GET PLUGGED INTO PHILANTHROPY
I encourage you to be just as creative as Hilary Lister in finding ways to give and support others. The latest trends in philanthropy include micro-volunteering and micro-action, which are spin-offs from successful micro-lending programs that have provided millions and millions of dollars in small loans. If you have a cell phone and a few extra minutes, you can reach out as a micro-volunteer to take micro-action to help a worthy cause or a person in need.
A social entrepreneurial enterprise called the Extraordinaries operates a for-profit service for those who are willing to do good using their smartphones or their Web browsers. The idea is that while many people can\'t give up an entire day to do good deeds, they can do a little here and there, while commuting by rail or bus, waiting in line, or during breaks at work. The Extraordinaries Web site 4(http://www.beextra.org) and smartphone application hooks those people up so they can do benevolent work in small bites.
Some of the good deeds that the Extraordinaries can help you perform, according to their Web site, include recording an audio version of a book just a few pages at a time for a group that distributes audiobooks to the disabled; translating a nonprofit\'s Web site into a foreign language; recording pothole locations for your town; identifying birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; tagging images for the Smithsonian; identifying and mapping good and safe places for kids to play; or reviewing congressional bills for hidden pork.
The company plans to make money by charging organizations a fee for each task performed by its micro-volunteers, a movement that uses technology and crowd sourcing to do little things that add up to a lot of good. It\'s cutting-edge philanthropy that uses the Internet and social networking to make the planet a better place. Here are just a few Web sites where you can plug into the \"Giving Grid\" from your laptop or smart phone.
CAUSECAST. COM
Multimillionaire tech entrepreneur Ryan Scott founded Causecast to help nonprofit and charitable organizations reduce high-cost donation transaction fees that cut into their ability to do good. Cause-cast accomplishes that mission with innovative methods that include helping donors make contributions via their cell phones by using a \"text-to-pay payment system.\" Causecast has branched out to serve as a link between worthy nonprofits and companies interested in developing cause-marketing campaigns. This $1.5 billion industry involves major companies who want to partner their brands with good causes and support them through donations or shared proceeds.
DONORSCHOOSE. ORG
This education advocacy site encourages \"citizen philanthropy\" by taking requests for assistance from public schoolteachers across North America looking for everything from pencils for economically disadvantaged students to chemistry lab equipment, musical instruments, and books. You can go to their Web site, choose which request you want to help with, and donate any amount you want. DonorsChoose.org then delivers the materials to the school. They also provide photos of your gift in use at the schools, a thank-you letter from the teacher, and a cost report showing how your money was spent. Larger donors get personal thank-you letters from the students.
AMAZEE. COM
This social-networking site promotes advocacy projects, sort of a Facebook for philanthropists in action. It encourages people who want to be charitable to promote their ideas, recruit fellow believers, and raise money on its global action network. Its members\' projects have included building an IT learning center for the poor in Sri Lanka and helping to supply running water to a village in South Africa.
GLOBALGIVING. COM
GlobalGiving\'s goal is to help donors become doers by connecting them to more than seven hundred prescreened grassroots charity projects, according to its Web site. \"From running orphanages and schools, to helping survivors of natural disasters, these people are do-gooders to the core. We connect these 『good idea people\' with the 『generous giver people\' and help projects of all sizes receive donations of all sizes,\" the site says.
People with projects post their causes and wish lists on the Web site, and those who wish to make donations can pick and choose those they want to support or become involved in. GlobalGiving also guarantees that 85 percent of each donation is \"on-the-ground within 60 days and has an immediate impact.\"
KIVA. ORG
This Web site connects the needy and the working poor to those willing to loan or give them a little at a time. Billed as \"the world\'s first person-to-person micro-lending website,\" it allows visitors to browse profiles of its low-income entrepreneurs and then to make small loans of six to twelve months to those selected. Donors are kept updated on the entrepreneur\'s progress via e-mails, journal updates, and repayment tracking.
A few dollars here and there can add up when millions are willing to give. Kiva.org reports that so far more than $80 million has been distributed from more than a half-million micro-lenders to people in 184 countries. The Web site uses PayPal or credit cards to distribute small loans of $25 or more.
KINDED. COM
The power of the Internet is increasingly being tapped by inventive philanthropists like Daniel Lubetsky, a social entrepreneur and founder of Peace/Works, a \"not-only-for-profit\" food and condiment company, based in my native Australia, that makes all-natural KIND fruit and nut bars.
Lubetsky created the \"kinding\" movement to encourage people to surprise others with unexpected acts of kindness, according to his Kinded.com Web site. You can go to the Web site, make your own Kinded card to print out, and then when you do something nice for someone, you pass the card to that person so they can pass it along by doing something nice for someone else. The cards are coded so that they can be tracked online and each person can see the rippling effect of each good deed.
IFWERANTHEWORLD. COM
There are so many creative ways to reach out. A new online project called IfWeRanTheWorld.com encourages inpiduals, organizations, and corporations to take on worthy causes in small, manageable steps. You can go to the Web site, fill in your suggestion to the phrase If I ran the world I would . . . and then the site\'s operators hook you up to others willing to find ways to follow through on your idea and pitch in.
NEVER CHAINED
One of our current philanthropic projects at Life Without Limbs takes a similar approach. We are creating the equivalent of an online shelter or youth self-counseling center: a Web site where people can share their stories of both hurt and healing and then help each other find ways to move to a better place emotionally and spiritually.
I was inspired to do this a few years ago when I met a seventeen-year-old girl who\'d been raped three years earlier. She told me that she\'d had no one to talk to about her terrible experience, but God had healed her heart through prayer. She\'d then written a song about the healing, in hope of helping others. \"Maybe because of what I went through I can help someone who is thinking about giving up, or maybe I can save a soul,\" she told me.
Her story inspired me to create this Web site, where her story and her song can be heard by people seeking healing and inspiration. I can\'t imagine the physical and emotional pain she experienced. I couldn\'t be there for her when she needed help because I didn\'t know her then. But I can help her and others tell their stories and heal each other. The Web site is called Never Chained, after the Bible phrase that says \"the word of God is never chained.\"
My plan is to have a two-stage experience for Never Chained. In the first section, visitors will be able to share their stories of need; then on the second page, we will link them to people who want to offer assistance or comfort. I think of it as a social-networking site where those in need can connect to those seeking to make a difference. Our goal is modest: to change the world one person at a time. We are still in the process of developing this Web site. Our goal is to inspire teens to become involved and encouraged in philanthropy. You can check LifeWithoutLimbs.org for any updates not just on this project but on our travels and stories on how people\'s lives are being transformed.
Links to others you\'ve met in this book:
Dr. Stuart Brown
www.nifplay.org
Reggie Dabbs
www.reggiedabbsonline.com
Bethany Hamilton
www.bethanyhamilton.com
Gabe Murfitt
www.gabeshope.org
Vic & Elsie Schlatter
Apostolic Christian Church Foundation
www.accm.org
Glennis Siverson
www.glennisphotos.com
Joni Eareckson Tada
www.joniandfriends.org
Phil Toth
www.PhilToth.com