What Are You Grateful For?

What Are You Grateful For?

This Thanksgiving I, once again, marvel at how much I have to be grateful for. I have a wonderful family who loves me unconditionally. I have a loyal staff that loves me (nearly) unconditionally. I have a client base that probably loves me a little bit, too. I have many friends who put up with me. And, I have Tweetsgiving to thank for using social media to build classrooms in Tanzania.

If you’ve never heard of Tweetsgiving, get ready for goose bumps as you learn its story. Stacey Monk founded EpicChange, a 501c3 U.S. “that amplifies the voices and impact of grassroots change makers by sharing their stories in ways that raise visibility and funds to support their extraordinary efforts to create hope in our world.”

In Thanksgiving 2008, Tweetsgiving was launched two days before Thanksgiving as a 48-hour celebration of gratitude, and it became the number one trending topic on Twitter and raised over $10,000 to build a classroom in Arusha, Tanzania. Anyone who contributed to Tweetsgiving had their Twitter name displayed on the wall of gratitude.

Tweetsgiving 2009 will repeat this marvelous display of gratitude only on a grander scale. This year there are more sponsors and people rallying around this wonderful cause.  This year’s event will raise funds to build an orphanage, a classroom, a cafeteria and a library at Mama Lucy’s school in Tanzania.

There are three ways you can get involved in Tweetsgiving 2009. 1) Attend a gratitude party in a city near you.  2) Spread the word. Tell your friends online and offline about it @tweetsgiving 3) Host a party. Have friends over to raise funds for Tweetsgiving 2009. Of course, you can always donate some of your hard earned money too.

The best part of Tweetsgiving (besides the smiles on kids’ faces in Arusha) is the role that social media plays. Strike that….The best part is that people (you, me and anyone who cares) can have an impact simply by using social media to spread the word. Just by a few clicks, we can help educate poor kids in a far away place.

If you don’t have goose bumps yet, you haven’t clicked through to Tweetsgiving.

Happy Tweetsgiving!

We Skip Because We Can

Billie Ginther: Marketing Manager and PR Optimizer

We will soon be gathering around tables laden with feasts from traditional Thanksgiving fare to menus filled with a variety of regional and exotic foods in tribute to our diverse cultures, history and geographic backgrounds. But we will all have one thing in common; the opportunity to share with family, friends and give thanks for all the blessings in our lives.

My daughter and her husband went on a medical mission to Africa this past summer. Her photos of the trip are a constant reminder that no matter what economic or daily trials we have in our lives, we still have one of the highest standards of living on the planet. We take for granted simple conveniences like running water and electricity. The idea of a village hole in the ground for personal hygiene is unimaginable. And whether you look across the street or half way around the world, there are millions less fortunate than we are through no fault of their own.

Technology has changed our daily lives, and social media has done even more to focus our attention upon a myriad of causes where we can make a difference.

Skip1.org is a non-profit with a simple idea. Skip doing just one thing for a day…a coffee, a car wash, a pack of gum and give the money you would have spent on that small luxury to help fight world hunger.

Skip1.org is part of Children’s Hunger Fund, a Charity Navigator 4 star non-profit organization, and it has a record of efficiently using donated money: more than 99% of all donations go to programs and feeding children in the US and around the globe. While both Skip1 and Children’s Hunger Fund are social media marketing driven non-profits, Skip1.org is a poster child for how to create good works where all the money is going to…good works.

Skip1.org’s simple message is everywhere on the web:  “We skip because we can.” Over one-sixth of the world’s population is malnourished.  It’s powerful to know that by skipping one small item for just one day, we can all help save a child from dying from hunger or hunger-related causes every 6 seconds.
Skip1 doesn’t have splashy billboards, ads, commercials or any of the traditional trappings of branding campaigns. Skip1.org uses social media to spread their message by engaging people and building relationships. @Skip1 is on Twitter. Skip1dotorg is on YouTube. Skip1.org has a fan page on Facebook, an active blog, and numerous page 1 Google rankings of its web pages and of blog posts by everyday folks to celebrities about the charity’s good works.

Skip1’s social media strategy centers on engagement and interaction with donors beyond inducing them to give up one small item or luxury. For example, Skip1 Facebook fan page offers a badge that Skip1 fans can put on their own websites.

Skip1.org’s success is based on the very socially-oriented concept of  “pass it along.” And all of the charity’s social network tactics make it easy to do so. During Thanksgiving, please think about just one small thing you can skip, donate the money to Skip1.org., and “pass it along”.

Twitter Users Unite for Thanksgiving

Most of us know the history of Thanksgiving. It’s admirable that we stop to give thanks once each year in the form of a national holiday. For many of us it makes us think about how much we have to be thankful for even in the face of hardship and uncertainties for many.

This year there is one charitable cause on Thanksgiving I want to highlight, not because it is more special than others. All charitable causes are admirable. This one demonstrates the power of social media and the hearts of people who use social media.

Epic Change is a charitable organization using Twitter as a platform to raise funds to build a classroom in Tanzania. They created a Twitter stream using #tweetsgiving which allows anyone in the world to follow the comments of people on Twitter about this charitable cause. It also allows us avid Twitter users to spread the word to our network (following) and point them to this Twitter stream conversation about a worthy cause.

Most notable is the Tweetsgiving website which is where the fund raising takes place during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

I sincerely believe the vast majority of people generally want to help those in need. Thanksgiving is a time where that innate quality is even more pronounced.

It’s very worth noting that users of social media are passionate about using the social web as a platform for benevolant reasons as much as any other reason.

Social media users understand the power of word or mouth (WOM) online. It is second nature to us to promote good content, and good content during the Thanksgiving holiday is a worthy cause such as Tweetsgiving.

My hope is that you take two points away from this brief blog post:

1) If you haven’t contributed to Tweetsgiving, please consider it (even after Thanksgiving).

2) Social media is a world wide platform where great causes can be achieved.

I wish you a blessed Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Cheers,

Bernie Borges
http://twitter.com/berniebay