The $5 philanthropist

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.

Labels: barack obama, fundraising, online, politics, social media. web, strategy, US

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.

Labels: charity, fundraising, givingcarnival, philanthropy, The Giving Carnival

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."

Labels: fundraising, nptech, nten, peterdeitz

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

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.

Labels: charity, facebook, fundraising, pig-e-bank, toronto

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?

Labels: canada, fundraising, online, politics, web

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.

Labels: fundraiser, fundraising, gigi, montreal, ontario, ottawa, quebec, toronto

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.

Labels: charity, fundraising, givemeaning, philanthropy, podcast

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.

Labels: charity, fundraising, victoria, vwsac, walkamileinhershoes, women, womensrights

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.

Labels: charity, fundraising, philanthropy, victoria, walkamileinhershoes, womensrights

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.

Labels: americanidol, charity, fundraising, idolgivesback, marketing, philanthropy

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!

Labels: fundraising, givemeaning, jessiefarrell, vwsac, walkamileinhershoes

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

Labels: charity, development, Ecuador, fundraising, philanthropy, soccer

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.

Labels: charitablegifts, charity, charitygifts, ethicalgifts, fundraising, greengifts, marketing, media, nptech, philanthropy

(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

I received an amazing early birthday gift today! Late last year, we raised money for an orphanage in Indonesia to buy a new minibus to transport the kids to school.

The orphanage is home to about 50 children ranging in age from 6 - 17. Because of the wide range in age of the kids, the orphanage must transport the kids to several different schools, which means several bus trips a day. In addition to school transport, the orphanage also needs a vehicle to go to the market each day to pick up fresh produce for the children's meals.

The project reached it's goal back in November with most of the funds being raised directly through the site and additional donations being raised off-line.

This video is what we got from the Canadian charity responsible for this project.



Jess and I watched it together first and we were moved to tears! Talk about "Return On Generosity!!!"

Labels: charity, fundraising, indonesia, media, orphanage, philanthropy, world, youtube

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

According to this article in the Salem, Oregon StatesmanjournalWoodburn Company Stores (presumably the name of the shopping mall) "plans a fundraising shopping event that it says will give participants a chance to be pampered while they shop and collect money for good causes.

The Nov. 4 event's goal is to raise $25,000 for 10 non-profit organizations, including the Volunteers of American, Easter Seals and Ronald McDonald Charities of Oregon and SW Washington.

Tickets cost $20, with $10 from each ticket going to the charities. Participants then shop in any of the 85 stores in the center from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. They also get lunch, dessert, a wine tasting, a gift from Garden Gallery Iron Works and gift wrapping. It's a great holiday promotion that could easily be implemented by other malls. I hope that there are information booths or better yet identifiable volunteers from the 10 organizations that will benefit from the event to talk about and raise awareness about who they are and what they do.

Labels: fundraising, fundraising ideas, marketing

Friday's at GiveMeaning are supposed to be an opportunity for us to slow down, eat lunch together as the whole team (it's taking a bigger and bigger table to accommodate us all) and talk about the week that has passed.

The day started with a rush order of another 80 piggies for a church youth group in Vancouver. Jess and I delivered them to the church, thinking we would just drop them off. Instead, I found myself standing in front of the kids explaining the Pig-e-Bank's to the group of kids.

I must admit, I found it difficult to just explain the basics of the Pig-e-Bank at first but found my footing quickly and acted out a little skit (Jess' idea) that seemed to go over really well. But what was most satisfying was after standing in front of the whole room, I talked to some of the kids in smaller groups and was able to get their reaction as they held the box themselves. It was my first direct experience with a kid's reaction to the box and I have to say how proud I was.

It was a great feeling.

I came back to the office to find a great article in today's Vancouver Courier which describes the Pig-e-Bank program perfectly and ends with the first public mention of our expansion strategy for what will be a much bigger plan to make real change from spare change

Kids are starting to come online and activate their boxes. To protect their privacy, I can't post links to their individual pages but suffice it to say, I could spend the entire weekend reading their descriptions of what they're inspired about and why they want to help the charity they chose.

Speaking of the weekend, tomorrow I get my dreaded vaccines. Ouch.

Labels: charity, coincollecting, fundraising, halloween

They're here! What was first talked about on my blog as "Codename: Apple" has been revealed as our "Pig-e-Bank" program (pun intended).

While we were still working under-wraps on our modern twist to the coin collecting box, Unicef surprised us by announcing that they were ending their Halloween coin collection program.

Many people were very sad that this wonderful, simple way of introducing children to philanthropy and fundraising was ending. I'm pleased to announce that this Halloween, schools and individual children can become members of our Pig-e-Bank.

Now, kids can fundraise for any of the 80,000+ charities in Canada and through a very generous grant and some great logistical work on our part, we've figured out a way to take the biggest hassle out of the coin collecting equation and actually pig-up (oops I mean, pick-up, haha) the money from almost anywhere in Canada.

GiveMeaning's commitment is not just to revolutionize online philanthropy but to make all parts of the sector more fun, engaging, transparent and hassle-free for all involved.

Please permit me to boast that we've really outdone ourselves with these boxes.

We only have a limited number of these boxes for this Halloween, so I encourage you to go over to our site and order a few!

I recognize that it's late in the game. We've done this largely under-wraps with pre-selected schools, individuals and groups but we still have a few left and would love to see every piggy find a home!

On a different note, I have to say how excited I am that I am two weeks away from my first ever trip to Africa. If all goes according to plan, I will spend my first few days alone in Northern Uganda and then join a group of men travelling from Vancouver to three countries in Africa. This is the first time I'm mentioning this trip in public as my schedule has been very much in flux given how busy all of us are at GiveMeaning during the holiday season. I'll be sure to post much more about the trip and I intend to be posting regular updates while in Africa.

For the man who hates to fly, I can't wait to get on the planes that will take me to the continent that I've been wanting to visit since I was a little boy and learning about South Africa at anti-apartheid meetings and rallies that my parents were involved in.

I have to profress my tremendous gratitude to my parents for raising me in a family that from the very earliest of ages, it was made clear to me that we as individual citizens hold the power to change anything. I still remember my first anti-apartheid rally: The notion that Mandella would be freed, that powerful corporations would be forced to abandon political relationships because of pressure from our protests outside gas stations and liquor stores, all seemed impossible even to optimists like my mother and father. And in a relatively short period of time, it happened.

The Power of Plenty. The power of 5 dollars, five minutes always stuck with me. I saw first hand how a little could do a lot when each little bit could find each other and join together.

That's what we've done in some tiny bit at GiveMeaning and what we hope to do better day by day. GiveMeaning's power is in its community. It is not in technology or process or anything like that. It is simply in the collective will, intention and action of those who take the time to participate. And every single day we see more and more people joining existing projects and starting new ones.

I'm very thankful to be part of GiveMeaning. To be part of so many people's dreams and passions is one of the best jobs in the world. Every single one of us in the office is very proud to serve all of you.

Labels: coincollecting, fundraising, halloween, unicef