"The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to love, mad to talk, mad to be saved; the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." - Jack Kerouac
Here’s a little interview the nice folks at Elephant Journal did with me at the LOHAS conference. Elephant Journal is a fun, “guide to the mindful life”. They’re based in Boulder and distributed in five states in the Rockies. Take a look at the video, and it would be great if you could show them some love and check out the Elephant Journal site as well. Thanks!
In celebration of our new logo design, and, well, mostly just to have fun, a group of Care2 team members has been working nights and weekends to create the world’s first “Flutterfrog.”The creation will be a human-powered flight vehicle frog, with butterfly wings.Not kidding.
The Flutterfrog will, if all goes according to plan, fly gracefully off a Portland, OR, pier on August 2nd as part of RedBull’s Flugtag.The Flugtag, or “flying day” in German, challenges 31 teams to see who can fly their vehicle the farthest, with additional awards for creativity and showmanship.
As a significant portion of Care2’s software development has been powered by RedBull guzzling engineers, I can attest that this is a potent combination.The Care2 team is headed by software engineer Alex Feinberg, who is backed up by a flight crew of four:head of customer service Kristen Atkinson, software engineers Anthony Duerr and John Wyles, and operations engineer Seth Reid.Additional members of the Care2 team have been helping craft the vehicle out of mostly sustainable and recycled materials.
The Flutterfrog is being developed in Anthony’s garage. It’s still unclear whether he volunteered this space out of a spirit of charity, or to get the rest of the team to clean up what was arguably a cluttered mess.Regardless, development is well underway, and has involved lots of bamboo, substantial use of power tools and much merriment.
The local press got wind of the story over the weekend. For more on the story see here.
Care2 members are involved in a lot of beautiful things, but there's something particularly special about the following story told by Care2 team member, Samer:
------------------------------ There’s something about a child’s smile that’s magical. Is there anything more innocent, mischievous, and beautiful in the world? Is there anything more heartbreaking when that smile is lost to a facial birth defect?
I’m not just being poetic — there are very real cultural and medical consequences for children born with cleft palates and cleft lips. They are mocked and ridiculed. Eating and speaking are difficult, and these children often end up totally dependent on their families who may even shut them away, believing them to be cursed.
Children who grow up with unrepaired cleft lips and cleft palates may have difficulty developing social skills or leading productive lives, which is why it’s so heartwarming to see the difference made in their lives by Operation Smile. This past spring, we worked with Operation Smile to collect messages of hope for the children of Madagascar suffering from cleft lips and cleft palates. Since 1982, Operation Smile’s medical teams have treated more than 115,000 children worldwide, but this was only the organization’s second mission to Madagascar. The results though were astounding: 211 free reconstructive surgeries over the course of five days.
So many lives touched! There was one mother and child that walked through the Madagascaran rainforest for three days, a young man who was ashamed to leave his village because of his disfigurement, and a 28 year-old whose name translated into “cleft lip.” This man said that he planned to change his name when he returned home and to get a new ID card with a new picture. These changed lives were the result of an international team of medical and non-medical volunteers, who came from as far away as Canada, Holalnd, Italy, South Africa, the UK, and the USA. And I would be remiss to mention the supporters and donors who were able to make these miracles happen. Each surgery costs $240 — what a small price to pay to literally change someone’s life!
And as for the messages of encouragement collected from Care2 members? We collected 7,649, and the names and messages were posted on the walls of the playroom just before the children went into surgery. As one Care2 member put it:
Little Ones, you are BEAUTIFUL! I wish I could give you all a big hug! But I send my love and prayers for you instead. God bless you and those wonderful caring people who are helping you!
Meet Dorothy Keeler: Dorothy, co-host of the Wolf Lovers group and wildlife photographer, was one of the first members to create a petition on Care2. We launched ThePetitionSite back in April 2001 as a kind of experiment to see if we could help individual citizens harness the power of the online masses. It didn’t take long before Dorothy showed us what a single motivated individual could accomplish. Her petition helped convince the Alaska Board of Game to create a buffer zone around Denali National Park to protect wolves that strayed outside the park’s boundaries.I recently asked Dorothy about her experience protecting wolves:
C2: What inspired you to help the wolves?
DK: My husband and I are professional wildlife photographers who lived in Alaska for years and worked with the Toklat wolves in Denali National Park since 1990. I have been, and seen others, within 10 feet of wild wolves literally hundreds of times and have documented their reactions to humans... none of which were in the least bit menacing or threatening. Please see photos of how these wild wolves naturally behave around humans when they discover that they won't be harmed or fed.
C2: What are some of the successes you’ve had?
DK: Several petitions hosted on Care2 resulted in protecting Alaska's bears and wolves. My successful account of creating a petition to protect the Toklat wolves of Denali National Park is the lead story in MoveOn.org's book entitled, "Moveon's 50 Ways To Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Be a Catalyst for Change." I hope by sharing what I did, I can inspire others to create a petition for their cause.
C2: How has Care2 helped you?
DK: Care2 has provided a community of like-minded people who have rallied around causes I hold dear, introduced me to other situations where I could help others, and energized me when my determination was flagging. C2: How can the Care2 community help you?
DK: The Care2 community can help us end aerial wolf hunting in Alaska and keep it from spreading to the lower 48. The Protect America's Wildlife (PAW) Act, now before Congress, aims to close a loophole in the federal Airborne Hunting Act that Alaska officials have exploited to shoot wolves from planes or to chase them to exhaustion and then land and shoot them. Over 800 wolves were killed over the last five winters by aerial hunters. See AlaskaWolfKill.com to help.
Last month we shared an early prototype of our new homepage design. Today, we have a new version plus the main pages from each section for your review. Using your feedback, our design team has been busy improving the design.What exactly did we change? Lots of things, including but not limited to:
Added more color ( lots of you thought the original design was, shall we say, “bland” )
On the Causes & News page moved Causes block to the top
Home page, made the spotlight panel “more inviting”
Made the “MyCare2” tab easier to find
Added emphasis on members and member activity in the Community tab
Added more evidence of members’ impact
Added more to the Favorites and quick links menus
There are some other fun changes we’re making, including adding Froggy back in the mix, but we wouldn’t want to reveal all our surprises before launch!
The Newest Version: We’d now love to get your feedback on this new version.As a reminder, in an earlier post ( “The Time is Now” ) I talked about our goal to expand our appeal to mainstream America (and other nations) so that we can effect change more rapidly. In order to do that, we are improving our design to: 1. Help people understand what we do: First time visitors often find our homepage overwhelming and confusing. Even many longtime members don’t realize we have petitions, healthy & green content, e-cards, and so much more.
2. Freshen our design to appeal to a wider spectrum of people. Our current design is over 2 years old and frankly looks out of date.
3. Organize the content to make it easier to find and use. Add new content to enrich the experience.
...and do this all without hurting the experience for our existing members. With that said, here is the new version for your review. Note:Most of the links do NOT work, and the content is NOT real.These are drafts. Nothing is set in stone yet. We value your feedback and will make changes as appropriate. Six key pages:
In particular, we’d like to get feedback these six pages:
1.Causes & News 2.Healthy & Green Living 3.Take Action 4.Community 5.Ecards 6.ThePetitionSite
Please submit your comments directly to our survey so we can put it to best use:
A few weeks ago, some of you received a Care2 action alert requesting that you let General Motors know we want hybrids that will make a difference in the world and in our wallets.
We were contacted immediately by GM because of two things:
1. the number of petition signatures flooding their office from Care2's petitionsite; and,
2. to correct our oversight that they do in fact have two hybrid cars, not just SUVs, on the market [Although they have not sold very many].
So, we applaud General Motors for listening to consumers, and we applaud Care2 members for coming together to take action to the degree that it made GM take notice and respond. Even though they contacted us to correct an oversight, clearly they recognized the volume of consumer actions required their attention.
If you ever wonder whether these giant corporations pay attention to your petitions, have no fear, you're getting their attention.
And if you missed yesterday's news reports, GM announced they are delaying plans to upgrade their existing fleet of profitable but large pickups and SUVs to instead focus on smaller fuel efficient models. There were obviously many factors involved in that decision, but it's strong evidence they're now seeing the light.
Change often doesn't happen as fast as we'd like, but when we stand up, join together, and make our voices heard, it makes a difference.
I’ve met a lot of entrepreneurs in the “socially responsible business” arena over the past 15 years, and I’m proud to consider myself among this pioneering crew.But while public interest in green issues is growing rapidly, I’m troubled that green entrepreneurs continue to suffer from two great challenges.We tend to be: 1.Too idealistic 2. Morally conflicted Don’t get me wrong, idealism is not a fatal flaw, and in fact can be a great asset.Almost by definition, entrepreneurs have an “unreasonable” belief in their dream, or they wouldn’t embark on such a difficult and unlikely journey in the first place.That said, the nature of the green entrepreneur’s idealism often extends to the belief that others share their passion for social and environmental benefit to a truly “unnatural” degree. While I love the enthusiasm and passion of green entrepreneurs for making the world better, creating radical change is generally not accomplished by requiring consumers to change radically.Call me jaded, but I don’t believe large numbers of people are going to start drinking foul-tasting-but-good-for-you-and-the-planet green drinks or ditch their car for asolar-powered skateboard. The second issue is far more problematic.If you’re going to be successful as an entrepreneur, it sure helps to love business – focusing on customer needs, doing deals, managing a team, managing cash flow, etc.Wait… did I say cash flow?Yes, that dirty word, “cash.”It tends to be the green entrepreneur’s Achilles’ heel.
For a variety of reasons, the “socially responsible business” world has been conflicted about money forever.We’ve been told “money is the root of all evil” and greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.Green entrepreneurs pride themselves on their high morals (we are trying to save the world, after all), so deep inside there’s this gnawing conflict: To create the product or service which will cause massive change requires money… yet money is “evil”. So most green entrepreneurs race out to change the world through business, focusing great energies on the mission with only meager attention to the money side.Meanwhile, businesses and entrepreneurs unburdened by the moral conflict find financing and profits - building empires while their “socially responsible” brethren stay small or fail. And it’s not just self-imposed guilt.I get this question all the time: “Is Care2 a for-profit?” The clear subtext is “but how can it be doing good if it is for-profit?” and/or “If it is, then it must somehow be bad.”There’s a pervasive “nonprofit is good / for-profit is bad” attitude in society, particularly among fellow progressives.I even know of one for-profit startup in our space that went so far as to use a “.org” website address that obscures its for-profit nature (of course only perpetuating this downward spiral). There’s no question that businesses are some of the primary contributors to many of the ills we face today.We have great reason to be skeptical.But that doesn’t mean “business” is inherently a bad model.It’s not perfect, but it is powerful, and with the right leadership can be a strong force for good. So here’s my request to all of the well-meaning folks who want to see a world of good. Have faith in the intentions of green entrepreneurs, and give them the benefit of the doubt.I’ve met hundreds over the years, and they’re almost universally well-intentioned (The few I’ve met whose intentions seemed dubious were so un-authentic that I don’t think they were fooling anyone).Judge not by the model, but by the results and by the organization’s adherence to its marketing messages. We need the best entrepreneurial business minds to be working toward creative solutions – embracing business opportunities full-on to leverage the power of the markets for good.When they can demonstrate profitable models to create a more sustainable society, a tidal wave of others will follow.
Children who grow up with unrepaired cleft lips and cleft palates may have difficulty developing social skills or leading productive lives, which is why it’s so heartwarming to see the difference made in their lives by 
none of which were in the least bit menacing or threatening.
