Social Good
July 19, 2009 - כ"ח תמוז תשס"ט by admin
One of the most amazing trends is the transformational good that is being done by ordinary individuals who are coming together via their social networks to give back to society. I’ve been privileged to have actively participated in three amazing and fun charitable events during 2009 that fundamentally prove the power of social media to give back and “do good”:
1. Twestival
I had the opportunity to be part of the planning committee for the Twestival Toronto event on Feb 12, 2009. The Twestival concept was originally created by Amanda Rose, a Canadian living in London. She imagined how social media could be used for good on a global basis and Twestival was born. On Feb 12, 2009 over 200 cities came together in local events across the World and raised $250,000 for charity:water in one night! It was the perfect example of how social media connects us across the World and can bring us together in real-life to achieve amazing results for charity.
2. Art From The Unexpected – benefiting SKETCH
Trina Boos from Ad Lounge came up with an amazing concept. She invited 20 leaders in the Canadian marketing industry to be part of the “Art From the Unexpected” event, held on June 16, 2009. When Trina called me to ask if I would be one of the 20 “artists” and I heard the concept and who it was going to benefit, I accepted the challenge immediately.
Here was the brief:
Creativity isn’t something only reserved for the creative department. What about letting those who actually run the businesses have a go at it, too? Art From the Unexpected is about challenging 20 of our industry’s leaders, who don’t typically get to be visually creative in their day-to-day, to create an original art piece. That’s not all. They will join us in presenting their one-of-a-kind creation to you.
What motivates these leaders to be creative? What will they create? How do they really think? How do they overcome creative challenges?
Each of us presented our art to the audience at Steam Whistle Brewery. The theme was “Eureka.” All 20 pieces of art were sold and the audience raised $20,000 for SKETCH.
What is SKETCH?
SKETCH is a community arts initiative that creates opportunities for street-involved and homeless youth aged 15-29 by offering them tools to engage in the arts, a safe place to express and create, and opportunities to creatively integrate back into community life. SKETCH supports and facilitates community connections with education, leadership and apprenticeships in arts industries through exhibition, performance and sale of artwork.
3. Pay It Backward Day (powered by Daily Challenge)
Two of Toronto’s young entrepreneurs (Afshin Mousavian and Darius Bashar) run a successful social good site called Daily Challenge. Here’s the background on Pay It Backward Day:
Pay It Backward Day was born from one of our earliest and most simple challenges: “Buy a coffee for the person behind you in line today.” So, on September 30th we invited Do Gooders throughout Ontario to visit any one of the province’s 170+ participating Second Cup cafés and do just that – pay for the person behind them in line. Imagine the ripple effect of thousands of people committing such a small random act of kindness! The added bonus? Every time somebody Paid It Backward on September 30th, Second Cup Ltd, Silk Soy Beverage and our donation partner Ivanhoe Cambridge agreed to donate $5* to SickKids Foundation!
Afshin and Darius empowered their Daily Challenge socially conscious online network to get involved and together helped raise $15,000 for Sick Kids Hospital through this one day event.
There are more and more of these types of initiatives that are being enabled by the power of the Internet and social networks. This “democratization of philanthropy” is a powerful force for good and I look forward to seeing many more of these types of initiatives in the future.
