Filed under: CHAMPs News | Tags: aviva, community, fund, micro philanthropy, Microphilanthropy, vote, youth
Today is day 3 of Round 2 of the Aviva Community Fund up in Canada. The slogan of the competition is “Supporting what’s important to you”. Charity CHAMPS is promoting microphilanthropy amongst youth, the most important, but least engaged demographic in philanthropy. That’s important to us!
Also unlike a lot of the other ideas competing for votes, ours has a fundamental online and micro-action foundation which we think there needs to be more of. Philanthropy needs to benefit from the huge changes in technology like every other industry!
If any of these things are important to you (and we hope they are), please vote for us. The money is going to be critical for us hitting targets we’ve set for ourselves!
Vote here:
http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf2300
Check out the new video on our site:
http://www.charitychamps.org/
Filed under: General Charity Musings, Microphilanthropy | Tags: david roodman, kiva, kiva donor illusion, kiva scam, microcredit, microfinance
If you’ve been following the debate surrounding whether microcredit works or not you’ll be interested to read A Mostly Comprehensive Guide to the Kiva and Donor Illusion Debate, written earlier this month. While I’ve written several articles on this blog about microcredit and its impacts on third world communities, I have never focused in on any particular microcredit organization, and if you could only analyze one it would obviously be Kiva.
Kiva, the popular lending site that boasts over $27M in loans disbursed, is being critized for misleading users to believe that peer-to-peer connections exist when in fact there are intermediary lenders in the process. In the article Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems, microfinance expert David Roodman cites examples of borrowers recieving money before any Kiva loan has established. And while Kiva doesn’t hide this information, it also doesn’t do much to make the fact clear. Of course, in cases like this it’s hard to put the blame on any one party – communication is 2-way, so who’s to say that it’s not the donors who are misleading themselves?
In the end, the question to ask is: does it matter? Kiva helps get money to entrepreneurs, and most importantly, Kiva makes donors feel good. Donors become educated, and are more involved with the issues plaguing various third world countries. And on this point I think most microfinance critics actually are in agreement – Kiva isn’t all bad.
Filed under: General Charity Musings, Microphilanthropy | Tags: canadian athletes now fund, canadian microphilanthropy, toques & beavers
If you follow this blog you’d know that I’m always on the look-out for online microphilanthropies with a Canadian bent (I am Canadian afterall). For the most part I actually don’t think it really matters where the microphilanthropy is based, but sometimes it does affect whether as a Canadian I can participate in the programs, and other times it affects whether Canadian charities are the beneficiaries or not.
So I was quite delighted to discover Toques & Beavers. The site runs a trivia game similar to FreeRice, that not only educating Canadians but also to raises money for the Canadian Athletes Now Fund by taking donations. It focuses so much on Canadiana that it’s hilarious; the trivia is all Canadian trivia, the prizes are Toques & Beaver themed, and their slogan is “Eh! to Zed”. When you get a trivia question right, a beaver (in a toque, of course) pops up to congratulate you. It doesn’t get better than that. Check it out, and see how close you can get to the top score of 917000 currently held by campbellgary. And don’t forget to connect your account with Facebook so that the world could see how good you are at Canadian trivia.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: does microcredit work, does microlending fit poverty, grameen bank, microcredit, microfinance, microlending, mit microlending studies
On this blog I’ve written two previous posts on microfinance (also known as microcredit or microlending) and its effects. Well the debate regarding whether microlending solves poverty still rages on, and this month, the Boston Globe published a fairly extensive article containing much supporting material that concludes microfinance doesn’t actually do much to alleviate poverty. If you’re interested in the subject I would definitely recommend you read the article; while it doesn’t include ideas that are entirely new, it does quote findings from MIT research yet to be published, and offers a good summary into arguments being made on both sides.
So what exactly are some arguments against microlending being effective for alleviating poverty? Well..
- Studies are showing that microlending doesn’t lift household spending (an indicator that shows financial well-being)
- Borrowers often do not use the borrowed money for business but instead spend on household items like TVs
- New research underlies the fact that developing countries will not lift themselves out of poverty through fueling entreprenurship – already developing countries are overindexed on entreprenurs, and what the countries need is large corporations to provide jobs that steadily increase pay annually
- Economies of scale work, and microlending doesn’t tap that potential; as the article says, “Forty workers at a textile plant are going to be much more productive than 40 microentrepreneur weavers each working by themselves”
Of course, on the flip side, there are also arguments to be made:
- If nothing else, microlending is allowing borrowers to disengage from high-interest lending that can result in physical punishment if loans are not repaid
- Studies that have been conducted so far only measure the impact of microcredit on the short term and don’t take into account effects over 2 years long
- The growth and sustainability of microlending (Grameen Bank, has disbursed more than $8 billion in unsecured loans) suggests that borrowers are finding value in the loans, even if the effects cannot be immediately measured
Filed under: General Charity Musings | Tags: 10tothe100, Google 10^100, vote for projects
Google’s looking to help as many people as possible, and launched the 10^100 project to take ideas. They gathered all the ideas, grouped them into categories, and is taking votes until tomorrow to help decide which world saving projects will receive a portion of their $10M funding.
So if you haven’t yet, visit the site at http://www.project10tothe100.com and vote while you still can! Some categories include:
- Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists
- Work toward socially conscious tax policies
- Drive innovation in public transport
- Create real-world issue reporting system
Personally I can’t decide amongst all the education options, they all sound good. But I will pick something before the deadline! Let me know if you have a top pick.
Filed under: General Charity Musings, Microphilanthropy | Tags: digital music charity, fundtunes, raise money with music
Do you buy digital music online? If so, you should check out FundTunes. FundTunes is a recently launched site that is partnered with Universal Music Canada to sell digital music for the benefit of charities. Nonprofits get $3.00 per 10-song bundle and $1.50 from each 5-song bundle that you buy. Currently listed nonprofits include MADD, Best Buddies, WhiteCrow Village, and Canadian Cancer Society. And if you’re looking to donate to a specific nonprofit but can’t find the organization listed, all you have to do is email FundTunes to get the listing process started.
If you’re a nonprofit, using FundTunes gives you a novel way of fundraising, where you get 50% of the proceeds from music sales. It’s also super easy because you’ll receive an online music store, ready to be used as part of a campaign. There are no upfront costs.
Filed under: General Charity Musings, social media | Tags: cadbury bike campaign, call2action, moving windmills, video fundraising, video widget, william kamkwamba
Back in July I had written about how Call2Action was looking for Beta testers – well now they’ve launched! I got the launch email on Sept 18th and meant to write about it then, but didn’t get to it until now. If you haven’t yet you should check the site out. It’s s a “viral action tool for nonprofits”, so if you’re a nonprofit looking for a way to run a viral campaign online, this is the site for you. The Call2Action video widget lets you bundle campaign videos with actions together, so that you don’t have to worry again about making a video that doesn’t tie direction with a call-to-action.
Videos are a powerful way to get the message across. Some of my favourites:
- Jennifer Connelly in Charity:Water’s campaign video
- Moving Windmills – William Kamkwamba’s of building windmills in Malawi, learning how to do it himself with a library book
- Cadbury’s bike campaign video – I first saw this on TV and it almost made me go buy chocolate immediately (not that I need much convincing)
The key? Keep it simple with a concise message, 1 minute or less is best. Doesn’t have to be fancy either – I’ve seen plenty of good videos with just sketches and voice-over.
What’s your favourite video that inspires you to make a difference?
Filed under: Uncategorized
It’s a bad day to be a person of Chinese person Toronto, particularly if you like to read, and run. You had to choose between the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon, the Word on the Street book fair, and the celebration parade of China’s birthday. If you are a person in Toronto who likes to be stuck in traffic all day downtown, it’s a fantastic day, but since there aren’t very many of those, it was a bad day for Toronto city planners.
In addition to running Charity CHAMPS, I’ve been fairly involved in running a national conference (CUTC) for the last 10 years, and we are very careful to try to time our event so that it doesn’t conflict with other events.
By contrast for the last 3 years, the Scotiabank Marathon and the Word on the Street festival are always scheduled on the same day in September. And this year, perhaps thanks to the lunar calendar, there was also the Chinese parade. I think our all-news radio station 680 News put it best saying “effectively all streets downtown are closed.”
Seriously, Yonge, Bay, and University were all brought to a halt, as were Queen and Dundas, Lakeshore and Queen’s Quay. I think there were issues with Richmond and Adelaide too. The resulting overflow onto College, Spadina, Bathurst, King and Wellington, were so gross that it was absolutely infuriating for anyone who had to do something downtown that couldn’t be done on foot or on the subway exclusively. It would be excruciating just getting out of the downtown if you wanted to escape! I carefully looked at the flyer I received about the Scotiabank marathon road closures so I could avoid them with my plans today, but was given no warning about Word on the Street, nor the Chinese parade.
While I think these events are great, is there no one in the municipal government who can someone bring about some coordination between these groups—particularly since they requested the closure of public road resources?
Why not have the book fair right along side the marathon route? What better way for people to bide their time for their friends and family to run by than browsing through some books? And what better way to get some extra eyeballs on your proud Chinese banners than by walking along the same path set aside for the marathon already?
Call me crazy for thinking groups can work together like this when everyone benefits, but it seems like we could do a lot better job than the disaster that was downtown today. I heard one guy shout “I HATE downtown!” so loudly from his car I could hear him from across the street. A little bit more planning could eliminate one more reason people flee to the suburbs, paving more nature for urban sprawl.
This is just the thing our city planners are probably trying to combat. I think they are probably a pretty strategic group creating Green Belts, working with the TTC, and encouraging dense downtown development. I encourage you to be a bit “tactical” as well, and think about day-to-day things like this as well—because days as frustrating as this would make anyone think about staying the heck out of downtown whenever possible.
I hope everything is cleared up by the time I have to get to St. Clair and Bathurst for to see my father’s Art Walk festival in mid-town…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cadbury, dawn, moxies, sas, survey for charity
Nowadays every company is trying to be a good corporate citizen. There are several corporate charity campaigns that I’ve talked about on this blog or on the Charity CHAMPS twitter account (@charitychamps) – Cadbury’s campaign to send bicycles to Africa, Dawn giving $1 back per bottle of dish detergent sold to environmental causes, Moxie’s giving a $1 to Breakfast For Learning for every dessert trio ordered. But I’m seeing many more campaigns that I have not blogged about. In fact, I’m seeing these campaigns everywhere, which is a good thing, but the concept of giving back product revenues to charity is becoming slightly over-done in my mind.
So it refreshing when I found this email from SAS the other day:
Dear SAS User:
SAS is committed to your satisfaction! We are interested in learning about your opinions and experiences with SAS and SAS software. Your valuable feedback will be used to develop and improve SAS products and services we offer.
Please allow approximately 10 minutes to complete this survey. In appreciation of your time and effort, SAS will make a donation to your choice among three non-profit charitable organizations if you complete this survey ….
SAS Market Research
Of course, this email has been sitting in my inbox for some time now, so it’s not really new (my inbox is just really backlogged), but it’s definitely the first time I’ve been enticed to complete a survey for charity. And I get to choose out of 3 non-profits? Pretty good! Too bad I’m so late to the game – the survey’s now closed and now I’ll never know what the donation amount offered was.
I don’t necessarily think that this campaign is doing more good than other ones just because it’s different, but I do like seeing new ideas in action. Donor fatigue is a huge problem, and innovation never hurt anybody.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: finding volunteers, mozilla service week, mozservice09, one web day
Charity CHAMPS is always on the look-out for technology professionals to join the team, so we’re very happy that Mozilla Service Week has finally come! It’s running from September 14-21, and it’s a call by Mozilla to individuals to step up and make a difference by using the Web to better their community.
So how can you step up? There’s a bunch of ways:
- Take part in One Web Day on Sept 22 to raise awareness of Internet issues while helping to build a Web that works for everyone. You can make a donation , participate in a local event, or perform an Internet Health Check.
- Search the volunteer opportunities posted and volunteer some of your expertise.
- Post a volunteer opportunity for a nonprofit or charity to help them complete a web project.
- Spread the word – follow and Tweet about mozilla service week @mozservice09
When you’ve completed a project, tell the world how you helped out. As I write this post, 10652 hours have already been donated as part of the service week – and you can help that number to keep growing!
Happy service!
