Furao Trust Group
The Furao Trust Group is composed of 12 female members. Furao is a small village on the outskirts of the nearest town, however the closest market from the village is still 7km away. Furao Trust Group members have to travel 10km to buy stock for their businesses at the large public market in Roxas. In Furao most homes have two rooms, so families often sleep in their living room. Water is accessed from a communal well.

Furao Trust Group members are engaged in various small businesses including tricycle driving, piggeries, vegetable gardening and barbeque vending. With the loans received, members can invest in larger quantities of their product or can expand their range of stock.  Members meet with a loan officer every Thursday to make their loan repayments and receive business training and mentoring. Members also enjoy the strong friendships created within the Trust Group.

Client Profile

Norma Diampoc runs her own sari-sari store business. She is married to Augustus, a farmer. Together they have three children: Cristine, 24 years old, Alma, 22, and Elgie, 18.

Out of the hardships she endured as a child, Norma has become a strong business woman. Being part of a family who did not have enough resources to provide for their needs, she was forced to leave high school early.Norma usually opens her store at 8am and closes it at 9pm. She chose to open a sari-sari store because she is able to earn a living and still fulfill her responsibilities as a wife and mother… (read more from the report)

Usually these women have no access to capital, therefore are unable to obtain business loans. However with microfinance in a Trust Group, they are able to co-guarantee each other’s loans.

Thanks again for collaborating with me online to show your care and generosity. Your tweets, blog posts, encouragement and donations have made a huge difference to these women, and to the future of thier children.

Eventually I was left with a couple of hours last night. I was going through some files on my computer when I saw some photos from the Shout Out Social exhibition, and thought to myself ‘I really ought to do something with those’. Voila! Instant story.

Please vote for these slides in the Fuze Tell a Story Contest, because if I win the prize money will be donated to women in poverty through Opportunity International (Grand Prize is $5,000.) I hope you like this short story ‘about love, beginning with you’. It might not be the story I had hoped to write, but I think you’ll enjoy it nonetheless.

So I thought I would ask 1000 people to donate USD$4 - the price of a drink – to raise the total funds for this project. A coffee costs $4 at some places these days – I would be really grateful if you could shout me one

Many thanks to people who have chipped in so far already raising 50% of funds for this AUD$10,000 program including:

@sachac @socialtopher @sminkworks @badkoala @kt29 @gypsychk @joannayoung @digitalfilipino @joannestanton @gusposkus @juliancole @ethmanmcc @mspecht @bettinac @janelle_amet @onlinedialogues @blm849 @iggypintado @andypiper @nancywhite @verbaw @marigo @elsua @aqualung @SonjaBarfoed and @deswalsh

You can read more and donate at http://wonderwebby.chipin.com

Update – thanks for your donations so far including drinks and rounds from @kdelarue @deswalsh and @innotecture – only 981 drinks to go!

Thinking Ahead – Ideas for a rainy day
While I was arranging the last fundraising event and making mental notes of things that were working, and things that I would do differently, I came up with an idea. I wanted the next creative challenge to be really simple and the word ‘Tribute’ came to mind. I wanted to honour the women in the Philippines who were taking steps into working their way out of poverty.

Opportunity Arises -  social networking serendipity
One morning I friended the friend of a friend on Twitter. I never expected him to follow me back  with a direct message the next day, asking me to call their offices. When I rang, I never expected to be having a conversation about a potentially significant donation to my fundraising project for Women’s Opportunity.

Money changes everything – respect the community
I had a weekend to think about the ideas they suggested and think up a project. I read up about Incentive House. I had to consider what I wanted to achieve (awareness of the Philippines, fundraising) and how I could still respect and create something that my online community would appreciate. I wanted this to be as authentic as possible (at least, as authentic as corporate sponsorship can get). Suddenly my ‘Tribute’ idea sprung back to mind. By Monday I shared my idea for a paid blogging challenge ($100 per post donated to Opportunity International) and soon after the initiative was launched,  raising $1300 in just a few days through the generosity of bloggers around Australia.

Sharing Ideas – social media sanity check
Before launching the initaitive I vetted the idea with a social media friend Des Walsh to get his feedback, which was all positive and helpful! He even interviewed me later on for the Social Media Show to get some more information about microfinance and this project. Subsequently I received two more donations creating an additional US$200 donation.

Image originally uploaded by Ryan C Anderson

So far three amazing people have joined in the challenge by writing ‘Tribute” posts – that’s $300 raised by these bloggers  in 3 days for women in poverty! Wonderful.

Matthew Johnson wrote about steps for  success, Gavin Heaton shared his experience as a microfinance ‘micro-investor’ and Des Walsh wrote a tribute to people with entrepreneurial spirit. Thank you!

Incentive House are willing to donate $700 more dollars but I’m looking for seven more Aussie bloggers to unite for women living in poverty over the next two days – simply  write a post before midnight Tuesday (31st March) and Incentive House will donate $100 towards this special project.  Will you join in?

(oh and meanwhile, my laptop appears to be no more, so expect me to be quiet on the interwebs  for a little bit….I will be watching you from afar, probably on my iPod somehow, somewhere!!)

Update 31 March: You did it! Together we raised $1300 in funds towards this project. And another US$200 was donated in the last 24 hours on my Chipin. You are amazing people!!

You can also listen to a podcast of me mumbling late at night, trying to explain the purpose of Women’s Opportunity – courtesy of Des Walsh on the Social Media Show

Over the last month a number of people gave towards a project  called #SOS09 (Shout Out Social) which had two purposes; to help raise funds for an Opportunity International project and to encourage people to be creative for a cause.

Around the world, individuals used their creativity to express something that mattered to them, including topics such as Healthcare, Hope and Green Spaces. They submitted their images to a Flickr Group, and the images were displayed as part of a digital wall show at Horse Bazaar over the weekend.

Eileen Clegg graciously created a mural to shout out for Creativity and explains her message on video

She says,

“The more we can express ourselves and what is authentic about us, we are sharing with others to add to (this) collective knowledge…

..” so the more we can define ourselves, our creative selves, what we are interested in, our knowledge – then it makes it easier for other people to find us as well, so we can work together..

When we use visuals to express ourselves we are saying: ‘this is a picture of what I am thinking right now’ we are not passing judgment on the world or trying to tell it like it is. We are saying ‘this is what I see right now’

And that’s the best part about creativity – it’s completely individual, nobody can argue with it – and it’s always wonderful.”

Shahin Shafaei reminded people of the importance of creativity and expression in our day to day lives, by sharing his experience of nearly two years in isolation at an Australian detention centre.

Although the event (unfortunately) didn’t raise a stack of funds, being part of this project and event was personally fulfilling. Eileen and Shahin spoke from the heart. A  number of individuals around the world took a few minutes to use social media for positive change, and a small bunch of people braved the rain to come along to the SOS09 event. Even the decor of the venue represented the importance of people, history and culture in a technical and creative context.

Saturday evening I left the event knowing that people around the planet had made a difference, however small, and that each of us had experienced something good through our individual contributions to this project against poverty.

Have you been part of a creative project that made a difference? How important is authenticity and “speaking from the heart” to you?

If you would like to thank the people who contributed to this project AND make a difference to a group of women living in poverty right now, you can make a donation or purchase some quality greeting cards or wall art (all proceeds go towards this Opportunity International project in the Philippines. Thank you for your kind support.)

Shout Out Social promises to be a special two hour event for anyone interested in the arts and community development. This celebration of the creative voice will include a digital exhibition of images and words created by people around the world, and a video message from the inspiring visual journalist Eileen Clegg.  Special guest speaker, actor and playwright Shahin Shafaei will be there to share some words, drawing upon his incredible personal story.

Shahin Shafaei

Shahin Shafaei, an acclaimed actor and playwright in his native home of Iran fled his country after having his work banned. He found his way to Australia in 2000 through Indonesian people smugglers, and ended up spending 22 months at Curtin immigration detention center in WA – 10 of those months in isolation. These days Shahin continues his creative work and empowers others to share their own amazing stories through the arts.

This special event will be held one night only – Saturday 14th March 5pm to 7pm at Horse Bazaar in Melbourne (which kicks on until late.) Entry is free and a donation box will be available to raise funds for a Opportunity International Australia project.

You still have your chance to submit photos or artwork to the Flickr group.
RSVP to the event on Facebook or help to spread the word by becoming a Fan! Please tell your friends and come along to be inspired and help make a difference!

Andy Piper shouts out for Friendship from the UK

Gypsychk shouts out for Green Spaces from the US

And if you would like to be involved in any way – please shout out!

• A Scottish writing coach writes a sentence for a creative online project..along with 25 other women
• A Sydney photographer shares a photo from one of his exhibitions for the same slides
• A woman in San Francisco hosts the slides in a virtual gallery
• A woman in India writes a story and leaves it as a comment on a blog and wins a prize

Honestly, if I had never started blogging, using Twitter, or building up some great online friendships I wonder if this would have happened. There are some wonderful people out there! Still I have a long way to go,  raising some funds. Here are some examples of social media I’m trying out to do this.

1.A place to raise funds – Chipin. This website has been helpful in creating a page where people can make payments, with the added benefit of a visible widget updating the fundraising status.  People have donated over AU$1200 so far this way and left some lovely comments of support. On problem is I’d like more flexibility to display Australian dollars and I can’t embed it in this blog or Facebook (I think). Also the ‘page’/blogging functionality is pretty crude so I ended up creating a blog.

2.A place to call home - a Blog. Yeah, yeah I created another blog. I used Blogger so that I could easily embed the Chipin Widget. In retrospect, I’m not sure if a blog was the best way to go, but it’s there now. I also created a page about the project on this blog.

3. Another place to promote – Facebook. I have used the Facebook Fanpage for my next creative project and exhibition.  Not wildly successful yet but I guess it’s all a case of ‘wait and see’.

4. A place to mention it – Twitter. No, I didn’t create a second Twitter account for my ambassadorship. I could, but I think it’s important to know your own limits. When you have part time work, a great husband, three young boys under the age of six, and your fingers in other creative pies – another Twitter account just didn’t seem to be priority! I’m trying not to bombard people on Twitter with requests to participate or donate, but I’m thinking of a Twitter challenge on International Women’s Day.

5. A place to stitch images together - Slideshare. I was fortunate enough to get a couple of slides featured on the homepage, but I’m not sure it helped to raise any funds. At least Slideshare has been a central place to share some of the creative work.

6. A place for people to get something in return – RedBubble. Yesterday I uploaded some of my photography to RedBubble. So you can now buy cards or prints with all proceeds going straight into the Paypal account I set up for this fundraising project.

I have also played around with Tumblr and Youtube (using Animoto) and I’m helping Opportunity International Australia get more of their content online for use in social media. I’m even giving Flickr a go for the current creative challenge.

I’ll give an update in June once I have raised some more money. The funds will establish a group of 15 to 30 of these entrepreneurial poor. The project is similar to the good work of Kiva, except this Opportunity International project additionally focuses on equipping individuals to develop small businesses AND impact their community.As soon as I raise the AU$10,000 the group will be sponsored and I can share their encouraging stories with you.

What about you? Have you used any social media for nonprofit fundraising? I’d love for you to share your story.

If you would like to make a difference and donate (tax deductible) to this project against poverty,  you can do so over at Chipin

From the Flickr pool (anyone can add a photo) by Penni

Shouting Out from Melbourne Australia to transform communities

From Amy Jussel of Shaping Youth in response to the last Shout Out post:

What will you Shout Out for? Three weeks to go (less if you want your images included in the exhibition, raising funds for a project against poverty in the Philippines)

1. Inspecht HR Futures Conference this Thursday in Melbourne. I’ve put together a presentation to showcase some of the work IBMers are doing in the area of informal learning, web 2.0, virtual worlds along with some insights into my own personal experience, and tips for creating a successful informal learning experience.  If you intend to register, let me know as I can give two people a discount of 30%! I’m looking forward to hearing some of the other speakers including Stephen Collin’s observations from TED.

2. International Women’s Day event “Renewing Ourselves Changing Our World” hosted by the Global Dialogue Center, Women in the Lead. I am so honoured to be on a panel for this event for women around the world. I’m participating in the second half  “changing the world” at 7.30am Sat 7 March Melbourne time (talking about the Women’s Investment project)and there are some AMAZING speakers. From their blog:

It’s a NEW DAY!
Renewing Ourselves; Changing the World
Friday March 6 from 1:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. ET
(10:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. PT)
Location:
Online at the Women in the Lead at the
Global Dialogue Center CONFERENCE CENTER
This special day is a gift to women everywhere sponsored by Women in the Lead at the Global Dialogue Center in partnership with Women’s Radio. There are no fees, but you must register to get the login information to set-up your computer and to attend.

WAYS TO LEARN MORE…

• Listen to our personal audio invitation Click HERE
  from Founders, Debbe Kennedy, Global Dialogue Center and Pat Lynch, Women’s Radio
  
• It’s a NEW DAY – PDF Brochure with link to register.

Our focus will be on women’s leadership, professional, and personal development. We’ve planned two dialogue themes: 1) Renewing Ourselves so we are ready to contribute and lead the way at this time of both crisis and opportunity. 2) Changing the World …an inspiring exploration of how we can put our differences to work to build better organizations, healthier communities, stronger families, and a better world for everyone than we know today. We also have extraordinary women leadership trailblazers and role models to inspire our conversation from regions around the world, including accomplished thought leaders…

SPECIAL GUESTS…
We have extraordinary women leadership trailblazers and role models you will not want to miss. They will be joining us to inspire our conversation from regions around the world, including…

United States Congresswomen Barbara Lee representing the 9th Congressional District in California
http://lee.house.gov/

Harriet Mayor Fulbright, President, J. William and Harriet Fulbright Center
…Fostering peace and justice through education and collaboration
UNITED STATES
http://jwhfulbright.org/

Daphne Nederhorst, Founder and Executive Director
SAWA Global Empowering unknown leaders in the world’s 50 poorest countries
http://www.sawaglobal.com
CANADA

Cécile Demailly, co-author, Women @ Work No. 10:
Networking: The New Ariadne’s Thread
http://www.europeanpwn.net/index.php?article_id=54
Building awareness of the power of women networking.
Founder and Executive Consultant, Early Strategies
FRANCE

No FEES, our gift to you, but you must register to receive
HOW TO ATTEND information for logging in ONLINE to the event
and the audio options available to you. Space is limited; reserve your seat.
Invite a friend!

Registration LINK: https://www120.livemeeting.com/lrs/0000011799/Registration.aspx?pageName=fj56g81t7lbj242g
Allow a few seconds for the link to open.

3. Shout Out Social (of course) a fundraising event I’m coordinating with your help, for Opportunity International. The event will be hosted by Horse Bazaar, featuring a digital wall show and positive video messages about using your creative voice for positive change. I would love for you to be my guest. Sat 14th March 5-7pm. Free Entry, donation box for your tax deductible donations and pledges will be available.

Who says blogging is a waste of time? When you end up being involved with events like these, you know that your (enjoyable) investment was worth the effort!