Goals for 2012

Posted by Gabe on January 5, 2012 under Kids are Heroes | Be the First to Comment

Many people set New Year’s resolutions. I’ve never been a big fan of them. I just try and improve things on a daily basis no matter what time of year it is. But as an old boss once told me, “If you don’t set goals then you have no idea how you are doing.” Even though that particular boss turned out to be a certifiable lunatic, that statement resonated with me. But sometimes it’s hard. What if your goals are too high and you are setting yourself up to fail? Setting them too low would be a wasted effort. In the end I decided that setting them would be fun and we’ll see how we did at the end of 2012.

15o Kids

As of this writing Kids Are Heroes features 265 children from 9 countries. We featured approximately 100 kids in 2011. Taking that up a notch seems reasonable as our profile becomes a little higher.

6 More Countries

Currently we have kids from the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Kenya, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago. Two of the countries were added recently. I think 6 new countries is a reasonable target.

3 Radio Interviews per Month

Our first one of 2012 is with Denise Brown this coming Saturday that will be aired at a later date. (And yes, this is a hint to all of you radioheads reading this.)

5 Hosted Events

So far Kids Are Heroes has had at most two events in a year. However there are three on the horizon for 2012 and why not shoot for two in addition to that?

$15,000 Raised

In 2011 we raised approximately $8000 that paid our bills and hosted a great reception for Kids Are Heroes Day, among other things. It also helped us to build up a bit of a reserve which is something we have never enjoyed before. But if we want to establish programs to fund our youth initiatives, sponsor heroes to Kids Are Heroes Day 2012 and fund a mobile website we’ll need more. We are realizing new initiatives that will gain donors outside of our social media influence which is also new for us.

5 National/International Mentions/Features

In 2011 MaryMargaret was featured in two international magazines: Discovery Girls (10th Anniversary Issue) and Girl’s Life (Dec/Jan issue). Although there are no current irons in that fire I see no reason why we shouldn’t achieve this goal.

3 Major Speeches

In September of 2011 were invited to Richmond to speak in front of 500 entrepreneur types. We hope to be invited back this year and also plan on expanding our outreach as much as we can.

25 More Relationships

In the past we have enjoyed great strategic relationships with folks who have helped us raise our profiles. We have also helped them as best as we could. This strategy may be the most important one for us to achieve our global recognition. I so look forward to meeting and working with these new people, whoever they are.

So what is the meaning of all this goal-setting? Our everyday goal is to “tell the next family about Kids Are Heroes®”. We do not sell it to anyone. Either people understand it and think it’s a great idea or they don’t. But the ones that do take advantage of what we offer end up with kids who prosper from it immensely. If we weren’t making any impact what would be the point? Having seen the impact we have made with so few resources, I expect to go on to much bigger and better things in 2012.