shelby7vdy: Ways of Making Money

The Education Tech Series is supported by Dell The Power To Do More, where you’ll find perspectives, trends and stories that inspire Dell to create technology solutions that work harder for its customers so they can do and achieve more.

Non-profit organizations and passionate individuals have found a slew of creative ways to leverage social media and the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet to make the world a better place. Online campaigns help provide clean drinking water, food and malaria-preventing bed nets to people who need them.

Creative uses of the web are helping to provide and enhance education. These four projects, for instance, found innovative ways to help build schools through digital campaigns.

1. Epic Change

Epic Change has become a model for raising money using social media. Since 2008, its annual TweetsGiving has asked people to tweet about what they’re thankful for while making a donation. The strategy was so successful that #tweetsgiving became a trending topic on Twitter during the first year’s campaign.

Starting out, the benefactor of TweetsGiving was a school in Tanzania that was founded by Mama Lucky Kamptoni, a passionate local woman who started the school using money she earned from her poultry business (now there are two more benefactors). Epic Change wanted to help her rebuild and expand the school.

The organization also launched To Mama With Love, a website where users can make a donation by creating a “heart space” for a mother they care about. The “heart space” is a collection of photos, videos and words dedicated to that mother. Other people who care about that mother are invited to donate in her honor.

From one of the classrooms that was built using donations from these campaigns, the students now tweet and connect with the rest of the world.

“So often, we hear the stories of children in the so-called ‘developing’ world from the perspective of the media, non-profits or friends who have traveled or volunteered,” explains the Epic Change Blog. “What happens now – when these students can share their own stories, and build relationships with the rest of the world, for themselves? How will the world be different when these children, who live so geographically far away, move into our virtual backyard? What difference will it make in their lives to know that their voices will be heard?”

2. Stillerstrong

When Ben Sitller launched the Stillerstrong campaign on YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube, Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter and a branded website, he did it with a video that poked fun at Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong campaign. It was hard to tell if he was kidding.

But the campaign, which sells Stillerstrong headbands and accepts donations by text message and credit card, has raised about $300,000 to help provide temporary schools for Haitians displaced by January’s earthquake. At the time the campaign was announced, the organization and its partners Causecast and the Global Philanthropy Group were expecting each school to cost between $45,000 and $55,000.

3. TwitChange

Instead of auctioning off celebrity memorabilia to support a charity, TwitChange hosts eBay auctions for celebrity Twitter interaction. The donation’s bidders put down to have a celebrity follow them, retweet their tweet, or mention them in an update. The proceeds go to aHomeInHaiti.org, which will use them to build a home and school for children with disabilities in Haiti.

The first auction in September raised $531,640.25. The website instructs us to “stay tuned for the celebrity tweet auction coming this holiday season.”

4. University of the People

Less of a “campaign” than a full-blown effort to democratize education, University of the People provides tuition-free higher education through an online campus.

Since launching last year, the university has accepted about 700 students from 100 different countries to its three- to four-year programs for business and computer science. Recently the university opened computer centers in Haiti so that students with limited Internet access could enroll in its courses.

“I do believe that if we take the millions of people around the world who could not afford going to university and teach them tuition free, we’re not only changing their lives, and their family’s lives, we also change their communities, their countries,” founder Shai Shai Reshef says. “And if we have a lot of them, we will change the world for a better world.”

Series Supported by Dell The Power To Do More/>

More Social Good Resources from Mashable:

- How Online Classrooms Are Helping Haiti Rebuild Its Education System/> - Why Social Media Is Reinventing Activism/> - 5 Creative Social Good Campaigns for the Holiday Season/> - 4 Real Challenges to Crowdsourcing for Social Good/> - 9 Creative Social Good Campaigns Worth Recognizing

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, urbancow

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Ho! Ho! Ho! And a Merry Christmas to you all!

It's that time of year again and I've been so busy making Xboxes and E-readers and blankets with arms in them that I sometimes forget there are others like me doing good works but who are in need of some help.

These other "Santas" operate on a shoestring and need money to do their kind deeds. Unfortunately they can't do what I do to cover the cost of my operations. (I rent out my North Pole facilities to Superman eleven months of the year for him to use as his Fortress of Solitude.)

So Mrs. Claus, the elves, the reindeer and I are asking if you could make a last minute donation to one of the six worthy organizations I've listed below. Or do it as a gift in someone else's name and make that their Christmas present (thus fewer chimneys for me to go down. I know, I know, stop with the burgers in a donut bun.) These Santas will then turn around and use your money to create gifts greater than anything I could ever make in my workshop.

Here they are:

** The Innocence Project. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans sit in prison tonight having been wrongly convicted of a crime. They are 100 percent innocent and the system has the DNA samples to prove it. The Innocence Project is an amazing group that provides free attorneys and researchers who devote their time to freeing these innocent men and women. It's no mistake that human rights groups place the United States on their list of countries who throw the innocent behind bars. No country on earth (including China, with four times the population of the United States) has more people in prison than America. Please give to the Innocence Project so that those who've committed no crime do not spend another night in jail -- and so I don't have to spend so much time on Christmas Eve going through security when I make deliveries to them.

** The Bradley Manning Defense Fund. If I witness a crime while making my rounds on Christmas Eve, and I report it, I'm considered a hero. (Sometimes there's reward money!) Private Bradley Manning of the United States Army allegedly came across video of his fellow soldiers gunning down and killing in cold blood two reporters from Reuters and a group of Iraqis who were civilians. He apparently decided to report this crime to the American people. For this, he has been arrested and thrown into the brig -- where he has sat in tortuous solitary confinement for seven months. He is also believed to be the source of thousands of documents obtained by WikiLeaks which show the disgusting and immoral behavior of your government and Pentagon as they've prosecuted two illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a true travesty taking place and it's being done in your name. Please contribute to his legal defense fund and please send him a holiday card at:

Bradley Manning

c/o Courage to Resist

484 Lake Park Ave #41

Oakland CA 94610

USA

(See BradleyManning.org for how to mail things to him directly.)

** WikiLeaks. What more needs to be said? Frankly, in retrospect I'm GLAD they leaked my 2009 Naughty & Nice list -- especially the parts about the U.S. government. I know that may hurt a bit for those of you who are Americans, but trust me, it's good for you in the long run. What I do foresee in the coming year, though, is a battle for who controls the internet -- and those in power are going to find ways to clamp down and not make it so easy for all of us to share with each other so freely. (Another good group to give to that is helping to keep the internet free is Save the Internet.) From the Iraq War video to the proof that you're backing a corrupt government in Afghanistan to the fabricated cables sent to the Bush State Department from Havana about Mike's movie, WikiLeaks has performed an invaluable service. As long as they don't dig into what my elves do in the 11 months they're on vacation, I'm solidly behind WikiLeaks.

** The Water Project. Over a billion people on this planet have no access to clean drinking water. Approximately 2 million children under age 5 are killed each year worldwide by a water-related disease. This is insane considering we have the technology and the people power to fix this in a very short time period -- if we wanted. The money from just one year of the Iraq War would pretty much take care of it. Sad, isn't it, how we're capable of so much more, of being so much better. The Water Project is a hands-on, boots on the ground organization that's digging wells and getting clean drinking water to the Third World. This is one delivery -- water for a billion people -- that just doesn't fit in my sleigh.

** Park 51 Islamic Community Center ("The Ground Zero Mosque"). Here's a tip: if there's anything that will get you a lump of coal in your stocking, it's hating people based on their race or religion. And I'm sorry to say, folks like that were out in full force this year. They even won themselves an election. Soon they will hold congressional hearings to out America's Kenyan-born Muslim president. (My team's already getting extra coal ready for Christmas 2011.)

Meanwhile in lower Manhattan, a group of people who happen to be Muslim want to build a community center. They asked the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan for help. They helped them. It was so nice it made me think I should branch out into Hanukkah and Ramadan. Then the haters showed up. But I believe Park 51 will win this fight. Please help them.

** Democracy Now. This great daily show presents the news we never get to hear on mainstream radio or TV -- especially at the North Pole, where for some reason the cable system only runs the Hallmark channel and Spike. Amy Goodman and Co. do an incredible job bringing the truth to the American public every morning. I listen to them and I support them. (And I support all efforts for non-profit, community-based radio stations. You can learn more about that movement at Radio for All.)

So give if you can. I know these are tight times for most people and you've got yourselves and your families to take care of. I hope this time of the year is going well for you and if not, then please know that there are many -- including me -- who care about you and yours. Working together, it will get better for everyone.

Finally... those of you who don't have chimneys, could you possibly leave the door open this year? I don't like it any more than you do when I have to break in through your bathroom window.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night,

Santa (c/o Michael Moore)

bench craft company scam

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Ways of Making Money