The $5 philanthropist

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!

Labels: atriskyouth, cineplexodeon, community, csr, employment, gordonhouse, vancouver

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.

Labels: charity, community, fundraising, givemeaning

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.

Labels: community, internet, media, reputation, web2.0, web3.0

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!

Labels: charity, community, manitoba, toronto

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.

Labels: calgary, canada, charity, community, philanthropy, pig-e-bank

(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!

Labels: charity, coin, community, fundraising, innovative, nptech, philanthropy, pig-e-bank, web

Everyday on the drive to the office we pass a corner of Vancouver where men stand around all morning, waiting and hoping to be picked-up for construction work. They arrive early in the morning and stand around for hours in the freezing cold, hoping that a contractor picks them out from a field of scores of other men.

These are men who are trying to make a living, many of whom trying to support families.
I can't imagine the frustration of standing around all morning in the freezing cold, hoping to be picked, and then returning home facing a mountain of bills and a family to feed without the ability to do anything about it.

One of the most common complaints about funding programs for the homeless is the age old "they lack work ethic," "get a job," make an effort." While I know better, I nevertheless understand and can empathize with the emotion that drives that sentiment in many of us.

But here's this group of people who are genuinely trying and struggling to provide for themselves and their families.

But I suspect that this group of men (and groups like them) are almost totally over-looked by society. The people that are on the "fringes of poverty" need our care, compassion and assistance.

I'm thinking about a small group of friends and colleagues to deliver coffee and donuts to this group of guys on a particularly cold day this week. It's not a hand-out. It's just an act of saying "Hey, I recognize that it's freezing out, and I hope this makes waiting around a little more enjoyable."

The gap between the "obvious poor" and the "fringes of poverty" is narrow but while the former can be clearly seen, those living on the fringes are not obvious until they have already fallen. If forced to choose, what would you invest it? Preventing the fall or trying to pick-up the fallen?

Labels: community, economics, human rights, justice, politics, poverty, society

It's easy to out-think ourselves. We're passionate, we want change, we want BIG change. Sometimes though, the most obvious, most immediate solutions are right in front of us.

Last week, someone very close to me witnessed a colleague of hers at work being quite literally shouted and verbally abused in front of a room of 15 of his colleagues. This man, a recent immigrant to Canada, is incredibly good at his job, not to mention routinely goes out of his way to help his colleagues in his workplace. The person (let's call her Mary) that observed this could see the pain and humiliation that this verbal abuse caused him and decided to do something about it.

On her lunch break, Mary bought this man a bouquet of flowers and a card and circulated the card amongst his colleagues who had witnessed this verbal abuse. Mary presented the card and flowers to this man who broke down crying, overwhelmed from both the generosity of his colleagues and the pain of being abused.

If we all seized the opportunity to practice these kinds of Random Acts of Kindness, the world in which we each live would no doubt be a far better place.

Why not commit ourselves to being on the lookout for one opportunity a week to commit a Random Act of Kindness for someone in your community?

Comment on the Blog with your stories. What you have observed others do, what you have done, maybe even suggest acts.

Labels: charity, community, help, kindness, randomacts, world

All throughout Vancouver stores, you will see our beautiful bright-red boxes inviting you to make "Real change from spare change." This is the next extension of what we launched at Halloween with our kids Pig-e-Banks. Over $100,000,00 in spare change is given to charity every year in Canada alone. GiveMeaning wants to show the world (starting in Canada) how much change this change can make.

With a Pig-e-Bank box, retailers collect money for a charity they choose. They collect the money in-store and attached to the box are a set of cards that each person is encouraged to take which directs them to a special web page on our site that explains what charity has been chosen by that retailer and why. Click here for an example. Click here for an example of what a retailer's page looks like.

You too can order your Pig-e-Bank to sit on your desk at work, at a dinner party or even if it's just in your bedroom, get your Pig-e-Bank today.

Labels: charity, coincollecting, coins, community, fundraising, innovation, pig-e-bank, retail, web