I made a single button today for a young woman (assuming she's young) she's embarking on a mission trip to Bolivia. I don't know the story behind the button or whether she knows this little boy? Hopefully she'll share her story when she returns.
This woman is on a mission and she has a story to tell...what's your story? what's your mission?
Who's on your button?
Quick when you see the color blue what cause, non profit do you think of?
How bout pink? yellow?
How bout green, red, brown, white (yes white)?
Looking for a low-cost remarkably effective way to establish your "cause brand" ....what are you waiting for - pick a color, any color.
Thought this was too cool....friend of Elizabeth Fallon got ian Woosnam "Woosie" to wear one of her "Road to Recovery" badges (buttons as there called in the USA). This taking a photo wearing a button on Facebook (check out Buttons of Hope on Facebook here - like us?) is quite the phenomenon - might be a good way for you to get the word out about your cause!
Vote here starting May 1 http://www.refresheverything.com/buttonsofhope
What's Pepsi up to? Changing the world.....one project at a time!
We get puzzled, overwhelmed, tired, frozen when we think about "changing the world" (forget all that REBOOT)...BECAUSE it doesn't mean we have to change the WHOLE world - even small changes can be remarkable. A kind word to a waitress can change her world, a new playground might change the world for 25 kids and I can assure you a surprise gift box and a friendly handwritten note can change the world for a soldier serving overseas!
Change is change whether it's small or big...and it's all BIG, really BIG!
So what's the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project all about? Simply Powerful. Pepsi took the money they would have spent (ten million plus) on Super Bowl Ads and put it work for good! Pepsi is providing grants $5K, 25K, 50K & even $250K for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas
that will have a positive impact. Change things!
I think the Huffington Post summed it up best...it works like this
"...in 2010 Pepsi brought this idea to life with the Pepsi Refresh Project. The site invites people, businesses, and nonprofits to submit ideas that will have a positive impact on the world; these ideas are eligible for grant money in one of four amounts -- $5k, $25k, $50k, and $250k -- within six categories: Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education.
The ideas are then voted upon by visitors to the site for one month. At the end of that month, finalists are selected to receive grant money -- up to $1.3 million each month. But more than just providing money, Pepsi helps connect grant recipients with others who are passionate about the same cause and want to offer their support. These connections are made through some of the non-profits aligned with the project, such as GOOD and GlobalGiving...(read more here)
YOU can help - in fact it's ALL up to you! Each month Pepsi presents 1000 new projects on the Pepsi Refresh website - the grants are awarded based solely on the your VOTES! No committees, no bureaucracy just YOU voting for the project(s) that touch you heart - the projects that you think will make a difference! (and you can vote for up to 10 each day in May)
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If you'd like to help us refresh fundraising then please vote* for us in the Pepsi Refresh $250K grant competition May 1 though May 31 - click on the pink button or this link http://www.refresheverything.com/buttonsofhope
*feeling inspired? yes you can vote 31 times - once each day for Buttons of Hope! THANK YOU....
New York, Boston, Rochester, Seattle, San Francisco, Sydney....yawn yet another global effort to honor and support a friend/colleague by wearing photo buttons. WAIT did you say Sydney?? as in Australia? ...no my friends this effort by Text 100 to honor their friend Lisa was much, much more ~ for heaven's sake she's dating Twilight's Rob Pattinson....duh!
Kidding aside I think what Lisa's friends at Text 100 pulled off is one of the coolest Behind the Button stories ever epitomizing the promise of these powerful little buttons! Support a friend ~ promote a cause ~ create some SMILES ~ change "a" world ~ all with a little bit of plastic, paper and metal!
I'll let Alicia tell you in her words what all this means to her and hundreds of Lisa's coworkers (around the globe)!
When we learned of the Free to Breathe National Walk, without hesitation, current and former colleagues and friends from across the globe signed up and organized walks to show our love and support for Lisa and rally behind the noble cause so that someday no one will have to go through what Lisa is now enduring.
"Our beloved colleague and friend, Lisa, was diagnosed in August with stage four lung cancer. All of us who know her have endured the initial shock of seeing someone so healthy and full of life stricken by this awful disease. Since then, she has both inspired us with her courage and filled our thoughts daily as we strive to fill a void left by having such a positive and vibrant person temporarily taken away from us as she fights the battle of her life (key word here being "temporarily" because there is NO doubt that Lisa is going to beat this.)
Walks were organized in New York City, Boston, Rochester, NY, Seattle, San Francisco, and even Sydney, Australia in honor of Lisa. All in all, we raised over $14,000.
What provided the comic relief we all needed, were the buttons you created for us. While we may have outed her secret crush of Tween heartthrob, Rob Pattinson, it was totally worth it for the collective smiles it brought to everyone’s faces, including Lisa herself. We learned of your company through the Free to Breathe website. Once we read of your work with charities and non-profits including the portion of the proceeds you donate to the causes, we knew that if we were getting buttons, they were going to be through you! Thanks for working with us to create the buttons especially on short notice, they turned out great!"
What a story! I'd like to say Godspeed to Lisa - you have a lot of people who care right there beside you - LIVESTRONG! And to everyone at Text 100 I hope you'll do what you do best ~ join me help spread the word about this "overlooked" disease lung cancer - and this story, Lisa's story. Follow Buttons of Hope on Twitter @buttonguy and become a fan on Facebook and then together on your Twitter, your Facebook let's spread the word around the globe!
Text 100 walks for Lisa *click on an image to enlarge
"the market for something to believe in is infinite" ~ Hugh MacLeod
The image above was originally drawn on he back of a business card. I am pretty sure Hugh Macleod does not think of himself as an artist per se. His work is funny, provocative, sometimes petulant and always remarkable - he is collaborating with his good friend Seth Godin to offer limited edition prints of his "back of the business card art" -- very cool check it out here & here.
So why am I writing about this in Behind the Button? Because "something to believe in is [indeed] infinite" and I'll add [increasingly rare] and as Hugh says...
"...the idea that products were not just functional
things to be mass produced and foisted upon consumers, really began to
take on meaning for me. We human beings are here to find meaning, not
just to consume stuff - and that has informed my philosophy ever since." Mine too!
Helping people find meaning, making a product that is so much more than a combo of paper, metal and plastic is what Buttons of Hope is all about. Just yesterday I was telling a friend about a post I did on behalf of Michele Kwok and her Dad. He said "she must have been a big customer" - no not really she ordered one button (and I made another for free) - see for me it's not all about the money, it's about the project, it's about making a really, really big change in the way people view causes, raise money and in how they view themselves. My friend Will said "(I) was much more about making a difference than a profit" ~ I like that he said that!
I think for most of my customers their buttons are simply a tangible expression of "something to believe in and hope for"
Sometimes when you lose you win! A couple of weeks ago Buttons of Hope was a finalist at the Charlotte Research Institute's Five Ventures Entrepreneurial Competition. It was truly an honor to be part of this prestigious competition ~ to make it through the semi-finals and then the finals.
It was tough and in the end I faced a real challenge having to do a mock sales pitch: Buttons of Hope to a fictionalized retailer Tall-Mart (yes that retailer). So I did what so many of my customers and friends in the non profit/fundraising world do every day I did my best to turn lemons into lemonade! My pitch...encourage Walmart to put a face on their corporate giving by having their two million associates wear photo buttons -- bold idea (see lemons above) I did not win came out third in a category of three...yikes!
As my sweetest daughter Emily cautioned me...
Dad, good luck with that!
I wished I had the opportunity to pitch Buttons of Hope to a Susan Komen, American cancer Society or March of Dimes. I had a great presentation at the ready talking about how custom photo buttons are a way to personalize a cause and a way to engage both fundraisers and donors alike. About how colored ribbons, wristbands and names scribbled on placards become anonymous and pale in comparison to the picture of a loved one or a friend! About how Non-Profits need to embrace bold, unique approaches...right now! (sorry couldn't resist)
Those of you (me) who have made buttons know what I am talking about ~ how the very act of choosing the picture, holding and pinning on the button makes such a huge difference - the button becomes a tangible expression of your pride, honor and love!
If you like...the Charlotte Observer's Kirsten Valle did a really nice job in her story about the competition and Buttons of Hope.
But, I'd still like to give that preferred presentation ~ so if you're a non-profit looking for a new way to engage motivate and inspire your grassroots fundraisers and donors well we need to meet. I am ready to talk. And to all my awesome customers if you know a fundraising event/cause that could use a little (or giant) push please tell them about Buttons of Hope!
Guy Kawasaki is mercurial: "Having the characteristics of eloquence, shrewdness, swiftness, and thievishness attributed to the god Mercury." OK maybe not the thievishness part but the rest applies to this most interesting and prolific of entrepreneurial icons. Guy worked at Apple in the early days and is still at the pulse of the most interesting stuff on the net. Follow him @guykawasaki and me @buttonguy on Twitter.
We are honored and hope we can continue to provide you with inspiring stories of hope along with useful, unique and updated information about the wonderful world of fundraising. Tip o' the hat to Alltop and my friend Guy Kawasaki!
Lance Armstrong, so what's he really like? Did the 7 or 8 minutes I spent riding with him change my life? Actually yes it did. Lance has been an inspiration and hero for me and knowing that people can go their entire lives without meeting their hero how could it not be life-changing! Basically he was a really nice guy, quick to laugh, funny but what most impressed me is he was engaged in our conversation & sans sunglasses, seeing a person's eyes while talking makes a huge difference. (I actually let him get a word in ...I think?)
So how did all this come about? As many of you know my wife Rhonda and I started a cycling team Mojoriding in 2005. When you start riding "road bikes" you learn fast that the best rides are charity rides, that's how I became what I like to call an "accidental fundraiser". I am by no means the best fundraiser on the team, far from it but I suppose I had a hand in motivating, sometimes begging the Mojos to raise over $125,000 the past 3 years in the 24 Hours of Booty** to benefit Livestrong. So thanks to my good friend Spencer Lueders and in larger part my cycling team Mojoriding I got to ride with Lance in his beloved killer Austin hill country (emphasis on hill!) **24 Hours of Booty is an amazing event started by Spencer Lueders who rode 24 hours straight the inaugural year (more about Spencer and Booty here)
Rhonda and I were invited guests of Spencer and the 24 Hours of Booty team for the annual Ride for the Roses | Lance Armstrong Foundation events in Austin TX on October 24. I was the very lucky cyclist in a group of 30 well deserved cyclists|top fundraisers who got to meet, ride and talk with Lance one on one. With well over 17,000 Livestrong Challenge participants and countless cancer survivors nationwide and knowing that every one would give their granny gear to ride with Lance I consider myself very lucky indeed!
OK, so back to Lance. We met on a picture perfect Saturday afternoon at a winery in the Austin hill country, which is best described as stepping into your favorite western movie, desolately beautiful. Oh...sorry first let me step back and tell you about Friday night and The Salt Lick in Dripping Springs TX.
As part of the Yellow Jersey contingent we were feted like royalty -- so of course we should get the chance to see the King (or as Lance calls him the President) of Texas, the indomitable Willie Nelson. So get this, on Friday night we are shuttled out to The Salt Lick for an open air Texas style BBQ fest and then a private show with his excellency Willie! (I felt at any moment JR and Bobby were going to show up). Momma's might not be so bad to let your babies grow up to be cowboys after all...part II in next post
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