blogging social change

My latest and greatest online discovery is Ask Metafilter, a subsection of Metafilter, which is an excellent online community blog. Anyone asks, and anyone answers. One of today’s questions is “Help me promote an environmentally conscious, socially responsible small business.” The responses refer to models from around the world, including:

• Green Pages
• Sustainable Living Directory
• SustainLane

Here in Toronto, there’s also the new Green Enterprise Toronto, which we wholeheartedly endorse. I appeared at last year’s GET forum as a guest speaker, and had the opportunity to meet a group of principled, focused businesspeople trying to work with a social conscience. Check them out. 

The first people who took jobs at Google Inc. are a lucky bunch. Thanks to soaring stock options, 100 of the company’s first 300 employees quit their jobs and went on to all sorts of other things.

Olana Kahn became chief operating officer of Kiva.org, a San Francisco non-profit that provides small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Kahn went from overseeing Google’s global sales to overseeing loans for such things as taco carts and beauty salon supplies – small investments that make a huge difference. According to Kahn, “it’s more of a challenge than Google ever was.”

“Help, so that no one has to come here for food.” That’s the line in a new ad campaign, pasted on the underside of garbage pails in Portugal.

Reminds me of a campaign run by UNICEF, where they painted pails so the mouths of children formed the garbage pail openings. Effective.

Three posts in one day? Wow. Don’t get too excited, this is an anomaly — the Internet has turned up a bevvy of post-worthy material today.

Inside the CBC blogger Tod Maffin has posted a short e-book called “How to Pitch the Media.” It’s blunt, short, and by all of my own experience — very accurate. The e-book is licensed under a Commons Licence, so share it around.

Youth for Human Rights International should get an award for sheer volume of ads for this “campaign” (in parenthesis because I’m not sure if it’s actually running anywhere). The group partnered with Church of Scientology International to create 30 public service announcements to “educate and inspire the world.” There’s also a supplementary booklet called “What are Human Rights?”

The production values are impressive, though the whole thing is overwhelmingly wholesome. Please, no Katie and Tom jokes — I don’t see an ad for the “Right to Silent Childbirth.”

With slightly more than a month before the Homeless World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, teams from around the world are preparing to take their shot at international fame. Ringo Starr is an official endorser, and organizers say the event changes lives.

Some stats from the Homeless World Cup’s Social Impact Report (2005):

• 77% of players involved in the 2005 Homeless World Cup have changed their lives forever.
• 38% (80 players) have regular employment
• 40% (85 players) have improved their housing situation
• 12 players now make their living partly from football as coaches or players with professional and semi-professional teams

The American Obesity Task Force has a new spot with a simple message: “What you don’t know can hurt you.” Apparently, obesity puts you at a higher risk for heart disease — and having a fat person assault you in your driveway. Enjoy.

From slashdot:  “Google.org, the charitable branch of Google, has hired on Dr. Larry Brilliant to create a strategy for making a ‘social impact.’ According to the article: ‘The network will focus its charitable endeavors on global poverty, energy, and the environment.’ Brilliant outlines his goal: ‘In 10 years, I’d like people to say Google changed the world less for its search engine than for the way in which it changed philanthropy to make the world a better place.’”

 Brilliant.