The Future of Kids Are Heroes

Posted by Gabe on February 15, 2010 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media | Read the First Comment

During the moment the Kids Are Heroes concept was conceived, it was difficult to imagine where we would be today.  Receiving promotion by Sir Richard Branson, partnering with a former NFL star and holding events sponsored by Disney was definitely not on my radar screen at the time.   But somewhere along the way, we must have a vision for the future.  Well we certainly do have that vision.  Due to the acceptance, even embrace of this concept on a grand scale, I fully expect for Kids Are Heroes to be a globally recognized entity in ten years from now if not sooner.  Kids Are Heroes back packs will be for sale in Walmart and other stores, kids will wear our T-shirts and millions of children all over the world will learn about philanthropy at an early age.  During one of the many discussions I had with Levar Fisher, the aforementioned NFL star who is now out speaking about us, I could sense the excitement in his voice.  He was so pumped up that his words were tripping over each other which is totally unlike him as a gifted public speaker.  Then he stopped and said, “This can change the world!”  At that point I let out a wry smile knowing that he sees exactly what I see.

We plan to have resources available for schools in every language that wants us, we plan to establish clubs in neighborhoods, to offer scholarships to kids that deserve it and much more.  We plan to offer a mentoring program, help kids establish their own non-profits, provide web site and social media assistance, and even seed the ideas dreamed up by our heroes.  Now all that sounds well and good but how are we going to get there?  I mean it’s great to have a dream but we must be able to work toward that direction.  And that is just what we are doing.  If we had Sir Richard Branson’s pockets we could get there a lot faster.  As it turns out we don’t.  We need to somehow be able to fund these dreams.  I fully admit that fund raising is not one of my best known skills. As a matter of fact, I’m downright terrible at it.  But having flaws will never get in our way because our passion for this organization and what it can accomplish will always trump our imperfections.  Once we discovered the potential of social media we have been working each and every day to tap into it.  It has brought us our PitchTV win, our partnership with Levar, and many of the heroes we feature.  I honestly look forward to Mondays as I am eager to see what each new week will bring.

But is social media the only answer?  Will it bring us everything?  I certainly cannot count on it.  I realize that we are so fortunate to have started our organization when we did, because without the proliferation of social media we would be progressing much more like the tortoise as opposed to the hare.  In the beginning we actually scoured community newpapers around the country to find heroes for our site. Now mentions of them are a regular occurrence in our Twitter stream.  I realize that we will need financial backing and help from others to get to where we want to be.  So we are starting to reach out to companies that are a good match for us.  And of course we will never ignore our social media efforts.  That’s why we continue to reach out — it’s because we know that there are many of you out there who support what we are doing and would love to see us reach our goals.  Your acknowledgments are a partial source of food for our passion. So if any of you have any other ideas on how we can get to where we want to be, I’m all ears. And if you would just like to chip in, here’s where you can do it. Thanks always for your help!