Majority of Canadians want to end poverty

Posted March 30th, 2009 by Leif Baradoy

Recently I sent Lisa B., a new ChristmasFuture volunteer, an encouraging Angus Reid poll, which suggests Canadians want to take action to end global poverty. You can find the full poll here, but first read Lisa’s thought on it:

An inspiring article appeared in my email inbox this morning. The Angus Reid Global Monitor was reporting recent poll findings that a whopping 89% of Canadians believe their country should be doing something to ease global poverty, and that almost 1 in 3 Canadians feel that global poverty should take precedence over problems within Canada.

What a message! Although Canada currently faces tough times at home and abroad, Canadians’ sense of global responsibility is strong and unwavering, and I was reminded once again of how progressive and compassionate my country truly is. Canadians share an extraordinary character that compels us to look outward to our neighbours—those around the corner and those around the world—and apparently many of us would rather put another’s pressing need before our own. I was inspired, and my sense of hometown pride blossomed.

I’m a Vancouver girl, enthusiastically and unrepentantly Canadian, but I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost nine years. As the US has struggled with the many challenges it’s faced over the last few years, I’ve had loads of conversations with my American friends about global awareness and sensitivity, and what a nation’s responsibility is to itself and the world at large. I’ve also had plentiful opportunities to compare and contrast Canadian and American perspectives, opinions, and values, and have come to see that the “nice” Canadian stereotype hides a strength and power that could change the world.

Most of the friends I’ve made here in California (many American, many from other parts of the world) express similar opinions about Canadians: we’re nice, polite, innocuous, uncomplicated, and harmless. We’re unlikely to start a war, control the global economy, or take over the world—and therefore, our impact on the world stage is minimal. But wait a second, my friends… Canadians are respectful and polite, true enough (and what’s wrong with that?), but look closer at that Angus Reid poll and tell me if niceness is all the Great White North has to offer.

What I saw in those poll results was that my country is virtually united in its concern over the welfare of the world’s desperately poor, and that many Canadians consider global poverty a greater worry than their own country’s state of affairs. Canada may not be bold and aggressive, it may not have military might or economic sway, but it absolutely has the power to change the lives of millions of people, both directly and by example, and without invasions or shock and awe. Canada has compassion, acceptance, and community spirit built into its value system and it teaches its citizens to look after not just themselves but the people around them, too. To me, the poll results said that although times are tough and uncertain, Canadians recognise how fortunate they are to live in a prosperous society and feel a sense of responsibility to reach out to others who have much, much less.

How is that sense of awareness and willingness to help not a powerful tool, as awe-inspiring and life-changing to those in need as any foreign policy or military invasion? The world can’t truly change without empathy and outreach. Global poverty won’t end until we all feel a sense of global community spirit. From my point of view, Canada is well suited to lead the world into happier, healthier, more prosperous times. Eighty-nine percent of us want to reach out to those in need, and that’s inspiring all by itself.

So let’s hear it for Canadians, who look beyond our borders to the places on Earth where true hardship is felt and say, Let’s make a difference. I believe that we’re in a unique position to make all the difference in the world.

Photo courtesy of someoneoncetoldme.com

ChristmasFuture Wins Big with Karo

Posted January 29th, 2009 by Leif Baradoy

If at first you don’t succeed . . .
(a) Never try again
(b) Try again with less effort
(c) Try, try again.

ChristmasFuture is excited to announce that, by living out (c), our organization has been selected by Karo as the recipient of the Karo Kaus—a $50,000 creative services grant. Thank you Karo!

Last year, ChristmasFuture was one of the finalists for Karo Kaus, however we were not selected. So, we kept working hard, developed our site, our brand, our school program, and contnued implemetation of our strategic plan. Then we reapplied for the grant with more experience and measureable growth and Karo responded!

Here’s how Karo explains the grant:

Chris Bedford, Karo president, explains: “We want to help two organizations develop meaningful brand experiences for their stakeholders and clients, which in turn will take them to the next level in attracting public and financial support.”

ChristmasFuture is still figuring out how to best use this grant to develop our organization. We’re ready to go to the next level on a variety of fronts. I’ll let you know what we settle upon

Image courtesy of Karo.

How We Did in 2008 (hint: Awesome)

Posted January 28th, 2009 by Leif Baradoy

The holiday season has come and gone and I’ve been delayed on reporting to you on our success. But, better late than never!

In case you haven’t heard, we’re in the middle of the toughest economy in over 70 years (hence the photo). Like many other organizations that rely on the kindness of strangers, we were anxious to see how the meltdown would affect the good work that we’re doing.

I’m very happy to report that we’ve had an 2.75 times increase in donations to projects in the past year! In 2007 we raised $49,000 and in 2008 we raised $135,000. The bulk of our 2008 fundraising came in over the holiday season, roughly $80,000. Not only that, but we kept our operating expenses the same. According to our partners who are running the projects in developing countries, nearly a quarter of a million people will be impacted by the projects that people like you chose to support this past year.

I’m extremely pleased at our success given the current global financial context. I believe that our growth confirms that we’re providing a service that people are looking for—giving them the choice to change the world. I should also note that our site functioned well throughout the whole season; we had nearly no downtime and we received minimal support queries (thank you Google Summer of Code!).

Over the season, we got some great media coverage, both online and offline, which helped new people discover a new way to give.

Also, I did a number of posts on TweetmasFuture. This campaign raised $17,535 and brought an additional 17% of traffic to our site. I anticipate improving the message and functions of our site to better accomodate a future twitter campaign. Although the measurement of the success of this campaign is not as precise as I’d like it to be, the Twitter community definately proved itself (again) as a group of engaged and caring individuals.

So, thank you for helping drive a portion of your holidays spending towards ending extreme pverty. We are changing the world.

Photo courtesy of daily dose of imagery.

Using Twitter to Fundraise: TweetmasFuture with less than 32 hours left

Posted December 23rd, 2008 by Leif Baradoy

Earlier today The NonProfit Times published an article entitled “Twittering To Fame And Fortune: Microblogging can help raise cash and awareness.” Although they didn’t feature the TweetmasFuture campaign, the author does a great job summarizing the story and statistic of TweetsGiving and Twitter Vote Report.

Right now, there’s about 32 hours left until Christmas Day. Rather than speaking about the success of ChristmasFuture in general, I wanted to further comment on TweetmasFuture experiment and how effective it has been in raising funds help end poverty. Currently, we’ve raised (roughly) $15,569 of $20,000.

I chose to run TweetmasFuture from Dec. 16-Dec. 25, which is far too long for flash cause, for a number of reasons:

• Gifts for Christmas Day We’re about refocusing a portion of holiday spending towards ending extreme poverty. Prematurely closing an opportunity for people to give gift cards didn’t make sense, since people will give gifts to one another right up until Christmas Day (and beyond, in fact).
• Velocity. Since ChristmasFuture didn’t begin with a lot of social capital on Twitter (one of the keys to success the Beth Kanter mentions), I suspected that the campaign would need a few days of ramp up time, which would allow me to connect with the right people and build some momentum.
• Resources. Because the holidays are ChristmasFuture’s busy season, I anticipated that I would not be able to intensely dedicate myself to the sort of communication and conversation a successful flash cause requires.
• Knowledge Gathering. One of the expressed goals of TweetmasFuture was to “continue the experiment of using Twitter to fundraise.” Although Avi Kaplan took the time to speak with me, and a few others offered some extremely helpful insights into the campaign, the longer campaign has allowed me to try out a number of different methods in connecting with people and spreading the word.

Although there are some weaknesses related to the length of this campaign, the pace of TweetmasFuture allows the conversation to ebb and flow without me inundating Twitter followers with messages and updates. So far, there’s been a few hours with a fair amount of buzz, however I’ve mostly seen 5-10/hour, sometimes less.

One this that has surprised me is the different ways that people have opted to give gifts through the ChristmasFuture site. Some have purchased fifty $1 gifts and then direct-messaged the gift code to people in their networks; other have given a single gift, large or small, to someone they know both on and off Twitter.

Next go around, I will craft a clearer call to action—I believe that there are elements of TweetmasFuture that are not immediately understandable. I considered simply trying to raise funds for a single project on the ChristmasFuture website, but I decided against it because it would not have been fair to the other organizations that we have on the site.

I look forward to providing you with more details after the campaign finishes up. Please let me know if you have any questions about this campaign.

Social Media Sites Further Popularize Online Gift Cards

Posted December 22nd, 2008 by Leif Baradoy

I just sent out a press release about our TweetmasFuture campaign and wanted to post it here. ChristmasFuture is very thankful for the support of Marketwire, who provides us with press release and newswire services.

Here’s the release:

SOCIAL MEDIA SITES FURTHER POPULARIZE ONLINE GIFT CARDS

Website: www.christmasfuture.org

How To Give and Receive (videos)

Posted December 17th, 2008 by Leif Baradoy

Although ChristmasFuture has streamlined the giving and receiving process of our site, there are still users who want to see step by step examples. So Jon-Paul, a Twitter follower and supporter, took the time to create a few videos for people who aren’t that tech savy. Thank you Jon-Paul!

Check them out . . .

How to Give

How to Receive