Contribee

Days 14, 15, and 16: One intense day: Massive Tragedy, 6.0 Earthquake, and a Fire

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 08:45:49 +0000

To start we are saddened and frustrated by the tragedy in Newtown, CT. Our heart goes to all of the friends and family of the victims and, most of all, the children.

Friday Morning: I was woken up by my girlfriend Lindsey’s phone getting an unusually early sequence of text messages and phones calls starting around 7am. First a text from her dad asking is she was okay and if she had felt the 6.4 earthquake off the coast of San Diego. We didn’t feel it and due the events of the day didn’t hear a word about it in the news. Next a missed call from Matt, Lindsey’s roommate, at about 7:30. Matt said there was a fire at their house. We got up and went to Lindsey’s. This is what we found:

Luckily, nobody was hurt and both bedrooms were only damaged by smoke.

The Red Cross was at the house shortly after we arrived. They offered a number of services: food, drinks, finding a place to stay, information about what to do after a fire, trauma resources, and even a debit card to help out with food and clothing restoration. The past three days have been dedicated to moving everything out of the apartment and cleaning smoke damaged goods.

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Day 13: San Diego Blood Bank

Joshua — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 03:54:05 +0000

If there is one thing that I have lots of– thats blood! I went down to the good old San Diego Blood Bank and donated 500ml. Need I say more? It is really easy, just give SDBB a call 1-800-4MY-SDBB (1-800-469-7322) or go online to schedule an appointment.

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Day 12: Toys for Tots

Joshua — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 06:33:23 +0000

I have had lots of ideas for raising money for kids from donating money to charities to standing on a busy intersection in a bearsuit with a sign telling people to give toys! I figured that I would start small and work my way up to costumes and dancing. On the 12th I decided to implement and start a small fundraiser for Toys for Tots with my friends and family. To start, I am committing to give $1 to Toys for Tots for each new “Like” on Facebook.com/Contribee. On my own I can’t commit a lot of money to Toys for Tots. So, I will start with a cap of ~~$200~~, which increases with each person who commits to give.

Update: Current Cap $400

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Day 10 and 11: Legal Assistants for Game Developers

Joshua — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:48:55 +0000

The guys over at New Media Rights (NMR) have been educating people about legal issues for the past few years. NMR has a large series of videos on YouTube called Legal Assistants for Game Developers, or LAGD. The series consists of layman’s advice for people who are developing games. NMR is starting a new website that is dedicated to game developers. The site will have lots of legal advice, interviews, and resources. I am working with NMR to set up informational architecture and develop the site.

On day 10: I started to develop the Legal Assistants for Game Developers (LAGD) site and setup the content management system. I’m excited to help out New Media Rights. The more I learn about their company, the more I love what they are doing for their community. On day 11: I met with NMR to workout the details and talk about how we can set up the most efficient information architecture. They have more than 100 videos online and lots of resources, which need to be organized in a way that a website visitor can easily understand.

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Day 9: Cause an Uproar! Part of “Big Cats Initiative”

Joshua — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:30:30 +0000

Growing up I was always a fan of big cats. What little boy didn’t think that lions and tigers were cool? Until recently, I didn’t understand the depth of the problems these felines face. Many large cats face extinction from the wild. There are only 3,200 tigers left in the world. Human population growth has pushed into the animals’ natural habitat. We have destroyed the jungles that the cats live in for farm land and lumber, hunted them to death, and depleted their natural food sources.

From lions in Kenya to snow leopards in the Himalaya, the big cats of the world need help. Lions, tigers,cheetahs, leopards, jaguars, and other top felines are quickly disappearing, all victims of habitat loss and degradation as well as conflicts with humans. – National Geographic

Cause an Uproar is part of the “Big Cat’s Initiative,”

To address this critical situation, the National Geographic Society and Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert, have launched the Big Cats Initiative, a comprehensive program that supports on-the-ground conservation projects, education, and economic incentive efforts and a global public-awareness campaign.

After hearing about the conservation efforts from a friend and on NPR, I decided that I should help out in some way. Knowing that every dollar counts, I contributed what I could to Big Cat’s Initiative. I am now sharing the word so that you can contribute too! Cause an Uproar Page

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Day 8: St. Vincent’s de Paul Christmas Decoration and Holiday Joy

Joshua — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 09:23:21 +0000

For the past four months, I have had the great opportunity to work with members of MiresBall team, helping develop the new website for Bird’s Surf Shed.

“MiresBall develops the strategy, narrative, and visuals to help companies from innovative start-ups to established global leaders communicate with clarity and authenticity.” -MiresBall Facts

Besides working with me to build Bird’s brand, team members Scott Mires, Jonathan Forstot and Hilary Scurlock Cocalis of MiresBall met with me to contribute their thoughts on Contribee’s brand and strategy. Their high level brand insights led to the current spelling of Contribee (old version is Contriby) and changes to the companies mantra statement. I told Scott about “A Giving Experiment” and asked him if he knew of any causes to which I could contribute my time. Scott invited me to come with MiresBall and decorate the inside of the Joan Kroc Center at St. Vincent’s de Paul. The Joan Kroc Center, which is part of the Father Joe’s Village, is a place with transitional housing for families and women.

“Our mission is to help our neighbors in need break the cycle of homelessness and poverty by promoting self-sufficiency through an innovative continuum of services, multi-disciplinary programs and partnerships that come together in the spirit of our CREED to teach, learn from and challenge our neighbors and one another.” -About Page

At the center, we decorated the cafeteria with three amazing Christmas trees and we hung garland trim wrapped in Christmas lights around the interior walls and arches to boost the holiday spirit. For more information about getting involved with helping St. Vincent’s de Paul please visit their website @ www.SVDPV.org/

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Day 7: Kiva – Better than any bank! Micro-lending for Good.

Joshua — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:07:11 +0000

Did you know that it is easy for anyone to lend money to people in need from thousands of miles away? Kiva is a nonprofit organization that allows individuals lend money to people around the world. Using the the worldwide web and microfinance institutions, it helps connect people. Its end goal is to alleviate poverty by creating opportunities for people without access to safe, affordable capital. Kiva is effective: it has a 99% repayment rate and a lot of lenders. Also, it has a wide range of causes for which you can lend money. You can lend money to a farmer who needs money for new crop seeds or to a store owner who needs to stock up their merchandise. As I was searching through Kiva, I asked myself, “Who should I give to?” I knew that I wanted to lend money through Kiva, but I didn’t have any idea to whom or for what. The site has so many different people who are seeking money for a broad range of needs. I spent about an hour on the site and in the end I picked a farmer named Henry from Kenya. Henry was seeking “a loan of $625… to buy more fruit, vegetable and cabbage seedlings.” Within three days Henry was able to get the funds he needed lended to him!

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Day 6: Sevenly

Joshua — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 04:41:45 +0000

Today I have been swamped with work and didn’t have any planned charitable activities. Anticipating that I would not be able to be out in the world participating in random acts of kindness, I have a backlog of ways that I can contribute online.

In comes Sevenly. Sevenly is a bit of inspiration for me, they are a social commerce company (AKA for-profit. but for good). The tough thing about wanting to help the world is that not every idea qualifies to be a nonprofit (or tax code 501c). Sevenly is one of those companies that operates to benefit others, but pays taxes too. I could tell you what Sevenly does, but I bet you’d rather watch their short video:

This week’s Sevenly Campaign:

The Shirt I bought:

How my purchase helped:

$14 bucks went to Knots of Love who makes knit hats for children with cancer.

See Knots of Love + Sevenly video here:

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Day 5: New Media Rights

Joshua — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 18:22:12 +0000

Have you ever heard of a nonprofit lawyer? Not a lawyer that specializes in nonprofits or a lawyer that works at a nonprofit. A lawyer that actually works not for a profit. Ok, now say that three times fast. Or just say New Media Rights! New Media Rights (NMR) is a not for profit law group that specializes in, you guessed it, new media rights. Specifically New Media Rights, deals with internet law, entertainment law, video games, and anything you can think of that didn’t exist before 1999. The group runs its operation alongside California Western Law School. NMR is run by Art Neill and Shaun Spalding, who manage a slew of law school interns. What They Do The group is involved in all kinds of malarky: making sure that video pranksters don’t end up in jail, protecting small time video game developers from large corporate greed mongers, writing website terms of service and privacy policies for small businesses, helping online content developers, and taking a stand on online political policies like net neutrality. From NMR’s About Page

We offer free and reduced fee services including:

copyright, licensing, trademark, and other legal expertise to internet users

responding to unfair content takedowns, access limitations, and account terminations for internet users

advocacy and education to protect wireless internet users from new abuses in the industry, and track market problems with wireless content services, carriers, and other gatekeepers.

helping creators understand the legal reuse of content (fair use, parody, mash-ups, sampling, re-mixing, etc)

public interest advocacy before federal regulatory agencies (Copyrighti Office, FCCi, USPTO)

free studio equipment for citizen creators and nonprofits of all types

technological know-how and assistance

If you look up kick-ass + awesome + internet + lawyer you get New Media Rights.

Cool Stuff On top of all of the great legal work, NMR pumps out incredible content which is published on their blog and youtube channel. This isn’t your typical lawyer speak boring blog posts: blah, blah, blah, big word, some jargon, some other words I don’t know. NMR simplifies what they produce, so the people who are actually (not lawyers) reading and watching the content can understand it. This epiphany of a concept has been very fruitful for NMR’s online traffic.

How I Helped Hence, where I can in. NMR knows their legal side of things, and intuitively, they know a lot about how to market and leverage the internet. But online marketing is not their job, they are lawyers. We started by looking at an overview of NMR’s web analytics and talking about their overall goals. Soon we transitioned into how they can leverage what they are currently doing to develop more followers and charitable contributions. I was already impressed with NMR’s style, but I was double impressed with their forward thinking and understanding of growth opportunities. We literally were talking about analytics performance and within in twenty minutes brainstorming about marketing through a microsite. Wait!!!—————-Something Coool—————- NMR is running an Indigogo Campaign to help support all of their great services http://www.indiegogo.com/newmediarightsgames

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Day 4: GIVINGtrax

Joshua — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 08:52:42 +0000

Today I worked with Courtney Titus, CMO at GIVINGtrax. I met Courtney through the Startup Leadership Program, of which she is a current fellow and I am an alumni. She was looking for some high level support and an overview of what she should be doing with her web analytics. I cruised through the current analytics and made some suggestions she could use to accelerate marketing efforts (I am an analytics junky). Overall the company is kicking butt! GIVINGtrax is a software suite for all things charity, they have tools for businesses, nonprofits, and individuals. Here is the tag line:

“EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO MANAGE YOUR PHILANTHROPY. DONATIONS. CAUSE MARKETING. VOLUNTEERISM.”

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