Project Description:

The Superhero Foundation's mission is to put a stop child abuse. But in order to solve a problem of this magnitude, you first need to ensure the appropriate level of awareness is raised, and people become educated on the extent of the problem and things that they can do to help solve this problem. So our focus is to drive national awareness through social media campaigns, and family fun-runs that we have developed and operate around the country. The Superhero Run is a family 5k fun run where people of all ages come out for an "awareness run" to celebrate childhood and to raise awareness for National Child Abuse Prevention Month - which is every April. Participants in the run dress up as superheroes for a day of fun, but also as a means to get attention for the awareness campaign. We also raise funds for local abuse shelters. Our guiding principle is that "Every child needs a hero, but abused children need superheroes". 

Project Goal:

Since starting this movement 2 years ago, we have grown from a single run here in Austin, to 3 runs around the country: Austin, Richmond & Pittsburgh. We have also gotten Nike on board as the largest sponsoring company backing this movement. We primarily use social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) to spread the word, and we now have almost 10,000 people nationally that have joined the cause! We raise money as well through these awareness runs, and have raised over $30,000 to date - and given all of the funds to abuse shelters that need it in the battle against child abuse. Our goal going forward is to become "the Susan G. Komen Foundation" for child abuse prevention. 9 out of 10 people we speak with do not know that April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month...and we are a movement that is going to fix this awareness problem. 

What Tools Did You Use:

Blogs, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter

What Happened?:

We exceeded early goals that we had from a fund-raising perspective, we exceeded any expectations we had on the sheer number of people who would be part of this cause by leveraging social media to bring people to the cause. We also grew the amount of runs beyond what we expected for the first couple of years "in business". We aspired to grow by one more run understanding that finding the volunteers to pull off this endeavor would be a challenge. When people began to engage us on our Facebook cause and our website, the volunteers and funding to pull off the runs flooded in.

Lessons Learned:

I would go "social" faster and put together a comprehensive social media strategy right from the start - instead of tactically using various social media platforms to get the word out. Building an open/social foundational platform for the movement would have propelled us forward much faster and farther than where we have gotten today. Social media has made all the difference in building this successful movement. 

URLs:

www.superherorun.com

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/117625/9796908?m=71bb3202

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38990485036&ref=ts

www.Twitter.com/superherorun

Project Description:
Tell us about your project! Describe what happened from start to finish.
This began with backyard chickens; asking my City to change its ordinance to allow for more environmental sustainability and slow food.  It commenced to, as of this date, acquiring 1,300 free fruit and nut trees (more are committed), giving them out freely to residents within a 4-city radius, including very high crime, low income residents in Richmond and Oakland, California.  Vegetable seeds, chicks and rabbits have also been given out freely.  The process is many-fold -- community organizing by way of yahoo groups, craigslist, a newspaper reporter, and city staff and government.  A request for 500 bicycles has been put out, which bicycles will start to address the green transportation level.  
 

Project Goal:
5-step process in creating systemic change on a wide-scale, addressing survival needs:  1 -- food in environmentally sustained ways; 2 - transportation in environmentally sustainable ways; 3 - energy again in sustainable ways, and hopefully 4 - housing moved outside of the economic realm so as to avoid homelessness and trauma due to economic variabilities.

What Tools Did You Use:
- Facebook
- Other

What Happened?:
The process is ongoing.  It has been extremely successful so far, and appears that success will continue.


URLs:

http:///www.self-sustainingcommunities.fluidpiano.com

 

Linda Schneider

Self-Sustaining Communities

 

 

Project Description

I still have to pinch myself that a little guy like me with only $45 start-up cost and a monthly operating budget of AT&T's iPhone plan would be able to drive 11,263 miles around the US in a borrowed car affecting real change in homelessness.

That car just happened to be borrowed from Ford Motor Company, that even still today syncs to my content http://www.thefordstory.com/ford-on-blogs/invisible-people/

Content is mirrored on change.org and huffingtonpost.com. Also, often featured on takepart.com and many more

CNN, LA Times, Seattle-NBC, Detroit-ABC, Albuquerque-NBC, Kenneth Cole, Hanes, Mashable, Google's blog twice (that's like being in the Bible) Amazon.com, Tyson Foods and so many more. Even sharing the front page with Nancy Peloci http://hardlynormal.posterous.com/gonna-crack-me-up-for-days-hardlynormal-opp-n (my favorite)

And when a state government takes notice and asks you to visit ya must be doing something right http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8iI5-nXyz51YjM1ZGIxNjUtOWJiOS00ZWU3LWEyMDQtZTYyMjExODEwZWY3&hl=en

CNN documented I was able to get the word 'homeless' to trend on twitter http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/24/gnomedex-puts-the-human-face-on-tech/
CNN.com feature story here http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/01/horvath.homeless.website/index.html

Speaking at Gnomedex, Blog World, 140 Conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTPewtWAL2Y and http://eguiders.com/exclusive/the-spark-series-part-2 Idea Camp and many more giving a voice to those with little influence

All this happened even in spite of living without any real income for close to 24 months, 3 layoffs, losing my house to foreclosure and nearly everything else.

InvisiblePeople.tv’s success is a direct result of social media and the effective use of storytelling

Project Goal

Goal is a simple one.  Change people’s perceptions by giving a face and voice to homelessness through storytelling via social media.
What Tools Did You Use?:
- Blogs
- Facebook
- Flickr
- MySpace
- RSS
- Twitter

What Happened?
Every now and then I get a glimpse of the impact – screenshot from America’s Next Top Model Forum http://hardlynormal.posterous.com/screenshot-of-post-from-americas-next-top-mod
Tweet from Los Angeles Fire Department http://twitter.com/LAFDtalk/status/2085269138

But the biggest impact came after I spoke at the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville’s Mayor was in the audience and immediately started a low income housing program to assist people with first and last month’s rent (a huge need). The owner of World Garden Restaurant immediately committed to feeding thousands of people every week http://twitter.com/hardlynormal/statuses/4767127324. A farmer donated 40 acres of land http://twitter.com/hardlynormal/statuses/3182356535 (I was sent a photo but cannot seem to find it) that as of two months ago will now be used for low income housing. In Baton Rouge I was informed about 50 kids who could not go to school because they did not have shoes. One hour later they had new shoes http://hardlynormal.posterous.com/woohoo-pic-of-new-shoes-going-to-help-50-kids

Those are only a few of the stories that I know of


Lessons Learned

 

I honestly do not think I would change one thing. I did learn that if you're willing to give your life to help others genuine miracles will happen.

 URLs

http://invisiblepeople.tv

http://www.king5.com/news/local/60831787.html

http://bit.ly/3YEQpb 

http://bit.ly/dwfp8

 

Mark Horvath

InvisiblePeople.tv 

 Project Description:
On our recent trip to Tanzania we brought 12 computers for Shepherds Junior School. We arranged an Internet connection at the school with the local ISP and set up a wireless router. We   taught a three-week curriculum to Class five. They learned everything from how to double click and use a mouse, how to send replies and updates on Twitter, and how to post to a Tumblr blog. The students now have their own Twitter and Tumblr accounts. Each student was also connected to a Twitter pen pal abroad.

Project Goal:
Our goal was to connect the 30 students of Class 5 at Shepherds Junior School in Arusha Tanzania to the Epic Change community through Twitter and Blogging.

What Tools Did You Use?:
- Blogs
- Twitter

What Happened?:
We successfully installed the web at the school and the students quickly took to the computers and the web. We met our goal of connecting Class 5 with a larger community. We were also surprised by the enthusiasm of teachers at the school who realized that the web could be helpful in their lesson plans and save them trips to the library for resources like maps and images.

We expected that Twitter and the web would benefit the students as they began to ask questions and explore topics they were curious about. We underestimated how much our existing community of supporters would benefit from this program as well. Twitter surprised us with the release of the Lists feature while we were teaching the students. Sharing the list of all the students made it easier for supporters to interact and excited the students as they interacted with more people.

 Lessons Learned:
Next time we would arrange to have a volunteer back in the US supporting us in the Twitter stream while we are teaching the curriculum. Bandwidth in Tanzania can be very slow. This made it difficult to thank people participating and to send updates of our progress at the school. We would also like to bring more computers so that fewer students have to share at a time and so we can move faster through the curriculum.

 URLs:

http://tweetsgiving.epicchange.org/twitterkids/

 

Avi Kaplan

Epic Change

Project Description:
For several months we have added code to our thank you page portion of our action alerts that ask people to share on facebook and retweet their actions. This may be very basic, but we've seen increaded actions AND we can track and locate our activists by find them. (you can see a sample of the code if you take action here: https://online.nwf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=788 )

Project Goal:
We were looking to increase our Twitter activists and build our @wildlifeaction presence. Our initial goal was small... about 20 new activists an action alert (our activists skew older and many of them are just coming to facebook!)

What Tools Did You Use:
- Facebook
- Twitter

What Happened?:
We get around 50 to 100 retweets for each action alert and what's neat is we also see anywhere from 50 to 100 actions directly from facebook or twitter. It's a great way to engage friends of our activists.

Lessons Learned:
We're hoping to continue to experiment with our action alerts and hope to make people feel like they are part of something bigger. We also want to figure out new ways to engage our supporters along with their friends!

URLs:
http://www.twitter.com/wildlifeaction

http://www.nwf.org/action uses social media constantly!

 

Danielle Brigada

NWF

Project Description:
With a network of locally-led Green Map projects charting sustainability assets and challenges in 50 countries, our organization began developing a social mapping platform in late 2007. Merging Google Map, web 2.0 open technology, local knowledge and universal Green Map Icons, our aim was to lower technical and financial barriers to interactive mapmaking and to create the means for the public to contribute to the profile about each site. The Open Green Map was opened to local Green Map teams in summer '08, and as they began populating the platform with local nature, culture and green living sites, they tested usability and contributed to OGM’s overall design and toolkit.

Project Goal:
Green Map System wanted to: • Attract a diversity of people to use these interactive and crowd-sourced Green Maps. Today, OGM’s traffic is surpassing GreenMap.org’s, thus doubling our organization’s web audience. OGM’s interface is already in 5 languages (and more to come). • Give the public the ability to express themselves and add their own insights, images and impact assessments about each site on the map. Over 1500 people have registered and are contributing videos, PDFs, ratings, too. • Enable any Green Mapmaker to create Open Green Maps. Today more than 100 maps can be explored in 21 countries, and another 100 are in progress. A growing number are from the Global South. • Generate attention and action. OGM has been recognized by international media and 6 social design, tech and innovation competitions so far, including NetSquared and the Index Awards. • Provide desktop and mobile users a locative innovation with social benefit now, we aim to co-create mashups, on-site markers, user defined widgets and more. • Now, it’s very low cost for the Mapmakers to use OGM to create and share their Green Maps. Ideally, we will soon be using this platform to provide a funding stream that sustains our non-profit and the means of generating support for the local map teams, too.

What Tools Did You Use:
Blogs, Facebook, Flickr, RSS, Twitter

What Happened?:

We celebrated Open Green Map’s launch in 13 cities in June 2009 with 40 maps and 4,000 sites populating the platform. Now, 9 months later, we’ve more than doubled those numbers. Currently, about 250 new sites are being added weekly to benefit a steadily growing global audience. We recently released the beta mobile website and version 1.0 of the Green Map iPhone App to make OGM’s data accessible on the move, and planning for more mashups, datasharing, youth mapping and more. We were glad that we re-built GreenMap.org as a content-managed registration-presentation-tool center first, as OGM precipitated a surge in growth that could have overwhelmed our small staff. The number of registered Green Map projects grew 35% faster in 2009 than in any previous year. 

Lessons Learned:

Secure multi-year funding upfront and provide for sponsorships, partnerships and earned income sooner. Anticipate changes in technology and document more carefully while building.

URLs:

http://GreenMap.org (our splash and the mobile url)

http://OpenGreenMap.org/home (direct to OGM)

http://GreenMap.org/app (our first App)

http://GreenMap.org/ogm-launch (about OGM's launch)

http://GreenMap.org/greenhouse/en/news/press/pr (press releases, backgrounder, award list)

http://GreenMap.org/join (find out about starting a Green Map for your community)

Project Description:
Digital Connectors and ConnectorsClub.org
One Economy's Digital Connectors youth technology training program created the Ning-based  ConnectorsClub.org site to share technology training curriculum, promote learning and connections among Digital Connectors, and foster leadership development in low-income communities.


Project Goal:
The Digital Connectors project aims to create 21st century technology ambassadors by offering technology training to 14-21 year-olds in underserved communities so that they may train their peers in technology to bring them into the economic mainstream.  Digital Connectors is an international movement of youth and their mentors that understand that quality of life depends on quality of information. To date, more than 3,000 youth have been trained as Digital Connectors.
In order to improve their lives and their communities through technology adoption and service work, Connectors programs become affiliates with One Economy.  We then train each  affiliate’s instructors or mentors through our standard service leadership curriculum training. This Curriculum includes media literacy, financial literacy, and community service, community mapping, information technology, and the creation of a final project. Instructors are steeped in the program values, 12 core competencies1 and technological know-how to deliver Digital Connectors with youth at their affiliate site.

What Tools Did You Use:
- Blogs
- Facebook
- Flickr
- LinkedIn
- MySpace
- RSS
- Twitter
- Other

What Happened?:
One Economy employs a diverse set of social networking tools into the structure of the Digital Connectors program. Integral to the program is the ConnectorsClub.org, a community site created on the Ning platform that allows Digital Connectors to access the philosophy, excitement, and community engagement that make up the Digital Connectors national movement.  The site invigorates a network of youth, youth workers, and industry sponsors who communicate with each other and partner to deliver service and learning. It also allows Digital Connector graduates to remain in touch with the program and to serve as mentors to new participants. In this way we have aggregated student work and interaction among the more than 100 programs that have raised Digital Connectors across the country.  We still rely on other public social networks to keep our youth engaged inside and outside of the program, but all coursework, program related interaction, contests, incentives, service reporting and awards happen on our network.
Prior to creating ConnectorsClub.org, some of the social media tools that our Digital Connectors launched evolved organically since our first Digital Connectors training with 13 young women in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC.  Many of our affiliates began to produce Youtube channels, blogs and radio podcasts even before the standardization of the program. During 2008 and 2009 we chose the best practices from these initial prototypes that were now running across the country and wove them together into our 200-hour Digital Connectors curriculum.  

Lessons Learned:
One of the biggest lessons learned is that a community for emerging leaders for digital literacy must be maintained, monitored, encouraged, and nurtured, so that trust emerges among Digital Connectors.
Importantly, One Economy has learned it can be difficult to keep track of the multitude of social networking programs created by its Digital Connectors.  It is very easy to set up a new station, network or other communication mouthpiece.  It is much more challenging to produce a meaningful, valuable narrative across the brand and even more challenging to engage Affiliates in the same process.  A social media strategy that is adopted by all affiliates is essential to maintaining quality of content and clarity of purpose.  Online social networks are only as good as the frequency and relevance of their member postings and interaction.   Virtual networks still need the support of real handshakes and friendships to be realized. One Economy is striving daily to set up the systems, training, and incentives that enable ConnectorsClub.org to continue to grow to freely share content, training and relationships that can enable young people to become technology ambassadors for improved communities.  
Where We Are Headed
One Economy is continually strengthening the Digital Connectors curriculum and providing incentives for participation on the ConnectorsClub.org to increase interaction among Digital Connectors. Internationally, One Economy is working to expand the Community Connectors program into Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and many of the other countries where One Economy is working. ConnectorsClub.org will facilitate connections among adolescent Connectors, enable them to share the knowledge gained from Digital Connectors trainings, develop mentorship relationships with people in the United States and Kenya, and scale their learning into an open resource visible to anyone with an internet connection.  
Additionally, One Economy will foster social entrepreneurship by creating incentives within ConnectorsClub.org to encourage Digital Connectors to interact with each other to solve problems in their communities. For example, One Economy is developing programs that: foster micro-enterprise development through DigiPreneurs; offer job placement through an upcoming service called DigiStaffing; and selling DigiGear- the latest clothing and tech gear- at an online store where Digital Connectors can “purchase” items with DigiCash, another new incentive for participation in the program. In the future, One Economy seeks to enable ConnectorsClub.org to work with a mobile phone based application so that Digital Connectors can interact instantaneously, become citizen reporters, and access community leadership tools from the palms of their hands.

 URLs:

www.connectorsclub.org

www.one-economy.com

 

Elizabeth Kountze

One Economy Corporation

Project Description:
Incredible startup story, from Silicon Valley to Ottawa to Austin, TX, the story of GiveMobile is exciting and an example of 21st century social entrepreneurship.

Project Goal:
To provide every charitable organization with the tools needed to communicate, raise funds, and accomplish their mission.

What Tools Did You Use?:
- Blogs
- Facebook
- Flickr
- Twitter
- Other

 What Happened?:

It's still happening

Lessons Learned:

Stay open minded and learn from others

URLs:

http://www.givemobile.org

 

Chris Barrow

GiveMobile

Project Description:
International team of avatars coordinating fundraisers, virtual sales, educational events, 3D immersive builds and crisis campaigning using Second Life, Google tools and existing hidden networks ready to mobilize as needed.  This "hidden network" came together to coordinate Haiti relief efforts, working with Linden Lab and other companies along with government and the Nonprofit Commons to create a cross-sector coalition for inworld aid efforts.  The common desire to be activated is spinning off in a dozen directions as a new type of viral virtual campaign emerges. Tagging, aggregation, cooperative meetings, polls, 3D creation tools, existing web sources and stories from the source have come together thanks to people from more than a dozen countries sharing their creations.  This campaign will kick off officially this Saturday January 30th and will continue through February as we host dozens of events, auctions and mobilizing sessions to connect groups doing great work around the world.

Project Goal:
Fundraising: aggregate goal in the tens of thousands for gifts sold through XStreetSL, inSL and through virtual events and donations.  AGGREGATION is the greatest challenge of this project as efforts take place worldwide; converting currency is our current work as totals come in from all over. Donations for our coordinated Virtual Haiti Relief campaign through February 28, 2010 will benefit Help for Haiti Now, a foundation sending 100% of donations to key organizations on the ground.  

What Tools Did You Use?:
- Blogs
- Facebook
- Flickr
- LinkedIn
- Twitter
- Other

What Happened?:
Avatars from around the world started talking through Skype, Second Life and in blogs about how to work together to help Haiti.  Many ideas emerged and a collective formed to create structure for a wide variety of experiences to grow.  Events are happening most every day with virtual creators selling prized works to benefit this campaign.  In one of our last events we spoke with Ham Rambler, a well-known avatar who flies aid in from the UK to the Dominican Republic and sends video interviews with other aid workers via YouTube.

In two weeks roughly $30K has been raised through individual efforts and this team expects to double that impact in the coming one month campaign across virtual worlds.  Many early events designated funds to Partners in Health, the Red Cross and grassroots organizations and a coordinated campaign across the grid through 2/28/2010 will fund Help for Haiti Now.  On the Aloft Nonprofit Commons I built a makeshift distribution center with maps from many sources to show the flow of aid and the international collaboration required on the ground to get things moving to those who need it.  This Help Haiti Hub is one of a handful of information centers now helping people find out more while networking and sharing their resources with new peers.  Many extraordinary people have come out of the woodwork to grow this endeavor together and this has brought many people together to work that had not previously met.

BTW, I am not one of the core leaders of this collaborative but have watched it emerge from embryonic through the catalyzing process. Avatars Rhiannon Chatnoir, JoJa Dhara, Katydid Something, Brena B and a slew of others have been putting time in to think about virtual education, fundraising and outreach in new ways, utilizing existing tools (the Relay for Life kiosk scripts, existing venues & events) to leverage wider support and virally grow a campaign.  Kiosks are releasing today across the Second Life grid and may be picked up for other virtual spaces through the website.


Lessons Learned:
Coalition-building requires clear roles and definition early on, which is hard when any one body (organization or individual) is being forceful.  It helps to map things out quickly in the first collaborative meetings, especially when international cooperation and multiple languages are needed to sort through complex endeavors.


URLs:

www.virtualhaitirelief.org

 

Evonne Heyning

Amoration

Project Description:
Our projects are a suite of on-line social networks that address critical needs around education--Dare to Dream's iConnect®, iParent® and iTeach®.  iConnect®, the "oldest" of the three, is an on-line social network for youth who have a desire to succeed in life.  It's a powerful peer-to-peer mentoring forum with unparalleled resources for young people who want to go to college but don't necessarily have ready access to counselors, advisors, etc.  We have a college advisor who blogs weekly, micro-scholarships for youth and a school-to-career portal.  iTeach® is a similar environment for teachers where they can collaborate on best practices and develop professional learning communities.  iParent® is where parents can go and talk about parenting needs or learn about the college application process for their son or daughter.  These networks ensure that all components required to promote educational access & success in young people are met.

Project Goal:
When we started iConnect® in August '09, our goals were:
- have at least 150 members by the end of 2009
- have 2010 members by 2010
- raise $10,000 in micro-scholarship funds in 2010
- launch a school-to-career portal in 2010
For iTeach®, our goal this year is:
- have 200 new members by April 2010
For iParent®, our goal is
- have 200 new members by June 2010

What Happened?:
Because iConnect® was launched the earliest, we are excited to share our successes.  Yes, we did meet and exceed our 2009 membership goal and ended 2009 with 160+ "Dreamers".  We currently have 188 "Dreamers" from our local high schools but also all over the world.  We have expanded the network through word of mouth - young people inviting young people.  The thing we are most proud of us the tone of the network.  It's an environment that is for youth by youth with 99% of the content created by them.  It's a no bragging, no bullying environment where young people encourage each other, support each other and are there to help each other.  One of our Dreamers, a 1st generation college student, said recently that she would not have known how to survive the college application season without iConnect® and the resources it provided.  We just recently launched iTeach® two days ago and so far we have 28 members--all teachers or principals at the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District.  The response has been very positive and welcoming.  We are aware that we are infusing the education world with a new kind of technology that has not yet penetrated its culture.  We are excited to see how this new tool will bring about change in our public school system.  So far, we are on track with our goals.

Lessons Learned:
On iConnect®, we would do a more expanded focus group next time.  The 16-23 year old audience is the hardest to market to penetrate but they are incredibly loyal.  We would have presented directly to youth versus adults who have access to them.

 URLs:

www.daretodreamfund.com

www.myiteach.com

 

Nina Rosete

Dare to Dream Fund

Project Description:
Winning money and raising awareness through social media and online contests.  Atlas Corps has raised $275,000 by winning four online contests in two years. In addition, we received coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, Parade Magazine, Chronicle of Philanthropy, and more. We did this through a coordinated approach towards social media and online organizing.


Project Goal:
We raised/won $275,000 by winning four online contests ($85,000: Americas Giving Challenge 01/08; $20,000: IdeaBlob 01/09; $45,000 Americas Giving Challenge 10/09; $125,000: Chase Community Giving 01/10). In addition, we received coverage in the Washington Post (03/09) New York Times, Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Nonprofit Times, Parade Magazine and more.
We are a nonprofit with only two staff members, but over 100 active volunteers. Our annual budget is about $300,000.  We started our Fellowship program in September 2007.

 What Tools Did You Use?:
- Blogs
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Twitter
- Other

What Happened?:
We have strategically picked contests that we thought we could win, organized our volunteers across the country, coordinated our communication via Salesforce, grew our email list to over 10,000 people and successfull won every contest that we have entered.  The most surprising win, was the $100,000 bonus prize we received from Chase Bank who liked our proposal so much they gave us a discretionary grant to reward our innovative work.


Lessons Learned:
We are entering the Pepsi Refresh Everything contest, so we'll see. There is not much I would do differently, we have learned each contest how to not over-email your list, appreciate your supporters and build momentum for these contests.  This $275,000 raised represents about 2/3 of the money we have raised in the history of the organization.


URLs:

http://www.atlascorps.org

 

Scott Beale

Atlas Corps

Project Description:
The Gwendolyn Strong Foundation (GSF) is a nonprofit organization focused on raising awareness of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), the leading genetic killer of young children, and accelerating research focused on a cure. Truthfully, our 501(c)(3) consists of two parents in a house with two MacBook laptops caring for our terminally ill two-year-old paralyzed daughter and fighting any way we can to save her life. At our core, we leverage the power of technology and online and social media in every campaign we launch. A few examples include raising more than $400,000 for research in less than six months since receiving our IRS tax exemption, garnering nearly 100,000 for our online petition in favor of SMA legislation, and reaching nearly 2 Million people through a unique Twitter application we built for an SMA awareness campaign.

In December 2009, GSF entered the $5M Chase Community Giving campaign on Facebook. Keep in mind that we are two people in a house -- literally. Oh, and that we spent $0 -- zero dollars -- on our ENTIRE Chase campaign. We placed in the top 100 out of more than 500,000 organizations in the first round and were awarded a $25,000 grant from Chase. We then went on to place in the “Winner’s Circle” -- 6th place -- of the final round with nearly 52,000 votes and were awarded a $100,000 grant from Chase.

How’d we do it? A ton of passion and creative, unique uses of technology and online and social media. We knew that we were at a major disadvantage based on size and reach compared to other organizations in the Chase campaign, but we also knew that our passion and grasp of technology and social media could be a major advantage if harnessed properly. In addition to the more traditional blog, email, and online marketing strategies, here are a few examples:

INCREDIBLE, BROAD SUPPORT -- It's incredible how accessible celebrities, sports figures, musicians, large bloggers, etc. are through Twitter and Facebook. We were relentless in reaching out directly to all of the above and asking them to tweet or re-tweet or promote our cause and ask their fans or followers to cast a simple, free vote to help cure a disease. Although this was always a big part of our strategy, it was incredible how effective the power of celebrity was in converting simple tweets or re-tweets or Facebook status updates directly into votes. You could literally watch our vote pace speed up immediately following a celebrity endorsement. Look at this incredible list of support -- http://bit.ly/7jioKN -- and these are only the examples that we know of.

VOTEFORACURE.COM and TWITTER “SEARCH” -- To have a chance, we knew that technology and creative, viral uses of Twitter and Facebook was going to be key for us to maintain a steady stream of votes without having to constantly "work" for them. To achieve that, we built two applications: (1) VoteForACure.com -- a viral Twitter application that got users actively involved and seamlessly turned armies of Twitter users and their followers directly into votes on Facebook. This application ended up reaching nearly 500,000 Twitter followers. (2) Twitter "search" -- a Twitter application, based on Twitter search, that allowed us to get directly involved in conversations happening on Twitter about the Chase campaign and suggest these users consider also voting for GSF.

Project Goal:
To win $1M through the Chase Community Giving campaign on Facebook.
To raise awareness of SMA on a broad, national and global platform.

What Tools Did You Use?:
- Blogs
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Other

What Happened?:
Placed in top 100 out of 500,000+ organizations in the first round ---> $25,000 grant.
Placed 6th out of 100 organizations in the final round ---> $100,000 grant.
Our VoteForACure.com Twitter app reached nearly 500,000 followers.
Received nearly 52,000 votes in the final round.
Countless mentions of SMA on Twitter, Facebook, and traditional media.

Lessons Learned:
Two lessons learned-

(1) There is virtually no limit to the tremendous, cost-efficient impact of technology and social media and they have literally leveled the playing field and opened up fresh opportunities for effective, immediate awareness and fundraising campaigns for nonprofits of all sizes.

(2) Few things are more extraordinary than the relentless passion of parents fighting for their children's lives.

 

URLs:

http://GwendolynStrongFoundation.org

http://VoteForACure.com

 

Bill Strong

Gwendolyn Strong Foundation

 

Project Description:

350.org is an international campaign committed to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis. According to leading scientists, 350 parts per million (ppm) is the safe upper limit for Carbon Dioxide in our planet's atmosphere. We like to think that what ppm really stands for is "people-powered-movement" -- the kind that will get us back to the safe and sane climate future that 350ppm represents. Over the past two years we've hooked up our real world networks with our wired networks to catalyze and connect what's become a powerful and rapidly growing global movement. It started with a public invitation, a sort of online memo, for people all over the world to organize locally and join their own community for climate action. After we shared it with our original network, on a real grassroots budget, we got to work -- drumming up support every which way we knew how. We leveraged a diverse palette of social media tools to help tell the movement's story, grow the conversation (in 14 languages!), and spur offline action. In a way, this was an experiment as much as it was a campaign. Thanks to the great successes (and failures) of this particular experiment, we're committed to keep pushing things forward. We've spent the better part of the winter listening to our community, reflecting with each other and with partners on lessons learned, and are now really excited for a *few* new campaigns.

Project Goal:

* Achieve a fair, ambitious, and binding international climate treaty @ the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen -- one that was strong enough to get us on a path back to 350 ppm.

* Change the international political discourse around climate change to one that's grounded in what the science and justice demand.

* Demonstrate a global movement to a global audience, and allow that movement to fully realize itself in real-world action.

* Empower organizers to tackle climate change in their communities.

* Build a network of wired activists -- starting from scratch, our goal was to support & equip a massive, diverse, & engaged movement on popular social networks.

What Tools Did You Use:

Blogs, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, RS, Twitter, Other

What Happened?:

* The Copenhagen climate talks took place this past December, and our leaders failed to reach a fair, ambitious, or binding treaty. This was a major blow to the movement, and one we won't gloss over. Yet it was also a turning point for our collective cause -- we saw an incredible & beautiful global movement rise up & lay the groundwork for the great work ahead.

* We co-organized a number of climate action camps to train people around the world. Two Ethiopian sisters who attended one of our trainings went on to organize a 15,000-person march in Addis Ababa!

* On Oct 24th, those two sisters along with thousands of people organized over 5,200 creative demonstrations in 181 countries -- all calling for a 350, safe and just climate future. That's a global field network of more than 5,200 organizers and 400+ partner organizations, not even looking at our online support from 100s of 1000s more! There are now thousands of organizers on the local level who have built the community infrastructure for things like a city plan to go carbon neutral, building a city garden, and getting to work implementing the renewable energy revolution. We're constantly inspired by the over 25,000 organizer-submitted photographs through flickr, documenting the actions that keep taking place around the world. We hope you'll check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/

* The October 24th International Day of Climate Action was the #1 story on Google News; was featured on the homepages of the New York Times, Le Monde, BBC World, and the Washington Post; and was prominently covered by TV and media outlets around the world. CNN called it "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history."

* Over 100 countries now support the 350 ppm target! The number is now a benchmark for evaluating the progress of international climate agreements and a rallying cry for civil society and the nations most vulnerable to climate change (such as the Maldives and Tuvalu).

* With our allies in the Tck Tck Tck campaign, we were able to bring unprecedented pressure to bear on the UN Climate Conference delegates in Copenhagen. In solidarity with those facing the very real affects of climate change right now, we coordinated thousands of beautiful candlelight vigils with partners around the world. We used blogs, text message relays, email, Facebook & twitter to amplify our message and demonstrate support for the most vulnerable countries (check out the story of the first Twitter 'hashtag' to break into the UN climate negotiations: http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/making-tuvalu).

* Our Facebook community is now over 75,000 strong, with Twitter at over 14,000. The context and power behind those numbers mean a lot more than the numbers themselves, though. What really matters is what's happening on these networks everyday: the amazing conversations & support, wired solidarity, and way so many people find out about the campaign and then get engaged in the down and dirty of social change in their community.

Lessons Learned:

Lift up your leaders as much as you can: In 2010, we're really psyched to shine a bigger spotlight on our wired champions -- the ones who are sparking conversations, and inspiring their networks to action. These are the people who are driving the movement at the intersection of their community and the globally-connected changescape. Empower: Find just the right amount of tools & support to give your organizers what they need to organize for change in their community. One thing we really want to explore this year is how to effectively democratize our online activist toolset for our organizers (i.e. - giving each organizer the tools for a local email list, event registration, blog, social network beacons, local homepage, etc.) Twestival is a great inspiration! Open-Source: Keep looking at ways to let people make this campaign their own. This isn't a crisis that's going to be solved by one organization, or even a few dozen. When millions of people and their communities can find a way to hook into the movement and in a very real sense, lead it -- that's when we stand a fighting chance. Collaboration: Collaboration has been crucial to so much of the movement's successes so far. We're definitely looking forward to continuing to bridge the silos across nonprofit organizations, both with traditional environmental organizations and seemingly unlikely allies, like the faith community. Storytelling: Stories are how we relate to the world, they're among the most powerful ways to express ourselves and engage those that are close to us. Storytelling played a pivotal role within regional trainings we co-organized in building trust and love within communities. We're trying to think (openly) about the possibilities for decentralized digital storytelling -- what it looks like when we all share personal, moving stories to help grow the movement through our own social networks.

URLs:

350.org

350 Movement Video Recap -- http://www.350.org/about/blogs/video-recap-unbelievable-year

Social Media Powered Hope -- http://netsquared.org/blog/joesolomon/social-media-powered-hope

350 Global Day of Action: A New Bright Line for Digital Organizing -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-silberman/350-global-day-of-action_b_340229.html

Project Description:

In the fall of 2009, CCIC created a small project with big results in the CCIC Healthy Kids Thank-A-Thon. This online promotion strategy encouraged parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents to submit statements online of why they were thankful for their healthy kid. One of the positive message points for 2009 was that vaccines keep kids healthy. Most vaccine promotion talks about preventing disease and keeping kids from getting deathly ill. For CCIC it was important to remind parents that we vaccinate to keep them healthy, so they don’t get sick. This project was the brain child of our fall intern, Kelsey Gryniewicz, who came up with the idea, created the strategy, implemented the plan and completed a follow-up analysis. This is also a great example of hiring the right people to do a great job is always a win!

OBJECTIVE: CCIC wanted to: • Engage current and new social media followers • Promote the importance of healthy children and immunizations • Identify and explore a new communications strategy • Demonstrate how social media can be used as a free method for promoting a cause, especially for an independent nonprofit BUDGET: • $0 • Other “costs” • Time • Constant Contact fees (already budgeted)

STRATEGY CCIC Website • Main Hub: The CCIC website www.childrensimmunization/thanks served as the go-to spot for information, rules and submission forms. We hoped to increase website traffic by linking the site through social media (including in tweets, on Fan Page updates, in blogs) • Outline Social Media: The HKTAT page provided visitors with links and instructions for how to utilize social media. Provided multiple links provided visitors with various social media options, potentially increasing their use of social media • Regular Updates: We continually posted new submissions to the page, and promoted the new submissions through social media Constant Contact • Target Different Audience: We advertised the campaign through constant contact emails. These emails are sent to CCIC board members, health and member organizations. This is separate from the audience we target through social media • Timing: We sent 3 emails through Constant Contact 2 weeks in advance to submission deadline to encourage participation. Sent 1 final email on Nov. 25 (day before Thanksgiving) with the results • Tracking: Constant Contact allows for tracking of email opens, opt-outs, and clicks Facebook • Inform Fans: Separate from blogs, tweets, and emails, our Facebook Fan Page allowed us to provide information about the HKTAT to CCIC fans • HKTAT Event: We wanted to experiment with creating a Facebook event out of a social media campaign. • Timing: Bi-weekly updates sent out about HKTAT Twitter • Twitter Followers: CCIC has 1,227 followers and is included in 33 lists. This provides for a large audience with which to share our event • Monitor/Schedule: Twitter allows for easy monitoring of “results.” We used Hootsuite to track click-through and schedule daily tweets • Hashtag: Developing an event-specific hashtag allows for personalization, as well as easy tracking. We used hashtag #HealthyKids on every tweet. Later, we could search #HealthyKids in Twitter to track tweets and retweets (RTs) • Timeline: • Nov 11 to Nov 29 tweeted about HKTAT (2.5 weeks) • On weekdays of Nov 11 to Nov 26 tweeted every 2 hours, totaling 6 HKTAT tweets a day of our average 20 tweets a day (30% of total) • On weekends of Nov 11 to Nov 26 tweeted 3-4 times a day • From Nov 26 (Thanksgiving) to Nov 29 tweets were devoted to HKTAT submissions in which we turned every submission into a tweet (about 10 tweets a day) Blogging • The World Wide Web: Blogging is a great way to spread a message and try to target new followers. The more blogs you are featured in, and the more diverse, the more likely it is that your event will turn up in a Google search and reach new people • Blog Types: From Nov 11-Nov 25 we reached out to several blogs focused on: health, mom/parent, immunization, and social media for blog posts, guest blogs, and to ask for original post submissions • Why Blog?: We offered blogging as a type of submission for HKTAT participants. The event occurred during the peak of the 2009 H1N1 flu season and Thanksgiving season, making it a relevant topic for others to blog about YouTube • Visual: Videos are a great way to add a new dynamic to any event. Most of our time spent on the web and with social media involves reading (blogs, Facebook, Twitter). Videos are a nice variation and are easy for people to share with each other • Combine Mediums: We combined all mediums of submissions (photo, written, and video) into our video and set it to music • Big Finale: The YouTube video served as the “final” wrap-up of the HKTAT and was something to look forward to at the end of the event • YouTube Channel Traffic: CCIC has its own YouTube Channel filled with personal, related or interesting videos. Posting our HKTAT video compilation on our YouTube channel not only brings traffic to the HKTAT video, but also to other videos within our channel Traditional Media • Social Media vs. Traditional Media: Can social media events attract the traditional media? • Because traditional media focuses on “tangible” and “film-able” events, we wondered if a social media event like ours could attract newspapers and news stations • Press Releases: We believed that our event could attract traditional media and so we emailed our press release to 10 local newspapers and 2 news stations hoping to land at least one story Visit http://www.slideshare.net/KGryniewicz/social-media-case-report-healthy-kids-thankathon-2936301 for a great PPT with lots and lots detail!

Project Goal:

• Successfully engage audience: at least 25 people participate

• Develop YouTube video

• Engage bloggers to write about why they are grateful for healthy kids and link to CCIC Healthy Kids Thank-A-Thon site

• Receive at least one media story

What Tools Did You Use:

Blogs, Facebook, RSS, Twitter, Other

What Happened?:

FINAL COSTS • Money: Other than fees we already pay to use Constant Contact, the cost of the HKTAT was $0 TIME (Important to budget people's time as part of your project costs): • Nov 1-Nov 29: total of 20 hours for Communications Director ~$360 • From Oct 30-Nov 29: total of 40 hours for communications intern ~$166 RESULTS • Successfully engage audience: at least 25 people participate: We had a total of 34 submissions which exceeded our expectations. • Develop submissions into YouTube video: We did create a YouTube video which turned out great. In the future, we could get more creative with our videos and try to come up with a unique spin on the original idea. • Engage bloggers to write about why they are grateful for healthy kids and link to CCIC Healthy Kids Thank-A-Thon Event: We engaged 13 different websites through guest blogs, original posts, and free forum blogs. Definitely a success. • Receive at least one story in media coverage: We received 2 media coverage stories: Greeley Tribune and 9NEWS which exceeded our expectations. Especially important was the 9NEWS feature because it is rare for an independent nonprofit to receive feature news stories. • Greeley Tribune: article on HKTAT • 9NEWS: feature story and on-line article on HKTAT

Lessons Learned:

Incentive: Although it’s unfortunate to think that people will not participate in a free and easy feel-good event without an incentive, it might be true. It would be interesting to do another campaign, but provide a prize for submissions. Example: Create and post an “example” video or submission to website for others to refer to when they are creating their own. A preview example is beneficial in getting creative juices flowing and therefore, possibly more submissions. Website: Due to the fact that the HKTAT did increase website traffic, but mostly to the HKTAT page, future campaign planning should include strategizing about how to route traffic to other pages within our website. Plan, plan, plan: We fortunately had our event pretty well thought-out which is time-consuming at first, but saves a lot of headaches and hours during the actual event. Design a project proposal which includes: Website Contents, Facebook blurb, Tweets, blog for potential guest blogs, press release, email write-ups, and any other relevant info.

URLs:

http://www.childrensimmunization.org/thanks - a wrap-up of the blogs, photos and videos from the project

http://www.slideshare.net/KGryniewicz/social-media-case-report-healthy-kids-thankathon-2936301 - A great PPT with lots and lots detail 

Project Description:
Seattle Free School is a place to exchange knowledge for free.  Not unlike community education programs Seattle Free School offers classes in a wide range of subjects.  However unlike these other programs Seattle Free School (SFS) does this without taking cash donations of any kind from anyone ever.  This is not because there is some sort of other funding (a rich founder or a trust fund somewhere) but because we have determined that not only is money not necessary for what we do but that indeed it may well be a hindrance to the community we’re trying to grow.

Basically the School started at the beginning of 2008 with the help of several collaborators and others interested in starting a free community education program.  At first we had not decided not to take money but we did know that raising money is difficult (more so in the current economy) and that it would take some of our time away from teaching classes and spreading the word.  It would create legal issues that would require our time to learn about and comply with.  So basically we decided that we’d deal with that when we needed to, when we finally got to the point where we just had to have money.  As you can guess that time never came.

Being that we operate without money we had to get creative with our marketing and this is where social networking has played a HUGE role.  We don’t have the ability to place an ad in a paper, to print up fancy flyers or posters or to have a marketing company advise us.  What we do have is the people we know, and that’s exactly where it started.  Once we had a basic website and email we forwarded that information to our friends, family and coworkers and asked them to forward it on to anyone in their community that might like to learn or teach.  We then started holding classes and spreading the word by emailing different press outlets.

There isn’t a way to talk about the finish of this project because SFS is still going strong and still growing and because we still don’t take cash and still can’t afford traditional marketing we are still using different social media tools to spread the word about what we do.


Project Goal:
In the beginning we didn’t actually have any written goals.  The beauty about being a citizen, volunteer-organized group is that we don’t have a board to report to or an ROI to prove.  That said we did have ourselves to report to and spending large amounts of time on something that didn’t obviously produce was a waste of time, something we didn’t have a ton of as we were all doing this as a second (or fifth!) job. So we set out to get more people to join our email list, to hopefully get some press about what we were doing and to get people to show up to classes.  We wanted to have a wide range of classes and a growing list of people who would teach, which we knew would be the hardest part as it involves public speaking, something people fear more then death. All of these things were far more possible then we had ever imagined.

 What Tools Did You Use?:
- Blogs
- Facebook
- Twitter

What Happened?:
To accomplish our goals we sent out information to press outlets, finding emails on websites and in the written publications themselves. We asked with each email for people to spread the word by forwarding the email to a friend or talking about us.  We asked people to join our Facebook group once one was formed and went about getting the word out about what we do on twitter.

Press:  We have been in almost every print publication in Seattle including two big magazines and the cover of the local section of the Sunday paper.  We’ve also been featured on the cover of several other smaller neighborhood publications.  We honestly didn’t have any idea that this was even possible and were constantly amazed as even more requests for interviews came in.  We were also on the local NPR station talking about what we do.  In this case we were approached by the station.

Email:  Within one year our email subscriber list went from 20 people to over 1100 people.  Again we weren’t even aware that this was possible and learned quite a bit from this rapid growth.

Class size:  Another way for us to really know our spread is through the classes we have.  We recently had our largest class at 125 people (the largest we will be able to have in the spaces we have access to as that class was standing room only).  At that class only about 25 students had been to a Seattle Free School class before so we know that we are consistently reaching new people.

Tweets:  By reaching out specifically to a few people and making sure to post new information we’ve received some great tweets about us on both the national and local level:

dafna_m Check out the amazing @seafreeschool No money. Free. Education. NO Money! Way to go Seattle community! http://seattlefreeschool.org

urbantweeter
Seattle Free School - has got to be one of the best things about#Seattle so spread the word #School http://www.seattlefreeschool.org

Classes:  In our first year we had over 70 different classes ranging from "Making your own Cheese" to "Improv".  We continue to have people signing up for our facilitator class which is the first step towards teaching a class.

Lessons Learned:
There are a number of lessons we learned from the project (and I’m sure more to come).  The very first is don’t listen to those who believe things have to be done the way they’ve always been done.  We were told time and time again that it would be impossible to get press, spread the word, find places to have classes, etc without money and yet we haven’t had this issue at all.  In fact we believe that because we don’t take money we have been interesting to the press and have mobilized the community to want to help through actions (teaching, sharing, spreading the word).  The problems that others predicted never came true or turned up in any way.  Don’t assume that the past is the predictor of the future or that because things have always been done a certain way means that’s the only way to do a thing.

We learned not to work on things that aren’t really needed.  In the beginning we tried to find locations even though we had access to the entire string of Seattle Public Libraries and could teach virtually anything we wanted to teach at these locations.  Trying to get people to donate space before growing our “brand” was both fruitless and a waste of time since we really didn’t need these new spaces to hold the classes we were teaching.  Eventually as our reputation grew we not only had some of these places reaching out to us but had other organizations coming out of the woodwork and asking us to have classes at their location.  Again the problem never really existed.

We learned to be prepared for the impact press can have on your organization.  In one 24 hour period we had a growth in our email list of over 100 people (thanks to the cover story in the Seattle Times/PI).  Our use of Gmail to send out our emails became impossible and we had to scramble to establish a legitimate listserve so we could continue to email our subscribers.  It’s hardly a problem to complain about!

Finally we learned to not be surprised by what is possible through social networking.  People are motivated to help and are willing to spread the word about something they see as a positive for the community.  We now have a new website thanks to the local community college who reached out to us to redesign our poorly executed free site.  We are hosted by a friend in France who we only know through Second Life.  We have had others come out of the woodwork to deal with our email issues and offer up space to host should we need it.  While involvement from both the community and ourselves does have a few lulls (the holidays, etc) it continues to grow in ways we couldn’t imagine or predict.  By not being attached to how that happens we can truly appreciate the power of social networking for what it is, powerful, chaotic, unpredictable and beautiful.

URLs:

http://www.seattlefreeschool.org,http://www.facebook.com/SeattleFreeSchool, http://twitter.com/seafreeschool

 

Jessica Dally

Seattle Free School

Project Description:
Rachel Zedeck is a Change Agent on Changents.com. After spending years in the war-torn Middle East, Rachel “passed through” Kenya in 2007 on her way to work on revamping communal farming practices in Southern Sudan…a project that came unglued due to corruption, defunct and inefficient NGOs and runs-ins with an array of shady characters. Physically spent and emotionally raw, Rachel hatched a plan of her own design that focuses not on feeding a nation, but giving a nation the power to feed itself. To address the food crisis in Kenya and across sub-Saharan Africa, Rachel has assembled and is actively distributing the Backpack Farm, a portable “sack” filled with high tech eco-tools to help rural farmers produce triple the quantity and quality of food they are currently cultivating…and do it sustainably.
Rachel says, “I try to remind myself of all the great thinkers who have been told they were wrong. For the first 2 years, I was told this program would never work and was crazy. People don't tell me I am crazy anymore. I know, believe and fight for the Backpack Farm because it represents a realistic model of food production that will result in sustainable food and economic security for both rural famers and the East African community.  I need to mobilize less than 300,000 of the 100 million farmers in East Africa to end the food crisis. I am just not interested in building a program to burn through 2 years of donor funding providing little or no sustainable impact.  I want to change the world!”


Project Goal:
As a commercial initiative targeting rural sector development, Rachel has found that Backpack Farm is perceived as a cutting edge concept and considered not only high risk but unproven no matter how many studies she has to back up the technology and program objectives. Therefore, her goal has been to raise capital and secure strategic partnerships in order to launch and sustain a pilot program within which she could expand her work and improve the technology underlying the Backpack Farm model. At the same time, like any true-blue social entrepreneur Rachel wanted to raise awareness about hunger in Africa, sustainable farming, and the eco-friendly agricultural inputs that are at the heart of her program.

- LinkedIn
- Twitter
- Other

What Happened?:
Rachel has effectively used a portfolio of social media tools, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Changents, to build support for the Backpack Farm Program and launch a movement behind her work. Via active use of LinkedIn, she reached out directly to the President of John Deere Water and succeeded in securing a distribution partnership. On Twitter she connected with MBAs who offered to help her write a business plan. She’s used the storytelling tools on Changents.com to deliver a compelling stream of first-person blog posts and photos that have brought to life the day-to-day triumphs and challenges of being a social entrepreneur in a beautiful yet unforgiving place like Africa. The adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is amped up by orders of magnitude when tossed into the social media stream. Rachel’s photos visually depict in clear, simple terms the impact that Backpack Farm has had on the family farmers in her program. Likewise, the Changents team has used social media to further spread the good word and generate support for Rachel by seeding links to her story in targeted groups on LinkedIn and Facebook; Tweeting out her tastiest story bites; generating blog coverage on Planet Green, Treehugger and Social Earth, and other actions.


Lessons Learned:
Rachel likes to say, TIA: This is Africa. In her story on Changents she reflects, “A good friend told me that NOTHING in Africa ever comes too easily and if it does, beware of doom. I love tribal wisdom!”  The realization that she could use social media from her location on-the-ground in Kenya to make connections to the outside world and generate material support for her project from people around the globe has been profound. Rachel’s ability to broadcast in real time her ongoing personal story of a solution-in-action, rather than touting a worn out call -to-action to save hungry people in Africa, is a fresh approach that has delivered needle-moving results.  
For Change Agents like Rachel, social media is not a substitute for the shoe leather diplomacy required to make connections, build alliances and achieve results in the world’s most challenging environments, but it’s a powerful set of tools in the overall toolkit that makes access to the resources and support that would have been largely out of reach just a few years ago real and achievable.  


URLs:
http://changents.com/rachelzedeck
http://www.backpackfarm.org/
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/farm-backpack-subsahara-africa.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/can-a-farm-in-a-backpack-feed-sub-saharan-africa.php
http://earth911.com/blog/2009/12/17/for-african-farmers-one-backpack-holds-key-for-sustainable-survival/
http://www.socialearth.org/social-entrepreneur-with-a-backpack-feeds-an-african-community

 

Alex Hofmann

Changents