Mobile is Changing Everything – Except the Direction of Where Donations Go

By Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer

In January 2010, a devastating magnitude-7 earthquake struck the Caribbean island of Haiti whose epicenter lay just west of its capital, Port-au-Prince.

Within hours, photos and videos of the devastation – entire neighborhoods wiped out, mangled bodies everywhere, a partially-collapsed Presidential Palace and so on were the main story for the world’s news media.

Yet soon after, a second news media narrative began taking shape and this one far more positive. Within two days of the crisis, Americans alone had raised $5 million for the Red Cross’ relief efforts in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country…by sending in small donations via text message.

At the time I praised the work of relief agencies and felt that if there was any relative “good news” (a very relative term considering the level of disaster) it was that Haiti, possibly for the first time, and without question on the largest scale to date, demonstrated to the world the power of mobile giving and how millions of SMS messages containing $10 donations added up. One week after the quake, the Red Cross had raised $22 million through texting alone.

But as the Atlantic hurricane season began unfurling its wrath late last week with tropical storm – now Hurricane – Isaac, media briefly returned to the impoverished land and beamed back disturbing images. In the 959 days since the historic temblor, as the world has been consumed by an onslaught news both serious and silly, I was disturbed to learn that some 400,000 of Haiti’s 9.8 million citizens remain in abysmal tent cities and unimaginable squalor following the quake – not to mention the island nation’s non-earthquake-induced entrenched poverty.

Images like the ones we’ve been treated to again cry out for an answer: why do we as decent, caring and law-abiding citizens allow such poverty to exist? Why can some buy iPads or microwave frozen dinners and why must others survive in shantytowns and consider electricity a “luxury?” More pragmatically, the still-battered landscape and still-battered people deserve another question answered. Where was all that money spent and what good has it done?

Thankfully, all is not bleak. Objective new reports have repeatedly found that much good has come from the relief effort and the money raised. In January of this year the Huffington Post produced an excellent infographic that broke down the numbers. Here are some big ones as of that article’s writing:

• 50% of earthquake debris has been removed and 20% recycled
• 100,000 received homes from the Red Cross
• Of the $4.6 billion pledged by donors, only $2.38 has been spent

This all suggests significant improvement. But the article was equally quick to point out that millions of dollars alone were also spent on advertising campaigns “telling people to wash their hands.” Other news outlets like Global Post attributed the siphoning of funds to Haiti’s notorious black market, proving once again that for many, crime pays. So for all the good mobile donations have done, it seems it did very little in changing human nature, and if anything, exposed in all its gruesomeness, how a survival of the fittest mentality can take on such inhuman qualities.

Two years and seven months after the Haiti earthquake a new threat from Mother Nature is bearing down on New Orleans –a city once brought to its knees by hurricane Katrina. You can be sure as in Haiti, mobile donations will figure prominently there too. But perhaps, we can all learn an important lesson. Money coming in via text, like a torrent flood water, must be controlled so that rather than inundating areas in confusing, haphazard (and dangerous manners) it flows to where it’s needed most, giving government and watchdog organizations time to monitor those who seek to game the system.

Here’s a suggestion: what about SMS giving integrated with social media and photo identification – someway to demonstrate that money that was texted actually goes to a specific person, city, town, or group?

Is this a bulletproof idea? No. But at least it proves that we’re trying and that we’re continuing to find new ways to use new technology. Levee-like controls on mobile giving are a good way to start, even if such safeguards have done little to help Haiti’s 400,000 virtual homeless. But as hurricane Isaac sets course for the Crescent City, another real-world test might be hours away.

Louisianans and Haitians both deserve we get this right, finally.

Good Goes Social: How Panera Bread Got Customer Service Right When It Didn’t Even Have To

By Christian Williams, Social Enterprise Specialist

I’ve been a huge fan of Panera Bread for a little over a year - ever since I got hooked on their macaroni and cheese. I’ve never tried their clam chowder though (I’m not much of a clam guy), but it must be good from what I’ve heard – and just as good as a Panera Bread store manager’s idea of customer service.

Panera Bread took the Facebook community by storm earlier this month when Brandon Cook posted a story of his dying grandmother’s request for Panera’s clam chowder. The story explained his effort to get the clam chowder for his grandmother regardless of the fact that it wasn’t a Friday (the only day of the week that Panera sells clam chowder.) The young man contacted his local Panera branch and was put in touch with a manager named Sue, who went out of her way to get clam chowder to Brandon’s grandmother.

His mother, Gail Cook, soon reposted the story to Panera Bread’s Facebook page, and the story went viral from there. Since the story was posted to Panera’s page on August 8^th, the post has gotten a whopping 760,263 likes.

32, 643 comments have also graced the heartwarming post. Most of the comments include an outpouring of support and well wishes for the ailing grandmother as well as many messages of thanks to the Panera Bread manager, Suzanne Fortier, for her selflessness and willingness to assist a customer in need. Many of the comments are from college-aged students like the younger Cook, which makes me even happier.

My take on it:

We all love a good news story. But when a customer goes out of their way to tell that story themselves because they were so greatly impacted by it, it means so much more. Brandon Cook didn’t need to write about his experience at Panera Bread – just like Suzanne Fortier didn’t need to go out of her way to make a single serving of clam chowder for an ailing woman.

The actions of both Brandon and Suzanne show that doing a little can do a very long way, especially when it comes to communicating good deeds through social media.

Now, every time I eat at Panera Bread, I’ll always associate the experience with feelings of kindness and the joy of one human helping another. And that feeling is addictive, just like Panera Bread’s food don’t you think?

Associated Press Takes a Closer Look at the Need for Microfinance in the US

About two weeks ago, I wrote a post about the pressing need for microfinance services – particularly microcredit, small loans for very small businesses – here at home in the US, not just in the developing world. In that post I featured OUR MicroLending, a Miami-based microcredit company that has disbursed over 1,050 small loans to over 600 South Florida micro-entrepreneurs, to the tune of around $6.2 million, who were turned away by the big banks after applying for loans. In our current credit crunch, the company is giving these hard-working merchants a way to restock, expand, hire and, by extension, stimulate their local neighborhood economies. OUR MicroLending is also working to expand its operations to the entire state of Florida and, eventually, the rest of the country. Because there is so much unfulfilled need for these types of services here, I was heartened to read an excellent Associated Press article, published last week, about the fine work microfinance organizations are doing in the United States. OUR MicroLending had a starring role in the story, which appeared in the Washington Post and at least 25 newspapers and websites, spreading the message of financial inclusion far and wide. My congratulations go to AP reporter Laura Wides-Muñoz for a great piece. Here’s hoping some struggling entrepreneurs who don’t know about microfinance read it and realize there is hope.

Bullied bus monitor receives money for retirement (and then some) via crowdfunding

By: Christian Williams, Social Media Specialist

I was somewhat pleased to hear about the coming retirement of Karen Klein from her job as an upstate New York public school system bus monitor. She deserves it.

Last month, the social networking world took the bullied bus monitor and grandmother from Greece, NY, under its wing while unleashing its fury upon the group of middle schoolers whose periodic tormenting reached a despicable level and was captured by cell phone camera and posted on YouTube The 10-minute clip shows a group of rude, mean-spirited seventh-graders hurling insults and profanities at Karen as she sits, crying, on the adjacent bus seat. (The four boys were later suspended from the Greece Central School District for the 2012-2013 school year; they also have to perform 50 hours of community service with senior citizens.)

An Internet user named Max Sidorov started an Indiegogo crowdfunding project in Karen’s honor, and it proceeded to go viral via social media networks. Crowdfunding involves asking a crowd of people (usually through social media) to donate defined amounts of money to support a specific cause. Most of the time, rewards (such as special event invitations, t-shirts and other paraphernalia) are given to those who donate. Non-profits can use this method to fund specific aspects of a fundraising campaign.

The campaign was originally supposed to raise $5,000 to send her on a dream vacation. But as more people watched the video, more money was donated. By the end of the campaign, 32,000 funders from at least 84 countries and all 50 U.S. states donated an impressive  $703, 833, nearly 47 times her annual $15,000-a-year income.

Making this even sweeter: Another stranger started a separate campaign to provide Sidorov with a reward for his passion and leadership in starting the efforts to help Klein. That project also surpassed its goal, raising $7,465.

A month later, Sidorovi is at it again – this time to raise money for anti-bullying initiatives including a documentary and nonprofit organization.

Before we entered the Facebook and mobile social media age, people witnessing something like this happen right in front of them would have had a far more challenging time turning outrage into action. A phone call to the media? Sure. A lucky (or unlucky) bystander’s camcorder taping? Also possible, but unlikely.  

Now, however, many Internet users can’t bear to sit back and watch while injustice is documented and unfolds on their screens. Crowdfunding has made it easy for passionate individuals near and far to break out their credit cards and support causes they believe in – whether it involves a long-term goal like funding the fight against bullying, or short-term, involving a mission to make one bullied bus monitor’s day.

In Karen Klein’s case, mission accomplished. 

How the Path to Financial Success Has Many Roads and Why Microfinance is Often Overlooked

By Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of The ThinkTank

Imagine a woman who founded a courier company and now has offices and employees in two counties shuttling documents for clients such as architectural and law firms. Envision another woman who turns the love of her native country into a living by selling Colombian souvenirs, crafts, food and clothing. Or dream of a man and his staff who profit from their talents by crafting creative signage and painting custom designs on cars and boats.

These are just three of hundreds of hard-working South Florida entrepreneurs who have wielded maybes and can-dos into realized storefronts and American middle class status. And they’ve done this through a unique financial channel called microlending. While microlending is well known across Latin America and in developing nations, sadly its existence, popularity and prevalence stateside remain in a nascent phase.

Unfortunately, most of the news I read and hear about microfinance in the U.S. involves providing those services abroad when in fact a vast underserved population exists right here. Don’t get me wrong, helping the disenfranchised in places like Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia is a noble thing. But I’m often left wondering why so little of the microfinance conversation involves helping out low-income entrepreneurs right here at home.

Now more than ever, microfinance can be the homegrown vehicle that turns this trend around - especially as the latest jobs report shows the same stubbornly high unemployment, lackluster job creation and consumer penny pinching across the board. The result is that hundreds of thousands of marginal-income families have slipped through the proverbial cracks and our snail-paced economic recovery continues to widen that fissure. Good credit becomes bad credit and access to traditional bank loans dries up.

People can help, and not just by giving donations or crowdfunding, the latest personal investing trend. Many of the recession’s forgotten casualties don’t want handouts; they want opportunities to work themselves out of a financial hole. Kiva Microfunds, a San Francisco-based tiny loan lender, clearly has the right approach. The company connects donors who wish to give money in as little as $25 increments and has lent out $335 million across 62 countries, boasting a 99% repayment rate. Closer to home, Our MicroLending, of Miami, has disbursed over 1,050 loans totaling $6.2 million to over 600 micro-enterprises whose owners use the funds to restock, remodel, expand and hire.

Fortunately there’s other good news as well. Microlending is also increasingly interwoven with the phenomenon of impact investing. Impact investing is the process by which investment takes into account not only direct ROI, but evaluates the social and environmental benefits of doing so. Like mircolending, social impact investing has numerous secondary and tertiary benefits. Blighted neighborhoods on the brink of collapse revitalize, crime rates fall, juvenile delinquency drops and a community or neighborhood has the chance to rebuild. And just this past spring, Morgan Stanley, inspired by its own studies on the matter, announced the launch of its Investing With Impact Platform. J.P. Morgan predicts that, by 2020, there will between $400 billion and $1 trillion invested in ways that have a positive social impact.

So it’s definitely possible to do well by doing good, no matter where funding comes from. A November 2011 report by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business put the number of microfinance institutions in the U.S. at 362. A strong start for sure. But clearly there can (and should) be more. Investing in microfinance for American entrepreneurs and making sure people out there know that this service is available, that self-employment is an option if they’ve lost their jobs, can do a lot to help ease the protracted financial suffering that has left so many of our fellow Americans penniless and without hope.

To dream is priceless. But acting on dreams comes at a price. Mircofinance and social impact investing are paving – and paying – the way forward to turn entrepreneurial dreams into reality. 

YouTube Joins the (Social) Good Fight

By: Kyrsten Cazas, Community & Visibility Specialist

YouTube has always been a safe haven for piano-playing cats and would-be singers. But lately the Google-owned site has been rolling out quite a few upgrades aimed specifically at nonprofits.

In case you’re new to the YouTube trend, it was founded in February 2005 and allows billions of people all over the world to watch and share originally-created videos. Within the last month the video sharing site announced several new features geared to help nonprofits turn their video views into action. To start, YouTube will be holding monthly online training sessions, “YouTube 101” using Google Hangouts for members of its YouTube Nonprofit Program (a great program that provides free tools such as streaming video and fundraising capabilities). The training sessions, taking place the last Tuesday of every month, kick off July 31^st at 9pm and are geared toward nonprofits new to the service. Think of them like massive videoconferencing and brainstorming sessions.

The site also announced the implementation of annotations that can link to donation websites: Change.org, DonorsChoose.org, RocketHub.com and Causes.com. An annotation is a small dialogue box that pops up in a video and allows video creators to convey messages. Videos used to only link to other videos, channels and search results. Two other annotation options were also added in April, allowing video creators to link to crowdsourcing platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. These annotations offer a great opportunity for nonprofits to lead viewers to sites that offer a place to donate and get more involved with the organization.  

YouTube has also released a new tool that blurs faces. The feature provides “visual anonymity” to those filmed allowing video creators to share sensitive footage without exposing those involved. One of the first of its kind, this trailblazing addition comes only a couple of months after the YouTube Human Rights channel launch. In a statement shared with Mashable YouTube said they see this as a tool to protect protesters and advocates, as well as the identities of children.

With all of the exciting opportunities available to nonprofits on YouTube, it’s no wonder their nonprofit program boasts an impressive 17,000 organizations already. Will your organization be number 17,001? Let us know what you think about YouTube’s social good efforts in your comments below. 

For Nonprofits, the Future is Multicultural – and Digital

By: Laura Morales, Hispanic Media Relations and Business Writer

During the latter part of my years as a Miami Herald reporter, I had to drive by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts every weekday.

Arsht, 70, a philanthropist and business leader, helped save the venue by donating $30 million in 2008. Its opera house is named after another pair of philanthropists, Sanford and Dolores Ziff, whose names are on buildings all over South Florida. Even in Miami, where Latinos outnumber every other ethnic group, most philanthropists’ names you see on buildings are of Anglo or Jewish descent. I’m sure there must be some buildings here named after Hispanic donors, but I can’t think of any.

I’d never given this much thought until I read this Media Post article about the eroding traditional donor base for nonprofits: aging white Baby Boomers. According to its author, ad exec Jose Villa, nonprofits and foundations, whose incomes have already been battered by the recession, are dreading what Villa calls “the coming demographic donor cliff.”

That’s understandable – at least from the 35,000 ft. view. Despite America’s exploding Hispanic population, accounting for half of all population growth between 2000 and 2011 and a Nielsen prediction that between 2011 and 2016, 60% of population growth will be Latino, donation dollars continue to come from a highly stratified subset.

But that too, is poised to change.

Villa, pointing out that non-Millennial Hispanics’ giving is generally limited to church, remittances to Latin America and support for extended families, recommends that nonprofits focus on reaching – and hiring – Hispanic Millennials. He also prescribes an increased mobile digital presence, as 42% of Latinos do most of their online browsing and networking on mobile phones – and that’s a donor resource that must be tapped.

Great idea. We all know mobile is the future. But why stop with Latinos? As I pointed out in a previous post, half of African-Americans do most of their browsing on mobile phones. Nielsen also reports that Asian-Americans outpace all other groups in smartphone adoption. And, moving into the future, these groups’ digital engagement – particularly through smartphones and tablets – is only going to balloon.

As the country charges on toward ethnic plurality nonprofits would also do well to remember that, even individually, these groups wield considerable purchasing power. In the same post I referenced earlier, I noted that combined Hispanic and African-American buying power stands at $2 trillion. That’s more than enough money to balance the US budget for a year. Add to that Asian-Americans’ economic clout – just over $500 billion now and expected to grow to over $700 billion by 2015 – and we’re looking at a strong potential new funding base that can help non-profits achieve their missions. Demographic donor cliff? I don’t think so.

Who knows? Maybe in a decade we’ll start seeing American buildings adorned with names such as Ramírez or Sengupta or Takahashi. I, for one, would find that refreshing. Multicultural funding is the answer and it’s literally a mobile phone call or text away.