Tag: Philanthropy

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Orgs We Love: The Giving Net

Storytelling is still so important for cultural context and conveying messages to diverse groups.  The Giving Net‘s success is partially because they foster space for people to convene and tell their stories.  Through story telling, people learn, find common ground, are empowered, and social change can be created.

The Giving Net, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, was founded by Arkansas native, Andrea Price, in 2013. After growing up in the Delta, working throughout the South on community-based initiatives and on community development projects, she saw a great need for an organization that focuses on empowering citizens to have a voice in their neighborhoods, communities, state, nation and world. Thus, The Giving Net was born. The power to strengthen our communities lies within people who are connected to each other, informed about the issues that affect them and are willing to use their strengths for good. The Giving Net works to empower people and ultimately strengthen communities.

The Giving Net’s “doing” is designed to encourage citizens, of all ages, to give their time, talent and other resources to causes that strengthen communities. The Giving Net hosts a Radio Show where guests from around the world share their personal stories of service and civic action.

 The Giving Net designs and facilitates conversations and action based planning sessions for

  • Local governments
  • Faith-based institutions
  • Educational institutions
  • Political candidates
  • or others seeking to use collective, citizen power for change.

The Giving Net shares information, ideas and stories about civic engagement via our Blog. The Giving Net host and co-host public programs related to civic life, philanthropy, justice and social change.

 Listen to Gregg Potter, Project Kinect’s Founder, on The Giving Net’s radio show.

Check Out Lifestyle Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with The Giving Net Radio on BlogTalkRadio
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Monday Spotlight: Being Creative When Donating Time or Money

I have had to get creative with my volunteering lately while carless here in Wisconsin so I thought that I would make this Monday Spotlight all about volunteering and donating in creative ways.  One of the largest obstacles in getting people to donate their money or time today is that in order to do so, we feel that we have to bring the rest of our entire life to a halt.  I don’t know why, but in the back of our minds volunteering is a much larger activity than it really is.  To schedule a time to give our time with no return besides the greatness of the fact we are volunteering seems to be a concept even I have a difficult time with once in a while.  Ultimately then, we need to find ways that our loves, passions and enjoyments come out in our volunteering and donating.

I have put together these few things to at least get your minds going.  The fact is, we all do want to donate our time and money.  It is a human instinct to give.  So, in the year 2012, we just need to become more creative sometimes in our giving when circumstances aren’t to any extremes.

  • Wines For Humanity: My friend Angie is always so great about finding these ways to volunteer and fundraise that just amazes me.  I don’t know when she finds the time but thankfully she does because she finds me gems like this.  Wines for Humanity has strong feelings about homelessness. The hosts of these private wine tastings and their guests relax while enjoying the wines in a fun, educational environment. Not only does everyone have an extraordinary time with great wines and good friends, but a portion of the proceeds from every bottle promoted also directly benefits families in their community who find themselves on the brink of homelessness for reasons beyond their control.

                               Here in Wisconsin, the primary organization that receives the benefit is Porchlight, one of the organizations I have mentioned in the Madison section of Project Kinect.  Look into who your consultant is in your area to find out the organizations who are benefiting from Wines for Humanity.  This really is a great way for us wine drinkers to get together, taste some great wine and donate some money to an extremely important cause. 

  • Volunteering While Traveling:  I could kick myself for all of the times that I didn’t volunteer while I was traveling.  So many trips in my twenties that I didn’t even think about volunteering.  I know, as we all say, “it’s a vacation!  Why should you be working?”  Well, volunteering is not working because the word work implies that you’re getting paid.   When you’r
    This family we met up with twice. Once was at the Salvation Army distrobution center and the other was Dressing Up Tuscaloosa. They planned their vacation around this need to volunteer.

    e on vacation, you end up doing day trips and excursions and sightseeing; so why not decide to volunteer while you’re sight-seeing?  You will definitely get the spontaneous excursion that you were looking for.  Here are two additional links to give you some ideas of how to find volunteer opportunities while on vacation.  I do apologize, these websites are more geared for abroad travelers but even domestically, you can find great volunteer opportunities in any community.  You can also take it one step further and plan your vacation around a volunteer opportunity just like this family did who we met when we were in Tuscaloosa.

                                        I to I Volunteering

                                        Spunky Girls Monologues: 37 Ways to Volunteer While Traveling

Really though, this is all just to get you thinking about volunteering and how it doesn’t have to be a chore.  Look at what you absolutely love to do in your life, and find a way to share that or combine that in a volunteer opportunity.  My grandmother loves to play games and socialize.  So, two days a week, she goes to the nursing home in her town and plays bingo, colors, or chooses an assortment of other games with the residents.  For her, she gets to do what she loves and coincidentally, my mother works there as well as some of her friends are there.   My grandma would never consider this time volunteering, but that is what she is doing and the residents love her.  It is in there, in our happiness, where we can be the best “volunteer” that we can be.  Remember Jo who I met at the Tampa Hostel?  Look at how much volunteering she did as she was sailing around the world teaching yoga to all those youth at every port they stopped?  Her job for seventeen years was to sail that boat for the family on it.  She would have never considered her time “volunteering” when she was with any of those children. When volunteering isn’t in an extreme situation like natural disasters, then we must find that balance of where we volunteer hand-in-hand with something we love.

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Finding a Volunteer Opportunity

As I have been getting everything ready for the big trip to Tuscaloosa, AL , I have gotten a couple “I wish I could volunteer for something like that” comments.  In addition to that, I have received a few emails asking how I am finding different volunteer opportunities as I travel.  I have been just looking at community boards and Google searching much of what I have been doing but recently I have come across a website that matches you with the right volunteer opportunity…. Volunteermatch.org

One of my goals for Project Kinect is to make this huge community board where you can see what I have done, who I have volunteered with and other organizations that have popped out to me while I’ve been on this journey.  I want you to continue to check that out, but realistically, those are only opportunities that were in my eye sight; Volunteermatch.org gives you a much wider spectrum of what is out there and gives you options that are more suitable for your interests.

We all want to volunteer, but the hard part is finding the opportunities.  Volunteermatch.org completely helps you out with that.  With that said, I hope you’re waiting with baited breath for the Tuscaloosa trip.

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Do You Know Who Your Service Organizations Are?

On Monday night this last week, I spoke at the Kiwanis Club meeting here in Wisconsin Dells.  As I sat through the meeting, I thought about the history that I have had with this club, all the work that they do for their community and how there are these organizations in most of the cities throughout our country:  Working every day to create a better place to live for the people who live in these communities with them.

I feel that we forget that these clubs are there for us.  They are a great resource when times are tuff, or you need a few extra hands or you need help creating your own fundraiser.  Everywhere you go in our country, you can easily find a Kiwanis Club, Lion’s Club, Rotary Club, or some equivalent to them.  They are always there with open arms when you need them.  These clubs are what gave the definition of American Philanthropy.  They have even grown to a point where there are levels for people of all ages.  Using Kiwanis as an example, there is the Builders Club for elementary students, Key Club for high school students, Circle K for college students and Golden K for the elderly people who still want to give.  I have had the privilege of participating on almost every level of this monumental organization.

When I was at the Wisconsin Dells club this last Monday, one of the members made a comment about me joining finally.  In this particular club, my grandmother has been active for over eighteen years and I have been helping by her side since then.  I grew up knowing this group of adults and they were cheering me on when I was president of Key Club and then on to when I became president of my Circle K at the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire.

This comment made me really think though about whether or not people in their twenties are actively looking for different organizations to spend their time with?  I don’t even think that it comes to their mind as something they should consider.  Once we become adults, we really do have an obligation to help out with the function of society.  It doesn’t have to be in an organization but being a part of such groups makes it easier to give and you have a good time making a difference with people around you.  With there being a lack of ambition from my generation, I wonder what the future of these amazing structural organizations are? 

I am confident thought that these philanthropic groups will survive.  They have survived for so long, that waiting for the next generation of members won’t be as difficult a task as it seems. 

I’m going to end this post with something Oprah said yesterday on her last show.  “Everybody has a calling and your real job in life is to figure that out and get about the business of doing it.”  Whatever that is in each of us, we need a platform that lets us do that.  As you settle down, or uproot and need change, or just want to meet a new group of wonderful, generous people, look into your communities and see if maybe an organization like the ones I listed can help you with that.  We will never know the capacity of what we can do in life if we don’t have the space to let ourselves free.

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We Have Hit Three Months

It wasn’t until I heard my friend tell me a story about her visit to China while she was in the graduate school on a cruise ship that I really began to digest what I have been doing for the last three months.  If you haven’t been following me and Project Kinect, here is a rundown of the first three months.  Writing this down also helps me comprehend what I have done and where this year is going.

I started out the end of February in Las Vegas. There I met with the Human Feng Shui Project, witnessed my god daughter’s baptism and got a good look at the economy of Vegas and what they are doing to try and grasp the magnitude of their situation.

From there I was in Texas.  I spent a good amount of time in Austin with my friend Jess.  There I helped with the Association of Performing Arts Service Organizations (APASO) conference, witnessed the South by Southwest Interactive portion.  I also got see some extremely innovative theatre and learn about the ATX equation.  Austin led me to San Antonio, a thriving city, and then to Beaumont, which is a barely hanging on city. 

 With the assistance of my friends Alyssa, Levi and Megan, we journeyed to Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Mobile and onto Saint Petersburg. Outside of Mobile, AL we checked out Dauphin Island and how it has coped with hurricanes, the BP oil spill and the constant erosion that is inevitable for an island in that location of the gulf.

  In the Tampa/Saint Petersburg area, I learned about what is being done to fight against the high rate of pedestrian accidents.  I spent a night in the Gram Place Hostel and met Jo and Valoree who are contributing to their communities in great ways.  After the hostel I met Stacy, a friend of a friend and we got to talking about technology in schools and what that looks like as an educator. 

Stacy brought me to the train station and I went to New York with a fifty degree change in weather and an incredibly empty pocket book.  In New York I met with the Central Park Conservancy, The True Colors House and a whole bunch of different people adding their gifts into their communities.  New York was amazing because I had a chance to see what ten years of healing looks like after the travesty of September Eleventh.  New York came and went so fast that I feel like I hadn’t accomplished any connecting but then look at my picture from the today show and remember what great strides were made.

From New York I went to Connecticut, more specifically Mansfield, CT and hung out on the University of Connecticut (UCONN) campus for a few days.  I chatted with some graduate students about how their lives had changed at UCONN and sat through the technical rehearsal of Urinetown which is a musical that has so much relevance to our society right now. 

I then was in D.C., had a great sit down at the EPA, realized how amazing it is that majority of the Smithsonian Museums are free, and just took in our nation’s capital in a way that I had never done before. Washington D.C. was pivotal for me though when I realized I had connected an idea from one community, Yoga for youth, to another community.  That was when I realized what I was doing was actually getting people to think about what is happening in their communities and what they can learn from other communities that don’t cross their train of thought.

D.C. brought me to Baltimore.  In Baltimore I learned about what a city with such a bad representation with crime does to change the opinion of an entire nation.  Baltimore’s most significant addition that I saw was The Circulator that is a free bus.  It has three routes that venture through much of the city and prides itself on ten minute services until nine in the evening.  When I return, I will look further into the managing of this by the local government and how that bus system got budgeted in.
I then arrived into Milwaukee where it was raining, snowing, hailing with thunder and lighting and I was whipped around like a leaf from a leaf blower.  My friend Melanie picked me up and got me safe to Rockford where I gathered for her birthday, painted a wall and spent some time with Dana from the Weed & Seed Kishwaukee Corridor. 

Dolly came and got me from Rockford where I went home for a week, spent some time in Madison getting some follow up news on the Governor Walker Protests in February and March.  I had a quick look at Porchlight and the AIDS Network while I was there but I really wanted to spend some time with family before I was off to Los Angeles. 

In Los Angeles, other work had to take priority but I still got a chance to talk with the film maker Katherine Brooks and her summer project Face 2 Face where she is going to spend the summer meeting fifty of her facebook friends and filming it.  How amazing is that?

From LA, I flew into Minneapolis/St. Paul and went to an organizational meeting for the creation of a new nonprofit that will be dedicated to the goal of connecting LGBT youth so they have an even larger support system which will ultimately help to lower the rate of teen suicide.  To be on the ground level of such a purposeful endeavor was truly a gift.

I then went to hide out at my father’s house in Eau Claire, WI.  I spent some time up at our cabin, and then attempted to get caught up on editing and developing the next three months.   I had a chance to inquire into my Circle K club from college and to find out that this once small service club that I was once the president of is currently the second largest club of the entire international organization.  That is a ton of service hours helping to benefit the world that we all live in from an enormous group of selfless young people. 

I then made my way back to St. Paul and the Minnesota Aids Walk with my friend Danny’s kids from St. Paul’s area Gay/Straight Alliance clubs.  The following day was a huge rally at the capitol building where I interviewed people who were fighting for the right for gay and lesbian couples to marry.  The week gave me a chance to see four different people from extremely influential moments in my life.  It was a great week of reflection and then two fantastic female Lutheran Pastors drove me back to Wisconsin Dells where I am now preparing for a month helping out the schools that were destructed in and around Tuscaloosa, AL.

As I proofread this, it reads as if someone else has done this.  I sit and digest that this is my journey and I think how it is missing so many great details.  If you are reading this and this is your first introduction to Project Kinect, then please read what you’ve missed.  Something may inspire you to look at the communities in your life and involve yourself in a new way. 

If you are a faithful follower of what I have been doing, then please continue to follow and PLEASE share this with your friends.  My project doesn’t work if it isn’t shared.  I need people to continue emailing me, commenting and adding what they feel when reading and watching what is happening.  It is a group effort and in this group, everyone counts.

Well, next is Tuscaloosa.  I’m going to go get dirty with my friend Alyssa for a month and really try to help a group of people who lost everything.  I’m teaming up with The Forsaken Generation but still need your help.  Larger sponsors haven’t joined on yet so I’m still depending on the last of my savings and donations for living.  If you have been wanting to donate and haven’t yet, now is the time:  Now that my fourth month is starting, there is really no turning back…

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One Month In

Last night I escaped to the pool of the apartment complex I’m staying in.  I’m tending to this nasty sunburn that I received down here on the first couple days when I fell asleep on the beach.  It is not pretty and I am about to get on a train for twenty-seven hours.  I laugh at it because it is all a part of this journey that I am so fulfilled to be on.

While I was down by the pool, I met this woman who had just recently moved with her husband from Michigan.  She was also escaping for a moment.  Her husband was taking care of their one year old while she enjoyed the hot tub.  They moved to Tampa because her husband is in the Air Force and he was placed in Tampa. 

After she told me the basics: How they met? Where they got married? Why they came to Tampa? She told me her passion for art and music from video games that get mixed into different music genres.  Then, we got on the topic of fan fiction.  Remember Claire at the Starbucks in Austin?  She was a fan fiction author.

When I met Claire and her fans, I had no clue what fan fiction really was, but I faked it well.  Last night in the pool, I was educated.  The abridged version is fiction written in order to combine two or more characters from different story or plot lines.  A good example would be if I wrote about Harry Potter in a samurai story with Edward from Twilight.  There are no boundaries to what the story can do so it really unleashes the imagination into limitless scenarios.  Even though it doesn’t have boundaries, it does have very philosophical rules.  I’m not educated enough to really go into them, but can say some thought really did go into the creation of fan fiction.

This conversation at the pool last night though really got me thinking about my journey in just a month.  Tomorrow I go to New York to stay put because I am quickly running out of funds.  In New York I can stay with loved ones who are family and being in New York, I will have plenty of content as well as resources.

My intentions of completing this full year are big and bold.  As I look over this first month, I am overwhelmed by the greatness I have come across. Las Vegas opened my eyes to things that we have overlooked in our country like social responsibility from private entities in our communities, the fact that refugees are still coming to our country in hope of a better life, and what a community looks like when it’s second strongest source of revenue stops.

 In Austin, I met Claire the fan fiction writer, Teresa who is working on a project to really show talented dancers in our country, the entire group from the APASO conference and hundreds of more. Their stories are all individual and have a right to be shared.

This progression of eye opening moments and great lifelong stories have been constant since Austin into San Antonio, Beaumont, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Mobile, Panama City, Saint Petersburg and now into Tampa.  Rhonda sharing with us in Beaumont to my Cab driver in New Orleans talking about the progression of New Orleans over the last fifty years all has relevance in our lives.  All of it as a whole makes us a community and that continues to be an underlying theme in Project Kinect.

I’m not sure yet of the outcome of this year will be and I probably won’t until much later in the year.  I am sure though that there is a benefit to what I am doing even if only for entertainment.    We need to know each other better without judgment and without prejudice.  We will never get further as a society if we don’t take the time and find the common ground with one another.

As I take the next twenty seven hours off line, on a train, heading toward New York City, please take a moment to think about what Project Kinect can mean in your life.  If it does nothing, then that is that.  For majority of us though, we really need that human connection on some level so Project Kinect should really hit close to home.   In order for me to continue with this and see really where this movement can go, I need all the help I can get.  I ask that you please share this, donate, email me, or any other assistance you can think of.  Once I have the resources I need to reach out to as many people as possible then and only then can we see the capacity of Project Kinect. 

Thank you all for your support so far and see you in New York City.

Tons  of love,

Gregg

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