Non-profit projects
The very first ‘commercial’ project I ever shipped was in 1974, when I was fourteen. It was part of a fundraiser for the local public television station. It involved computers (a local mainframe) and publishing, and I’ve been adjusting and amplifying that model ever since.
My parents were active fundraisers, supporting The United Way, the local museum and other cultural institutions. My mom was the first woman on the board of the museum, and my dad helped the local theatre and ran successful fundraising campaigns as a volunteer. One year, he chaired the United Way for the entire city of Buffalo. I’ve tried to bring what I learned from them, along with my marketing insights, to causes that can benefit from them. My sisters have as well–one is volunteer president of the city chapter of a non-profit, the other works full-time for a groundbreaking charity that operates in several cities in the US.
Some talk about “giving back” as if there’s a quid pro quo. But in my home, there was always joy in simply contributing to the community. Give something, don’t worry about getting back. Growing up, we were encouraged to find a problem and to solve it. My parents hosted refugees, supported institutions they didn’t even belong to, and found solace and possibility in being part of the community.
As I found leverage in my professional career, I saw that there were opportunities for system change. Filling the gaps in a broken system isn’t as effective (though it’s more urgent) as doing the long-term and challenging work of fixing the system itself.
I’ve tried to do this with direct charitable donations, with the byproducts of my commercial work, and finally, in creating projects that deliberately combine both. Change the systems, change the outputs.
That’s the throughline of much of what I’m describing below: use networks, publishing and marketing techniques to leverage causes that are committed to fixing systems.
Here are some of the highlights:
The Big Moo, the unofficial sequel to Purple Cow, was published in 2005. It was the coordinated work of 33 authors, including Tom Peters, Malcolm Gladwell, Guy Kawasaki, Jackie Huba, Promise Phelon, April Armstrong, Polly LaBarre, Red Maxwell, Alan Webber, Mark Cuban, Lisa Gansky, Kevin Carroll, Robyn Waters, Carol Cone, Lynn Gordon, Marcia Hart, Dan Pink, Marc Benioff, Donna Sturgess, Amit Gupta, Jacqueline Novogratz, Robin Williams, Tom Kelley and Chris Meyer. All the advances and royalties have gone to JDRF, Acumen and Room to Read, raising more than $300,000 to date.
Working with Red Maxwell and Eve Yohalem, we launched aworthycause.org in 2003. It was a first attempt to build an online game to raise money for charities–we tested it with JDRF and learned a lot about what might lead to online action.
In 2005, I founded Squidoo, one of the first content-driven social networks. At our peak, our tiny team of nine was building and running the 40th most visited website in the US. Every page on the site offered royalties to its creators and to the causes they chose. Hundreds of non-profits got donations via the site.
A few years ago, I used the fabulous Helen Mills Theatre to hold an all-day intensive workshop for non-profit leaders and fundraisers, and the altMBA and other workshops have always offered free spots to people who care enough to devote themselves to this work. This work has had an impact on DoSomething and other powerful causes, and has helped groups raise hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 2011, The Domino Project published End Malaria with Michael Bungay Stanier and 60 other authors. Michael and I coordinated the work and raised more than $100,000 in this publishing fundraiser.
In 2018, I volunteered to edit and publish A Second Chance with Cat Hoke, the inspirational anti-recidivism activist. We made the book a national bestseller.
My first interaction with Jacqueline Novogratz in the early 2000s changed my life, and I’ve been a friend and advisor to Acumen ever since. I produced and directed this video with Liz Gilbert (part of a series), and have been actively working with their portfolio around the world, in addition to their online learning academy.
In 2010, I “gave my birthday” to charity:water. That simple blog post led to a chain of other birthdays and other birthdays, and a million dollars has been raised so far.
The Carbon Almanac was published in 2022. This award-winning book was created by a worldwide team of volunteers, and all proceeds have gone to charities like Eden Projects and Climate Central.
I’ve been privileged to work with and support organizations like Black Parentpreneur Foundation, The Fuller Center for Housing, Lemontree, The Innocence Project, Equal Justice Initiative, Buffalo AKG, DigDeep, the Emerson Collective, BuildOn, SayDo, and Endeavor.
In 2012, there was a free three-day seminar for a new generation of leaders in my office. Ten years later, those connections are still paying off, with people like Dr. Jodi Sagorin Spangler doing what needs to be done.
In 2023, I worked with Afya to publish their story.
The most significant project is the latest one. Goodbids.org is a direct and substantial attempt to make it easier for worthy non-profits to raise significant amounts of funding while engaging with existing donors and finding new ones.
Non-profits in the USA raise about a billion dollars a day from individuals. And it’s far too difficult, and not nearly as generative or even fun as it could be.
We’d like to help change that.