicted upon the people forced to labor for our vanity. Worse yet, this industry exists only because of our own vanity. Are we really that unimaginative or gullible that diamonds should still be a credible, genuine expression of our love for another?

I've got a simple way to fix this, to clean it all up. Seriously. It's the simplest thing I'm proposing, something we all can easily do but I'm not going to talk about it publicly until at least a few of you first contact me privately. So email me if you agree with me in the slightest.

Go forth

2007-01-26T12:52:00.000-08:00

On a personal note, I was happy to have Gavin Hollett over at my apartment last night to give him a cheque from the funds he raised at GiveMeaning in support of bringing soccer to a remote, impoverished community in Ecuador. He leaves late tonight.

This project is very special to me for several reasons. Gavin and several other guys all in their early twenties have all played on soccer teams coached by my older brother, Hugh.

Gavin was inspired by Romeo Dallaire's account of seeing young kids in IDP camps during the Rwandan genocide, who despite being surrounded by death and evil, were laughing and smiling playing soccer with a soccer ball made out of plastic bags and twigs.

So this group of guys decided to start collecting used cleats and balls to bring to an impoverished community. It started slowly but gained momentum and credibility and as he leaves tonight, they have raised over $12,000 and received tons of donated equipment!

Late last week, Gavin and a few of his colleagues found out that Romeo Dallaire was speaking in Victoria. They managed to meet him personally and they have a great YouTube clip that they're going to upload of them with Romeo himself talking about what they are doing and applauding their effort.

I'm always excited to see a project get completed, but this project is extra special, given it's personal connection to me and my brother. I was really grateful and honored to hang out with him and his girlfriend on their last night together.

They will be uploading Flickr and YouTube content while in Ecuador. Their blog is also directly imported to their page at GiveMeaning. Check it out at vicsoccer.givemeaning.com

A word to the wise

2007-01-25T10:56:00.000-08:00

I'm still trying to figure out which was worse: Jennifer Garner's new movie "Catch & Release" or the smell of the middle-aged woman sitting next to me who kept burping the most horrid smell. Combined, it was a lethal combination. Even though it was a free screening, I feel like I should be reimbursed for my time.

Speaking of movies, the Beeb posted this article on an Oscar-night celebrity promotional campaign being organized by the US Diamond industry.

According to the article, the campaign called Raise Your Right Hand Ring for Africa campaign will donate "$10,000 (£5,000) to African charities for each star raising a hand with a ring at events including the Oscars."

The article quotes the director of the recent movie Blood Diamond as pointing out the cruel irony "that the raising of one's hand and the using of one's hand to vote was the prompt for the Revolutionary United Front to chop off hands in Sierra Leone (where the movie chronicles the use of diamonds to fuel the bloody civil war that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over a third of the country's entire population).

The spokesperson for the Diamond Information Center (the group organizing this promotional campaign) said in response to Blood Diamond's director: ""It's sort of strange that someone who is apparently so concerned about the needs of Africans is making public statements to stop jewellers from making large amounts of money available to African charities. It's unfortunate because it may be that people hear this and hear this very unfortunate connection that has been constructed, and decide not to do it."

The spokesperson goes on to say "The people who would be hurt by that are the beneficiaries of the charities."

Now that's quite literally a bloody cheek. Diamond Exporting from Africa is a hundred billion dollar business. If the Diamond Industry really was concerned about "beneficiaries," they'd concern themselves with the disgusting wages and working conditions of the diamond miners.

This is another example of "social responsibility done wrong." Listen, TMZ.com is the first site I read in the morning, I buy Us everytime I'm on a plane. So this campaign is geared at people like me, people who are influenced by celebrity culture. And I just hope that my fellow Us readers and TMZ surfers see this campaign for what it is. An ironic, insincere, and crude attempt at buying a little good PR.

From a cause-marketing perspective, the lesson here is that "poorly executed cause-marketing" does more to hurt your brand than help it. The idiots who conceived of this campaign are of the same ilk that thought-up Dove's failed attempt at stimulating viral but ended being mocked and angrily criticized by the YouTube community.

Ethical Gifts Are Unethical?!?

2007-01-24T17:20:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen this already, you have to check it out

A day after Christmas, Philip Greenspun wrote that a friend of his had received a "water buffalo for Christmas from her dad." The gift was made through Heifer International's catalog of "ethical gifts." On their website, they call their catalog "The most important gift catalog in the world." Wow. Quite the claim. We're all familiar with the appeal of buying "ethical gifts" for friends and family. Many international relief and development charities have similar catalogues and new websites have emerged in recent years as online catalogues of these gifts.

Here's the catch: As Phillip's blog post said "If you read the fine print on the page, however, it turns out that there is no actual buffalo and no actual family and you won’t get a photo of your family and your buffalo. The money simply gets dumped into the common fund at the charity. We are trying to decide if this is the crummiest possible Christmas present."

The defense goes like this: "Donors are too lazy, or too uninterested in the details of our activities, so we're going to publish anecdotes that can be easily related and sold to the average consumer." At the best case, this is just lazy and unimaginative and at the worst case, well... In the days of heightened paranoia around "transparency ad accountability" and all of those other multisyllabic words that all cry "who can we trust?" isn't it some relatively dark shade of outright dishonesty?

The other problem with these unethically presented ethical gifts is that they let the donor off the hook. "Well ma, I bought you the Water Buffalo so that's my contribution for the year. Maybe for your birthday, I'll buy a pig, then we'll really have made a difference!"

Not only does it let the donor off the hook but it lessens the likelihood that you can engage that donor in the actual good work that really is happening on the ground.

I think it's high time we treat donors more intelligently, yes, even those that only have $100 to give. Instead of giving them this dumbed-down approach to giving, find new ways to express what it means to take on the problems of a community, embrace media like the one I linked to at the top of this post. Take some of your massive fund-raising budget and spend it on inexpensive video cameras, and a small centrally located edit suite, license some songs, and start posting 'em to YouTube like the clip I posted the other day.

That's the way to engage donors, not treat them like they need to be lied to.

Of course, I can't help but mention that it's this more respectful, intelligent approach that we do at GiveMeaning, but that aside, really, I'm saying to all my colleagues and "competitors" (your view, not mine): Treat donors with more respect and assume a higher degree of intelligence and interest in your work than in the "most important gifts" variety.

Net Neutrality in Canada - Who Cares?

2007-01-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

The Tyee just posted an article entitled "Canada Sleeps Through War to 'Save the Internet."

The Tyee defines the issue of Net Neutrality as "Whether telecom companies can favor some Internet sites over others by charging different rates to different customers and making some sites much easier to access than others."

While the issue has made its way to the top of hot button issues in the US, even being hilariously profiled on the Jon Stewart show by the "PC Guy" (see below)

Anyone that expresses shock or outrage that the telco's dare to propose making more
money off the services they provide should give their head a shake. It's this mis-perception that the internet is free or a public utility that gives rise to the argument against Net Neutrality. The internet is NOT free. It's access is owned by an elite group of multi-billion companies whose business it is to make as much possible money of their assets and services. Whether in an Internet cafe in Kitgum, Uganda or at home in South Granville, I have always paid a provider for my internet (except when I find open wireless networks, but then still, someone is paying for that network access).

That these companies have gained these assets in part because of years of government granted monopoly is not sufficient argument against keeping them from charging for tiered access.

The companies that provide this access to both servers and browsers of content have made multi-billion investments in being able to efficiently deliver an exponentially increasingly amount of high-bandwidth content to the masses, expecting the highest return on their investment possible that that their customers are willing to pay for.

Is it a sad day that this new medium has matured into a platform that is now drawing big numbers of people away from their television sets, magazines and newspapers and as such is starting to act more like traditional media industries or is the portioning of the internet really nothing more than the logical evolution of a medium that has finally begun to truly mature? It's probably both.

The argument that valuable progressive media broadcasting will not be able to afford a two-tiered model, I reject. Supporters of those organizations will donate in membership drives (GiveMeaning has already funded some of those drives).

Yes, the fact that this might mean higher start-up costs for new organizations and that it would impose a "success fee" as organizations serve-up more content but the great majority of these content providers will find a way to cover those costs.

For the organizations that can't support themselves independently, they will form media co-ops that will pool resources, and a crop of new intermediaries will emerge to offer pooled resources for similarly oriented content providers.

So amongst all of the issues that need our Country's attention, I don't think Net Neutrality should factor to the top 5.

But you see that I have posted a blog badge to Neutrality.ca because I do believe that all of us but especially those of us in the IT business need to be more aware of the policies and issues governing our infrastructure providers and as consumers of internet services, we need better insight into what the major providers are doing especially in regards to free speech and fair competition.

That's why I post the blog badge and why I dugg the Tyee article. We need to be aware of the changing landscape as the medium we rely on matures as an industry. We need both extremes of the debate advocated passionately and keep informed about the policies that shape the industry.

Lastly, I'm waiting to see what IT company figures it out first and makes this issue a core aspect of their corporate social responsibility platform.

Saturn Returns

2007-01-22T00:03:00.000-08:00

This Saturday I turned 28 years young! I was talking to Babz Chula this week who told me that according to Astrologists, the planets are in the exact same place as when I was born during my 29th year, so this year should be like a "rebirth" for me.

I started celebrating Friday afternoon at our normal team lunch. This week I got to choose (I picked Denny's) and I received quite literally the best birthday gift ever. Each team member had written a little note and each note was stapled together to form a little booklet. The booklet got me very ferklempt and they had printed and framed three pictures, including a team picture that I've now hung at home. One of the other ones was of me at my desk and the other was a picture of my cowboy boots with the quote "I'm the decider" on it (a joke about Bush's famous line "I'm the decider, I decide things.")

Friday night, Jess and I had an amazing steak dinner with one of my best friend's and his wife and daughter who have become like an extended family. The dinner was amazing and I ate everything on my plate. Then, Saturday afternoon, we drove down with our two friends, Shira and Lucas, the couple behind Choosing Joy, a multi-medium company that I am very excited about.

Jess and I always see ads for Red Lobster on TV but there are no locations in Vancouver. Sometime last year, she said after seeing one of those mouth-watering ads that if she were to ever get a record deal, that we would drive to Seattle to go to Red Lobster and celebrate. Well, she signed her record deal late in December, so we decided it was time to do the trip! Shira & Lucas were game, so we drove down for the night and found the closest Red Lobster (in Lynwood).

We had a great night, ate tons and had some great conversations. We met a group of four women who were down from Whiterock for the weekend who were a lot of fun. We stayed the night in Bellevue and drove back late this afternoon.

If you're reading this blog and know me personally, it's not too late to celebrate! You can click here to make a generous donation in support of the first ever fundraising project I have created at GiveMeaning. I'm about half of my way there and want to finish my goal by the end of the month.

I'm looking forward to this year!

Pig-e-Bank campaign

2007-01-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

(Wickaninnish Gallery in Granville Island was the store who raised the most money)

We have picked-up all of our Christmas REAL CHANGE FROM SPARE CHANGE retail campaign experiment here in Vancouver and we're all totally blown away by the success!

By way of background, we built these beautiful red little boxes that we call "Pig-e-Banks" and gave them out to retailers throughout Vancouver. We asked them to pick any charity in Canada or any project on our site that they wanted to fundraise for and then ask their customers to donate their spare change.

After seeing how much money was raised by kids in our Halloween campaign pilot, we thought we would extend the experiment to retail stores.

Conventional wisdom warned that Point-of-Purchase retail real estate was far too valuable to give over to the Pig-e-Bank boxes, never-mind the business of the season would prevent employees from talking about the Pig-e-Bank or anything else during their busiest time of the year.

In less than three weeks, a total of $2082.05 was raised from participating retailers!!!

The top 5 stores (who raised the most money were):

1. Wickaninnish Gallery
2. Gloss Salon
3. Chic
4. Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
5. Heaven's Playground

The program validated everything I instinctively believed. It's perfectly fitting that the Chinese New Year is the "Year of the Pig." We're going to expand this coin collection program nation-wide.

GiveMeaning takes care of all of the logistics (picking-up, sorting, getting the participants the boxes etc). It's perfect for any store, any office, any desk at work. And our "Junior" version is ideal for kids groups and schools to raise money.

If you're interested in participating, click here

Dear, a store in South Granville got creative with their box and made a little sign to wave to customers asking them to donate in support of the BC SPCA.

Of course, the program couldn't have happened without Hannah & Anna, our dynamic duo who went store-to-store, spreading our Piggies throughout the city

Thanks to everyone who participated. In such a short amount of time, we raised a lot of money (given the denominations collected) and have proven the concept. Now it's time to roll-out these little Piggies across the Country!