I received this email this afternoon from one of our heroes, Dylan Mahalingam. Here is his profile on  our web site.  If you read it, and I really hope you do, you will discover more evidence of how Dylan, at just 14 years old, is changing the world.  I know he has the resoources to do what he suggests, he just needs funding.  And all he is asking for is your vote, not for any amount of money from you.  If this touches you as it did me, please send the link on to your friends and family. Thank you!

• We are looking for friends and family who are willing to vote for us once per day.
• We want to know if you are able or willing to do this, and if you are, please email us back with a YES.
• We will send you an email reminder every day.
  
• Voting will take place on https://www.at15.com/contests_scholarships/community_impact. Vote for Listen Up!
  
• Voters must register as members of at15.com and therefore, must be over the age of 13. You go to the link above to register. Registration is simple.
  Please remember to leave the box for “I would like to receive e-mail updates” unchecked if you don’t want to receive any e-mails from them.
  Your password will be e-mailed to you.
  You can click on the link in the e-mail and reset your password.
  You only need to register once; after this, you can simply go to:
  https://www.at15.com/contests_scholarships/community_impact to cast your vote. You can vote once per day and voting started on March 15th.
• You can vote once per e-mail address, every day.
• If you have a Twitter account, please tweet about this daily.
  
• The voting and tweeting will take less than 1 min each day.
  
• The contest allows you to vote for 2 different projects each day to encourage people to vote for people they don’t know, based solely on their projects (a good twist!)
• I truly believe that the project we are putting out there will create something phenomenal to engage children worldwide, and that is why we are comfortable asking you to do this.

Once you log in you get two votes.  Please vote for the Climate Action Club as your second vote as effort was created by another KAH hero, Chloe Maxmin.

You may know that recently we have partnered with Levar Fisher, an ex-NFL star who travels around the country motivating youth and speaking about Kids Are Heroes.  I was introduced to Levar by Mary Kurek, who works in Levar’s behalf by helping him to connect with people like me.  I watched how she works and that is how I learned to really connect with people.  Connecting means more to me now than just #followfriday mentions on Twitter.  Thanks to Mary I learned that it’s about taking action.  It’s about seeking out people who might complement you and you them.  It’s about picking up the phone and really connecting.  From those conversations both parties can then take action and actually do something to further each other’s causes. I have been on the phone for the first time with people I met on Twitter more times in the last three weeks than I have in the year I have been involved in social media.  I believe that this works just as well with businesses as it does non-profits.  I had a long phone conversation with Tom Tuohy of Dreams for Kids yesterday and the word that came up often was ‘collaboration’. I am so looking forward to seeing what unravels from that connection.  This week I also connected with Blake Raab of Bears on Patrol.  One would think that non-profits would keep their cards close to the vest and not share anything, because we are all competing for donations that are out there.  That’s the old way of thinking.  It just so happens that I love Blake’s mission and I really want him to be successful.  That is why I am trying to come up with ways that our kids can support what he does.  I have learned that a great leader is one who makes people who work with him (or her) successful.  This is what I aspire to be and hopefully something that I am working toward every day.

So take action and leave a comment. I might just arrange a phone call. :)

When I went into this day I thought it would be a lot of fun.  I knew the kids would think hard and be real careful when they picked out their bears. I must admit I underestimated the parents though, in a big way.  I figured all of them were in it just for the Disney tickets and therefore would pay for their quota of bears and be done with it.  Boy was I wrong.  These folks did hold fund raisers at school, pleaded with their families and neighbors and sought out funding wherever they could. People who had to buy just one bear stuffed eight of them! I was so moved by this.  The kids were so excited to build so many bears. One boy built a bear with a camouflage jacket and named him ‘Sarge’.  Another stuffed a dog and called him ‘Fetch’.  As they moved through the assembly line they got to choose different colored beads as the makeup of the stuffed animal. Blue represented bravery, orange honesty, pink happiness, etc.  The kids had such a good time mixing these emotions together.  But there was nothing more moving than the letters that were written.

Part of the project was to draw pictures and write letters to the kids who would benefit from the bears.  These are either hospitalized children or ones in an orphanage in Uganda.  We asked the kids to think hard about what to write to them as the letters would accompany the bears.  I happened to read one of them written by Alivia who is just five years old. It reads:

“This bear is brave and will protect you when you are scared. It will give you hugs and play with you.  Take it on your adventures so you can have a friend. – From Alivia”

This sentiment pretty much summed up the day.  MaryMargaret brought her friend Emma to help in the craft room and they both had a wonderful time.  As many as 40 bears were built by twelve families — and this was just the dry run.  We are shooting for at least 300 people for our next event scheduled for April 10th. I can’t wait.

MaryMargaret & Emma build a bear for the orphans in Uganda.

To participate in the April 10th event, click here and choose the zip code 17325.

This concept is in its infancy, so I reserve the right to change it as much as I need to.  As a matter of fact, I expect it to change when I get more input from others, meaning those who sign up for it, and hopefully that’s you.  The basic idea is to have Kids Are Heroes “ambassadors” who will offer any kind of expertise and help that they can and are willing to do.  For example, if you have a large user base and want to get the word out to them by tweeting, email, suggesting our fan page to your friends on Facebook, or all of the above, or whatever other method then that is what you will do.  If you are a PR person then you can help us develop press kits and sponsorship packages.  If you are a business coach then you can offer us your services.  We need people to help fund raise. Whatever you are good at and/or want to do for us is what you will do.  What we will offer in return is a listing on our Ambassadors web page that will have your name, Twitter ID, link, company, etc. and you will also list what you are doing to help Kids Are Heroes grow.  I will of course be promoting this program to all of our followers by tweeting about this page, so you would reap the rewards there.  You can network with each other knowing you all have in common the desire to promote what kids are capable of.  You will get a badge like the one below to put on your web site.  Unfortunately I have no monetary rewards to give and that is one of the reasons why I seek out true fans of what we do.  Another reason is that if you share our passion then it will show in the things you do for us.

I am both excited and proud to announce that we already have our first ambassador on board.  Her name is Jeanne (@TheRubyBooks) and we connected today over the phone. She has something very like minded going on over on her web site: http://realizewhatmatters.org/.  She is also inspiring kids to give back through her literary efforts.  Ruby, the star of her book series, will be starting Kids Are Heroes related discussions in some of the  upcoming chapters.  We are really looking forward to that.

So I am very thrilled to get this started.  I do not have the web page created yet, that is what I will do after I get a few of you ambassadors on board.  I do have a more detailed web page for ambassadors and what to expect which you can see here.  So if you are interested, please email me directly and we can get started.  Make no mistake about it — you will be part of something world changing. I look forward to working with you.

I am very interested in your work for the salvation of horses. How did you discover the atrocities that are being leveled against them?

I knew about soring from my work with horses in the area. I have also seen horses being sold for slaughter at auctions. One of our family rules is that as we kids tour more we have to choose a cause so I looked for an organization that needed help raising awareness and the International Fund for Horses seemed like the best fit for me.

Without being too graphic, can you describe what is going on?

It’s hard not to describe it so it is not gross. Wild horses are being rounded up and slaughtered for meat. Pregnant mares are tortured for years to collect their urine in a certain way to make medicine.  Show horses are sometimes tortured to make better shows.  Every day we read news stories of people that put horses out to pasture to watch them starve rather then finding them a good home.

How many wild horses are in the US?

There are less then 25,000.

Why are horses so important to you?

Horses are important to me because, out of all the animals I have, they are the most sensitive to people.  I have always liked horses since I was a little girl.  Through history horses are the one animal that helped up build our country but now are to often neglected and abused.  They are amazing animals.  They are strong and so beautiful and if you care for them they can be so much fun.

Besides donating to the International Fund for Horses, how can people help?

Awareness is the biggest thing. It is expensive to try to do what the folks at the International Fund for Horses are doing, but money is not always most important. I have links on my website people can use on their websites to help create awareness, they can assist in horse rescues, and horse owners could even help themselves just by considering how important it is to have disaster plans for there own horses!

What do you want to accomplish with the horses and what do you think you can accomplish?

 
I tour a lot around the country and I get to speak to thousands of people every year. As a member of Chasing4Life, I am building a good following and I hope I can motivate all of my friends to help me keep the International Fund for Horses going. Of course, I intend to keep rescuing horses personally as long as I have room to keep them.

I know you tour the country speaking about disaster preparedness.  Do you speak about the horses too?  What kind of feedback do you get from kids? From adults?

 
This spring will be my first horse-focused tour in the last two years as I have toured with Chasing4Life.  I have been well received by grade school kids and older adults. I expect (and hope) that it will be the same.

 
Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

 
I would hope to still be involved with the International Fund for Horses perhaps as a board member. I am looking into school for Pre-Veterinary Medicine at the Nebraska College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.

Do you have anything you would like to add?

 
The International Fund for Horses has accomplished so much already and thankfully there are no slaughter houses left in the United States but there is so much to do. I have raised a little money so far and I think that my efforts have raised quite a bit more awareness too.  Just today while doing a photo shoot for IFH ads, I came across a neglected horse with no one to care for it and am bringing it to our farm.  Making a difference can be done one horse at a time.

We are so lucky to have kids like Alannah. She truly gives us hope.  I must say that before I met her I had absolutely no idea this was going on. My personal feeling is to live and let live and to each his own, but transgressions against animals are always sickening to me.  I just cannot understand how people can lose their heart for the sake of their personal monetary gain.

So please visit the International Fund for Horses and check out their web site. (Twitter: @Fund4Horses) In their “Issues” section you will see exactly what we are dealing with. Be forewarned though, some of their images are very graphic and indeed disturbing.  In the “Horse on the Hill” section you can see how they are attempting to affect change.  There are lots of ways you can help.  I just spoke with Vivian Grant, the president and founder of this organization.  She is a very learned and determined woman who is working tirelessly for these horses. She loves the fact that Alannah is in her camp.  Her biggest need are volunteers.  The good news is that most of her volunteers (currently 80+) work out of their homes and set their own hours.  She has volunteers all over the globe helping her.  If this is something you think you might want to be involved with, you can really make a difference.  Contact Vivian directly by email, or go right to the volunteer section of her web site and sign up.  The phone numbers for the Int’l Fund for Horses are 917.675.3453 (NY) and 713.893.7813 (Houston).  If this is not your cup of tea but you still want to help neglected horses, she can even help you find a local horse rescue in your area, no matter where you live.

Please take it upon yourself to spread the word as much as you possibly can for them and for the horses.

Check out Alannah’s profile on the Kids Are Heroes web site. For more information, visit Alannah’s web site at http://www.alannahraven.com.  

Ask me directly. By direct message or otherwise. 
This simply doesn’t work with me, unless we have a long standing relationship.  I know what you tweet is important to you, and you think that if I retweet it everything will be solved, but that’s simply not the case.  You must understand that I get A LOT of these requests and if I obliged everyone no one would understand what my own platform is.

Retweet me.
Some think that if they retweet me to their 150 followers I should be obliged to retweet them back.  I don’t care if you have a million followers, I don’t work that way either.  The retweet is not a bartering tool.  If you retweet me please do it because you liked what I wrote and not for any other reason. I will do the same for you.

Say “Please RT”.
Now many social media gurus will tell you that this is the best way to get retweeted, to add ‘Please RT’ or something similar to your tweet.  I must admit I do use it myself sometimes.  And I also admit I will do it if I know the person and I also know that they are genuine.  But if you do it all the time I for one will stop reading your tweets.  I retweet things that touch me in one way or another.  It could be funny, silly or really meaningful and powerful.  There is no way to know how a tweet will affect people.  I am constantly surprised at which of my tweets get retweeted.  Sometimes I think, ” Ok let this one go and watch the fireworks!” and all I hear are cricket sounds.  Then I see another tweet has been RTed several times.

Now for “How to Get Me to Retweet You”:

Write something meaningful that touches me in some way.  That is the huge secret to getting retweeted by me or by anyone.  This morning I happened to see a tweet sent out by of all people the Cookie Monster (who I am not even following). I had to retweet it: “Me got hungry while typing and ate me computer mouse. Taste like chicken.”  Now that made me laugh.  Sometimes I retweet responses to my tweets if it makes more sense to do so. I retweet @HeiferPortland a lot because he tweets about kids supporting his organization. I stopped retweeting Amber Alerts because I later discovered that some of them were fake.

I also have to be able to see it to retweet it.  I follow quite a few people and obviously can’t keep up with everything.  So does that mean you should @reply to people so they will see the tweet when you want it retweeted?  No – absolutely not.  As a matter of fact that may cause an unfollow from me.  I am in the same boat here.  I see celebrities who have hundreds of thousands of followers and think “Boy, if they tweeted my ID just imagine how many more people would find out about Kids Are Heroes!”  They usually aren’t following me so how do I get them to notice me? I can @reply to them.  However, if I do that, that is making me look worse than if I did nothing at all.  So what do I do?  How do I get people to retweet me?

Converse with me.  I try and write meaningful tweets and interact with people.  Just like anything else, the way you get people to notice your tweets is to converse with them in a genuine manner.  You can’t focus on being retweeted or it just won’t happen. Focus on the connections you have and the retweets will come.

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!

Now at first I thought I would listen, be polite and just say ‘no’ to this request as we have so many things on our plate already. But after hearing more about it I felt it made the utmost sense for Kids Are Heroes to host at least one of these events. After all, despite the “reward” at the end, it still promotes volunteering and giving among family members.

So we mustered up the idea of inviting participants to a large store near us where families could “build” stuffed animals and donate them to sick and/or disadvantaged children.  We are calling it a “Boyd’s Bear Drive”, where families come out to Boyd’s Bear Country in Gettysburg, PA, get someone (a family member or friend) to donate a bear to them so they can build it for someone else.  We imagined the children methodically choosing just the right animal with just the right clothing to please a sick or needy child somewhere.  What’s nice about the Boyd’s Bears facility is that it is HUGE and can accommodate quite a few people at the same time.  Besides stuffing bears, the volunteers will write letters and draw pictures to include with the bear so that the recipients will get a better sense of who donated the bears to them.  The target locations for these bears are Children’s Medical Center in Washington DC, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, and the Nyaka school for orphans in Uganda.

It is of paramount importance to us that this goes smoothly for everyone so we are doing a ‘test run’ as it were on Saturday, March 6th from 12PM-2PM where we will max out at 50 people.  Our main event will then be on Saturday, April 10 where we hope to host as many as 400 people!  WOW!! That’s a lot of Disney tickets! UPDATE 3/8/10: Read my blog post on the first event.

UPDATE: As of 3/9/10 Disney has indeed reached its quota of 1 million vouchers.  There will be no more opportunities for free tickets provided by Disney.  If you would like to participate without getting a Disney ticket, please contact us directly.

In 2002 while just entering the NFL Levar founded a non-profit organization called “Fisher of Men”, which provide resources and opportunities for youth inspiring good decision-making and boosting self confidence. Levar is currently embarking on his brand new ”Believe Again 2010″ tour that will have him traveling the country speaking to kids of all ages.  In addition to his usual message he will be telling stories of the kids on the Kids Are Heroes web site and what they have accomplished.  This fits right in with his confidence building speech.  He will be telling kids all over the country that they too can affect change by emulating the children on our site.  I am so excited about this relationship as this is the kind of boost we need.  But I wouldn’t enter in an arrangement like this just because someone wanted me to.  For me the final test before we sealed this partnership was that Levar had to sincerely believe in what we are doing.  During one of our conversations as he was recounting some of the heroes’ stories back to me I could tell he was full of excitement and anticipation.  I sat back and listened as all of a sudden paused and said, “This can change the world!”  That’s when I knew this partnership would work.

When I first watched a tape of Levar speaking, I immediately sought out our local Toastmasters club as he made me realize how much improvement I need to gain as an accomplished speaker.  For forty minutes he was fluid and eloquent, with no need for notes of any kind.  And when I heard the speech he gave to a large group of kids I was even more excited. He engaged them and they hung on his every word.  They laughed and giggled at his jokes.  He is intelligent, funny and very pleasant to listen to.  He was able to keep their undying attention for the entire time.

If you are an educator I would highly suggest calling Levar and having him speak at your school or kids’ group.  He can be reached through his web site.  I look forward to witnessing the fruit that is borne from this relationship, and I just can’t wait to see what happens next!

I have mentioned many times that my main goal in my use of social media is the promotion of the Kids Are Heroes concept and its web site.  On a daily basis, the more people that discover it, the more people get behind it, the better chance we have of becoming a global organization one day.  And I humbly believe this strategy is working, as I hope to be making a major announcement real soon.

Some people are intimidated by big numbers. They won’t follow people once they have crossed a certain threshold.  I can understand that sentiment to a point.  Many celebrities do not follow back very many people.  This isn’t a conversation, so I am not interested.  I really love it when someone wants to put on airs that they are a celebrity by using this practice.  But if you think that people will no longer connect once they surpass a certain number think again.  Each week I meet new people. The occurrences of me speaking to them on the phone are becoming more frequent. Some are “newbies” and some I have been conversing with for a long time.  I see and pay attention to every reply I get.  I respond to almost all of them.  The only replies I do not respond to are ones that do not warrant them or ones that have “worn out their welcome” in terms of the nature of the request.

Follow other people. Simply stated, this is the most effective way to get people to find out about us.  Many are sent an email that notifies them of the new follow, and that’s when they check us out.  If they like what they see, they follow back.  So I bet you are saying, “Great! I’ll just use a follow program to automate this and sit back and watch my followers grow!”  I have never used, nor will I ever use an auto-follow program.  First off, some of them are nefarious to say the least.  Secondly, some of them take over your twitter stream advertising themselves. Once I see this, I instantly unfollow that person as do other people.  Even if you gain followers this way, they are empty, non-qualified followers that probably won’t listen to you and will do you more harm than good. 

So, what makes me follow one person and not follow another? Here’s my list:

1) Fill out your profile. I can’t stress how important this is.  If you do not do this it appears like you don’t care or are hiding something.  The more information you put in your profile, the more people can use to break the ice with you.  Use a good picture that can be enlarged so we can see the real you. I discourage the use of an animated gif file, or something else that is designed to attract my attention, like putting your picture upside down.  I don’t follow people who do this. If you are promoting a business with your Twitter ID that’s okay, but at least use a full name as part of the profile so we know what to call you.

2) Engage with others. If I see an entire page where all you do is either send out a quote or repeat a news story, then I’m going to assume you don’t want to talk to people. I want to see those ‘@’ signs.

3) Don’t spam.  This should go without saying, but unfortunately there are many spammers on Twitter. Most people block them. Some people however just don’t know any better.  They do believe in their product and want to tell the world about it.  Get to know us first, then we will ask you about what you do.

4) Be very careful about asking for retweets. I get asked to retweet stuff all the time.  People think that just because my numbers are larger than theirs it will really further their cause if I tweet about it.  They don’t understand how many requests I get and how my twitterstream would be nothing more than a compilation of other people’s tweets if I gave in. If in the tweet you say (Pls RT) that’s one thing, but sending me a direct message asking to tweet about something is totally different.  Depending on if and how well we have connected it can cause an unfollow, even a block.

5) Be active. My typical rule of thumb is that if a person hasn’t tweeted in more than three days I will not follow them.  That may sound drastic, but the more often people are on Twitter the better chance I have of connecting with them.

6) Connect with people any way you can. I often follow people after a retweet or an @reply.  Why does this work? Because when people I am not familiar with do one or the other I look them up.  They are usually following me.  I see their profile and stream, etc. and they look like a good person to connect with.  The fact is I simply missed them when they followed me.

7) Comment on my blog.  This is similar to #6.  Your twitter stream might have indicated to me that you do not connect with people, but you have just proven that you do.

8) Don’t protect your tweets.  I used to think that people who protect their tweets had a tendency to be more genuine.  I have not found that to be true, (or false for that matter).  They have their reasons for doing so, which whatever they are I respect, but I typically won’t follow them because I can’t see what they tweet about and how they interact with people. I usually just move on.  And if you think you can connect with others that are not following you by sending them an @reply, think again. I had this question posed to me as a comment on one of my blog posts.  I showed how the person you send the tweet to will not see it if they are not following you.

9) Don’t use profanity.  No matter how long I have followed you, or how we have connected, I will unfollow anyone who uses profanity.   This has always been my stance. I believe it’s not professional and I am also trying to protect my 11-year-old nosy daughter who is always in my office.

10) Don’t be negative. Recently I had a customer service issue with a printing company.  I think good customer service is one of the key ingredients to being a respected company and when it goes bad it for some reason sets me off.  I couldn’t control myself, I had to tweet about it.  However, the tweets were not in vain as the company saw them, sent them to the right person, and the situation was rectified and I will now continue to use them.  But I still don’t recommend ranting on Twitter.  It’s the same as being at a party.  People don’t gravitate toward others who are always spouting negativity.

So how do I find people to follow?  I use wefollow.com to find categories (parenting, education, philanthropy, etc.) I am interested in which people have aligned themselves to.  (NOTE: Use this service with caution. I just saw a tweet that warned me about a nasty practice that they are using that can be avoided.)  I pick out followers I really connect with and see who they follow.  If you respect them that means they have done due diligence and are concerned about who they follow, so it’s almost as if they have done the work for you.  I use a great tool called TweepSearch to search the profiles of people for keywords. And as I mentioned I follow people who connect with me in some meaningful way.

Now keep in mind that this is hard work.  It can sometimes be tedious going through profile after profile and sifting through the bad ones.  But the more it pays off the more I do it.

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Let us know what strategies you use.