Archive for Misc
Charities go mobile
On May 13th, 2009 Alicia Keys came to American Idol as the Global Ambassador for “Keep a Child Alive”. She put together a great show featuring the 15-year-old Rwandan rapper Noah, who is receiving care at the KCA-funded Icyuzuzo Clinic in Kigali, Rwanda. Noah hopes to change his personal life, and the future of others living with HIV through his music. On American Idol, Noah performed “The World’s Greatest”. Afterwards, Alicia Keys asked the audience to send the text message “ALIVE” to 90999 in order to contribute $5 to the cause. These one-time donations are added to the mobile phone bill or deducted from a prepaid balance. The results were astounding. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were collected within a short period of time.
The infrastructure that makes collecting donations through text messages possible, is the result of the Non-For-Profit organization “Mobile Giving Foundation“. The Foundation was created in order to combine the capabilities of the U.S. wireless industry with the need of charitable organizations to find a new class of donors and more intuitive methods of facilitating contributions. The Foundation is working with US wireless carriers to create a “Mobile Giving Channel”. This channel would allow wireless subscribers to instantaneously respond to charitable solicitations using text messaging via all US wireless carriers. The foundations forecasts that more than US $1 million per month will be raised through mobile giving campaigns in the U.S. market by the end of 2009. Over 220 well-known charities have joined the “Mobile Giving Foundation” utilizing its infrastructure as the new way of giving through people’s cell phone bill. At http://mobilegiving.org/Charities.aspx you can find active programs to support.
My friend Christian Zimmern works for the foundation as the VP of Partnerships and Programs. He explained that contributing by text messaging constitutes as a tremendous advancement over current means. Contributors don’t need to write a check, fill out forms, or call someone. They just text a reply, and the giving cycle is complete. The time lapse from notification to contribution can be seconds rather than days, weeks or months. By the way, I just sent Noah (90999) another text message “ALIVE”. I got my acknowledgement within seconds and replied with “YES”. If all readers of this blog do the same as they read this sentence, we will have raised another $50,000 in no time. Let’s do it!
Upcoming events for Area 85 and beyond
This Toastmasters season has started strongly for Area 85. We did a good job getting our officers trained. And some clubs have already started to submit educational awards. Way to go!
In the month of September the clubs will conduct their individual speech contests. It will be my pleasure to come to as many events as possible. These are the next steps for the winners of the individual club contests:
Have a great Labor Day weekend!
Andreas
Cna yuo raed tihs?
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a geart mnid too. I cdnuolt blveiee, taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rereasch sudty at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! So, pelase firogve ym slpenlig erors!
