Stay tuned – at the end of this post I’m giving away two tickets to a fabulous event being held in Ottawa on November 14th!

I’ve been involved in charity work pretty much my whole life. My parents set the example when I was just a kid. We lived in a very small, isolated community on the west coast of Canada, and every year, my parents would work with the community to broadcast a 21 hour telethon on local tv, and a community of 1800 people would raise over $25,000 for children with disabilities (that was a lot of money back then). Since 1980, the same telethon that my parents helped start has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Helping others is ingrained in me. I’ve worked for non-profits, volunteered countless hours, and our company does a ton of work with charities and non profits in many different capacities.

Charities have taken a big hit in the past couple of years. Lots of people talk these days about “donor fatigue”, especially with the onset of social media. Its seems everywhere you turn someone else is asking for your dollars. The economy has also played a role – the dollars that used to be going into charities are simply drying up, and it’s been quite a blow.

Fundraising and awareness are more challenging than ever. But I have to stress the awareness part. There are basically two ways that charities can successfully raise funds these days…either get a LOT of people to donate a small amount, or get big corporations on board to make large contributions. Both of these strategies take a TONNE of awareness. Way more than your average “pledge-a-thon”.

So it’s great to see people creating events that are putting the emphasis on awareness, and finding really creative ways to do it. 12for12k.org is a prime example of this. Oh sure, it’s raising lots of money (over $50,000 at last count) but it’s raising even more awareness. The charities chosen each month are benefiting from huge amounts of eyeballs, because of the nature of the social network and the “I’ll tell two friends” philosophy at work.

Another great example of creatively gaining awareness was my friend Cheryl’s “Local TV Matters to Local Artists” event, held on October 25th. She invited local musicians to come out and do a free show at a local cafe, to raise awareness for the plight of local television. People showed up in droves for the free concert, found out some more info on the local TV situation, and signed a bunch of support letters. Mission accomplished, and everyone had fun doing it.

An event that I’m really pumped about is coming up here in Ottawa on November 14th. It’s called “Timeraiser”. Put together by the Framework Foundation, the aim of the event is to increase the number of volunteer hours being done in a community. The way it works is, people go to the Timeraiser event, and they go around to different booths and find out about various organizations they can get involved with. Then via silent auction, they bid on works of art with volunteer hours instead of cash. The winning bidders then put in their volunteer hours over the year, and at the end of it they get to take home a beautiful piece of original art. Brilliant!

Here’s more about how the whole thing works.

In the future, I believe charities will make money one of two ways – by large volumes of people giving smaller amounts or by awareness and eyeballs being so high that corporate donors would be crazy not to jump on the opportunity to make large donations and take advantage of all the good that does.

The successful charities will be the ones who can come up with novel ways to raise awareness and encourage people to spread the word in their communities.

I’ll be going to Timeraiser on November 14th, and I hope to see you there. The good people at Timeraiser have been kind enough to offer me two tickets to give away, so here goes. Just reply in the comments with “I wanna go to Timeraiser, Suze!” and I’ll enter you in the draw, which I’ll do on November 9th.

Good luck!

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Once upon a time there was a guy named Dom.

Dom needed some stuff, to help make his life a bit better – to help him get around a bit more. Dom asked his friends to help him out.

But Dom wasn’t content to just make his life better. He wanted to make others’ lives better too.

This weekend, Dom and his friends on Twitter raised over $800. Dom is going to get what he needs to make his life better. But he’s also done something remarkable. Of that $800, he’s selflessly given $300 to 12for12k’s May Charity, the Hospice of Peel.

I am truly humbled, grateful, and overwhelmed, that someone could work so hard to bring his community together to help, that the community would in turn come to his aid, and that after all that, he would in turn, do something so selfless to give back.

Thank you Dom – you’re a truly special person. Your community loves you…don’t ever forget that.

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I’m over here today – at David Henderson’s blog.

More later.

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The following is a guest post by my friend, Keith Burtis. Below, Keith talks about the immense generosity he finds within the social media community. Keith himself sets an outstanding example of the generosity and kindness that he talks about here. Check him out on his blog at www.keithburtis.com.

Big Hearts

Today, after coming home from a few errands I was struck by the thought of the amazing hearts that we have in not only social media, but across the world. Just a day ago a plane crashed just 2 miles from my home and 3/4 of a mile from where I was at the moment of impact. This plane crashed and landed on a home in the township of Clarence just outside of Buffalo. Minutes after, I tweeted about it using hashtag #ClarencePlaneCrash and I was once again embraced by the Huge Hearts of Social media. Currently, I am running a charity fund raiser for the family that lost their home and their father on my blog. I thank one of the biggest hearts I know, Susan Murphy. for allowing me to share my thoughts with her community here on her blog.

Two Years of Wow!

I have been involved in the social media space for two years, and I am wow’ed! almost daily by the actions that I see in the social media space. We have a pool here of some of the smartest, forward thinking, and giving people I have ever come across.

Some of the amazing things I have seen are:

The Frozen Pea Friday Meme that went to help raise needed funds for Breast Cancer.
Gradon Tripps initiative of Social Media for Social Change (SM4SC).
Earth Day 2008! as well as the new Earth Day 2009 coming soon.
12for12k, using social media to raise $12,000 a month throughout 2009.
Twestival that took place Feb 12th 2009 to help struggling countries find clean water.
Dave Fleet’s effort in social media. Tying his Boston Marathon efforts to Charity.

There are many, many more instances of huge hearts in the social media space and I encourage you to share them here in the comments. As a sort of Valentines Day theme I wanted to get these thoughts out and share some the amazing things that I have seen over the past couple years. Have an amazing day, and keep opening your hearts. It’s amazing what you get back in satisfaction and love.

Keith.

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Check out this video from Amber MacArthur – yet another reason to get behind 12for12k – for the price of a couple of lattes, you too can get involved! www.12for12k.org

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