More than just a time to renew body and spirit, vacations can also be opportunities to learn something new or try out different careers, as we've noted before. For guests at Ritz-Carlton hotels worldwide, they can now also be a time to give back to the local community.
Last month Ritz-Carlton launched its Give Back Getaways program, which gives guests the opportunity to volunteer their time to improve and assist the local community in which they are vacationing. At The Ritz-Carlton in Cancun, for example, guests can join a biologist from the Cancun Department of Ecology for hands-on experience protecting mother sea turtles during nesting and helping them return safely to the sea. Through a program employees have already been participating in for more than a decade, guests will head out at night to search for nesting turtles, gather sea turtle eggs and bring them to a safer location. Visitors to Berlin, meanwhile, can roll up their sleeves and accompany hotel staff as they launch a spring clean-up of the SONNENHOF facilities for children with serious illnesses. Additional Give Back Getaways include cooking and serving meals at the North Texas Food Bank; restoring homes in the ancient water town of Wuzhen, China; planting native Cyprus trees in the dwindling wetland forests of the Florida Everglades; and building homes with Habitat for Humanity in Jakarta and New Orleans. Costs vary between roughly USD 50 and USD 150 per adult participant.
Simon F. Cooper, Ritz-Carlton's president and chief operating officer, explains: “We have come to recognize the interest many of our guests have in becoming more involved in the region where they are spending their vacation. Many of them are active volunteers in worthwhile activities at home, and want to continue this spirit of giving when they visit other parts of the world. We believe Give Back Getaways is a unique way for our hotels to partner with guests to provide an experience both memorable and personally enriching.”
Experience, of course, is what it's all about, as the hotel goes beyond furnishing a purely functional place to stay to give guests a lasting, potentially transforming experience they'll remember forever. Long live the experience economy—and the companies that make it happen!
Website: www.givebackgetaways.com
Contact: www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Contact/InfoRequest.htm
Spotted by: RK
Longtime Springwise readers may remember Kiva, the venture we wrote about back in 2006 that facilitates charitable microloans to entrepreneurs in the developing world. Now the organization has found a way to make loans go even further through a partnership with credit card issuer Advanta.
Earlier this month Advanta and Kiva announced the KivaB4B Project, an initiative through which Advanta will match the loans made by holders of its business credit card with up to USD 200 per month per card. Card holders simply select a business owner to sponsor through Kiva and make a grant using their Advanta BusinessCard. Advanta matches that grant, dollar for dollar, and Kiva distributes the total resulting funds. As the funds are repaid, they get deposited back into the card holder's Kiva account, while the match funds go back to Advanta. In the meantime, donors get materials to publicize their support, such as a KivaB4B button to put on their website, stickers for their storefront and postcards to send to customers.
Started in 1951 with USD 30 in seed money, Advanta is now one of the largest credit card issuers in the US small business market. Ami Kassar, Advanta’s Chief Innovation Officer, explains: “In our years of working with small business owners, we’ve found that many of them remember the moment someone gave them inspiration, some good advice, or a little cash to get things going. Now, through KivaB4B, American small business owners can offer that same ray of hope to entrepreneurs in developing countries.”
San Francisco-based Kiva has already opened a whole new world of opportunity to entrepreneurs in developing countries—it's facilitated more than USD 27 million in loans since its inception in 2005. With the power of a major bank behind it—and a little cause-related marketing incentive for donors—there's no telling how far its effects might go.
Website: www.kivab4b.org
Contact: aholderer@advanta.com
Spotted by: Susanna Haynie
In Denmark, as in many other countries, consumers pay a refundable deposit on bottles. When they return them through a retailer's collection machine, it prints out a slip of paper that states how much they'll receive at the cash register. Generally, these aren't large amounts, but they're enough to get people to return their containers.
One of Denmark 's largest consumer goods retailers has now added a charitable twist to the process, adding a button that lets customers instantly donate their bottle money to charity instead of collecting it for themselves. A partnership between Coop Denmark, UNICEF Denmark and DanChurchAid, the 'push to donate' system was launched in September 2007 in 14 of Coop's Kvickly xtra stores. In the first three months, customers donated over DKK 120,000 (USD 25,750), proving that tiny donations add up to significant amounts. This year, Coop will be adding the option to 1,200 bottle collection machines in its other supermarket chains.
If you want to entice consumers to be charitable, make it easy for them. One for other retailers to be inspired by? (Related: Reverse vending.)
Website: www.coop.dk
Spotted by: Frida Berglund
Few things are more frustrating to those trying to effect social change than an effort that fails simply for lack of participation. The Point is a new activism site that avoids that problem by giving planners a way to organize fundraisers, rallies, boycotts and other events so that they occur only once enough people have promised to join in.
To do this, The Point takes the notion of the tipping point—that point at which group action will produce a clear result and inevitable change—and applies it to organizing group efforts. Those who join a campaign pledge to take specific action—to boycott a company, for example, or donate funds toward a cause—but no one actually acts until the campaign reaches its preset tipping point, or number of pledged participants. When that point is reached, however, the action is triggered and participants make their donations, attend the event or boycott the organization. The Point can also be used to organize anonymously until a campaign builds to a level that provides safety in numbers and allows people to reveal their identities comfortably.
Andrew Mason, The Point's founder and CEO, explains: “The Point is a new way of thinking about collective action. People need a way to know where their participation adds the most value. That’s what The Point offers—an environment where people are only asked to participate when their action can be combined with others to create a solution.”
There have been efforts in the past that used crowd clout and conditional participation—MyFootballClub, which we covered last year, comes to mind—but The Point takes a generalized approach and facilitates many different types of such efforts in one place. (Some, in fact, border on the frivolous, such as "John's Proposal" to a woman named Patty—which he'll make only if 999 people give their blessing.) Based in Chicago, The Point only just launched in late November, but in January it received USD 4.8 million from venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates; eventually, it plans to accept advertising as well. The site recently released an "Ultimatums" application on Facebook, and last month it was named a finalist in the SXSW Annual Web awards. Those in social activism will want to try the site out for their own organizing purposes. For all others, it's a model to emulate! (Related: Crowdfunding software development.)
Website: www.thepoint.com
Contact: info@thepoint.com
Spotted by: Bill McMahon
We've already written about the use of playground equipment as a means of pumping fresh water for African villages, and now a British student at Coventry University has come up with a way to use see-saws to generate power.
Daniel Sheridan, a student in consumer product design, won three separate awards amounting to GBP 5,500 earlier this year for his see-saw design, which can create enough electricity to power a classroom by capturing the energy generated when children play on it. It would take just five to 10 minutes of play on the see-saw to light a classroom for a few hours, BBC News reported, though the energy gets transferred to an electrical storage unit via underground cable, so it would be up to the school to decide how the power is used. Sheridan was inspired by a volunteer project he worked on in Kenya last summer that included building a school. "The current need for electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa is staggering," he explains. "Without power, development is extremely difficult. The potential market for this product is huge and the design could be of benefit to numerous communities in Africa and beyond."
Sheridan's plan includes recruiting the local community to build part of the device and also install it, thereby creating involvement and reducing logistical costs. Late last month he reportedly left for a village near Jinja, Uganda, to test and finalize the prototype using locally derived parts. Alternative energy entrepreneurs: what are you waiting for? This one's for you! ;-) (Related: Playing for water and Hippo water roller.)
Website: www.coventry.ac.uk/cu/d/199/a/6110
Contact: danielsheridan@yahoo.co.uk
Spotted by: RK
While you may never be too old to learn, when it comes to gadgets, you can never be too young to teach. A Dutch initiative is taking advantage of kids’ innate cell phone proficiency by training them as ‘phone coaches’ and getting them to transfer their skills to older users.
Bellendoejezo—which roughly translates to “this is how you make a call”—organizes cell phone workshops that cover topics such as using predictive text, creating contact groups, enabling Bluetooth and exploring mobile internet. Not all of the students’ students are equally advanced, though, so sometimes they’ll stick to the basics, like locking a phone’s keyboard, sending a text message and using voicemail.
A group of VMBO students (preparatory middle-level vocational education for students aged 12–16) was trained to work as phone coaches. The program’s goal is to improve their social skills and self-esteem, and give them access to corporate environments they might otherwise not be exposed to. Bellendoejezo is aimed at the corporate market, and charges up to EUR 50 per person for 60-minute workshops. Clients so far have included law firms, banks and an energy company. (Related: Teaching people to use their feature-rich phones.)
Seems like a relatively easy to launch (non-profit) project that benefits everyone involved. One to copy to other parts of the world? Students with an entrepreneurial bent, meanwhile—those that have already been charging their parents for computer and phone tutorials—will no doubt spot the business opportunity here and start up their own coaching services ;-)
Website: www.bellendoejezo.com
Contact: bellendoejezo@live.nl
Many organizations donate books of various kinds to developing countries, usually through a few collection centres and a small set of volunteers or employees. A new UK-based group, on the other hand, mobilizes teams of volunteer university students nationwide.
READ International (short for Realizing Education, Achieving Development) has established 11 student-led Book Projects throughout the UK to improve access to education across the world and increase youth participation in the global community. Originally launched in 2003 as "The Tanzania Book Project" by a group of university students, it had already sent 50,000 books and materials to Tanzania secondary schools by 2005. Beginning in 2006, however, the group registered officially as a national charity, won the support of five universities, and now works through a community of student-run READ Book Projects to collect disused, high-quality Key Stage 3 and GCSE textbooks from UK secondary schools.
Student volunteers also give presentations to promote student volunteering, young social enterprise, recycling and global citizenship, and are responsible for fund-raising towards READ Book Project costs through such means as cake sales, sponsored events and local corporate support. Ultimately, the student teams travel to Tanzania to distribute the books. The result: READ Book Projects have donated 148,000 textbooks to 140 Tanzanian secondary schools and five regional libraries. By the end of the 2007-8 academic year, READ aims to deliver 247,500 textbooks to Tanzania through its 11 university projects, which it plans to increase to 20 in the next year and to 27 by 2009-10, for a total of 1.3 million books kept out of UK landfills and put to good use instead.
The group's founders explain: "We have identified our core strength—our relationship with British students. The opportunity to run, rather than work for, a national organization is our success. We see them as leaders, not volunteers. Over the next three years, we will position READ International to capitalize on this unique offering." READ International was named the Best New Charity in the 2007 UK Charity Times Awards, and is planning sister projects in Ecuador, Ghana and Zambia. For anyone involved in projects for the social good, putting student energy and philanthropy to work makes great sense for everyone involved. A model to emulate!
Website: www.readinternational.org.uk
Contact: info@readinternational.org.uk
Spotted by: Shannon Hopkins
Donating money to charitable causes is all very well and good, but there's usually an abstractness about it that makes one wonder if the funds are really helping those who need it. A new project by California eco-urban design firm LJ Urban aims to make giving more concrete—quite literally—by matching its sales of homes domestically with funds to build homes in the impoverished African nation of Burkina Faso.
LJ Urban has designed a new eco-urban community of 35 LEED ND Certified homes in the urban core of Sacramento, its home town. The community is suggestively named Good, and for each home within it that gets sold, LJ Urban has committed to funding the complete training of a West African mason to build sustainable homes for families in Burkina Faso. By partnering with the Association La Voûte Nubienne (AVN), which has already trained about 60 local masons to build durable homes out of earth bricks and mortar, LJ Urban aims to go beyond just providing homes to impart enduring skills and jobs to the local community. Taking the notion a step further, LJ Urban has also opted to skip the expensive marketing campaign to promote its Good community, and to use that money to train more African masons instead. So, for every 100,000 people who visit LJ Urban's new, dedicated website by July 1st, the company will fund the complete training of another local Burkina Faso mason—up to 20 in all through this viral approach.
The Good project was inspired by Toms Shoes, a project that donates a pair of shoes for every one it sells. "[That] approach captivated us because it broke through the 'charity fatigue' all of us have felt at one time or another," LJ Urban's team explains. "The question then became: 'What if we could do something like that with our houses?'…" The project is also reminiscent of One Laptop Per Child's (OLPC's) "Give One Get One" campaign last year through which consumers could donate a laptop and get one for their own use at the same time. A model of giving to bring to your neck of the woods...?
Website: www.dosomegoodnow.com
Contact: dosomegoodnow@ljurban.com
