dcruzin.com

First, thank you all for your overwhelming support thus far with the creative ideas you guys have posted, and also for the congratulations about my new job. I’m now the new Online Communications Officer for the Grameen Foundation. Now the fun really begins. I committed to raise $26,000 in 26 days, and I was hoping the deadline would be my birthday Feb. 21. However, for my job I will need to fly to Washington D.C. for 2 weeks for training & orientation beginning on Monday Feb. 8. I don’t get back till the 19th, and I’d like to have more time to prepare for my photo show.

On your mark, get set, GO!

I’ve decided to have my fundraiser party on Feb 28, and to make that the deadline for raising $26,000. It’s also 26 days away from TODAY :). I have launched my fundraising page through the Grameen Foundation’s Ingenuity Fund. If you want to share the link, it’s probably easiest to use this URL: http://tinyurl.com/26k-for-haiti. Please visit this page and if you feel compelled, donate today.

To show my commitment, I have personally donated $2,600 to the cause. This was not easy. Being unemployed the last 8 months has been difficult, and this is pretty much all of my remaining savings. But, I feel compelled to do this as I would not ask my friends and family to donate to something I don’t truly believe in. If we reach the goal of $26,000, it will be over 10 times as much as I raised last year! I’ve been tempted to get discouraged, but I keep getting inspired by people like Billy who raised $15,000 in 16 days!

For me to raise $26K in 26 days, here’s my initial plan:

• Use this blog/twitter/facebook to spread the word online
• Write handwritten letters to close friends/relatives
• Host multiple fundraiser dinners
• Host a sponsored karaoke night (you sponsor your friend to sing a song of your choice)
• Host a photography show event
• Finish a triathlon including a 26K run and 26 mile bike ride on Feb 27.
• Aim for these goals: $6K by 2/7, $12K by 2/14, $20K by 2/21 (my b-day), and $26K by 2/28!

Here’s how I need help:

• Donate on my fundraising page. Contact me if your company matches, and I’ll add it to the total!
• Spread the word via Facebook & Twitter. Share, Re-tweet and comment on my posts.
• Host/organize a baked goods dessert night (26 types of dessert)
• Organize a friendly eating competition - eat 26 types of sushi (Joe?)
• Donating professional services (i.e. a Valentine’s photo shoot, web design, etc)
• Donate lessons (dance, cooking, skiing/snowboarding)
• Volunteering to help with the events above (esp. the photo show!)
• Ask your friends if they’d be interested with helping with any of the above.
• Other ideas of your own design!
• Please fill out the form below if you’re interested in helping with any of the above.

I am still finalizing the details of the photo show, but I’m planning to have it on the evening of Sunday Feb. 28. I’m looking for a venue with a nice open space, a way to display photos (even if on easels) that serves food/drinks. I’d like to just allow people to come and buy food/drinks if they want. Maybe something with a private room or private area. 2 years ago it was at the Bal Mar in Ballard and that was pretty good, but I’m looking for any other suggestions/connections you might have.

There’s a lot of work to do starting today, but I’m glad I won’t be doing it alone! I’ll keep this blog updated as things progress.

photo credit to jon marshall.

If you’ve talked to me at all the last two years, you’ve probably wondered what I’ve been up to. In May of 2008, I supposedly left Microsoft to change the world, but that didn’t quite happen so easily. I started to work with a new non-profit called One Day’s Wages, but because of many factors (including the recession), the org’s launch was delayed and I never got to give it my full effort. (Luckily, ODW launched in late 2009, and it’s doing very well so far!) I returned to Microsoft on a contract in Nov. 2008, but was let go in June 2009 when my product was canceled. I spent the last few months doing some consulting and a few personal projects, but I was always looking for something more. Today I finally found it.

Today, I received a job offer from the Grameen Foundation. You might know the name from the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize won by Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. The Grameeen Foundation is part of the same network of organizations,  and I will be working on their Marketing & Communications team, mostly on technology related efforts like the website and social media. I’ll be based out of the Grameen Technology Center in downtown Seattle. The paperwork should be finalized on Monday, and then everything will be official. I’ll wait until next week to share more details about the job and why I’m so excited! I was going to wait till then to announce this, but what the heck.

For now I just wanted to share this amazing news with people and thank the dozens of friends and family who have supported me in this process, not just in applying for this job, but the whole two years leading up to it. God definitely had something up his sleeve, but I had to completely trust Him instead of trying to do things on my own.

By now, you may be unsurprised that the charity I’m raising the $26,000 for is for Grameen Foundation’s Haiti Fund. They partner with a microfinance institute in Haiti called Fonkoze. Following the 2008 hurricane in Haiti, they were able to provide loans at 0% interest to over 14,000 women, and they’re providing similar services again in Haiti following the earthquake. So what does this foundation do, you ask? In a nutshell, the Grameen Foundation utilizes microfinance and technology to empower people to lift themselves out of poverty. Still don’t get it? If not, that’s good, because part of my job will be to clarify our messaging about our mission and our work ;).

Above: clients of Fonkoze who have received a loan for their family business.

The only complication to my current birthday fundraiser plans is that I’m scheduled to fly to their headquarters in Washington, DC for a few weeks in February, and may miss my own birthday in Seattle. I was planning on having my birthday fundraiser on my actual birthday (Feb. 21) but I may have to postpone it a few weeks. Still, I won’t let that stop me. That may give me a few more weeks to plan, raise money, and most importantly train for any physical challenge I’ll be putting myself through.

Thank you for your ideas and encouragements so far. Keep the ideas coming, and I’ll keep this blog up to date with more developments. Like I said, next week I’ll post more info about my NEW JOB! It feels just so good to say that :). At this point, I’m still trying to comprehend what’s actually going on. This non-profit has been on my short list of top organizations I’d love to work for ever since I heard of them. I’m so blessed to have found the job posting, applied, and been accepted for a position I think fits me almost perfectly. I’ll probably reflect more on this whole process in a later post, but for now it’s suffice to say this: God is good.

I’ve made it an annual tradition to make my birthday not about myself each year, but about a particular cause to raise money for. In response to the crisis in Haiti, I decided I want to do something BIG this year. In order to do so, I’m  going to need more help from my friends and blog readers (i.e. YOU) this time :). I’m not asking you for money right now, but for feedback and ideas to start with.

Last year I was able to raise over $2500 for Room To Read, and I thought this year I’d at least up it to $2600. Then a crazy idea popped into my head: What if I could raise $26,000? It sounds pretty radical to me still, but in response to the situation in Haiti, we’ve seen some amazing fundraiser ideas out there (like this 7 year-old), It won’t be easy, but I think it’s possible.

As far as the cause/non-profit to support, I’m choosing an organization that has a long history of working in Haiti, and provided a lot of help following the hurricane in 2008. It’s more focused on middle-term and long-term recovery and sustainability, which is a big reason why I’m choosing it. I’ve given to and will continue to support immediate needs and disaster recovery, but since the earthquakes effects will be felt for years, I want to support something with a longer term impact. I’ll share the name of the organization in the next few days. Sorry for the suspense, but I think a little mystery won’t hurt the campaign :).

Above is a photo from Haiti, courtesy of World Concern.

Anyway, in order to even raise $2600, much less $26,000, I’m going to need a plan. As I’ve done in years past, I’ll have a celebration on my actual birthday (Feb. 21) where I will sell framed photography of my own and from my friends. I’ll also have a campaign online raising money through Facebook, Twitter and other places.

In order to really hit this out of the park though, I think I’m going to have to have a series of events and even as friends to help with their own events potentially.

Some initial ideas, all with the common theme of the number 26:

• Run 26K the morning of my birthday, potentially with 26 other people, who all pledge to raise money
• Maybe add a 26K or 26 mile bike ride to that
• My worst fear: swimming - maybe swimming 2600 meters, or feet, or… inches…
• Writing a 26 line poem
• Hosting a fishes+loaves event with 26 people (basically a dinner fundraiser)
• Any kind of eating contest/food event with 26 people or 26 items. Can someone eat 26 goldfish/cheez-its and swallow in under 26 seconds? Record the hilarity and post it
• Some sort of dance competition/performance? 26 dance moves?
• Can we somehow mix karaoke into an event? 26 songs in a row
• Writing handwritten notes to 26 personal friends/relatives about the cause and why I care. Also asking my close friends to do the same.

These are just things to help get the juices flowing. No idea is a bad idea. In fact, I know I’m going to need so many ideas, that I’ll issue a challenge: If I can get at least 26 people to give me ideas in the comments of this post and following posts, I will commit to raising $26,000, but not until then :). I’ll be following up this post with more details/progress in the next few days.

Also if you’d like to be more involved, whether you’re in Seattle or not, definitely contact me and we can talk more!

I have 26 days left. Time’s a tickin’, so post your ideas now, or share this post with a friend!

cupcake photo courtesy of wishymom.

What a weekend. I just returned from The Idea Camp in Portland, and to be honest I didn’t really know what to expect. The topic was “being present in the city” and overall I think I am still trying to process and digest all the things my senses were overloaded by.

Eugene Cho and Dan Merchant speaking on the cost of  implementing big ideas, with Charles Lee facilitating. 

Relationships. That was yet another common theme of the weekend. No amount of programs, ministries, ideas nor money can compare to a single genuine relationship between one human being and another. I’m not only talking about super deep committed relationships, but even those fleeting or intermittent interactions with people who happen to cross our path at specific instances in time. I ask myself: Am I truly “being present” in those moments? Am I just going through the motions, saying the same cliché phrases? Or, am I genuinely interacting from my heart? Do I truly see the person? That’s definitely one area I’d like to improve upon.

Action. That was another key theme for myself. One of my favorite quotes was “God can’t steer a parked car.” We may drive into the ditch once in awhile, we may take the wrong turn and go in the opposite direction for a time, but God will get us back on course. We just have to be in motion. I challenge myself to stop “waiting for a voice from above” and just do what I feel is right.

Trust. In order to have effective partnerships, we have to earn and develop trust between people and organizations. Perhaps it’s between a church and a city government, or a non-profit and a school district, or even just between two strangers who find that in this season of life they may not know anything about each other, yet in time they will desperately need each other. How do I gain people’s trust? What does it take to earn mine? Many times the answer is simply: Time.

I attended a breakout session on how to interact with local businesses, city government, schools and the local media. The case study of Beaverton, OR was quite fascinating.

My brain is still spinning from all the input over the past 48 hours, but these are my initial reflections from the weekend, with more to come in the upcoming days.

I turned 25 a little over a week ago. But this post won’t be my annual reflective birthday post. Perhaps later this week. I DO want to talk about my celebration, though, and how through the use of Facebook and Twitter, I was able to encourage my friends and family to collectively donate almost $2,500 to the non-profit Room to Read which builds schools, libraries and provides girls’ scholarships in developing nations like Nepal, Vietnam, India and South Africa. 

I had the idea to host a birthday photo fundraiser party at my house. I asked a few of my photographer friends to donate some prints to add to photo’s I’ve taken, and we sold them through a silent auction with 100% of the sales benefiting Room to Read. Additionally, I used the application Facebook Causes to create a Birthday Cause where I could invite my friends to donate. Currently, I’ve raised $987 offline and $1,430 through my Birthday Cause, so I’m up to $2,417 - just $83 shy of my goal of raising $2,500 for my 25th birthday. If you would like to contribute to the cause, simply visit my Birthday Cause and you can make a donation there :).

From 25th Birthday Photo Fundraiser

Whether or not I reach my exact goal, I am so thankful to my friends for supporting me through online donations, providing photos, helping set up/clean up the house, preparing food, decorating and much, much more! I could write a whole other post about how grateful I am for my community here in Seattle and my family and friends around the world. Back to how I raised the money though, I read a few blog posts by Beth Kanter and Amy Sample Ward about how they raised money for their birthdays, and I encourage you all to check them out and promote your own causes for your birthdays! The main strategies I used were:

1. Link my Twitter updates to Facebook using the Twitter Facebook App
2. Each day, try to get at least 5 people to donate
3. Update my status at least twice a day, asking for TWO (or how many people I needed to reach my goal) to donate that day
4. Update it more frequently on the 2 days before my birthday and on the actual day itself
5. Change my profile photo to the non-profit’s logo (more of a gesture to just promote awareness)
6. Explicitly state how much I had raised so far, and how much more I needed to reach my goal.

I could have done more through inviting people, sending them personal emails, but because of the photo fundraiser, I was able to email the guests (those who came, and those who didn’t, too) an update before the party, and also after the party. Mainly, it was through people seeing my status though. 

 In conclusion, I’m not really saying that Facebook and Twitter by themselves will save the world, but they are useful tools that can be used for more than telling people what you ate for lunch, or sharing news stories (though I enjoy those uses, too). All in all, I think the way we interact through social media is changing us in more ways than we realize: how we keep in touch, plan events, raise money, and even how we celebrate our birthdays.

  Links:

• Party Photos
• Follow me on Twitter
• Learn more about Room to Read
• Donate to my Birthday Cause