Celebrating Some Wins
Real Good Food is a trading, sales, and organizational platform for cooks at home and local food artisans to discover and celebrate the good food in their own local economies. Thanks to your support, it raised $8,409 to develop a platform for any user to post and search for local food, join/create groups, and host/participate in local food events. When people can purchase foods from local artisans that they know and trust, there is full transparency in the origin of the food and, hence, the system will encourage healthier people and healthier local economies.
Reagan High in Austin, Texas is a success story—an example of a struggling high school where, after the threat of closure, students rallied against tough odds to raise test scores enough to save the school. The Brick family is determined to turn Reagan High into an inspiring example of success to rally students in struggling schools across the country. During their book release party for Saving the School: A Principal, a Teacher, a Coach, a Bunch of Kids and a Year in the Crosshairs of Education Reform, they will present a scholarship fund for promising students at the school. The funds that have been raised so far will help pay for the entire book release party and the total funding goal will go towards a new scholarship fund.
Vibewire ensures that young people are included in conversations that matter. It captures conversations that matter to young people and showcases them online so that people can engage in conversations based on what issues are most important to them. It also provides young people with a space and resources to take action on the issues that matter to them and launch their ventures. The Vibewire Hub is a co-working space that supports younger social innovators on their missions to create change. Normally, users must pay to access the Hub, but, thanks to 47 generous backers, Vibewire raised $3,270 to support three projects in the Vibewire Hub for three months.
The Center for a New American Dream promotes Americans shifting their consumption to improve quality of life and protect the environment. The Center works with organizations, governments, and individuals to help them conserve resources and support community engagement. The Center’s newest project is The Guide to Going Local—a free guide in the Community Action Kit that provides steps people can take to strengthen their local economy. The Center kept things exciting over at StartSomeGood last week, rallying in the last few days of its campaign to raise over $3,000, not only bringing the campaign over its tipping point, but also surpassing it by $720. Ultimately, the Center for a New American Dream raised a total of $8,720 that will be used to develop its Guide to Going Local.
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Social entrepreneurs, have these successful campaigns inspired you to start your own good? Do you have a social enterprise, a non-profit, or an amazing idea that needs some momentum to take off? Visit our site to find out how to start your own campaign today. Still have questions? We have answers—check out our FAQ section. What good do you want to create?
The Guide to Going Local
The ubiquity of the ‘consumerist spirit’ in today’s largely industrialized world is apparent; and so we see, even in the smallest of cities, the effects of a modified ‘American Dream’ that encourages an excess of choice and spending and centers life around consumption. Just a quick sweep of our reservoirs of media memories will result in an array of familiar phrases and images pushing us to buy more, eat more, use more, watch more, and simulating in us a need for material satisfaction. Here is where the Center for a New American Dreamsteps in, a country-wide program hoping to move society’s focus to enjoying the people around us by creating a sustainable and healthy community. The aim of this organization is to “help Americans reduce and shift their consumption to improve quality of life, protect the environment, and promote social justice,” and to thereby reconfigure the American Dream to its original purpose of “self-actualization and personal fulfillment.”
To initiate this change, the Center provides (free) resources and tools to communities, individuals, institutions, and businesses in the form of Community Action Kits, one of which is the focus of the Center’s current campaign—The Guide to Going Local. It will help people organize and launch their own campaigns and projects to get communities investing in local people-power and skill, relying more on local produce, and nurturing bonds with neighbors and friends through activities. The guide will help at every step of the process, from inspiring a person to pursue a project, to supplying them with step-by-step instructions on how to carry out their plan.
The Center hopes to reach its total funding goal of $12,000, so it can complete the guide and make it available online by Fall 2012. The tipping point goal is $8,000 and currently $5,401 (and counting!) has been raised with a day left in the campaign. The funds are needed for research and content development of the guide, video production documenting stories of people working with their communities, and graphic design of the guide to create a polished product. Reaching the total funding goal will then enable the Center to contact partner organizations and enhance the guide by including city, town, and neighborhood-specific resources to cater to more communities across the country. Today is the last day for this campaign so it’s vital that we all, as supporters of this cause, spread the word about the Guide to Going Local through all of our social networks including Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. If this is a campaign that inspires you, please try to help in any way you can, either by directly donating to the cause or by simply raising awareness through your networks.
Shaakya Vembar
I’m an incoming senior at the American School of Bombay, India. Living and traveling around the world and staying in Bombay for 5 years has provided me with incredible insight into the dissimilar lifestyles humans can maintain while sustaining a functional society. Currently I’m president of the V-Care organization in my school, (which provides care and education to underprivileged children affected by cancer) and am involved in other community service projects. My passions lie in trying to reduce the prominent financial gap in Bombay’s society through literacy and bringing about a progressive change in rigid social norms (such as oppressive gender roles, foeticide, etc.). I’ll major in English lit and evolutionary bio in college, but one of my ‘life goals’ is to open up hygienic and academically stimulating shelters for the homeless in Bombay.
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What good do you want to create? Visit our site to learn about how to start your own campaign.
StartSomeGood News
The Center for a New American Dream promotes Americans shifting their consumption to improve quality of life and protect the environment. The Center works with organizations, governments, and individuals to help them conserve resources and support community engagement. The Center’s newest project is The Guide to Going Local—a free guide in the Community Action Kit that provides steps people can take to strengthen their local economy. Funds raised will cover research and development and design costs.
Junior is promoting youth self-empowerment in Liberia through teaching agricultural skills, and hence creating jobs and a source of sustainable income for them. He has been invited to attend the Dell Summer Social Innovation Lab, but he needs to purchase his own plane ticket from his home in Liberia to Boston, where the lab is being held. This lab is the opportunity for Junior to develop his venture idea and create lasting partnerships in the US that will help him on his entrepreneurial journey. He’s raising $1,600 to fund his round-trip plane ticket to Boston.
Reagan High in Austin, Texas is a success story—an example of a struggling high school where, after the threat of closure, students rallied against tough odds to raise test scores enough to save the school. The Brick family is determined to turn Reagan High into an inspiring example of success to rally students in struggling schools across the country. During their book release party for Saving the School: A Principal, a Teacher, a Coach, a Bunch of Kids and a Year in the Crosshairs of Education Reform, they are trying to establish a scholarship fund for promising students at the school. The tipping point goal will help pay for the entire book release party and the total funding goal will go towards a new scholarship fund.
Spark International trains and empowers local changemakers who are working in some of the poorest areas of the world. The goal is to establish strong local leaders who are creating local solutions to local problems. This campaign, a dollar for a year of education, is supporting John Taka’s project, “Seed of Hope”. In each village, they raise a sweet potato farm and then sell the harvest. The money raised pays for school fees for children in the village. Spark International is providing one-third of the startup costs for “Seed of Hope” to John Taka, which is the funding goal for this campaign.
SPOUTS of Water just finished its campaign, raising $5,665 from 74 backers to help develop a ceramic water filter production center in Uganda. These funds will help officially launch SPOUTS of Water. The goal is to increase access to sanitary water in Uganda, decrease their dependence on foreign aid, and give Ugandans a sense of pride and ownership in personal water hygiene. The water filter design is durable, cheap, and easy to produce from materials already found in Uganda. The simplicity and low-maintenance requirements of this filter will result in it being more accessible and easy to get Ugandans using it in their homes quickly.
Dandelion Support Network collects and sorts pre-owned nursery equipment and children’s clothes and distributes them through local support agencies to families in need. Dandelion Support Network is creating a future where local communities support each other in an inclusive and nonjudgmental way—where families can accept help from the community, free of prejudices and shame. Dandelion Support Network is utilizing this campaign to officially launch and cover overheads for the first year. With just under two weeks left, Dandelion Support Network has surpassed the campaign tipping point goal, raising $7,280, and is striving to reach the total funding goal of $9,751.
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Social entrepreneurs, have these campaigns inspired you to start your own good? Do you have a social enterprise, a non-profit, or an amazing idea that needs some momentum to take off? Visit our site to find out how to start your own campaign today. Still have questions? We have answers—check out our FAQ section.
