As I walked into her house, it caught my eye immediately. It was unfinished, it was imperfect, and it was beautiful. In the corner was painting a friend has been working on of brightly hued homes on the banks of a multi-colored flickering body of water. It’s a portrait of the French Riviera and, when it was commissioned, she had no idea how she’d paint it. She’s never done a piece quite like it.

And now, in its current state of becoming, it is gorgeous. As she took me over to see it more closely, she showed me its flaws, but also the tools with which she’d move past them – fancy new pens her art teacher had suggested and a ruler that would soon be joined by a protractor she’s not yet purchased. She seemed positively giddy about the protractor; the word alone, for some reason, made me smile too. While clearly acknowledging subtle imperfections, she had found the tools – and the inspiration – to move beyond them.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been glued to my couch-turned-deskchair, part of my mind occupied with creating a plan for the next six months, the other impatiently obsessed with what we’ve yet to accomplish and sometimes overwhelming self-doubt.

Though constantly feverishly busy, I’ve felt like I’m standing still, mired in a thick mud of fear.

But the past few days have been different. Perhaps it’s the cooler weather that the first days of autumn surprisingly offered Florida. Perhaps it’s the arrival of my mom’s new puppy. Maybe it’s my excitement about an upcoming trip to one of my favorite cities. More likely, it’s the support of some pretty amazing reinforcements that have recently appeared to help.

So now, I’m doing the unstuck. Somebody hand me a protractor.

Special thanks to Avi, Jason, Ryan, Nicole, Laura, Tamar, Kim, Erin and LiquidPlanner, this rad software that’s offered free to nonprofits and is helping me move through my planning binge with significantly more effectiveness.

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under The Foundry.
Comments: 1

I’ll admit it. I didn’t even know what the word “meme” meant. I’d seen it tossed around many times on Twitter and taken some contextual clues, but hadn’t decided to thoroughly investigate until I got an email last week from Peter Deitz, the founder of Social Actions. While we haven’t met in person, we’ve interacted a few times online and by phone and he’s exactly the type of person that makes real social change possible: passionate, knowledgeable and a natural connector of both people and ideas. In short, he rocks. Yes, exactly like you ;)

So when I got Peter’s email asking me to participate in a meme about peer-to-peer social change success stories, I decided to give the word a closer look. Here’s what I found in Wikipedia:

“A meme consists of any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to another by learning or imitation. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs, and dances. Memes propagate themselves and can move through the cultural sociosphere in a manner similar to the contagious behavior of a virus.”

In this case, a meme is a rapid-fire way for a broad group of social change professionals to share their ideas and success stories; hopefully, the result is that the ideas continue to contagiously spread propagating good like a windblown dandelion (hat tip to @kikijean for the metaphor). In some ways, peer-to-peer social change is, in itself, a meme. When my friends do something good, and let me know via email, Facebook, the phone, MySpace, Twitter, text message, etc., I might learn from them or succumb to peer pressure and imitate the same behavior.

Anyway, Peter wanted us to share our success with peer-to-peer social change, and, since last week was the first anniversary of the date we received our 501c3 determination letter from the IRS, I thought this was an appropriate time to do a quick inventory of just how much has been accomplished over the last year. Plus, this week has been the pits. After suffering Fay’s flood damage, my car’s been in the shop three times this week for over $6000 in repairs, we found out our video wasn’t selected by Post-It as a finalist, and my internet connection was down for several days – all not good. So I needed this little pick-me-up. Forgive me, for today, if I focus on the positive; certainly I could do another several pages on the lessons we’ve learned to date, the mistakes we’ve made and the things we’d do differently next time. Today, Peter asked for success stories, so that’s precisely what I’m dishin’.

As many of you know, when Epic Change started last year, we had little more than an idea, a project partner in Tanzania and two friends just crazy enough to leave perfectly reputable day jobs to reveal their inner idealists and start a nonprofit. We both invested $5000 from savings, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough to purchase land, let alone build a school, so we needed help – and we asked for it from, quite literally, everyone we’d ever known (and didn’t yet!) – via email, phone calls, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Care2, Idealist.org, VolunteerMatch, YouTube, Google AdWords, our own WordPress blog and the blogger grapevine. We used other tools like Network for Good, PayPal, Google Checkout and Facebook Causes to enable online donations. I took donations at my aerobics classes, my niece held a lemon-aid stand in our neighborhood, our friends held house parties, garage sales and clothes drives. We didn’t have any funds for services, so we asked for pro bono help from people we knew. What started a year ago with a small investment from each of us has now turned into:

• Over $45,000 raised from over 350 donors across the globe;
• Our first $35,000 loan issued to a village school in Tanzania that serves over 200 local children;
• An acre of land that was purchased, and four classrooms that were built, in less than 100 days using loan proceeds, enabling the school to avoid closure after their rented facilities had been sold by the land owner;
• Loan repayment receipts to date of nearly $2500 to date through performances and preliminary post card and greeting card sales;
• An award from the Case Foundation for our successful participation in America’s Giving Challenge;
• Partnerships with two peer startup nonprofits who have agreed to undertake solar installation at the school and the creation of an Epic Change team for the 2009 Miami marathon;
• A website that was visited over 10,000 times last month, a blog that gets over 500 views each month, a mailing list with 600 subscribers, over 300 Twitter followers and YouTube videos that have been viewed nearly 10,000 times;
• Posts in 20 blogs, including TriplePundit, GoBigAlways, What Gives? and ZDNet, and a few great print articles too; and
• Pro bono legal and PR services and free web design, graphic design, video editing and professional photography which has enabled us to pay $0 in salaries, and less than $2000 in total overhead expenses, including a mandatory $800 IRS filing fee.

Other than averting the potential crisis of the closure of a great school that serves over 200 amazing kids, perhaps our most significant accomplishment is that we’ve been able to start to foster a rare online community that includes discussion between the donors who fund Epic Change loans, and the recipients of those loans in Tanzania.

I’ll admit – maybe I’d hoped for even more audacious outcomes in the first 365 days, but as I’ve learned from my corporate experience in change management, human change is not a rapid phenomenon. It takes patience, persistence, passion and a plan. As an organization that started with little more than a good idea and the determination to see it through, we’ve come a long way…but we’ve certainly got miles to go before we sleep.

Peer-to-peer social change is possible. When you do good, your friends are not only watching, but you just might start your own meme.

For those of you who’ve been involved in our efforts – whether you’ve passed along one of our videos to friends, shared our blog or made a donation, how does it feel to participate in a peer-to-peer social change effort? Is it different from other nonprofit or charity efforts in which you’ve participated? How? Do you think our strategies have been effective? Why or why not?

For those of you who haven’t yet participated in Epic Change, there’s no time like the present. Besides, all the cool kids are doin’ it – spread the meme.

PS: Peter, I live in Florida, but I may just be in San Francisco for another conference during the October NetTuesday. I’d love to participate in the discussion there if I’m in town.

Posted: September 13th, 2008 under The Foundry.
Comments: 1

Just a quick note to let you know that the top 10 videos were announced by Post-It today and, despite hard work & hope, our entry hasn’t been included.  Congratulations to the finalists whose videos were selected; I invite you to check out their entries, and vote, at http://www.youtube.com/postitnotes.

I’d be fibbing (okay, outright lying) if I didn’t say that I still think ours was the best – or at the very least, one of the 10 best.  If I said I wasn’t disappointed in the outcome, it simply wouldn’t be true.  Last night, I may have even let a few choice words pass these feisty dogooder lips.

In the end though, despite the outcome, I think Nick, Zoe, Amanda, Sanjay, Tim, Nelle and all of the beautiful kids did an amazing job.  I’m pretty sure too that no one put more effort (or more TLC) into their entry.  Thousands of beautiful photos were taken; the children sang their hearts out; Mama Lucy and the teachers gathered witnessed photo releases from students’ parents; Nick and Sanjay edited ’til their poor brains turned to goo; and little Pius (the beautiful boy at the end of the video) must have said that tag line 1.2 gajillion times before we got the “perfect” take.  I am truly proud of what we were able to accomplish, how much of the story was shared, and the fact that the video’s now been viewed nearly 2,000 times – more than any video we’ve ever created – and we continue to get more views daily.  Thanks to all of you who have helped to spread the word!

I’m holding out hope that 3M will give us a call to offer a sizable donation since we made such a brand-friendly video, but even if that doesn’t happen,  I’m excited to have had the opportunity to participate, and I look forward to other such challenges.   (Trust me, there’s another one just around the corner!)  It’s part of the fun of being involved in a startup organization; we can color outside the lines a little, take some creative risks and be immediately responsive to great opportunities that others might not see.

I’m not certain why 3M decided to exclude our entry from the top 10; I’m sure that the judges had their work cut out for them, and I definitely wouldn’t want their role.  There were a few entries, several others that didn’t make “the cut”, that were very well done – check out this one and this one (and, of course, ours!) for just a couple examples.  Perhaps there was some risk they perceived from loosely associating their organization with a small school in Africa.  Perhaps they didn’t want their brand to be tied to an effort like ours, or to a woman like me (frankly speaking, it was probably Sanjay – that guy’s trouble).  Maybe they just didn’t like our video for some reason (actually, is that really even possible?).  Maybe.  I’d love to know your guess. In any case, I think they’ve passed up a golden feel-good marketing moment.

I recently read about a really interesting Harvard study mentioned in Slate that asked the question “Will customers pay more to do good?”  I’m wondering if there will be a point at which “doing good” is so rewarded by consumers that an entry like ours would be the clear winner in a competition like this one – not only because it’s “good” but because it’s “good business”? What do you think?

Posted: September 12th, 2008 under The Foundry.
Comments: 4