Posts Tagged ‘charity’
07
May
2010
Robin of Shoreditch: The 100 Brands Project
Robinhooding Subway, or how to make those doing well do good.
Despite the recession, the global economy is a massive force of commerce, shuffling billions of dollars around its ecosystem of goods and services. By comparison, the nonprofit sector — and humanitarian aid in particular — is microscopic. So what if could take a fraction of that fat commmercial mega-budget and allocate it to underfunded good causes? That’s what Robin of Shoreditch, a group of anonymous creative outlaws, is doing with The 100 Brands Project — an effort to take from the rich and give to the poor, or in this case, to the people of Haiti.
It’s a simple, brilliant idea — the team, composed of various ad industry creatives, do what they do best: They offer each company on BrandZ’s 100 brands index a creative idea that could help their business and, in return, they ask for 1/10000000 — that’s one ten-millionth — of the value of that brand as a fee, 100% of which goes to relief efforts in Haiti.
Every Monday morning, the crew released a new idea for one of these A-list brands, including FedEx, Nike and American Express. They then send the brand an actual invoice and hope for the best.
Why go anonymous?
The truth is we’d rather keep our identities secret so not to compromise our ‘normal life’ jobs at various advertising and marketing agencies. We’re creating ideas for the top 100 brands and some of these bring us into conflict with the brands we work on day-in, day-out through our jobs.” ~ “Little John”
None of the 12 companies approached so far have actually paid up, but we think this is a brilliantly innovative take on “corporate social responsibility” and any brand that embraces its incredible potential — to do good but also, perhaps cynically, to generate some solid buzz — would be deserving of an epic hat tip.
You can follow the project’s progress on the team’s blog and keep an eye on Vimeo channel for fresh videos every Monday.
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22
Mar
2010
World Water Day: 3 Smart Projects to Celebrate It
What indie music and your favorite restaurant have to do with Haiti and TED.
It’s World Water Day today — though we believe every day should celebrate and honor Earth’s most precious resource. Since 1992, March 22 has been an international observance of the importance of clean water for a healthy world. Today, we spotlight three smart projects that actually do something about the cause and offer ways in which you too can help.
TAP PROJECT
In 2008, Tap Project topped our list of the year’s best ideas. We still think it’s one of the simplest, smartest efforts to both raise awareness about water sustainability and make an actual, action-based difference.
Developed in partnership with UNICEF, the project’s premise is brilliantly simple: During World Water Week March 21-27, restaurants would ask patrons to donate $1 for each glass of tap water that they normally enjoy for free. It may seem like little, but $1 actually provides clean drinking water for a child for 40 days — which means less than $10 get a child a year’s worth of water. All donations go to UNICEF’s water sanitation programs that strive to bring clean, accessible drinking water to children around the world.
The one million restaurants across the US comprise the second largest industry in the country, following government. Thousands of them are participating in the program this week — up from 300 in 2007, when the project launched. So imagine the scale of impact of these micro-contributions, a powerful long tail of goodness.
This year, Tap Project is launching Tap Project Radio — a platform for musicians, artists, directors and thought leaders to play music, raise awareness and help fight the water crisis. From performances by Kenna, They Might Be Giants and other indie favorites, to interviews of advertising legends Lee Clow and David Droga (who founded Tap Project in 2007), the lineup is an absolute treat.
You can help in one of three ways: Dine at one of the participating restaurants and buy yourself some tap water; donate directly to the project; or text Text “TAP” to UNICEF (864233) to donate $5 and give a child 200 days of clean drinking water.
Have a restaurant or know someone who does? It’s not too late to register and join the effort.
CHARITY: WATER
Also in 2008, we featured just-launched nonprofit charity: water — a fundraising effort to bring clean drinking water to people in the developing world. Since then, the project has become such a blockbuster success — from getting press in just about every major media outlet to being the beneficiary of last year’s Twestival — so we won’t elaborate on what it’s all about.
Today, charity:water is launching Unshaken — a concentrated effort to help Haiti recover by providing long-term water solutions in a country where a third of the population didn’t have access to clean drinking water even before the disaster. The plan focuses on 11 specific areas that need funding. For each of them, the charity: water team has worked hard to calculate the exact costs and collected real-life stories from the community about how that particular issue affects their daily lives.
The goal is to raise $1.3 million, helping 40,000 people in dire need. Bring them a wee closer to it by donating today.
PUR
At TED last month, we were excited to see PUR’s drive to donate 10 liters of clean drinking water for every tweet that answered the question, “If water could speak, what would it say?” and every photo answer at the TED photo booth. The program was a smash-hit, with more than 800 plastic bottles saved over the course of the four days and over 40,000 liters of water donated by PUR.
For World Water Week this week, PUR is doing another round under the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program — for each new Facebook fan, they’re donating 100 liters of clean drinking water to the areas that need it the most, up to 1 million (yes, million) liters total. So do your part and fan PUR to give a child this basic human right.
And, shhh, a little birdie told us PUR will be having a bunch of giveaways this week, so follow them on Twitter for a shot at the goodies.
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