On Monday, August 8, SXSW.com will announce the launch of the SXSW Interactive Scholarship 2012 program. While last year’s scholarship program was limited to nonprofits, this year’s iteration expands its focus to recognize individuals from all sectors and from anywhere in the world who are using new media to push the boundaries of tackling community problems. Nonprofit leaders, grassroots organizers, individual citizens, and civic-minded entrepreneurs are all eligible.
Individuals can begin to submit their essay anytime between Monday, August 8, and Friday, August 26. SXSW and CauseShift will lead the review and selection process with the five scholarship recipients to be announced on Monday, September 19. Each of the five recipients will receive a complimentary SXSW Interactive badge for the 2012 SXSW Interactive Festival.
How the Program Works
SXSW will be inviting individuals and their supporters to enter 300-word essays by 11:59 PM CT on August 26, 2011. Essays should answer the question, “Who is using technology or new media to do the most innovative work for good within their community?”
These essays will need to explain why the nominated person is so effective at leveraging new technologies and media to help make a difference in a community. The person written about may even be you! In the spirit of SXSW, think big and think differently.
Individuals will submit an essay (300 words or less), which will serve as their official entry and will be published on SXSW.com if selected. Entries will be judged on Innovation, Impact, and Clarity.
How You Can Help
CauseShift, Case Foundation, and Chronicle of Philanthropy are working together to reach out to organizations and individuals representing all sectors connected to the SXSW Interactive community to help us promote this unique opportunity to attend SXSW Interactive 2012. The more people we can reach, the more innovative ideas we can discover and share with the greater community.
You can help by publishing a story linking to the official announcement, promoting the program to your email database, and by sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other social media channels.
For more information on how you can help promote the program, please contact Scott Henderson from CauseShift at takeaction@causeshift.com.
On June 6 at the Points of Light Institute’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, Brian Reich and I hosted an Idea Throwdown focused on the future of service.
We brought together a diverse group of 40 leaders to create a new framework for how organizations who are focused on supporting service – companies, media, nonprofits, government – can better address the challenges that exist today. Our discussion focused on three simple questions. Here are the three main questions we posed and the ideas generated by the group:
What’s Not Working?
- Redundancy (too many organizations duplicating efforts instead of complementing)
- Scaling effective models (and understanding scale properly)
- Large scale service events
- Retention (of volunteers in particular)
- Incentives (not matching up, or motivating – need to understand true motivation)
- Language/framing (movements… for example)
- Accountability (not measuring and responding based on what’s working/not working)
- Problems are not getting address
- Serving causes vs. solving causes
- People not in the right jobs/roles – need better matching to talents
- Collaboration… not happening, not cross-sector, not global
- Learning/knowledge sharing – especially when there are successes
- Virtual access to gatherings, conferences, conversations – too much emphasis on location
- Organizations are hoarding data, silo-ing activities within organizations
- Nonprofit/service community is talking mostly to itself, to believers
- Using language that community understands, but not others
- Not adapting to larger changes in society (with funders and what works especially)
- Storytelling is not focused on impact.
- Lack of quality/efficient market for solutions
- Funding the wrong things – projects people like vs. projects that deliver outcomes
- Lack of understanding of ‘scale’ (and adapting to needs of communities)
- Lack of understanding about what social entrepreneurship really is about
- Service is not an end – it’s a strategy, a sector
- Government/nonprofit partnership
- Brand/nonprofit partnership
- Media/nonprofit partnership
- How capital flows into the system
Things To Stop Doing?
- Stop being reactive
- Stop building models (instead of building systems)
- Stop playing it safe
- Stop asking for money (only)
- Stop running campaigns, without looking at the data, analyzing performance and making adjustments
- Stop throwing $500k galas to raise $600k.
- Stop focusing on fundraising, engagement, etc. without considering need for policy changes, systemic impact.
- Stop blaming other sectors (government, media, business) for not changing
- Stop requiring signups (and focusing on organization building first) to access information, tools, or support action
- Stop over-collaboration internally (the echo-chamber)
- Stop running contests because other people run contests (e.g. trying to be like American Idol).
- Stop looking for magic magic bullets (or what Kathy Sierra called pixie dust) – commit to working hard.
- Stop focusing on social media (vs. being social)
- Stop broadcasting (too much noise)
- Stop listening, without hearing
- Stop measuring activity (only) – start looking at impact, achievement of goals
- Stop romanticizing social entrepreneurs – and assuming that success in one sector qualifies someone to address serious issues and causes.
- Stop talking, holding events, etc. without an invitation to action
- Stop building new organizations
- Stop settling for less than significant outcomes
- Stop competing/cannibalizing similar efforts – find ways to collaborate, go in together.
- Stop pulling punches; show funders, others there are alternatives
- Stop moving on to the next idea, project, opportunities so quickly
- Stop having meetings and events that don’t challenge people to change
- Stop cheerleading projects that aren’t delivering results
- Stop writing two year plans (and start writing 20 years plans)
- Stop blaming ‘cultural apathy’ for the lack of progress on serious issues – don’t buy into the story that people aren’t engaged or willing to commit.
- Stop talking about nonprofit ‘sector’
- Stop waiting for entire space/sector to change – start focusing on your individual opportunities for change, within your organization, small efforts you can make
- Stop focusing on wrong metrics (e.g. followers instead of impact)
The First Step You Need to Take
- Call out the problems and challenges
- Connect as organizations – around issues, to solve specific problems
- Identify the true challenges, the root issues
- Be patient
- Be goal driven – talk about your long-term goals, hold on to them
- Matchmaking – take small actions/create small alliances (example: AHA helps NCVS to find healthy snacks for conference)
- Demonstrate effective cross-sector collaboration – be responsible for building a bridge (and that is all)
- Create specific alignments to tackle specific problems…
- Be honest about collaboration, how much you want to get out of it
- Buy Shift & Reset
- Be an expert at something, or ask for help
- Give data a seat the strategy table
- Align with other conferences (e.g. PDF and NCVS)
- Be more specific about outcomes from a conference (solutions sessions)
- Tell your funders to shove it
- Stop thinking like a nonprofit (pity party)
- Have nonprofit staff rate performance of nonprofit groups
- Make a clear difference between nat’l service and community service (explain)
- Need to focus more on talent, and young talent in particular
- Need to fire people
- Cut features, think like a startup
- Push public leaders (and celebs) to be more authentically involved in service
- Educate political leaders
- Call three competitors and suggest a project to explore together
What answers and ideas would you like to add? Do you disagree with any of these?
It is time to shift our thinking and approach. This coming Monday during the 2011 National Conference on Volunteering and Service, Brian Reich and I are bringing together a diverse group of leaders to create a new framework for how organizations who are focused on supporting service – companies, media, nonprofits, government – can better address the challenges that exist today.
Our discussion will focus on: What do we STOP doing?
This is the beginning of an important conversation — and we want to encourage, and make it possible, for as many people to participate as possible. You have two opportunities to participate in this important conversation:
- Join Us in New Orleans – We have a limited number of seats left and expect to reach capacity very soon. If you are planning to attend NCVS and will be in New Orleans on Monday morning, we hope you join us. Register here today.
- Submit Your Ideas Today – We have created a Google form that challenges you to offer as many ideas as you care – as long as they are less than 100 words. You can submit as many ideas as you like – there isn’t one answer, or even one right answer, to this challenge. You can submit your answers here now.
We look forward to documenting this spirited conversation and sharing what comes from it with you later.
Naming Your Cause: Can You Top This Story?
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
Names are important and can come from unexpected sources.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Tap Tap model
At the 2011 Unite for Sight Global Health & Innovation Conference a couple weeks ago, I was waiting in a crammed entry way with my fellow attendees trying to stay dry from the driving rain outside and the event facility workers herding out us out of the dry foyer so they could finish setting up for the evening’s reception.
While huddled there, Christine Caserta from Hands Up for Haiti struck up a conversation with me. She had attended my morning workshop and nice things to say about what she learned. I asked her more about Hands Up for Haiti and learned she is the managing director of this organization helping bring medical services to Cap Haitien on the northern coast of Haiti. The former French capital during the colonial era, Cap Haitien is a place I only know thru an excellent book, You Are All Free, which chronicles the history of the Haitian Revolution.
As we traded Haiti stories with each other, I mentioned my love for how artistic the Haitian people are and cited the Tap Tap buses as a prime example. These buses and pickup trucks serve as primary way of getting around the cities. They are brightly painted and quite distinct.
Christine started laughing and told me that the Tap Tap played a key role in how they came up with their organization’s name. Early on in their operations, she and other members of her team had loaded their gear on top of a Tap Tap and got inside. As the Tap Tap jostled on the rough roads of Cap Haitien, the room started to bow. That’s when someone on the team yelled, “Hands up for Haiti!” to get everyone to help stop the roof from caving in on them. Like lightning striking, everyone knew at that instant this was the perfect name and it’s stuck ever since.
How’d you come up with your cause’s name? Can you top this story for its random inspiration?
Sage Advice for Marketing Your Cause: Part 2
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
A hand not extended in giving is in no position to receive.
A More Detailed Exploration:
You and I have achieved success because of the people who invested in us along the way. When I started my fundraising career, I had the opportunity to learn from a true master craftsman, John Niemann. He devoted large amounts of time coaching and mentoring me in the nuances of major fundraising and capital campaigns. I have always been grateful for the role he played in helping me start my career on the right path.
Of the many things he taught me, this simple lesson stands out as the second most profound insight for anyone marketing their cause:
A hand not extended in giving is in no position to receive.
If you’re curious about the most profound insight, you can view it here.
Sage Advice for Marketing Your Cause: Part 1
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
Pull the heartstring and the wallet will follow.
A More Detailed Exploration:
When I started my fundraising career, I had the opportunity to learn from a true master craftsman, John Niemann. I was fortunate he took a chance on me since I had only been out of college for a year. I was even more fortunate he invested a large amount of time coaching and mentoring me in the nuances of major fundraising and capital campaigns.
Of the many things he taught me, this simple lesson stands out as the most profound insight for anyone marketing their cause:
The wallet is connected to the heart. Pull the heartstring and the wallet will follow.
The World Needs More Savvy Aunties
#1 Thing to Learn from This Post:
Women without children are a rising economic and social force, who can help accelerate your cause.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Ever since I met Melanie Notkin two years ago, my eyes have been opened wide to the overlooked potential of aunts and aunties. Melanie had been working in the marketing and PR world before realizing she could leverage her passion for being an auntie into creating a movement to celebrate Aunthood. Tomorrow, her book about this movement goes on sale everywhere.
While DINKs (Duel Income No Kids) were all the rage of economists and marketers a few years back and Moms have been all the rage with organizations in recent years, it is well worth your time to consider the Professional Aunt No Kids (PANK®). Notice how creating an acronym can make your case stronger.
Needing statistics and facts to frame the potential? Melanie has accumulated an impressive amount of data and insights to support her claim. Here’s how she explains the economic and social opportunity for aunts/aunties in the US market:
Fewer women are having children. By choice. Not by choice. Some are childless. Some are childfree. Some are waiting. Some are undecided. Some are trying. Some are too young. Some feel too old. Some are too old. Some are gay and therefore I assume less likely to have their own kids. Whatever the case, in the end, 45.5% of women 15-44, don’t have kids.
Here’s the “women without children” data, broken down by age range:
15 to 19 years: 93.7%
20 to 24 years: 70.6%
25 to 29 years: 46.2%
30 to 34 years: 26.8%
35 to 39 years: 19.4%
40 to 44 years: 17.8%
These are definitely numbers worthy of your attention and serious consideration for how your cause can reach out and engage this growing community. If you need any further persuasion, consider how Melanie Notkin has built a growing business catering to these women. Through much hard work, skillful promotion and determination, Melanie has successfully built SavvyAuntie.com into a vibrant movement for Aunt and Aunties. I have been pleased to serve as an occasional contributor of stories to the community helping to shine a light on aunties doing good in the world.
One of my stories featured Stacey Monk and her team at Epic Change, which helped introduce Melanie to the great work their doing. It was only yesterday that I learned this introduction eventually led to Melanie getting involved with Epic Change’s Twitter Kids (#TwitterKids) initiative which has been helping Tanzanian kids get connected online. Through this program, Melanie became a digital Auntie to @Leah_Albert, one of the most active girls involved. Through a Twitter conversation in which she expressed adoration for Leah and the Twitter Kids initiative, Melanie met her original editor at HarperCollins for the book that goes on sale tomorrow. You can read the full story here. Or, better yet, check out this Tweet:
@savvyauntie its people like you who make the world a better place to live.people who are clever,beautiful,helping each other and couragious—
Leah Albert (@leah_albert) April 14, 2011
As Melanie prepares for tomorrow’s launch of Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers, and All Women Who Love Kids, she has announced her commitment to donate $1 to EpicChange.org for every book sold through April 27 (this Wednesday) and will make additional $500 contribution if her books makes the New York Times Bestseller list. Plus, she’s giving away money to one lucky reader’s charity of choice.
Want to learn more about the book? You can actually read selections of it here or go to the book’s website for even more details or read about how she’s helping EpicChange.org thru the book launch.
Even better, why not take a moment to watch the book’s trailer (yes, books have trailers now):
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
1 billion people do not have access to clean water. Providing them clean water means less disease, less money spent on medicine and more on books, and gives more girls access to education.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Living in the United States, I can find clean drinking water with very little effort. In developing countries around the world, it is a much different story. If you’ve never been to a developing country, it might be hard for you to grasp the reality of this daunting fact. Simply put, some people spent three hours finding water for the needs today.
Many great organizations are working to solve this water crisis. Water.org, Water for People and charity:water are each taking unique approaches. In honor of Earth Day, I encourage you to take a short moment to watch the animation below from charity:water to learn more about the issue. If you feel inspired to get involved with solving the water crisis, all three of these organizations are worthy of your consideration and support.
Using Humor to Create Culture Shifts
#1 Thing to Learn from This Post:
Humor can make difficult topics easier to discuss.
A More Detailed Exploration:
During my time at the Unite for Sight 2011 Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale University, I had the pleasure of spending an extended amount of time with Firdaus Kharas. After he attended the workshop I facilitated, he and I crossed paths during the lunch hour and he agreed to join me for a New Haven culinary treat, Louis’ Lunch, where the hamburger was born.
Indian by birth, Firdaus served the United Nations in various capacities living in Canada and now heads Culture Shift and Chocolate Moose Media. His forte is addressing difficult social issues using humor. His Three Amigos cartoon series has reached 2 billion people in 150 countries using 90 different languages thanks to his playful approach to encouraging condom use to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. (Interestingly, the only country that refused to distribute it as a PSA was the US.)
Check out this spot developed for South African audiences, which uses a clever decoy joke:
As we dined on our cheeseburgers, potato salad and peach pie, I learned Firdaus has relied on the help of volunteers to create everything he’s done with the Three Amigos campaign and his new production. Because of this approach, it takes a full two years to develop and produce these important campaigns. If he had funding to pay his people, these campaigns can launch in a matter of months, not years.
I asked Firdaus what the greatest creative challenge is with his work. His reply: finding an idea that is universally funny. That requires an amazing amount of research to uncover how to best approach the issue for each culture. Knowing how different human cultures can be, this complexity offers quite the intellectual puzzle. But as he’s demonstrated, it can be solved with great success.
His newest project is No Excuses and focuses on domestic violence and abuses prevention. You can view the 11 30-second spots they have already produced by visiting the campaign’s website. He and his time are working to get all of them loaded onto YouTube so they can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection. Here is one of the English spots:
What are some good examples of others using humor to tackle social issues?
Run the Marathon One Step at a Time
#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
No matter how big of a movement you lead, focus on executing one step at a time.
A More Detailed Exploration:
Heartbreak Hill (Credit: Google Street View)
You want to change the world, right? Those of us crazy enough to believe one person can do something so audacious need to make sure we aren’t overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.
The 2011 Boston Marathon was run this past Monday with the men’s winner completing the 26.2 mile course in the fastest time ever. The day before the weekend, I read a mile-by-mile guide of the marathon. For anyone who knows the Boston Marathon, Heartbreak Hill is the greatest challenge and comes around mile 20. It is the largest rise of elevation on the course lasting a half mile and is literally where everything is downhill after that.
As I ready the guide, the writer’s advice stuck out to me:
Never look at the top, just at the road immediately ahead.
In those moments of feeling overwhelmed, remind yourself of this advice and you’ll be grateful you did.
