We at GoodInKind have been doing a lot of research on how to properly launch a social entrepreneurial internet start-up, and have decided to share with you the 7 main lessons, many of which contain meat, learned from experts in the field:
1. Be unreasonable, emotional and impatient
3. “Not don’t make allow the same mistake twice”
4. Be a pig
5. It’s not the meat, it’s the motion
6. Talk shit
At GoodInKind, we’re always on the lookout for news about giving back in all its diverse forms. Today I happened across a few articles describing the results of a new study from the American Psychological Association. The report concluded that people who give back in order to truly help others- not just themselves- actually do experience health benefits and prolonged lives. This longitudinal study tracked the giving patterns of people from 1957, when they graduated college, until now. I loved the following quote from the study’s lead author, Dr. Sara Konrath:
“We recommend that people pay attention to their reasons for volunteering, and try to focus on how their behavior can positively impact others.”
Dr. Konrath went on to state, however, that volunteering for self-serving reasons doesn’t appear to cause “actual harm, and it can still do your community good.”
Other studies have drawn general conclusions about the benefits of helping others. In addition to potentially lengthening the lives of volunteers, giving back can:
Increase your overall sense of well-being – Volunteering can allow you to be active, connect with others in your community, and in general feel better overall. This isn’t just opinion; many studies support the theory that doing good helps both parties. These studies examine elements of well being such as happiness, life satisfaction, and self esteem.
Alleviate chronic pain – Benefits from volunteering aren’t limited to feeling good emotionally. Studies have found that numerous physical impairments can actually be alleviated by volunteering; some researchers even state that those with the greatest amount of pain might reap the greatest rewards from giving back.
Reduce depression - Some of the depression alleviation that comes from volunteering could occur because of increased socialization and integration with others. The end effect, however, remains the same. Research strongly supports the fact that long term volunteering can lift depression in all age groups.
Do you have experience giving back and feeling differently? Let us know! Leave a comment or share your experience via email. We look forward to hearing from you.
A recent report stated that two thirds of donors will likely cut back on charitable giving due to the strain of the poor economy. Another ten percent, the study found, will stop giving entirely; only 22% would consider giving to new organizations; and 75% believe that the economy will stay the same or get worse. In this context, it is imperative that we find new and innovative ways of giving that are not based solely on writing a check. At GoodInKind, we’re working around the clock to bring you a new way to give. We’re also keeping our eyes peeled for other ways that people can have a positive impact without tapping into their financial resources.
One fantastic way to “do good” and save money is by taking easy measures to preserve the environment. The word “sustainability” is thrown around quite a bit these days, and green washing abounds. Companies tout their green initiatives with elaborate marketing campaigns, and a multitude of products promise to promote a healthier, cleaner environment. When it comes to day-to-day life, here are things you can do (or not do) to be sure you’re truly making a positive impact.
Shop local - In a previous blog post, I outlined some basic reasons that shopping local can have a fantastic impact on communities and local economies. From a purely environmental standpoint, buying local products cuts way down on the emissions required to transport food across the country or internationally. While it means consuming more seasonal produce and potentially facing a more limited selection, you truly can have an impact simply by buying from local farms. While some argue that buying local produce is more expensive (and therefore a luxury of the wealthy), alternatives in the forms of food co-ops are becoming more and more popular. I personally have found great value in some of these fantastic co-ops in Brooklyn, NY. Allowing equal access to affordable, locally produced food is an imperative for many cities, however- I did a quick Google search on Chicago, my new home, and found a ton of great resources and government-sponsored plans. Many communities also have initiatives that offer incentives in the form of coupons and discounts to persuade you to support local businesses.
Consume less - With the economy being what it is, many folks are cutting back as much as they can. Now you have another reason to feel good about it aside from the extra dollars in your bank. Consuming less can be an extremely powerful means to help the environment. The ancillary benefits of living a more simple life are a topic for another blog, but many believe that there are emotional perks to paring down what you buy and consume. Environmentally speaking, when you’re buying less, then less is being produced, transported, and thrown out. This means emptier landfills, lower emissions, and less pollution- all because you made smarter decisions about what you truly needed.
Clean with the basics – Check out this great list of recipes for cleaning remedies that don’t break the bank and are environmentally safe. No need to run out to the health food store for expensive “alternative” products if they exceed your budget- these remedies use ingredients like lemons, baking soda, and olive oil.
Seal your building envelope – If you’re a home or apartment owner, sealing the envelope of your building- while not as visible or sexy as sticking solar panels on your roof- is an incredibly powerful and more effective way to save the environment. Consider investing in ways to control leakage. This huge drain on energy harms the environment and can create an unnecessary dent in your wallet; the upfront capital investment needed to seal your windows or install better insulation can pay itself back over the long haul.
Share transportation- I’ve found that many people are surprised to hear that NYC is among the top twenty greenest cities in the US. While this status is due to many things, including the efficiency that comes from high density settlement patterns, NYC has an amazing public transportation system and is highly walkable. Many New Yorkers don’t own cars at all (I have friends in their 50s who never learned to drive), and more than 54 percent take public transportation to work. Imagine the amount of pollution that is saved by folks choosing to take the train rather than drive cars.
While New York’s high density makes such a system possible, there are other ways that people living in many different communities that can reduce the impact (and cost) of their transportation. By carpooling with friends and colleagues, taking the bus, biking, or working from home, you can have a very positive impact and save money. Programs such as NuRide provide discounts and other incentives to people making such choices, making it even more attractive.
This list could easily go on forever, but it’s time to hear from you. What are your favorite ways to give back by helping the environment?
Ryan McGuire is an unusual artist and businessman, well known in Ithaca for driving around town in a Mazda Miata that’s decked out to look like a rocket ship, for proposing to his fiancée with the help of flash mob in the center of town, and for working as a DJ on Cornell’s WVBR radio. He’s what would be called by suited executives on Mad Men, with some befuddlement and awe, “an idea man.”
Ryan’s other efforts have included launching a web site to get members of his community involved in helping each other with day-to-day tasks, a business that provides marketing and branding advice to local businesses and an innovative advertising concept involving hanging “visual puzzles” with a marketing message in the waiting rooms of local doctors’ offices.
Ryan serves as an inspiring example of how each of us might more effectively use our imagination, our energy and our desire to get involved with our communities.
GoodInKind: You’re clearly a guy who isn’t afraid to try new ideas and get the public involved. You shot a short film that involved getting as many people as possible in Ithaca to wear clown noses, launched an online service to match people who need help with people who can offer help, and even proposed to your girlfriend using a flash mob and then posting it on YouTube. How do you get people in your community involved in your projects?
Ryan McGuire: Primarily, I just like people and like giving them opportunity and attention. I wear bells on my ankles because it opens people up and gets them talking to me. I’ve learned over multiple community projects that if I put in extra energy myself and am willing to really minimize the commitment I’m asking of people, and just be active and responsive, then they’re actually interested in participating and meeting the people around them. Initially, people are wary of putting in extra effort themselves, or they aren’t comfortable with doing things with strangers, or they’re unsure if the idea is going to work and what the possible outcome might be.
But if I cover all those bases and provide them with a mechanism and opportunity to be creative and meet new people and to be engaged in a community-wide project. I always see massive participation. I think it’s just because I listen to people and listen to what their reasons are for being involved. Everyone kind of wants to be an artist, wants to be included in things and paid attention to, and I give everyone that extra attention because I am sincerely interested in them. I think that this sincerity is what sets me apart from people who try to do other large scale projects.
GIK: Ithaca is a pretty progressive community, with two major academic institutions, something like 500 not-for-profit organizations and a history of trying innovations like Ithaca Hours. Do you think Ithaca can be seen as a sort of incubator for creative ideas for social change that might work elsewhere?
RM: I do. I think the colleges definitely provide this diverse pool of individuals, from different backgrounds and different political views. Every semester brings in new people and new ideas. When you have communities that don’t have that kind of change in population, things can become very standardized. The internet is helping with that though, helping people become more open minded and allowing them to hear more views than just those of their specific community. The internet is bringing that college town mentality to everyone, because you can read news from all over the world, chat with people anywhere with Skype, connect with friends around the globe on Facebook.
You have to have an open mind in a college town, because new people here don’t even know what “here” is yet. They’re excited and activity trying to get involved in the community because it’s new. When you live in the same place for a long time, you’ve already experienced everything and the excitement of exploring and getting involved is reduced. That’s what makes Ithaca unique, and why I love college towns.
GIK: You are known not only for your artistic endeavors, like your rocket car, your public art projects, and wearing bells on your ankles, but also for your more business-oriented work in branding and marketing, as with your company Wait Connect. How do reconcile your art and your business sides?
RM: I think my artistic side actually enhances my business side. I’m always professional, even though my art seems a little quirky. And I think that’s what makes me successful, because I don’t put on a double face. I wear the bells when I wear my suit, and if people don’t accept me because of the bells, then I decide not to do business with them. I’m very selective about whom I work with, but normally it doesn’t come down to a selection process. I’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies, with clients in Germany and Switzerland and with businesses in almost every industry.
I think people respect me because they see me as blunt and sincere, and my quirkiness in fact makes people comfortable. And I have good eye and brain for business and always try to advance my knowledge. Every day I do at least three hours of training to increase my skills, primarily in the tools I use for graphic and web design, just to keep my brain moving and to always keep learning. But the goal for me is to always be best – or at least to understand what the other people who are better than me are doing so I can catch them!
So both sides work together – I’m not one who splits the wheel and says “I’m going to be business man today and artist tomorrow.” When you meet me, you’re going to get the whole personality, and I think that’s what makes me successful as both a businessman and as an artist.
GIK: And then there’s this third aspect of what you do, which is getting the community involved, not only with what you do in your quirky art projects, but with socially positive endeavors. How do you see businesses getting involved in the social good?
I think it’s a necessity. People who start small businesses have some type of desire to reach out to the community – even if it’s mainly a financial reach, they still have a stronger desire to actually engage the community than most. And if we could tap into that, and show them the power of giving and the power of positive community interaction, it would create a much more giving and supporting environment. Small businesses are already halfway there, and finding a happy middle ground between the purely financial and the public good is what we need to do.
I’m willing to give more into my community than I might need to, and I know sometimes people think “why would you do this?” And it’s because we actually have a lot of time. Even though people always say “life is short,” life is actually really long, so you might as well try to engage everyone you can and help as many people as you can.
I think small businesses can really adopt that approach, especially if they have the right mechanism, like GoodInKind, which will allow them to give back to the community. And it becomes addictive. As soon as you start to help people and they start to respond to you – with just a smile even – you’re going to want to give more. I think that’s why I keep doing it – because it feels so good to help other people.
GIK: and do you see a lot of that in Ithaca? Of businesses understanding the value of doing things for the public good?
RM: I think a lot of them do in their own way. I don’t think a lot of local business start their own initiatives, but they’re more than willing – and actually eager – to help the not-for-profit community. They’re always right there to help when someone is down and needs help. We had somebody in town recently who was diagnosed with cancer, and there were so many fund raising events that everywhere you went it felt like businesses were donating their profits to that person. The Ithaca community is very supportive of its members. It’s kind of a hub of positivity when it needs to be. And then of course the not-for-profit community provides the extra push. Whereas you can’t of course support them ALL, you constantly see businesses supporting their favorite local not-for-profits. It’s not your normal community where it’s just a few people, maybe the local banks, always supporting the same organization. The small businesses really try to pitch in as much as they can, even when times are tough.
GIK: What’s next for you, what projects do you have in the pipeline?
RM : The next big project is going to be Umbrella Share. It’s a unique idea that doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s such a simple concept, but if you understand the weather in Ithaca, you’ll know that it does rain a lot. My fiancée and I have been giving away umbrellas for many years now, so I’ve had this idea for a long time.
You know what it’s like when you’re walking down the street or waiting for the bus and it starts to rain, and you’re all dressed up for an interview or going out for the day. Getting soaked can ruin your day, which then hurts that positiveness that we’re trying to spread – trying to make people happy, help them do good. So the Umbrella Share concept is to have free umbrellas available at every single business, and to have “ambassadors” have umbrellas available to give out when it rains. So when it rains, you can go into any location within our community and just take an umbrella. You don’t need to sign it out, you don’t need to tell anyone that you’re taking it. If it’s an Umbrella Share umbrella, you can just take it. You can later return it, or drop it off at any other business you see that has the Umbrella Share logo. And we’ll be asking some local artists to create designs for the tops of the umbrellas, so we can also involve the local art community and support them as well.
Ultimately what it’s going to do is turn Ithaca into a kind of community support hub, so when you come to here and walk around, you think “Wow! There are car shares, and umbrella shares, and people doing GoodInKind!” You end up with this really supportive community that ultimately is just going to spread around the country.
But it’s about starting simple. Of course I could do something elaborate and crazy, but if you take something very simple that people take for granted it will catch on.
In addition to that, I do my normal business and engage as many people as I can. I do a lot of free websites for people who can’t afford them, and have a few of those in the pipeline right now as well. I’m trying to figure out how to provide free website for not-for-profits, if I can make it cost effective. I’m almost there. For informational websites that are professionally designed, I think I’ll be able to do it sometime this year. Any not-for-profit that just wants an internet presence that looks professional, I’m going to give them essentially a $5,000 website for free so that they can at least present their business well. I’ll have a few different templates that they can choose from. If they don’t have a logo, I’ll design their logo. And all they’ll have to do is fill out a page with all their information, it’ll be very standardized. It’ll give them a more professional image – you need to be more professional online now, but it can be too overwhelming a task and expense for people who are new at it. And the more of these I do, the better I get at it.
Again, there’s lots of hours in the day to do things like this…as long as I make enough money to eat I’ll be fine.
Hey everyone,
Given that our Ithaca launch is right around the corner, we thought we’d share with you what we plan to request on GoodInKind.com. The website will have a fantastic feature that will allow you to ask for what you’d like to buy - chances are there’s someone out there who can provide it!
Kalyan
Jessica
Dave
Anar
We’d love to hear from you – what would you like to buy once the site is live?
Even when business is poor or the economy is suffering, there are various things businesses can do to give back. Many companies report significant benefits from investing resources into their communities, with the results ranging from enhanced employee morale to the cultivation of long term lucrative partnerships. Let us know what your company has done to give back- we look forward to hearing from you!
Pro-bono work – Offering free professional services is a straightforward way to generate goodwill, retain visibility when business is down, and foster deeper community connections. While there are limits to the extent to which a business can offer pro-bono services, when done correctly pro-bono work can add enormous value to small companies and non-profits alike. Individuals can also do pro-bono work through sites like the Pro Bono project or Pro Bono Net.
Committing a percentage of profits – On a company level, directly sponsoring non-profits can result in the generation of goodwill and tangible benefits for both parties. 3Harbors Realty formed partnerships with local arts organizations when it was getting started in a tough market, agreeing to give a percentage of its commissions to the charities. The partnerships turned into true win-win situations: 3Harbors benefited from the name recognition of the arts organizations and, as the market improved, the organizations received increasingly larger donations. 3Harbors developed deep community ties and earned recognition as a company committed to doing good.
Create supportive groups within your company – A small business can easily create affinity groups that bolster its internal culture and mobilize employees to do something they care about. For example, a company could start a women’s initiative in order to foster interdepartmental connections, empower employees, and locate opportunities for outside volunteering.
Conduct community trainings - Your business can do tremendous good by offering job training in its area of expertise to victims of domestic violence, ex-offenders, formerly homeless people or others trying to make a new start. Local social service agencies would love to make arrangements with you for that type of help.
Look at your environmental footprint – There are an endless number of things your company can do to legitimately “green” its existence. Many companies market themselves as being “green” or sustainable without doing much to actually help the environment, so make sure your actions count. Examine your power usage to try to reduce your carbon footprint, for example, or participate in programs like NuRide to encourage ride-sharing or public transportation use among employees.
Donating to non-profits as client gifts - Some small businesses have combined client gifts with their charitable inclinations. Rather than send gift baskets, for example, one company elected to donate to its clients’ favorite causes. The result was extremely favorable, creating a win-win situation for all involved.
Offer summer jobs or internships – Hiring interns can both help your company and empower teens or adults by providing them with valuable job experience. Even if you are not able to pay new interns, with unemployment so high even unpaid internships can add tremendous value, enabling interns to plug resume gaps, network, enrich their industry knowledge, and acquire new skills.
Sponsoring, organizing, or advertising non-profit events- Small businesses can gain a lot from helping non-profits organize events. While not all companies can afford to donate financial resources, firms’ leverage in the community could bring much needed exposure to non-profits. Simply posting a non-profit’s event on your company’s website, for example, could be extremely valuable.
The Ithaca launch is right around the corner, and we decided it would be a great time to start cooking up ideas for service offerings or requests. We all came up with our favorite ideas. Enjoy, and then share your own Top Five in our comments section or by emailing Jessica at jessicar@goodinkind.com.
Anar:
1. Bollywood 101! Find out what all the buzz is about and learn the inside scoop from someone who has lived through it.
2. Entrepreneurship as a career choice: the basics to get you started from a fellow entrepreneur.
3. Seven one-pot nutritious and optionally vegetarian meal recipes – one a day for the week!
4. Want to switch from a career in science to a career in business? Get advice and tips from someone who has been there, done that!
5. French wines 101: learn the basics in order to talk intelligently about French wines from an enthusiastic amateur – and, of course, drink some delicious wine!
6. Ace that case and get a job at a top tier consulting firm – case interview prep from a recently graduated consultant.
Jessica:
1. A full week of dog-sitting with an experienced dog-lover! I have lived with dogs my entire life , can administer medication, and am accustomed to caring for both puppies and elderly dogs.
2. Left-handed knitting lessons – learn to make scarves, blankets, and other beautiful hand-made items with a rare left-handed knitter!
3. No car and tons to do? No worries- I have access to a car and can take you where you need to go. I have an excellent driving record and am happy to transport pets, serve as a designated driver for an evening, or drive you around town to run errands.
4. Have you always wanted to learn French or brush up on your rusty skills? Struggling in your mandatory language classes? Want to take a trip to Paris with a basic understanding of common phases? Practice French with a pro- I’ve lived in France twice, studied at a French university, and have a degree in French literature.
5. Is your child or teen having trouble with English and struggling to keep up? Receive tutoring from a grammar expert, former fifth grade teacher, and former teaching assistant for Cornell business school’s management writing course.
Kalyan:
1. Perfect your presentation for an important meeting – tips from someone who makes presentations for a living!
2. Traveling to Amsterdam? Live like a local at my place and allow me to show you the best of what’s to see in this beautiful city!
3. Seeking a job in management consulting? Get advice from someone who recruits every day.
4. Business owner affected by the downturn? Get advice from a seasoned consultant!
5. Learn to cook delicious Indian food, followed by a delicious meal for two with my wonderful wife and me.
Each week we bring you some of our favorite social enterprises that are doing amazing things. This week is no different. As usual, let us know who you think we should feature next week, and enjoy!
RangSutra is a private company founded in 2004 and comprised entirely of artisans hailing from remote Indian regions (1,060, to be exact). It defines itself as a family of grassroots organizations that have joined to form a prodcuers’ company, an entity somewhere between a cooperative and standard private corporation. As the first crafts cooperative to form a producers’ company, RangSutra’s mission is to ensure sustainable livelihoods for farmers and artisans and serve as a bridge between artisans and customers. To do so, RangSutra creates high quality, hand-made products ranging from apparel, accessories, and home furnishing, all developed according to the principles of fair trade. It engages small groups of producers throughout India, which source materials and facilitate production. Because the vast majority of RangSutra’s shareholders are also its producers, company profits are funneled back into the rural communities in which they live. The net effect is empowerment of often disadvantaged towns and villages, the preservation of traditional culture and art, and the generation of fairly priced, high quality hand made products.
Girls Moving Forward was formed in 2005 with a mission of addressing the academic and emotional needs of girls through an innovative blend of mentorship and tutoring. Girls Moving Forward engages girls and inspires them to “take command” of their own social and academic learning. While the program provides free tutoring, it is about much, much more- it focuses on the personal development of girls and seeks to reform how they think about themselves. Girls Moving Forward sees gender as “a powerful influence in education and self-conception,” and seeks to empower girls through providing positive role models. What started as an exciting idea about changing the approach to education is producing results- founders observed that as they worked with girls in a new way, their grades improved dramatically as they became increasingly confident and empowered. The company is also making a serious impact – it has served more than 3,000 girls in Oakland and Santa Cruz – and being noticed. It was recently named as one of only eight finalists for the Hitachi Foundation’s national social entrepreneurship award, the Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneur Award.
Better World Books collects and sells books online for a good cause – the company has raised $9,922,028.28 (and counting) for literacy and libraries since its founding in 2002. Better World Books is dedicated to promoting literacy, not just as an “add on” cause, but as a core part of its business. It is openly committed to its triple bottom lines of creating social, economic, and environmental value. For example, shipping is not only free, but is also “carbon balanced” with something called Green-e Climate certified offsets from 3Degrees, a firm that promotes green power (keep reading for more on 3Degrees). BetterWorldBooks also supports books drives, collects used books, and partners with libraries. In addition to the funding it has provided for literacy and education, it has diverted 26,000 tons of books from landfills (currently equally 59,030,606 books) and has donated 3.3 million books to literacy programs around the world.
3Degrees – I came across 3Degrees, Inc. while learning about Better World Books and the ways in which it achieved its environmental objectives. 3Degrees is an “environmental commodities sales, trading, and advisory firm.” In short, it helps companies achieve their green objectives and strives to increase demand for renewable energy and carbon offsets. Businesses, governments, and non profits can all use carbon offsets and Renewable Energy Certificates to balance out the impact their operations have on the environment. In doing so, they both comply with environmental regulations and also mitigate their operations’ potential negative impact on the environment. 3Degrees does its work with an end goal in mind: to bring about an economy that is low-carbon and based on renewable energy. 3Degrees has won numerous awards and designations, including the US Department of Energy Green Power Leadership award in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010; the Non-Utility Green Power Supplier of the Year in 2010 and 2009; #1 REC Trading Company in North America in 2010; and many others.
Here at GoodInKind, we love to continually learn about ways in which individuals and groups are doing good. Each week, we highlight a few social enterprises that are doing amazing things. As always, feel free to leave suggestions for next week’s social entrepreneurs. We love to hear from you!
American MoJo (Moms and Jobs, Inc.) is an amazing new social venture committed to helping mothers affected by poverty through an innovative solution – it creates clothing and hires moms as employees, helping them to access new career paths, receive improved wages, and benefit from high quality, totally funded childcare. MoJo addresses a clear problem- 27% of single mothers in the United States live in poverty, and women with dependent children make up two-thirds of the population below the poverty line. At the same time, single moms face incredible expenses- day care and health care costs are often prohibitively high, and 40% of child support is never paid. In response, MoJo offers much more than just a job with health benefits. It teaches moms a new trade in the apparel business, where they begin as stitchers and are mentored and trained into new roles and, hopefully, a better life. MoJo also plans to provide education in areas such as financial management and to hold a speaker series on Inspiring Women. MoJo’s factories are currently based in California and Massachusetts, although it plans to expand by two new facilities this year. Proceeds are directly reinvested into the business, so by simply making a purchase you are helping support moms and their families.
The driver behind Riders for Health’s mission is summed up by a quote from the former CEO and President of the Global Health Council, Nils Dulaire- “We have developed the most miraculous tools for dealing with the health of humankind. But the best tools in the world don’t make a bit of difference if they don’t get out to where they’re needed.” With this is mind, Riders for Health works to ensure that health care workers do get to where they are needed through providing them with access to vehicles that do not break down. The result? For over twenty years, millions of people that might not otherwise receive even the most routine health care are able to access reliable treatment. The problem is real: 30,000 children in developing nations under the age of five die daily from preventable or treatable diseases, for example, while approximately 250,000 women die annually from childbirth complications. Many people in Africa cannot access aid and supplies because of a lack of transportation, properly maintained vehicles, or technicians to repair new vehicles. Riders’ solution? To mobilize health care workers through providing them with motorcycles and vehicles that allow them to reach even remote areas, to train these health care workers to maintain and service their vehicles, and to do all of this at the lowest possible cost.
At the heart of YouRenew’s mission is the idea that reuse is the highest form of recycling. Founded in 2008, YouRenew is making major strides towards cutting down the waste that goes into landfills by incentivizing people to sell their old electronics, which are currently recycled at a dismally low rate of 10%. YouRenew’s mission is straightforward: to make it easier for people to renew electronic devices than to toss them in the trash. The company aims to pioneer the “ReCommerce” field and actually pays people, sometimes hundreds of dollars, to recycle their old devices. It additionally donates to environmental causes with every device it receives. YouRenew is able to do so by reselling used items to wholesalers on eBay or Amazon and taking a thin margin. People are responding – YouRenew has been featured in Businessweek, CNN, ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, and the NY Times (among many others). In 2010, the company was growing at a rate of more than 200% and earned $2 million in revenue.
WaterHealth International combines breakthrough technology, a stellar team, and a innovative business model to address a water crisis that affects two billion people worldwide. The company, which plans to lead the Blue Revolution, is attacking the problem of lack of access to clean, safe water and the incidence of waterborne diseases with UV Waterworks, a technology that purifies waters by using ultra violet light. In contrast to other water treatment methods, UV Waterworks uses no chemicals and produces no potentially carcinogenic byproducts. It is easier and better for the environment than boiling water, and its pricing allows households with incomes of $2/day to afford installation. With a market focus on under-served populations, WaterHealth provides education and uniquely structured project financing to facilitate access to its products. In 2010, WaterHealth purification systems were located in more than 300 African and Indian communities, serving more than one million people.
Confessions of a Premie
I’m an old school activist.
I support many causes, volunteer in soup kitchens, record for Jello Biafra’s rabidly free-speech record label, sit on the board of the Coalition for the Homeless in NYC and encourage people of all political persuasions to vote. My great-grandfather was Harry Hopkins, principal architect of the New Deal and the man who in 1933 famously chastised the US Congress for claiming that the US economy would sort itself out in the long run by retorting “People don’t eat in the long run, they eat every day.” For that verbal grenade alone, the guy is one of my heroes.
Like most other premies (my term for the pre-millennial generations, or those born prior to 1980), exercising this responsibility has traditionally taken the form of writing checks to worthy causes, volunteering time, maybe writing the occasional letter or signing a petition, and voting for politicians who support the legislative framework and budgetary priorities that most effectively address the systemic inequities that lead to poverty, suffering, the erosion of rights and damage to our environment.
This has been the system for a long time: the government fulfilling its Constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare of the American people through regulatory, programmatic and fiscal channels; nonprofits acting on local, state and occasionally national levels to shore up support, services and advocacy where the government will not or cannot address the needs; the private sector providing funding.
The past decade has seen major shifts in the traditional approaches. The emergence of the social enterprise movement which utilizes the efficiencies and incentives of a for-profit organization in order to further a philanthropic mission, has created an entirely new model of how to effect change (and this blog has been pointing to some of the terrifically interesting and innovative social enterprises out there). The explosion of social media and an array of internet platforms for people to discuss and support favorite causes has radically changed the way people talk about and raise money for causes and had a notable impact on the 2008 US presidential campaigns.
For a guy who’s used to handing out sandwiches to homeless people on the streets of NYC, this can all be a little overwhelming.
So here’s my dirty little secret.
This is the first time I’ve ever blogged.
Yes, I am a founding partner in a social enterprise, a new internet-based platform for raising money for nonprofits and engaging supporters of worthy causes that will include active use of social media and all of the innovations of the movement. But my initial attraction to the idea derived simply from seeing how it could raise money and support for the more traditional actors: the nonprofits.
Now, however, the value of the new approaches has hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.
Traditional methods of engaging supporters to help nonprofits now seem so limited. In the past, nonprofits would stage fundraising events one or two times a year, send out paper mail or emails to donors a few times a year to ask for funds, and would desperately try to get mention in the mass media in order to raise awareness.
Today, nonprofits can use online fundraising platforms to engage supporters on a daily basis. They can allow those supporters to come up with their own creative ways of raising funds, on the supporters’ own schedules. They can actively engage in blogging and tweeting to increase their profile and build excitement around their mission. People who share interests in causes freely exchange ideas, articles, links, regardless of where they live or what their resources are. If the US presidential campaigns in 2008 were not a sufficient harbinger of the power of the new technologies, the Arab Spring in 2011 indisputably was. It’s all open territory now, with huge potential to bring change.
So yes, it’s time for this premie, for all premies, to embrace the new.
Because people don’t tweet in the long run. They tweet every day.
