“The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively modest amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families. If we don’t, one in seven people will continue living needlessly on the edge of starvation. My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.” Read on…
I can’t wait to see this. One young student summed it up quite nicely, “There is no appreciation for women intellectuals in the media.” And it’s true. There isn’t. In the media, we see women valued for their beauty & their youth, which is fleeting. We get reality TV shows like The Real Housewives.. (of whatever) & Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and the women on these shows are narcissistic, and quite frankly, not that smart. They are preoccupied with shopping, socializing, instigating drama, and a whole lot of nothing. We can do better than that. Much better.
“MissRepresentation.org believes that all people should be equally represented in our media, that our voices should be heard and that we should all be valued for our talents, capacity as leaders, and ability to contribute to the world at large.” Hop on over to MissRepresentation.org for more info!
“When I was a little boy, your grandmother gave me five cents every day to buy lunch. But I didn’t buy lunch with the money she gave me. Instead, I saved the money to buy chickens. And then I kept the chickens under my bed until they grew big enough to eat.”
This was just one of the many stories my dad recounted to me of his childhood. A small wave of sadness came over me at the thought of slaughtering family pets for meals. Well, I guess they weren’t really family pets. But still. My dad taught me a valuable lesson with this story. Even as a 12 year old kid listening to this story, I could see the huge disparity between the conditions my dad grew up with in rural China and the conditions I live with in suburban America. He didn’t have much growing up.
Millions of people in the world live without things I take for granted every single day: a home, clothing & shoes, fresh food, clean water. These are what we in America consider basic needs. Yet, there are millions of people in the world that would consider these luxuries.
So this year, I’m giving my birthday to Charity:Water, a nonprofit organization that works to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Why Water? Learn more here.
Celebrate my 25th birthday with me by donating on my campaign page: http://mycharitywater.org/gracecheung. 100% of your donation will go to fund clean water projects in developing nations.
Thank you =)
Most of my friends know that I generally don’t accept gifts on my birthday or on Christmas, unless it’s just a book or something homemade. It’s not that I don’t believe in giving gifts, but because I would rather share experiences with my friends and family, rather than to get “stuff.” In college, instead of allowing my friends to give me presents on my birthday, I asked them to donate to a cause of my choosing, because I know that money could have been better spent elsewhere.
It’s not my birthday yet, but it is the holiday season, and this holiday season, I would like to ask my readers to please donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The donation does not have to be large, just $20 or whatever amount you have to donate. Wikipedia, and all other wikis out there, are the ideal example of what humans can accomplish just by collaborating and donating a bit of their time and knowledge to a greater good. It’s created by volunteers and sustained by volunteers. I once made a statement that just because something isn’t profitable, doesn’t mean it’s not worth our time or effort. People thought I was crazy. But I’m glad someone out there shares that same vision. We can accomplish more in an open, collaborative world.
UPrinting reached out to me several months ago to let me know about their UCommunity Program for nonprofit organizations, charities, churches, schools. Under this program, UPrinting provides printing services for any promotional collateral, like fundraiser flyers. In addition to a 10% permanent discount, each organization will receive their very own dedicated sales and support account manager, $100-$1000 in printing credit, and a select few will have the opportunity to be featured in a joint press release to help raise awareness for their causes and events.
In order to apply for the program, you must submit your non-profit’s 501(c)3 determination letter and/or a sponsorship proposal submitted to ucommunity@uprinting.com. UPrinting also requires that the organizations sponsored under this program provide a testimonial and a link back to the UPrinting website.
There are 4 sponsorship packages: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum. The more benefits in a package like additional printing credit, the more requirements the organization will need to meet in order to be accepted into the program. The sponsorship lasts one year, but each NPO can apply for another round of sponsorship.
Dozens of organizations have already signed up, including American Red Cross (Santa Monica chapter), American Liver Foundation, United Breast Cancer Foundation, the UCLA Publish Health Student Association, and the AIDS Project New Haven – just to name a few.
You can find more information on the UPrinting UCommunity Nonprofit Sponsorship program over at the official UPrinting blog or on their official website.
I may be a little late on this (this Goodwill Halloween campaign might be a few years old) but I thought it was brilliant and still very relevant. On the bottom right hand corner of this image is Goodwill’s original face icon and they dressed him up in different costumes in all the other cells. Super cute. Great Halloween campaign by an amazing nonprofit. They have great bargain items that you can piece together for a fabulous costume. You can read more about Goodwill’s mission here.
Because, seriously, who needs another plastic costume you’re going to throw away just after one wear? (See Slate’s Annals of Amoral Advertising, Part One: Target Despises Homemade Halloween Costumes)
What other nonprofit organizations have come out with creative Halloween campaigns?
Our progress on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals
Visit the TedxChange page on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website.
I spend my days devising ways to increase traffic, revenue, leads, conversion rates, engagement, etc. on my clients’ websites. They are all private, for-profit organizations. Metrics and key performance indicators of nonprofit websites will be discussed in another post. In this post, I would like to post my top 5 favorite websites of nonprofit organizations. Why? Because a beautifully designed website can substantially help increase your conversion rates, if you don’t do anything else to your website.
Here are a list of 5 beautifully designed nonprofit websites (of organizations that I support):
“charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
“Carbonica is a global brand and our carbon offsets fund reforestation and forest restoration programmes in Central America.”
“Beyond Current Horizons explores the future for education, beyond 2025. The aim is to help our education system prepare for and develop an ongoing and sustainable response to the challenges it faces as society and technology rapidly evolve.”
(RED) – They work with global brands, donating 50% of profits to the Global Fund to invest in HIV & AIDS programs in Africa.
Helpful Resources:
Smashing Magazine – Nonprofit Website Design: Examples & Best Practices
DesignM.ag – 40+ Inspirational Non-profit Website Designs
Vandelay Design – 40 of the Best Websites of Non-profit Organizations
I took a break from work today to flip through the June 7th edition of Forbes. The cover story caught my eye: “What Schools Can Learn From Money Managers,” but I’m not going to talk about that story here. Instead, I’m going to talk about one of the secrets in Rich Karlgaard’s article, “Recovery’s Seven Secrets.”
Purpose
Several years ago, Mr. Karlgaard had the privilege of interviewing Peter Drucker shortly before Mr. Drucker’s death. Peter Drucker spent the later part of his life studying nonprofit organizations. In fact, he “felt they are as critical to a society’s success as good government, entrepreneurs and thriving corporations,” because these organizations operate with a purpose. While most companies exist to make a profit, nonprofit organizations exist for many reasons, whether it is to raise awareness for a cause or to provide resources where private enterprise cannot (or will not). Regardless of the reason, these organizations know why they do what they do, because they operate with a purpose, “a reason for existence that transcends profits.”
While working towards a purpose might seem counter-productive at a for-profit company, working towards a common goal or a business objective will help motivate employees. There have been instances in my career where I felt like I was just completing task after task because my team needed to meet deadlines and things needed to get done. But all too often, I had no idea what I was working towards or what I was working for. I needed direction.
Luckily, I get to manage my own team now. Every month, I communicate clients’ business objectives with my team members. It can be something straight forward, like increasing sales leads from a website, or something more difficult like increasing revenue by 30% from organic search or cutting costs from paid search while maintaining the same level of revenue, and so on. Whatever the goal is, I let my team members know, so they know what they’re working towards and why they come to work everyday. I think they appreciate the open communication. We’re not working to cure malaria or anything, but at least we can help our clients’ build more successful businesses.
It’s really difficult to operate without a purpose. Let me rephrase that. It’s really difficult to operate efficiently without a purpose. It happens to large companies. It happens, especially, within the government. If you don’t know your organization’s purpose, I encourage you to walk into work tomorrow and ask your boss.
So, why should more companies operate like nonprofits? Because in the road to recovery, the companies that win are the companies that understand why they do what they do. Look at Apple. I don’t think anyone at Apple knows that we’re in a recession right now. They’re now more valuable than Microsoft. And they only own 10% of the market share for computers. Their purpose? – “Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience…” A pretty lofty goal for a company that was on the brink of bankruptcy just a decade ago. But they don’t settle for anything less than “the best.” That’s why companies like Apple are going to win during the recovery, and they’re going to keep winning, as long as they don’t forget why they exist.
