On November 15^th more than 50,000 people in 100 communities will participate in National Philanthropy Day®. The annual event, organized by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, recognizes donors, volunteers, businesses, foundations and young people for what they do to improve the quality of life in their communities and around the world.

With the current economy and so many in need, what can we do to encourage and inspire giving in our everyday lives? The answer is simple:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Teach and inspire philanthropy

Learning to Give, in partnership with the Association of Fundraising Professionals, has developed lesson plans for K-12 educators to explain the importance of philanthropy, the significance of National Philanthropy Day, and the role of AFP in the community.

Create a giving challenge among friends, family and colleagues – the person who raises the most money gets to choose the cause. Organize neighbors to participate in a bake sale or yard sale, then donate the profits to a local charity. It’s fun, easy, and helps spread the joy of giving.

Give from the heart

With JustGive, it’s easy to set up a monthly donation, making giving affordable for every budget. Whatever your favorite cause, a little really does go a long way:

• A $25 donation to Reading Partners will supply a student with books and learning materials for the Take Reading Home program; $10 will buy two books for the reading center.

• Want to inspire curiosity and creativity in children? For $50 the Menlo Park-Atherton Education Foundation can refurbish a musical instrument; $20 buys a hands-on science kit for the classroom.

• Blue Planet Run can provide one person with lifetime access to safe drinking water for only $30.

Since 1999 JustGive has sent over $100 million to more than 60,000 charities around the world. We’re driven by our mission to connect you with the causes you care about most! Check out more tips on giving wisely. Feeling inspired? Tell a friend!

We’d love to know what you’re doing to celebrate National Philanthropy Day. Share your thoughts and ideas with us on Facebook or Twitter.

- Sarah Myers, Program Manager

Today is a HAPPY day for all of us because it is National Running Day!  So get out there and show some love to running.  Pestering non-runners to do so as well could also be fun.  How do you think it would work out if that’s ALL we talk about for the day…we could just out-run them if they got mad enough.  (Yeah, I know I’m a dork, thanks.)  Anyway, on the schedule for me is an interval run which I might blog about later depending on how it goes.  Now, anyone have pull to make this an actual day off of work?

Last but certainly not least – I received this email and thought you might appreciate this:

Blue Planet Run and The North Face want YOU to walk in Dean Karnazes’ shoes… yep, the ones he ran in on his way to winning the 4 Deserts series and being the first to complete the Desert Grand Slam, in one year crossing 5 deserts – Salar De Uyuni, Gobi, Sahara, Death Valley, and Antarctic!

Donate $10 or more before June 8 and you will be entered in our raffle to win Dean’s autographed shoes! The winner will be announced on June 8th. Wearing the shoes is optional! Please tell anyone you know who would be interested in this collector’s item.

100% of the raffle money will go to support water projects at schools in Guatemala.

Fair Trade Sports recently become a sponsor for Blue Planet Run, an organization wholly dedicated to bringing the global community together in order to provide safe, fresh drinking water to every single person on the planet.

They do this by raising awareness globally through events and fundraisers, such as their signature event, the Blue Planet Run. The Blue Planet Run began in 2007 and is the first ever around-the-world relay run.

Far too often, people in impoverished countries are forced to drink from sub-par water sources due to exploitation, pollution, or lack of education. While it is true that many corporations fail to take the steps necessary to ensure that their manufacturing processes do not pollute the water table, quite often people living in impoverished countries simply do not know what steps they can take to ensure that they have a clean water source, or lack the ability to do so.

This is where Blue Planet Run comes in. They use the tools at their disposal to put in motion projects like The Peer Water Exchange, a project that gives local peoples the technology and resources to maintain a sustainable water system that can give them clean water.

Take a moment to pay them a visit and donate if you have the means. You could even participate in the next Blue Planet Run relay!

Here’s a great opportunity if you have a bunch of bills burning a hole in your wallet and want to give to charity.  Dean Karnazes has autographed and is selling his yellow jersey ($300.00 USD) and a pair of runners ($200.00 USD) that he wore in the Desert Grand Slam Series.  The money will go to Blue Planet Run which helps to provide safe drinking water around the world to those that need it!

You can also sell things you own and no longer want here to help out or donate an amount of your choosing.

American photographer Rick Smolan tells the unforgettable story of a young Amerasian girl, a fateful photograph, and an adoption saga with a twist. This is one of the most touching talks I have ever seen on the TED-Forum. Rick Smolan is the co-creator of the America at Home project, which captured the “emotions of home” across the United States during a week in September 2008. More than 20,000 photographers — pros and amateurs — sent images to a team of editors assembled by Smolan and partner Jennifer Erwitt, who turned the photos into an eye-popping book. It’s become a best-seller, of course, helped along by the fact that buyers can choose their own image for the cover.

Smolan has long been a force for exploring culture through photography. The Day in the Life photography series that he cofounded — best-selling photo books that captured life in America, Australia, the Soviet Union … — were an ’80s cultural phenomenon. (Rare was the coffee table without at least one of them.) In the 1990s his production company, Against All Odds, investigated the storytelling powers of interactive CD-ROMs with From Alice to Ocean, a narrative of a cross-Australia trek, and Passage to Vietnam, exploring that country as it opened up in the early 1990s. 24 Hours in Cyberspace took a snapshot of the booming industry in 1996, and One Digital Day in 1997 further explored our fascination with tech. Smolan’s latest book, with collaborator Jennifer Erwitt, is the beautiful Blue Planet Run, about the drive to bring fresh drinking water to everyone on Earth. It’s packed with glorious (and sometimes shocking) images and data about our planet’s water. In an unprecedented move, Amazon.com offers Blue Planet Run as a free PDF download. Download the free PDF of Blue Planet Run.

Blue Planet Run es un proyecto que busca crear conciencia sobre la crisis del agua. Si bien es cierto que muchos no  harán algo al respecto hasta sentir las consecuencias de esta crisis (como también las del calentamiento global), me parece que es una buena iniciativa.

Han publicado un libro (que es más bien una colección de fotos) de venta en amazon a 32 dólares. PERO, te puedes bajar la versión en pdf.

Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World

Il mio amico Massimo, che saluto, mi ha mandato un link davvero interessante. Si tratta di una pubblicazione della Blue Planet Run Foundation, una associazione no profit che cerca di risolvere il problema della scarsita’ e della conservazione dell’acqua (dolce) nel pianeta. Il loro sito e’ questo:

E la pubblicazione e’ un libro con foto drammatica ma bellissime che potete scaricarvi gratuitamente qua. Vi incoraggio a darci una occhiata.

Salute.

World Water Crisis and Droplets of Hope

by Julie Hall at ProgressiveKid

Like kudzu and other invasive species, the overgrowth of humans on Earth is a fundamental imbalance that is disrupting long-established physical and biological systems everywhere. When balance is lost, extremes ensue. In the case of our climate, these extremes include flooding, fires, storms, shifting ocean currents, ocean acidification, shrinking glaciers, drying wetlands, depleted aquifers, melting snow pack, rising sea levels, evaporating lakes and rivers, and drought. None of these extremes is good news, but water loss is the scariest, because without water life turns to dust and blows away.

Water Water Everywhere But Not a Drop to Drink

Seventy-one percent covered by water, Earth is called the blue planet for good reason. Water abounds on Earth and makes it a habitable place for life. The human body itself is half to three-quarters water, with adjustments for size. Depending on health and weather conditions most people can survive only 2 to 10 days without water, whereas they can go 30 to 60 days or more without food. Yet one in six people (6.1 billion) does not have access to clean water for drinking, washing, and cooking. And global warming is compounding the problem by drying up water supplies.

Imperiled Water Collectors: Women and Children

In many parts of the world, such as Asia, Africa, and South America, fetching water is one of the central tasks of the day. It is typically the job of women and/or children, especially girls. Blue Planet Run, a U.S-based foundation that supports clean water access projects worldwide, estimates that these water collectors spend 6 or more hours and walk an average of 6 kilometers a day to get water for their families and communities. Their water-collecting journeys often put them at risk of attack from predatory men and animals and make it difficult or impossible for them to go to school or earn money, perpetuating cycles of illiteracy and poverty. To make matters worse, often the water available is polluted, exposing communities to water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and malaria. Every year 2.2 million people die from diseases associated with unsafe water for drinking, cooking, hygiene, and sanitation. Each day 6,000 children die from such conditions.

Declining Water Is a Global Issue

Even in places where clean water is widely available, global water shortages are contributing to declining agriculture, food shortages, and increasing food prices. Rising temperatures around the world are causing soil evaporation and reduced water for irrigation, threatening crops and livestock. A study by Lawrence Livermore National Labs and Stanford University found that every one degree F of temperature rise results in a 3-5 percent decline in production of the world’s main staple crops—wheat, corn, rice, barley, soybeans, and sorghum. As reported on Grinning Planet in the May 2007 article “Effects of Global Warming on Agriculture—and Vice Versa,” China predicts its production of wheat, corn, and rice to decline by 37 percent in the latter part of the century due to global warming. California agricultural production, which accounts for nearly half of U.S. fruits and vegetables, is already in decline from heat waves, drought, and reduced snow pack. And dry agricultural regions supported by irrigation, like the American Southwest, are fast succumbing to desertification.

Droplets of Hope

Amid these dire circumstances and predictions, good things are happening. Organizations like Blue Planet Run are helping people around the world tap into sustainable sources of clean water, such as community wells and purification systems. Blue Planet Run has helped support the implementation of 142 sustainable water projects in 14 different countries, including Bolivia, Kenya, and Nicaragua, and they have made it their goal to provide clean drinking water to 200 million people by 2027. For about $30 per person, they can provide long-term access to safe water, helping families and communities break out of cycles of disease and poverty. Want to help? Visit the Blue Planet Run website to find out how you can get involved, through donations, volunteering, and other means.

Conservation

Chances are if you’re reading this, you don’t spend 6 hours a day fetching fetid water for your family. If you’re American, you have access to clean water wherever you are, and you use between 100 and 175 gallons of water a day. That’s a striking figure compared to the 2.6 gallons used by the average person in unindustrialized countries and even the 35.6 gallons used by the average British citizen. So, aside from helping organizations like Blue Planet Run, you can do a lot by reducing your own water use. Start with the basics and go from there. Install low-flow fixtures, let your grass get dry in the summer, reduce and consolidate washing cycles, collect and recycle rain water, plant more trees and native plants instead of grass. Get creative. You may surprise yourself with your own conservation innovation and just how much less you can live with and be happy.

Julie Hall is the author of A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids: Understanding Climate Change and What You Can Do About and cofounder of the green online store ProgressiveKid.

Images © Blue Planet Run.

©2008 ProgressiveKid

I got a tip from a co-worker in my inbox this afternoon that Colbert will be showcasing the book that was compiled about the event my company and I helped to produce last summer, the Blue Planet Run.It was a 95-day, 15,200-mile relay run around the globe to raise awareness and donations for water harvesting and purification projects in less-fortunate countries.

And my name and picture is in the book, so therefore… I’ll be on the Colbert Report tonight. That urge you’re feeling to shower me with affection is totally natural.

Way to go to whomever managed to get this media hit. I’m looking forward to what he has to say about it.

Here I sit on New Year’s Night, watching a little TV.  I am watching the first episode of the new season of the Biggest Loser, a show I do not usually watch.  At one point, one of the trainers mentions their efforts to reduce disposable water bottle use in conjunction with their sponsor, Brita, and the FiltersforGood program.  So of course my antennae go up immediately as I am always on the look out for best practice examples…and I head to NBC’s Biggest Loser website at  http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser_5 to learn more.  One of the banner ads across the top of the Biggest Loser page is for FiltersforGood.  Clicking on the image redirected me to http://www.filterforgood.com/index.php .   

Investigating further on the Brita sponsor page http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser_5/sponsors/brita/, I read, “Americans send about 38 billion plastic water bottles a year to landfills. This season, “The Biggest Loser” has partnered with Brita’s FilterForGood campaign to eliminate bottled water from the campus. We’ve always been dedicated to improving your health and now we’re helping Mother Earth, too!  Brita transforms tap water into healthier, great-tasting water. When combined with a Nalgene bottle, filtered water is an ideal solution for “going green” at home, at the gym or on the go. Visit FilterForGood.com and join us by pledging to give up bottled water, too!”

The FilterForGood home page asks viewers to sign up for the pledge to reduce bottled water waste, offers additional pages with facts and eco-friendly tips, has an ad for the Biggest Loser show including a description of the partnership, as well as links to receive Brita coupons or buy a water bottle.

When clicking the Buy Now button, I was redirected to the Nalgene site, http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=91.  There I see a picture of the bottle and read, “Want to reduce the amount of waste you produce? Want to help reduce global warming and help make safe drinking water a universal reality? Buy this commemorative Filter For Good – Refill Not Landfill bottle and Nalgene and Brita will donate proceeds to Blue Planet Run.”  For every FilterForGood refillable bottle purchased between August 10th and January 31st, 2008, a donation of $4 will be made to the Blue Planet Run Foundation.

Next I googled Blue Planet Run and learned “Blue Planet Run Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to raising global awareness about the lack of safe drinking water, and funding working solutions today for the billion people living without ready access to this life sustaining resource.  Since 2004, the U.S.-based foundation has funded 11 non-governmental organizations worldwide which have in turn implemented 135 sustainable water projects in 13 countries impacting 100 thousand lives. The Foundation’s signature awareness and fundraising event is the Blue Planet Run, the first-ever around-the-world relay run.”

I think this is a great example of a cause marketing effort conducted by two companies that sell water container and purifying products - their choice of the Blue Planet Run Foundation as the beneficiary shows a clear link to their respective business missions.  Also, it makes good business sense to promote their products as a solution to the environmental issue of disposable water bottles by offering consumers not only an easy thing to do but a way to support a nonprofit working on water issues internationally at the same time.  Having a partnership with a popular national television show was brilliant and really boosted the visibility of the FilterforGood program, the companies and their products, and provided consumer education on the issues of disposable water bottles, as well as got great mileage for the TV show and their attention to environmental issues.  Blue Planet Run received dollars to help support their programming as well as invaluable exposure to a broader audience then they probably could afford through their own marketing/advertising efforts.  FilterforGood definitely appears to be an all-win partnership with an excellent ability to cross-promote all four entites – Biggest Loser, Blue Planet Run, Brita and Nalgene.

My only recommendation for improvement of the campaign would be either to have a 1-2 sentence description of the nonprofit beneficiary, Blue Planet Run Foundation, on the FilterforGood and Nalgene websites or provide a link so consumers can learn more about the nonprofit they are supporting through their purchase.  There are clearly visible links to Nalgene and Brita on FilterforGood.com but not for Blue Planet Run.  They seem like a cool organization, so why not feature them?  A lot of people won’t make the extra effort to search Google like I did to find out more – not having more information readily available is a missed opportunity to raise awareness about the nonprofit and the showcase the companies’ strategic choice to support it in light of its mission connection with what they do.  I’ll give you the link since they didn’t: http://blueplanetrun.org/foundation.

Are there ways your company could engage in a win-win cause marketing initiative instead of checkbook philanthropy?