One of the reasons I like to follow @JohnHaydon on Twitter is that he always keeps me on my toes as far as maintaining pace with Facebook goes. Among other things he provides tips to non-profits how they can maximize the benefits of what Facebook offers. Now I could do what he does and read all the blogs and the trends to stay up on it, but I almost feel that he is my personal assistant. One thing he doesn’t do though is get me coffee in the morning. *Sigh* Still working on that.
Yesterday I came across the following tweet delivered by John:
How to create Facebook covers for your nonprofit (template included) aweber.com/t/IsLJ8
Now always being the last to upgrade my stuff, I hadn’t even adopted the new timeline in Facebook yet. But after having read his post, I felt I had better do it quick and also offer some covers of our own. The post discusses not only making covers for one’s own page, but offering a variety of them to fans so they can display them proudly and help us get our message out. This is a great way to promote our organization in a really fun way.
Not actual size. Get original from kidsareheroes.org/fbcovers
Now word has it that these covers are not supposed to be too “pushy” as far as selling anything goes or even asking for donations. And according to Facebook’s terms and conditions you cannot sell this space to anyone. I can understand the latter part but find it kind of odd that what you put on your ‘personal’ cover is anyone else’s business. However we are up to this challenge to create covers that are attractive yet as John says, “lightly branded”.
So we were off to the races yesterday. Our “so far” list of covers that are free for all to use is here on our website. If you know us well enough you will know that Michelle Maritz, an amazing artist from South Africa, has been helping us design posters and calendar pages. I took the graphic from her January calendar and made a cover out of it. I can’t wait till she and her daughter Margot send me some more original covers. Their works are so whimsical and wonderful.
Not actual size. Get original from kidsareheroes.org/fbcovers
So we would love it if you let us know what you think of our new covers. And if you use one of them let us know about it in the comments and we will “brag” about you on Facebook and Twitter. You can even vent about what you think of the new Timeline feature. Like everyone else I really get annoyed with Facebook when it consistently gives us sweeping changes like these. But this new Timeline feature is growing on me. I just hope they keep it around for more than a month.
Not actual size. Get original from kidsareheroes.org/fbcovers
For me at least, preparing for “our first rodeo” was quite stressful. After all, MaryMargaret and I had spoken in front of schools before but we had never experienced anything like this. As we practiced and practiced starting weeks beforehand, we always wondered how it would actually come off. I don’t think either of us dreamed it would come off as it did.
The Grand Ballroom at the Richmond Convention Center
Last Thursday we headed to Richmond for the #DSRPT11 conference as we were invited to speak to a group of 500 business entrepreneurs. The hash tag represents “disruptive thinking” as all the speakers and especially the headliner, Sir Richard Branson, have a reputation of thinking outside the box. As we arrived at the Richmond Convention Center we were a bit taken aback by the size and grandeur of the room. Two giant screens were hung adjacent to the stage and one other larger one above it. When we arrived our slides were on all screens which made it a bit surreal. This was really going to happen. Our speech coach told us that we should see the venue beforehand, learn every aspect of our entrance and get the feel for the whole thing so we knew what to expect. I can’t tell you how important this was to us. We both got miked up and went through the entire presentation to an empty audience. This was critical for us to get through the next day.
We delivered our speech on Friday after lunch. MaryMargaret showed no sign of nerves throughout the entire day until she realized we were on next. “Now I’m nervous!” she said. But she never showed it. I on the other hand had very little sleep the night before and was almost hyperventilating that morning. It wasn’t so much because of nervousness about speaking in front of people, it was more about the fact that the material was so important to me and I wanted to deliver it the right way. I really didn’t want to mess it up. But when I arrived at the venue I saw how relaxed everyone was and interested in the content of the other speakers. This made me realize that we were really in the right place at the right time.
So then it was our turn. I still had a bit of the jitters but MaryMargaret was flawless. I didn’t really realize that until I watched it back later. We had a bit of a gaffe in the middle which turned out to be funny. I’m not sure if people thought we scripted that or not. I think the biggest surprise we received was the crowd’s reactions. Both the speech and the video we presented sparked several rounds of applause during, and MaryMargaret got a rousing standing ovation at the end. I also heard later that a few tears were shed, including some by my wife who was working the Flip video camera. The results of her efforts are seen below.
So after having completed the speech it was time to finally breathe out and enjoy the rest of the day. Many of you know that I credit Sir Richard Branson when I talk about the genesis of Kids Are Heroes. MaryMargaret is the flame but Sir Richard was at least a big part of the spark. We watched his presentation which included a fascinating look at the upcoming adventures of Virgin Galactic, which is the company he formed to take “ordinary” people into space. Thanks to the WONDERFUL folks at Richmond Unite, the company that hosted this entire event, we did get the opportunity to meet him, not once but twice. We did a “meet and greet” that night and were also invited to a brunch with him the next morning. I finally got to give him the acknowledgment I’ve always wanted to about how his words helped us start the organization. Talk about a surreal experience.
Hero Ethan from VA on left, Sir Richard and MaryMargaret
So I really must thank the folks from Richmond Unite for offering this opportunity to us, as we hope it acts as the launching pad for similar future events. I must also mention again our speech coach Mike Boyd, who helped us gain the confidence we needed and also improved our delivery tenfold.
In the three years we have been involved with Kids Are Heroes, both MaryMargaret and I have been asked to speak at relatively small venues from time to time. Now both of us have been asked to speak at a large one. Richmond Unite is a non-profit out of Richmond, Virginia whose sole purpose for existing is to raise money for other deserving charities. As it turns out, one of their board members is a friend of Sir Richard Branson, a business mogul and someone that we have mentioned several times in our past. Besides being one of the catalysts for the genesis of Kids Are Heroes, we also were one of the winners of his PitchTV contest in 2009. So in order to assist with a big event Richmond Unite was planning, they invited Sir Richard to be the headliner for the event. Now when when our Twitter friend Fiona (@BetterEdit) got wind of this, (knowing our connection to Branson) she asked us if we were coming to Richmond. This was the first I had heard of it. After looking at the event and realizing the fundraiser was for local children’s charities, I thought this was a perfect opportunity for us to be there. Luckily for us, the organizers of the event felt the same way so they asked us to speak at the conference.
Now although I had spoken in front of an audience of 5000 way back in 1993, it has been a long time and I must say I am not a professional speaker (yet). However if there is a chance it will advance our mission then we are “all in” to do it. Plus it will be a great opportunity for MaryMargaret. Thinking back to 1993 I remember giving up a family reunion at Easter time to practice for the speech. I don’t regret it because it did come off rather smoothly. So I knew that we were both in line for a LOT of practice. But that wasn’t enough. After all we’re included in a list of established and esteemed speakers such as Mark Victor Hansen, one of the creators of the “Chicken Soup” series. I thought our interests would be best served if we had some help — some coaching from someone I really respected.
I had met Mike Boyd at a local toastmaster’s meeting. He is the president of the local chapter. I just happened to run into him again as he was coaching a young girl who taught a public speaking class to youngsters. This was the guy I needed to talk to. Even though we met only briefly twice, when it comes to Kids Are Heroes I can’t be shy so I told him, “Mike, we need help and we can’t afford to pay you. Feel free to tell me to go climb a tree but I have to at least ask.” Well I was amazed at his response. He quickly started thinking of ways he could help. He teaches at a local community college so the first thing he did was offer his class as a venue for a dry run. We did two in fact. He even gave out evaluation sheets and had the students evaluate us after the presentation. They gave us unbiased constructive criticism. We discussed the strong and weak points. After each set of evaluations we tweaked our presentation accordingly. To top that, this past weekend Mike invited us to a venue where we could practice our speech and get his critical comments one on one. There were extremely valuable to us. He even suggested we film ourselves so we could see for ourselves how we were doing. That turned out to be a key suggestion because when I watched myself back on tape I realized my part of it was rather bland. I had to take things up a notch.
Mike even offered us a third class we could speak to as our final “test”. I cannot say enough how much all of this has helped us and how lucky we are to have received his help and expertise. I would highly recommend Mike as a speech coach to anyone who would need it. Please see his schedule at the bottom of this post for upcoming “Communicator” classes he is offering to middle and high schoolers. MaryMargaret is indeed enrolled in the class starting next week.
The event is the #DSRPT11 Conference on Friday, September 9, 2011 at the Grand Ballroom of the Richmond Convention Center. If you are local to Richmond I hope you can come and say hello after our presentation. But go easy on us. After all, this IS our first rodeo.
Mike Boyd Center for Empowered Communication Session I begins 9/13/11 from 3:30-5pm
Session II begins 9/28/11 from 3:30-5pm
Sessions to be held at
Mt St Mary’s University Annex
5350 Spectrum Dr
Frederick MD
Call Mike at 301.524.0240
I don’t think that a day goes by without me thinking of this day. Whether it be the ones we have enjoyed (this will be our 4th), or the ones we plan for. Last year’s event was amazing. I knew it would be a tall order to top it so I got to work on it MUCH earlier in the year this time. It was important to have it sponsored as we had to shoulder that responsibility in the past ourselves. We struggle in the current economy just like everyone else so that was no longer possible. Thanks to our Kids Are Heroes Day Giving Wall, and the kind companies and folks who have purchased bricks on it, we will be able to hold a reception for the kids this year. That’s what we have been working on and now we can also say we are taking that a step further. I’m proud to announce that for the first time we will be able to sponsor one hero and his/her guardian to come to the event this October. Why that makes me feel so good is because I am always hearing from families who would LOVE to come and be with other like minded children but cannot due to the cost of travel and accommodations. At this point we can commit to inviting one hero and guardian from the USA to be here with us. We are hoping for more donations, individual and corporate, to allow us to sponsor more. Our heroes who wish to be subsidized will write an essay and we will choose the best one(s) based on need and desire to be here.
Last year we enjoyed 23 heroes from all over the world, who ranged in age from 4-16 years old. And when I say all over the world I mean ALL over the world. Diana Onyonyi traveled 16 hours by plane, all the way from Nairobi, Kenya to be with her diminutive colleagues. This year Alaina Podmorow is scheduled to attend and she hails from British Columbia, Canada. As I mentioned 23 heroes were in attendance last year. We expect many more than that this year since our total number of heroes is 224 as of this writing. And since we now represent six countries, who knows how far they will travel? At the event, each one is invited to share their efforts with all who approach them. They are given opportunities to speak on stage and/or entertain in some way. One of the highlights of the day is the recognition ceremony where all heroes get a “thank-you” certificate from the mall. And of course they always get a real kick out of the reception, because that’s when they get to interact with each other the most and make new friends.
So what did we come up with for this year? Thanks to a chance conversation with Osjah’s mom, we will be having our first “Cupcake Wars” event at Kids Are Heroes Day this year. We have moved the awards ceremony to 3PM and from 1-3, three local bakeries will square off to try and serve the best cupcakes in Frederick. This will also act as a fundraiser for Kids Are Heroes, with hopes to propel us into 2012 with a somewhat healthy fiscal standing. But by definition we do things to support our kids. To that end we also plan to host “Charity Wars” in tandem with the Cupcake Wars. Each vote for a cupcake consists of a vote for a bakery. That vote can also be used to vote for a charity that is supported by our children. Each child in attendance represents a charity that they are working on behalf of. At the end of the competition we will donate %25 of the cash proceeds during the event to one of these charities, as long as it is US based and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. (We’re not snobs, we just have rules and regulations as to what we’re allowed to do.) All votes for all charities will end up in a barrel which the winner will be drawn from.
Our Support
Laken Weaver, who is quite an accomplished young local singer, will be singing our national anthem to start the day. If we can convince her to she will also sing the anthems of other countries represented at our event. Her dad Conrad will be running the live video stream throughout parts of the day. The Oakdale Owls will be back for the third year in a row. This time they will be performing the Kids Are Heroes Theme Song! Our consummate DJ, Wes Morgan from Gettysburg, PA, will be at the helm again with his AMAZING setup. We are excited to welcome the Musicians of Mercy, as they plan to bring a sizable orchestra to play for us. “We will bring however many will fit on the stage!”, says Robin Fay Massie, executive director of the organization. We are SO lucky to have Michelle Lindsay take the first photographer’s shift from 10-1PM. Our good friend and also excellent photog Amanda Rodriguez will have the afternoon shift. Sisters Bake Shop and Angel Cakes LLC two of the finest bakeries in Frederick, will square off for the Cupcake Wars.
Event Details
Kids Are Heroes Day 2011 will be held at the center court of the Francis Scott Key Mall in Frederick, Maryland, from 10AM-4PM on Saturday, October 29th, 2011. Tables for each hero will be set up around the fountain for the kids to spread awareness about what they are doing, and to inspire children of passersby to become involved. People can start buying tickets for the Cupcake Wars at 12PM, and can begin voting (and eating) them at 1PM. The Musicians of Mercy will be on at 2PM. The recognition ceremony for all the children will be held at 3PM.
There will be activities throughout the day, as our kids will have prepared to speak and entertain. Check back to this post from time to time as we will be updating it frequently as plans develop. We hope to see you there!!
I am quite surprised at myself for taking so long to write about this subject, as I have been grappling with it since Kids Are Heroes was conceived. Publicity is a good thing, right? That’s what I keep telling myself. Boy if we could just get on Oprah or Ellen or whatever show then so many more people would know about us and we would be able to affect so many more lives. We would get so many more donations we wouldn’t need to ask for money any more. As I hear myself talk I still believe that to some extent. To be honest I get flustered with the whole process. In the beginning we had two PR people work with us. One had us “very close” to being on the Today show and the other told me that our message wasn’t clear enough. Needless to say the Today show didn’t work out and although other people have told me that our message is clear, that statement has stuck with me and I do believe that at least now it is crystal clear.
Don’t get me wrong, if you look at our press box you will see we have indeed seen a lot of chatter about us in the past 3 years, and we are very grateful for it. What has eluded us for the most part is national and even regional attention.
Recently I was contacted by a producer at ABC. She found us via Google (Yay Google!) and wanted 10-12 year-olds who give back for a town-hall type TV show hosted by Diane Sawyer. The show was to honor Nelson Mandela. She wanted kids who were making a difference on a global scale. Finally we had something that matched us perfectly. We have been turned down for grants because we don’t focus exclusively on our local community. The catch was these kids had to be close to New York City. I offered to pay our way to NYC as I felt MaryMargaret would have been a great candidate. (For those of you who are unaware, MaryMargaret is the founder of Kids Are Heroes.) I sent them other great kids too, some older than 12. The odd thing was that this producer came back to me saying they only wanted the older kids and were not interested in MaryMargaret. I have to admit I was disappointed but happy at least to be offering that opportunity to the older kids. I heard a few weeks later that the producer had told them the higher-ups had changed their minds again and wanted 10-12 year-olds, yet she never came back to me. One thing I’ve learned is that if you are in the publicity game, you must have a thick skin. What it boils down to for those who can give it to you, is nothing more than ratings and money. They look at what we are offering as a commodity, not something that can potentially change the world. The quicker we can come to terms with that, the better off we will be.
And then there is the voting phenomenon. After MaryMargaret won the Discovery Girls Role Model contest (thanks to many of you) I swore I’d never go through that again. It was humiliating to ask for votes and now there are so many contests out there that it is becoming more obnoxious than anything else. So what did I do? I entered her in the Energizer Bunny Hall of Fame contest. Now in my own defense, as I understood it they would pick the top 100, (which did include MaryMargaret) then they would choose the top 10. The winner would be selected from the top 10 via a voting process. However, those in the top 10 would win $1000 for their favorite charity. So on merit alone, MaryMargaret could win the donation which we sorely need. Now comes the rub: The Bunny decided that they would open up the voting so that the “fan favorite” could be one of the top 10 and the other nine would be selected by their committee. So I got sucked in again asking for votes. Thanks to you (again) MaryMargaret did well with well over 250 votes, but sadly it wasn’t enough. I even stopped asking for votes when it became clear that some of these others had many more Facebook fans than we did. So we move on. And who knows, we will know on April 4th if she was chosen to be in the top ten.
And let’s not forget our “Celebrity Roundup” session we completed a few months ago. We sent personal letters to no less than 153 people I deemed as celebrities that I respected and could have given us a big boost if they promoted us. We only received a handful back that could not be found at that address so I know I hit my mark in most circumstances. A few people were very polite, (i.e. the assistants of Carlos Santana, Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, etc.) and turned us down in a personal and respectful way. For the most part, however, we received no response at all. I am not necessarily blaming them, I guess it was more of a learning process for us to see if that would be an effective tool. Apparently it wasn’t.
Sometimes I say to myself that I should just keep our nose to the grindstone and do what we do every day — promote what these kids are doing via social media and let the publicity come naturally. This is honestly what I would prefer to do but sometimes admittedly I get sidetracked. Do you remember the old cartoons of a dog who tiptoes as he sniffs a cloud of smoke, his nose fluttering, and follows it to a ham or a turkey? That’s sort of what happens to me when the “smell” of publicity gets near me. I cannot control myself.
So why am I hounding publicity? Do I want to be famous? Do I want MaryMargaret to be famous? I will state undeniably and unequivocally: No and NO! As a matter of fact the second to last thing I want is for me to be famous and the absolute last thing I want is for MaryMargaret to be famous. Although I have no interest in her, Fame can be a very seductive lady, yet she is also extremely destructive. She can chew you up and spit you out, tied in a knot just like a cherry stem. I value my privacy and the thought of not being able to be left alone while in public absolutely turns my stomach. So Fame is not my thing. What we look for on an every day basis is elevated awareness for Kids Are Heroes. That is why we work so hard in social media. We just want other people to know about what these kids are doing. We want to share the incredible feelings we have when we listen to them and witness when they get together. We want to share with others the wondrous results that we get when these kids get involved in giving back. It plainly and simply enriches their lives and turns them into leaders. That is what we’re all about.
Some of you may have seen the tweet recently about our new Kids Are Heroes theme song. This was written and produced by one of our talented ambassadors, Chip Richter. One of the reasons he created it is because we have a local production company that is trying to develop a documentary series about us. As a matter of fact, the pitch reel should be ready any day now. The idea is that the producers will go to Halogen TV, Nickelodeon and others to see if they are interested in a series that highlights our children. I do hope it works as I can guarantee one thing it will deliver: inspiration. Stay tuned for developments on this.
So in the end have I sworn off those voting contests? In my mind I loathe them, but I never say never.
A few weeks ago I learned about JustCoz.org, which allows people to sign up and permit non-profits to tweet once a day through their Twitter stream. I was a bit reluctant at first to sign up because I saw it as something that can easily be misused and our reputation is so important to us, that I didn’t want people to get the wrong impression. (How it works is explained here.) After using it I quickly realized how much it can help us, so have been asking (admittedly sometimes too much) for people to join our “Twitter Team.” In approximately three weeks we have just over 200 people signed up to this service. (To see what we’re talking about, visit http://justcoz.org/KidsAreHeroes).
So far it has been going quite well. A few people didn’t fully realize what they had signed up for and couldn’t understand how I could be tweeting through their stream. Again, to make sure this is a pleasant experience for everyone, I quickly told them how they could opt out of it (which I will repeat a bit later in this post.) When you work so hard in social media as I do, it becomes almost intoxicating to have such instant gratification when you can tweet through so many people’s stream simultaneously. There was one comment about someone being annoyed because the same tweet was coming out of a someone’s Twitter stream once a day. Although the complaints were extremely few and far between, their point was taken. If 20 people join then imagine how much more of an impact 40 would make. Once you hit 200 supporters then 400 looks amazing. For us this is the perfect application because getting the word out to as many people as possible is paramount to us. We are reaching thousands in our Twitter stream, but ultimately we plan on reaching millions as we truly believe what we are doing can have a worldwide impact. So of course the tweet I am going to send is to ask more people to join our JustCoz campaign.
However, the point about the same tweet going by is a valid one. My initial plan was to get as many supporters lined up before we start marketing our huge event in May (blog post to come on that one). But this is social media, and our mission is to support our kids, so I have decided to change the tweets up a bit to support our heroes and other related things. The timing of the first one was perfect, for several reasons. If you know us well enough, you know that for a year and a half we have been trying to help Austin get his wish. It just so happens that the Extreme Home Makeover people are looking for a family in his area right now. So here is the tweet that went out this morning:
“Please help 11 y/o @CalistaCares fulfill her brother Austin’s Wish. http://bit.ly/245A7p #DT @KidsAreHeroes” (For the record, the #DT @KidsAreHeroes” is appended to every tweet I send out of JustCoz. I have no control over that.)
Even though I tweeted it out on a Sunday, it got quite a bit of notice. I would like to iterate what John of @mcleansports wrote in the Comments section:
“I will foward this story to a few people i know here in NY and see if we can get the ball rolling for him. Also, Will send to News stations as well. I am sure someone will see it and touch them enough to keep things going and word of mouth is the best way to get his story out. With this i am sure that word will get to them and this Dream will happen. If it is fixing current house or Building a new One. Together we will make this happen. I will start with Three Talk shows and see if One of these will be moved enough to start the process. God bless you Austin and Don’t Worry Dude this will happen for you.”
So of course this made me feel good — a lot better than getting a few more supporters. Since the EMHO campaign goes on through the end of March I plan on doing it again, maybe on a Thursday or Friday morning where Twitter traffic is pretty heavy.
But this taught me that I should mix it up a bit so as to respect all the people who have given us the privilege of using their Twitter stream once a day. So if you sign up, this is what I promise:
What I Will Tweet
I will tweet posts like the one I wrote for Austin. I will also send links to our heroes’ profiles on our site and/or blog posts where I interview or feature them. I still will occasionally ask for more JustCoz supporters. I will also sometimes point the links to our donor walls, as this serves two purposes. 1) It rewards and encourages the supporters who have already purchased a “brick” on our walls and 2) it should indeed help with our fund raising efforts. This is the least obnoxious, most efficient and even fun way I know to ask for donations. On a rare occasion I might send out our Facebook page, although I get turned off when people on Twitter always want to “connect on Facebook.”
Starting in the next few weeks, I will also occasionally send out notifications about our huge Tweetup hosted by @DabneyPorte and her company Social Marketing Concepts. They are hosting this event in the greater Baltimore area in May and all the proceeds go to Kids Are Heroes.
And from March 17-25 I will send out tweets asking for votes for our founder MaryMargaret, who is a semi-finalist for The “Energizer Bunny Hall of Fame” contest, where if she wins she will receive a scholarship and a sizable donation for Kids Are Heroes.
What I Won’t Tweet
I will not attach bogus hashtags with my tweets just to get more visibility. That would be spamming through your Twitter stream and I’m not the type who would bite the hand that feeds it. Everything will be G rated and hopefully inspiring to your followers as well.
So if you’d like to sign up, here you go. We’d love it if you did. Visit http://justcoz.org/kidsareheroes and click the “Donate a Tweet” button. Each day I do it, JustCoz will send out the tweet I write for everyone. And as a thank you gift, we will grant you one free promotional brick on our JustCoz Wall just for the asking. To opt out, visit the same link, log in with Twitter, and click the “Stop Supporting” link at the top, or you can simply Revoke your JustCoz Twitter connection at any time. Either way I want this to be a positive experience for all. If there ever is any issue, send me a mention @KidsAreHeroes and I will address it as quickly as I can. And again, thanks so much to everyone who is supporting us!!
These days I find myself referencing more and more things that most people haven’t heard of. I guess that’s part of the price you pay to get older.
Anyway, when I was a child (in the 3rd grade) growing up in the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec, I would come home for lunch each day to enjoy some quality time with my mom. I’ll never forgot the wonder of getting a new TV that was actually in color. It seemed as if the whole room even smelled differently. We would watch Hollywood Squares followed by Jeopardy and then I was back off to school.
I have very fond memories of those times. Not sure why a third grader would like those shows, but I sure did. Now enter the reason why I’m mentioning it. We recently launched our Donor Walls, where anyone can buy a square for a small donation and get publicly thanked in return with a link back to their website. It is a fun way for folks to get involved with KAH and get promoted to more than 30,000 Twitter followers and Facebook fans for a very small donation. The Hollywood Squares show would have a “secret square” where if you chose it and got the answer right you would win extra prizes.
We decided we would incorporate the same thing. Behind one of the squares in our Foundation Wall is a secret square where, if you have purchased it, you will win special prizes. Once all the squares are filled we will film MaryMargaret drawing a square out of a hat and whoever has purchased that square will be the winner. Since we have some time before all that happens, we are also soliciting for donations to add to the list of prizes. Maggie, one of our heroes, has generously donated one of her bracelets (worth $25) to the cause. We will also add KAH wristbands, a piggy bank and a T-shirt. This will be great PR for whoever donates goods to the square as well as for folks buying squares on our wall. We are going to keep a running list of items on this blog post which will mean that this post will be featured prominently and many times over.
So think of something that can be easily shipped to anyone, anywhere and is something truly of value. And we thank those who have generously purchased a square. Let us know if someone found you through our wall. Contact us here if you would like to donate something.
That sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? What I’m referring to is a new discovery in the realm of fund raising. I’ve openly admitted this has been the biggest challenge Kids Are Heroes has faced to date. My palms start to sweat when I think about asking for money. I’m simply not good at it. Period.
So when I saw this new idea (at least new to me) I said to myself, “I have to get that for our site!”. I stumbled across something I thought was called the Support Wall. Since I heard about that someone else told me about the new Promo Wall. The basic idea is that people buy squares on the wall for a relatively little amount of money. They can be in denominations of $25, $10 or even $5. What makes it interesting is that for that little amount they get to purchase real estate on that wall that can be used to promote their business or non-profit. The square can be hyperlinked to their web site, Twitter or Facebook account, or wherever they want it to go. They can even have a message that pops up when the mouse hovers over the image. So I couldn’t wait to sign up. The problem was that these sites weren’t going to be ready for a month or so. I loved the idea so much I built our own on the Kids Are Heroes site. We call it our Foundation Wall. People can buy three different kinds of “bricks”. 100x100px spaces are $25, 50×50 are $10 and 25×25 are just $5. Check it out in all of its glory here.
Why I feel so strongly about why this would be beneficial to us is because we are giving true value for their tiny investments. Between Facebook and Twitter we can invite more than 30,000 people to go to this page as often as we want to. We have our own traffic to send to it. It’s actually fun to see who is up on the wall and why they bought a square. We often think that $5 is so little so why won’t people donate it? The reason is because it’s too much trouble and normally you get nothing in return. Everyone’s asking for just a small donation. But If I can give $5 for a plug and a link back to my site while helping a charity on a page that will get lots of traffic, why wouldn’t I do that?
So I am encouraged by our first square purchased right away and a promise of another. (As this was being written another $25. square was also gobbled up.) It remains to be seen how successful it will be, but on paper it should be amazing. It encourages people to buy early as if they do they will be on the wall for a longer period of time. Our wall has a capacity of raising $2500 for us and when it gets filled we simply start another. There is virtually no cost to us yet the squares offer real value to our donors.
So, in the indomitable words of Peter Marshall, pick a square!!
Update 3/03/11: Well the Foundation Wall got off to a GREAT start. We sold 5 big squares last night and the reviews were very positive. This gave me another idea. Why not build a second wall for corporations? The bricks would be a bit more expensive but they would be up longer as this wall won’t get populated as fast. And at $100 for the most expensive square it’s still very reasonable. So the corporate wall is up and we have already sold 2 $100 squares!! Looks like we might be on to something…
Please help MaryMargaret, the Founder of Kids Are Heroes.
A Twitter colleague, @DabneyPorte, sent me a link just yesterday. It is a new (at least to me) website strictly for non-profits. It’s called JustCoz and it is a “tweet donating” service. The address is justcoz.org. The concept is that non-profits register themselves and then ask their Twitter followers to donate one tweet per day. Once the charity supporters have granted permission through the site, the non-profit can broadcast through JustCoz and the tweet will go directly into every supporter’s Twitter stream. This can happen at most once every 24 hours.
Here’s how it works. You pick a charity, let’s say for example Kids Are Heroes. You simply go to our page at justcoz.org/kidsareheroes and click on the button that says “Donate a Tweet a day“. It will validate you through your Twitter profile and you are done. You can opt out at any time, but if you support us we would be extremely grateful. To further explain, if you sign up for this, JustCoz will send one tweet created by me in your Twitter stream once a day. I cannot do this more than once every 24 hours. To opt out, go to http://justcoz.org/kidsareheroes and click on Stop Supporting, or Revoke Access to JustCoz altogether in your Twitter connections. I want to be clear on this as a few people didn’t understand exactly what was going on once they signed up for it. This should clarify things.
As it turned out I had seen this floating around Twitter before it was suggested to me, but as usual I am a late adopter and I never “get” things when they first come out. That’s why I’m glad I have Dabney at my side. As of this writing we already have more than a dozen supporters (we just signed up last night) and with our big event coming up in May this will help us create a great buzz about it.
So if you are on Twitter we would humbly ask that you donate a tweet so the smile can be restored on MaryMargaret, the founder of Kids Are Heroes as pictured above. As a matter of fact, you can see in the Comments below that she hates this picture and would rather have a different one posted. I told her I would do that when we reach 1000 people donating a tweet a day. (Update: We are now over 200 but we still have a ways to go!) The rest is up to you!
UPDATE 03/16/11: To thank everyone who has joined this effort, we offer a free square on our JustCoz Donor Wall. If you have signed up to donate a tweet a day, visit this link to get your square. Thanks!!
In celebration of the fact that our new radio show was quickly promoted to a full hour, we are going to start something new. We would like to involve our Facebook fans in the shaping of the show. Each week we will select the top two best questions as submitted on our Facebook page. These questions will be answered by MaryMargaret on the show. The questions can be related to Kids Are Heroes or not. So if you think you have a good question that would really add to the show, post it up on our Facebook page. Questions posted here in the comments, via email or Twitter will not be considered.
The Kids Are Heroes radio show airs weekly on WBTN AM in Bennington, Vermont from 8AM-9AMEST. It does have a Listen Live feature so that virtually everyone can listen to it as it airs. The two guests for our 1/22 broadcast are heroes Daniel Dietz and Shannon McNamara. Hope you all can have coffee with us as we offer some truly inspiring conversations. Here is the link to listen to the show.
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