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.

Donated tweets? How ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference for your nonprofit

By: Christian Williams, Social Media Specialist

From diseases and disorders like AIDS and autism to public issues such as homelessness and LGBT rights, everyone has at least one cause that affects them in some way. But what if someone can’t afford to support a cause they care about financially? How can you get them to participate in a way that still has meaning and impact?

Sree Sreenivasan, a technology blogger for CNET, had a good idea, one that capitalized on his influence on social media to make a difference for a few special nonprofits. Sreenivasan had his more than 30,000 Twitter followers use Facebook to nominate deserving organizations for pro-bono Twitter publicity. He announced that when he hit the 6,000 tweet mark, he would follow by tweeting about a number of the different organizations that were chosen. The campaign could have taken place solely on Twitter, but using Facebook allowed Sree to bypass Twitter’s 140-character limit.

The Facebook-Twitter publicity combo might have not generated much money for the organizations, but it did generate awareness among thousands of Twitter users that could translate into dollars later on. Don’t forget, awareness is always the first step in fundraising and this type of social media marketing can be used to promote your business or group as well. The key to success is in finding someone influential on Twitter that is passionate about YOUR organization and its mission and values.

I personally like staying engaged in my community through organizations whose missions mean a lot to me. One that I am always talking about is Autism Speaks (my little sister has autism), and my Twitter followers are influenced by the passion and knowledge I have for the New York-based nonprofit. If I can motivate or inspire just one person to click a link to their website, I have already been of service to their promotional efforts without them having to spend a single penny. It also makes me feel great!

We don’t all have 30,000 followers like Sreenivasan does. However, regardless of the number of followers, exposure among the public is key. And there’s always the possibility that someone out there in the Twitterverse is a millionaire that has been looking for an organization just like yours to support. 

Business as Charity: The Ever-Evolving World of Social Impact

As someone who takes social-impact work very seriously, I’ve found the Stanford Social Innovation Review to be an invaluable window into the world of social and economic justice.

I recently came across an interesting SSIR blog post which touches on what I think is a very constructive development in the world of charity: business as charity.

In our current economic climate, where job creation is a keystone in every political campaign, Jim Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Company (they make Samuel Adams beer), decided that instead of giving money to charity he would become, essentially, a microlender. His new program, called Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream, gives small loans to small food, beverage and hospitality businesses in South Boston.  It also provides free coaching and mentoring from members of Koch’s team. The point? Trying to create new jobs by supporting small business rather than non-profits.

This is an excellent idea. Even a small loan can determine whether a micro-entrepreneur’s business succeeds or fails; I’ve seen this firsthand in my own business.

At ThinkInk we recently launched a PR and thought leadership campaign for a Miami-based microfinance company, OUR Microlending. To date, the company has disbursed about $6.2 million in loans to over 600 small businesses across South Florida, including a Colombian souvenir store, a printing and vinyl signage shop, a cell phone accessories wholesaler and a nutritional consulting and supplement store. These are hardworking entrepreneurs whose loan applications were rejected by the big banks. Because of OUR Microlending’s services – which are sorely needed all over the United States, not just in the developing world – these self-starters have been able to grow their businesses and create jobs to help stimulate their neighborhood economies.

Of course, this is not to say that I don’t think we should support nonprofits. In fact, we are in the process of restructuring The ThinkTank, a division of ThinkInk that is devoted to helping nonprofits grow their organizations through visibility and intelligent PR. We’re recreating the company into a for-profit/nonprofit hybrid that would allow us to significantly expand to this unit to help more nonprofits throughout South Florida.

In his SSIR post, author Aaron Hurst, founder of the Taproot Foundation and a well-known leader in the world of non-profits and social-impact, asks: is business the new charity?

I’d have to say no. Charitable giving is still crucial to nonprofits’ ability to fulfill their missions. However, considering how difficult it is today for the owners of very small businesses to access traditional banking services, I hope to see many more programs like this spring up to help create much-needed jobs and re-energize our still-shaky economy.

Kony 2012: Social Media ‘Slacktivism’ at its finest

By Christian Williams, Social Media and Visibility Specialist 

slacktivism  /’slaktiviz(ǝ)m / noun, informal: actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g. signing an online petition or joining a campaign group on a social networking website

Alright, I’ll admit it. I’ve been a slacktivist. I think many of us are guilty of that.

In early March 2012, after watching a 30-minute Kony 2012 documentary produced by non-profit organization Invisible Children Inc., I posted the video on my Facebook page with the following statement: “Two words: I’m in.”

The following day, I hopped into the campaign to stop Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. I made plans to attend a screening of the documentary on my college campus. I joined Facebook groups dedicated to the cause. I debated and argued with skeptics who thought the campaign was a sham. I even offered to organize a Cover the Night event in the Coral Gables area with huge Kony 2012 posters.

April 20^th came, and I was not in Coral Gables. I was in my residence hall at FIU, finishing a paper. From what I could see on Facebook, barely any of my friends that had previously ‘dedicated themselves to the cause’ were putting posters up at neighborhoods around Miami-Dade County. They were at work, at home, dancing it up in nightclubs.

In other words, they weren’t engaged in the Kony 2012 cause.

The viral video garnered over 86 million views of the video on YouTube, and the Twitter hashtag #StopKony was a trending topic for weeks. The video especially hit a chord with college students like me. Yet Kony 2012 soon became known as the internet sensation that took the social media landscape by storm, but then failed to deliver the action it was supposed to create.

So what happened?

Life happened.

A quick poll of my friends on Twitter gave me some insight as to why they –personally - dropped the campaign.

“It was fake. A set-up, I believe.” (@__Mo)

“[The] publicity for it died? There was no constant flow of information on what they were doing.” (@MsJanisV)

“[Jason Russell’s] public display of affection if you know what I mean.” (@katinreallife)

A couple of different reasons played a factor in ultimate demise of the campaign, and the lessons learned can be valuable to any non-profit.

We couldn’t see the issue. According to Invisible Children’s Wikipedia page, “the group seeks to put an end to the practices of the [Lord’s Resistance Army], which include abductions and abuse of children, and forcing them to serve as soldiers.” But because the conflict is happening in Uganda, many people outside of Africa – especially in Europe and the Americas - don’t see the conflict going on. People are willing to work for causes that they know affect the community around them. They can donate to the organization (the Kony campaign generated millions of dollars in donations), but there is little they can really do to contribute to the cause in other tangible ways.

The planned ‘action’ was too far away from the call. The Kony 2012 video debuted in early March, and the date set for the Cover the Night events worldwide was April 20^th. That is a full month-and-a-half gap in between the call to action and the actual event; it is very easy to lose interest in a cause when the planned date for action is so far away. The events would have been dramatically more successful if they would have taken place before the hype died down.

The video’s creator went off the deep end. In the media industry, anything you do is open for the public’s viewing pleasure… or displeasure. So when the Kony 2012 documentary’s director, Jason Russell, had a very PUBLIC meltdown on a San Diego street just two weeks after the video was released, it left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. While the reasons behind the meltdown were unknown at the time, the meltdown was publicized and everyone that had seen the Kony video heard about it.

So what lessons can nonprofits learn from Kony 2012? It’s very clear that social media can help causes – but it can also hinder them.

Make your mark locally, nationally, globally. Take great care to ensure that the people you are recruiting to assist in your campaign are educated and invested in your cause. A 30-minute video won’t cut it. Get them to come to a workshop, or send them more information by email or snail mail. Get them to solidify their support.

Make your mark fast. If you are planning an event for your cause, make sure it takes place soon after your social media campaign. There’s no point in your campaign if it doesn’t get them to the event.

And, whatever you do, make sure your figureheads don’t have a public meltdown.