Susan Newman and Mary Jo Rhodes (seen here right to left) are passionate about frogs, and they’re working to transform their passion into a full time job through Frogs are Green. We wanted to find out how this awareness-raising organization is drawing attention to the plight of frogs and amphibians, and how the efforts of these social entrepreneurs is clearing the way for an easier future for these green friends.
Frogs Are Green is an animal conservation organization with the mission of alerting people to an ongoing environmental crisis—the potential extinction of frogs and other amphibians—and to offer solutions for their survival. Amphibians are threatened with toxins in the environment, climate change, invasive species, habitat loss, and over-collection by the pet, laboratory, and restaurant trade. Recently, the chytrid fungus, a skin disease that has spread around the world, has wiped out whole populations of frogs.
Because they absorb chemicals through their skin, frogs and other amphibians are extremely sensitive to environmental threats and serve as bioindicators. We ingest and absorb the same chemicals in our water and in innumerable consumer projects. Research suggests that these toxins are affecting humans as well—especially fetuses in utero.
Frogs are our environmental messengers—we need to listen to what they’re telling us. What is happening to the frogs should wake us up to environmental problems that concern us all.
So few people know about the global amphibian crisis. Most people are surprised to learn that we are in the midst of the greatest mass animal extinction since the extinction of the dinosaurs. As there were fewer websites and organizations devoted to educating people about it, we thought we could help more with this cause than with other more well known issues. The topic also lends itself to educating people about a variety of environmental topics: the effects of toxins in our water, habitat loss, global warming, conservation, animal rights, and generally about the need to live a “frog-friendly” life.
When we first launched Frogs Are Green, our biggest challenge was to get people to take us seriously—most found the cause amusing until they began to learn more about it. Some of our original skeptics, however, are now quite involved in Frogs Are Green.
Our other challenge is funding. We are looking into applying for grants, attracting sponsors, and seeking other ways to increase funding in order to create educational materials, videos, online activities, and other projects.
Where did you find the funding to launch and run this social enterprise?
We had a smooth beginning because we’ve been friends for many years and share the same goals. We have funded the Frogs Are Green organization ourselves and are helped by occasional purchases of the products.
We sell products such as t-shirts, calendars, and posters to help fund Frogs Are Green. Our goal is to spread the awareness of the amphibian crisis and to contribute to other amphibian conservation organizations such as Save the Frogs and Amphibian Ark. The contests are a great way to get children and adults involved in our organization.
In addition to the online store within the Frogs Are Green site, we have a donate button on the site for those people or organizations that would like to help our cause, but don’t want to buy a product. We are also currently building a separate Cafepress store, which will open up our product selections in both price and variety. In 2011, we hope to explore ways of attracting sponsors and increasing donations.
We have tried different methods to engage people, such as reaching out to both local and online news organizations. We also created a Frogs Are Green display, which is currently up at the Hoboken City Hall. We’ve appeared at environmental fairs and talked directly with people, passing out postcards and wristbands. We’ve also reached out to other amphibian organizations and have contacted herpetologists and others for guest posts.
Some of these methods have paid off well for us. We were featured, for example, in a slideshow on Discovery’s Planet Green about endangered frogs, and this past summer, we were featured in a cover article in the Waterfront Journal, a Hoboken and Jersey City paper. In addition, we’ve been featured in several online articles and interviews.
We build our web presence through social media by using Twitter (http://twitter.com/greeninnature), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/frogsaregreen), and LinkedIn, especially the groups section. We’ve attracted a nice following, which continues to build everyday. Through these social media sites, we are connecting with photographers, educators, authors, herpetologists, and more. Social media has been a tremendous help to growing our blog readership as well as in helping us announce our contests and getting people involved in Frogs Are Green.
We have other jobs: Susan is a branding and identity designer for print and web and Mary Jo is a writer and does freelance editorial work. We hope to grow Frogs Are Green to the point where we would be able to work on it full-time.
Although we were passionate about our cause when we started, we didn’t start out with an organized plan, and now we are playing catch up. In some ways, however, this was probably for the best because we now have a track record: over 7,000 visitors a month on our blog, media attention about Frogs Are Green, and connections with other wildlife organizations and individuals. In 2011, we hope to expand our reach and to create promotional materials so that we can approach potential sponsors.
Revolution Foods is a for-profit social enterprise that provides school districts and individual schools with healthy, delicious, and environmentally friendly school lunches.
Concern about the quality of school lunches has been growing for several years among parents, nutritionists, and food policy advocates. In 2009, a study found that most school lunches do not meet dietary guidelines for students, and in 2010, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who spearheaded an effort to bring healthier school lunches to his native Britain, starred in a reality show intended to raise more awareness of the problem in the United States.
Social entrepreneurs Kirsten Tobey and Kristin Richmond were already several steps ahead of the game. In 2006, the two women, both foodies with backgrounds in education and public health, founded Revolution Foods, a school lunch delivery business that focuses on nutritious and delicious meals for students and staff, many with organic, fair trade, or locally grown ingredients. Starting with just three schools in Oakland, CA, Revolution Foods now serves students in programs across California and in Colorado and Washington, DC. To date, Revolution Foods has served more than 3.5 million meals to nearly 40,000 students.
As a social enterprise, Revolution Foods’ mission statement emphasizes the change it wishes to create with its programs, including better health and nutritional standards for students and greater awareness of good nutrition and the importance of choosing fresh, organic, and local foods among both students and their parents. Revolution Foods strives to make its lunches accessible to all students, especially those in inner cities and other “food deserts,” where fresh, healthy foods can be hard to come by.
Revolution Foods complies both with USDA guidelines for school meal preparation, and with its own stricter standards, which include its “Never-Ever” ingredient standards: no artificial hormones or antibiotics in meat and dairy, no fried food, no trans fats or high fructose corn syrup, and no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. It uses many organic or fair trade ingredients, and partners with local providers whenever possible.
In addition to serving many organic and locally produced foods, Revolution Foods is also committed to reducing its environmental impact in other ways, such as composting food scraps and other kitchen waste, using energy efficient food storage containers and recyclable packaging, and printing menus and other educational materials on recycled paper with eco-friendly inks.
revolution foods snacks 300×206 Revolution Foods: Greener, Healthier School LunchesRecently, Revolution Foods also launched a line of healthy snack foods for kids. A percentage of the profits from these snacks goes to support the school lunch program so it can continue to expand to under-served areas.
Revolution Foods is a great example of a social enterprise that runs its business in accordance with the so-called “triple bottom line“: people, plant, profit. Kirsten Tobey and Kristin Richmond saw a niche that needed to be filled, and filled it in a way that improves the general welfare of the communities in which it operates and respects the well-being of the planet as well.
Sometimes the goals of for-profit companies and non-profit organisations are well-aligned, but can they work together on joint social enterprises to accomplish shared dreams? We talked to Anthony Cheeseman, social entrepreneur and project manager for Ermha’s MadCap Cafe, a for-profit/not-for-profit joint venture that seeks to provide meaningful employment for people with cognitive delays. We wanted to find out what it takes to combine a for-profit company with a non-profit venture to help people get back into mainstream employment.
In 1975, my sister, Karen, at the age of six, suffered a brain injury as a result of an appendix operation gone wrong, which resulted in irreversible damage to the right side of her brain. Not only did this mean she suffered from an intellectual disability that affected her ability to read and write, but it also meant she had limited use in her left arm and leg. Even though Karen managed to get married and have two children, she continued to struggle. In 2005, she was viciously assaulted and left for dead in her home, which resulted in additional pain and suffering. She then became a single Mum when her husband walked out in 2006.
I wanted to find a way for Karen to enter the workforce to help her feel normal – she had never worked and desperately needed social interaction with someone other than Mum. I wanted to find a way to help those who are the most disadvantaged in our community to help them regain their confidence and self esteem.
I was a business owner – a restaurant named Cheesys Cafe starting in 2005. Then in 2007, I attended a non-for-profit seminar with the aim of meeting someone who could possibly acquire my business so that I could pursue my goal of helping disadvantaged people. I attended with several people who urged me to tell my story, which I did. Following the seminar, several people spoke with me about my goals and within two weeks, one of whom was Peter Waters of Ermha (Eastern Regions Mental Health Association), an established not-for-profit organization that helps support people with severe mental illnesses or disorders. A meeting was set and I began dreaming.
MadCap Mission Statement on the wall at both cafes 300×198 Social Entrepreneur + Non Profit Innovation = MadCap Cafe for Meaningful Employment
When people start to recover from their mental illness getting a job is always a daunting task.
Do I or don’t I tell the employer about my illness at the interview?
If I do, will I get the job, or if I don’t tell them what happens if I do get the job and I suffer a relapse in my illness?
Knowing my sister’s struggles with these questions, I wanted to find a way to encourage and support people to try something new and give them opportunities to enter the mainstream workforce. With that in mind, the MadCap Cafe concept was born during my first meeting with Peter (though the name had yet to be developed).
Yes, other ideas like this had been done before but other agencies had generally tried to do it by themselves on smaller scales. This lack of big vision has led many of these social enterprises to perish. Partnerships are what make projects like this happen.
We took the idea to the Ermha board of management, and, knowing there were only two years left on the lease for Cheesys Cafe, they approved the acquisition of the Cafe for use as the business behind MadCap Cafe. We were also pleased to then receive assignment of the lease to this new venture by Dandenong Plaza Shopping Centre as no other major shopping centre chain in Australia had ever approved a lease to a not-for-profit organisation.
As we brainstormed with Ermha’s clients, we came up with the name for the Cafe. MadCap means Make A Difference Catering and Production or we make Mad Cap…puccinnos!
Ermha’s goal is to get its clients back into meaningful employment. The decision made very early on was for the cafe to be a transitional business for the Ermha clients. The staff mix at a MadCap Cafe is currently 40% Ermha clients and 60% non-Ermha clients. The Ermha clients work approximately 30% of the total hours in the Cafe.
Clients must work a minimum of 8 hours a week and in the beginning they need more support and training in the work place. As their skills increase, their need for support decreases. From experience it can take 3 to 4 times longer to train a person who has a mental illness.
Ermha clients who show an interest in working at MadCap Cafe as part of their development plan begin their journey doing a pre-vocational program called MAP (MadCap Aspirations Pathway). Aspirations is the name of the Dandenong Day Program where Support Workers work with Ermha clients doing a range of activities and programs. Clients must complete the MAP (40 hours of pre-voc work) that includes basic coffee training, working in small hospitality teams and even doing a trial shift at the Cafe. They are also linked into Job Networks or Disability Employment Services who provide vital support and also wage subsidies.
Upon completion of the MAP program the client begins a 6 month Traineeship at MadCap Cafe knowing that the goal is for them to transition into open employment or do further studies at a college or university. A partnership has been formed with companies like Gloria Jean’s Coffee Houses who employs trainees after they have completed the trainee period. Trainees also are working in other cafes, supermarkets and even in cleaning jobs. MadCap Cafe provides well trained and skilled employees to the retail sector. Why wouldn’t businesses want to employ our people?
The community has embraced what we do. We not only change the individual’s lives but also the lives of their families who can now take holidays or go shopping because their family members are more stable.
I’m pleased to report that my sister graduated the MadCap program and has begun work in October 2010 for Wallara Australia, an organisation that employs people with Intellectual disabilities. It’s all about partnerships!
The Dandenong MadCap Cafe is funded and run by Ermha. Ermha is primarily funded by the State Governments Department of Human Services and in 2009/2010 assisted approximately 900 people.
However, in April 2009, with the recession upon, us the Australian Government released funding for businesses with the goal to stimulate the economy through the creation of jobs. With 3,000 applicants we were one of the 130 submissions chosen to receive funding to build another MadCap Cafe. This Cafe opened at Westfield Shopping Centre Fountain Gate in June 2010 and currently employs a total of 30 staff. From the day it opened the store has been busy.
As Ermha CEP Peter Waters says, we might be a not-for-profit but we are also a not-for-loss-business. Any profit that is made goes back into Ermha programs that help people.
What mistakes have you made along the way, and what advice would you give other social entrepreneurs like you?
Thomas Jefferson once said “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” That’s been my belief from the start. Here are a couple of the lessons I’ve learned along the way:
Get backing: You need the support of the organisations board of management. Ermha’s board has been amazing in the support, encouragement and patience they have shown towards this project.
Think big: Our goal is to have 30-40 Cafes in some of the most disadvantage communities in Australia that gives those who are the communities’ most disadvantaged opportunities that they might never get.
Money: The agency or not-for-profit must have not only the upfront capital but also money to keep the business afloat during the establishment phase.
Location is important: The Fountain Gate store is in a fantastic high traffic area. It is near a busy supermarket and away from the noisy food court.
Raising funds: Pay someone more experienced than you to do the big grant submissions – you’ll get better results.
Negotiate: Never undervalue what you do – big shopping centres need businesses like yours so make them believe that, too!
Getting help: Everyone loves what you do and say they will help you but when it comes to the crunch you find out who you’re true partners are
Planting a vegetable garden is a great way to save money on grocery bills, enjoy fresh, healthy, and delicious foods, and reduce your carbon footprint, but across much of the United States, the growing season is short – as little as two months in some parts of the Mountain West. Preserving food can help, but some favorite vegetables, such as salad greens, do not keep well. What’s a gardener to do?
Fortunately, there are a growing number of eco-friendly products designed to extend the growing season by moving food production indoors. Whether you have a studio apartment or a farm of your own, you can now enjoy fresh food year round wherever you live.
One of the most established and popular ways to grow vegetables and herbs indoors is with the use of grow lights. Unfortunately, because grow lights often have to remain on for as much as 12-14 hours per day, they were not considered very eco-friendly for many years. The modern generation of grow lights, however, uses LED lights that use an average of 80% less energy than conventional incandescent, metal halide or high pressure sodium lights, and can last up to ten times longer.
The GlowPanel 45 from Sunshine Systems uses just 28 Watts of power, yet has a comparable output to a 250 Watt HPS bulb. The 5 square foot GlowPanel can be used alone or linked with other panels, so you can power up to 28 GlowPanels with just one outlet.
One of the most innovative new indoor gardening systems is Window Farms. Especially designed for apartment dwellers, Window Farms are based on hydroponics systems, which involve growing plants without soil, to maximize space efficiency and minimize labor. Window Farms use recycled plastic water bottles to grow up to 32 different plants in a 4 foot by 6 foot window! They can grow nearly any type of plant except for certain root vegetables, such as carrots and radishes.
The Window Farms Project offers an online community of window farmers and free instructions for building your own Window Farm, in addition to kits suitable for both homes and schools.
Another creative and space-efficient hack of hydroponics technology is a system called “aquaponics” that combines hydroponics with aquaculture. In traditional hydroponics, gardeners must dissolve plant nutrients in water to fertilize the plants. In traditional aquaponics systems, the water must be filtered or cleaned regularly in order to prevent fish effluent from building up to toxic levels. In aquaponics systems, a symbiotic relationship develops between the fish and the plants. As water circulates between the plants and the growing medium, the plants naturally clean and filter the water, and the fish produce fertilizer for the plants. As a result, aquaponics systems use substantially less water than traditional hydroponics and aquaculture systems, and typically have lower operating costs. They are also highly space efficient, producing high quality fish such as tilapia in addition to vegetables, with little extra space.
Aquaponics systems suitable for both commercial and residential use are available. A good starter kit that can even fit in a small apartment is the Little Tokyo Farm in a Box from Earth Solutions, which
holds a 10 gallon glass fish tank and a 12″ x 20″ planter box.
For gardeners with the space to accommodate it, the ultimate indoor gardening space is a greenhouse of your very own. A unique greenhouse design that may be of special interest to eco-conscious gardeners is the Growing Dome from Growing Spaces. This geodesic dome-shaped greenhouse was designed by gardeners from the weather-plagued Rocky Mountains of Colorado to resist up to 60 pounds of snow per square foot, as well as hail and high winds. The Growing Dome was also designed to reduce energy consumption for heating! An insulated foundation and perimeter, a large water tank for thermal mass, and a solar power geothermal fan are among the features that help cut energy consumption for heating by up to two thirds! Growing Domes are available in eight different sizes, ranging from 110 to 2200 square feet of growing space.
An idea that started while attending Brown University in 2008 has flourished into an exciting social venture for Tyler Gage, one of the founders of Runa Tea. This green entrepreneur has turned an environmentally-sustainable organic, fair trade tea project for into one that will benefit the local community financially and socially. Tyler, while working with indigenous communities in South America, witnessed firsthand the tradeoff indigenous communities face–while they want to preserve their cultural and environmental heritage, they also have an immediate need to earn cash and feed their families in an increasingly globalized world. After long nights of storytelling and ceremonies, Tyler would awaken the next morning to the crisp sound of a chainsaw cutting down hardwood trees nearby.
In 2007, Tyler hosted a family of Ecuadorian shamans at his home in California. They shared an ancestral tea the shaman had carried with him from the Amazon: guayusa (pronounced why-YOU-sa). They began imagining how a Fair Trade business could share this rich-tasting tea with a global audience, and pioneer a proactive and culturally valuable way for the Kichwa people to participate in the global economy.
One year after starting from scratch, Runa Tea has reforested over 200 acres of degraded land with guayusa in organic agroforestry systems, provided technical assistance to over 600 small farmers, built and operated their first guayusa drying facility, and sold out of tea during the sales launch in December 2009.
The Amazonian Kichwa communities Runa works with have already met the market. Or rather, the market has met them in a way that is largely disempowering and culturally invasive. Runa’s goal is to facilitate access to capital markets in a way that gives the Kichwa people money to feed the family and send their children to school, and resources to invest in their own development.
What are some of the challenges of building a socially-conscious company with indigenous people in a developing country?
In Ecuador concepts like “email” and “the internet” are still very, very new. We find conflicting information about export logistics and registrations, large amounts of haze in the Ministry of Environment’s land management regulations, and strange requirements for selling products in Ecuador, among endless other informational jungle gyms.
Undoubtedly keeping our principles in focus makes the work more difficult – more stakeholders, more priorities, more balance required, more communication required, more levels to think about constantly. On the flip side, it’s more fulfilling, more sustainable, more exciting, and more participatory. That said, we are constantly reminded by our advisors that we must remain a successful business if we are to benefit anyone.
How is Runa different from other development type social entrepreneur projects?
Compared to other market-driven development initiatives, Runa stands out with the strength of its vertically integrated supply chain, integrated land management training programs, and its strategy for leveraging Fair Trade social premium funds.
In comparison to a similar market-based reforestation NGOs, Runa is reforesting with a native, culturally important, and perennial crop that grows exclusive in biodiverse agroforestry plots, as opposed to mono-crop plantations. Guayusa begins generating income after 3 years (in comparison to 15+ years for hardwood trees in the Amazon), produces harvests every 3 months, and exemplifies the efficacy of the “Specialized Cultivation” strategy for non-timber forest products, proven to be the most effective in cross-country comparisons.
How can a social enterprise like Runa remain sustainable as it grows?
Because guayusa requires the shade of other trees in order to grow, it cannot be produced in mono-crop plantations, and thrives in a biodiverse forest ecosystem. Even as demand grows our organic agroforestry model will stay the same.
The results for the farmers are also important. Runa has been able to raise 300 farmers income by 25% each, money which is most often used to buy staple foods and for school expenses (uniforms, transport, books). The average monthly income for a farming family is $30 to $70 / month, and every day we pay three different farmers $35 each for fresh guayusa leaves.
How have you promoted your products in the US? Do you use social media avenues?
We just recently launched our products and are only now starting to promote seriously. Our main focus is through product demos, where we get to interact directly with consumers and share the unique, smooth flavor or our tea with them.
We’re about to launch a brand new website and blog, where we’ll be using social media as an additional way to engage consumers and educate them about guayusa.
Our new Social Media Director will be moving to the Ecuadorian Amazon in February, and working from Runa ground zero to share our story, the guayusa tradition, and the Kichwa culture with the world. She’s got a pretty sweet job.
How did you establish your fair trade, organic standards? How do you verify those standards are being met?
BCS, one of the leading independent third party organic certification agencies in the world, certifies our operations and each one of the smaller farmers we work with, according the USDA NOP Organic Certification. We are working with the FLO-Cert and TransFair USA, the world’s leading Fair Trade certification agency, on the Fair Trade certification right now.
From the very get-go, organic and Fair Trade standards were a must. So we design our whole operational structure and production system around the standards. In contrast, most companies or producers “convert” to organic and Fair Trade, which is a much more difficult process.
How are you funded? How did you raise funding?
We’ve raised a convertible debt round from angel investors and received grants from USAID, the German government, and the Ecuadorian government. We also received $75k in cash and services after winning both the Brown University and Rhode Island state business plan competitions.
What advice do you have to other young, social entrepreneurs? Any mistakes that you made along the way that you would like to share?
Follow your heart. Make sure the market understands and likes what your heart has to say. Then persevere, persevere, and persevere some more.
I attribute most of our early failures to a lack of clarity around what exactly we wanted to do. Are we an NGO or a business? Are we a tea company or a bottled beverage company? Are we helping farmers or selling tea? The answers to all of these questions were never black and white. As a social enterprise we’re accomplishing many goals at the same time, and feeding many ducks with one piece of bread (I’m not sure the killing metaphor works so well for social entrepreneurship). Thus, we must understand the points of intersection, the levels, the results, the conjugations, and various languages we speak with a high level of precision, in order to stay focused and accomplish our goals.
Tell us about how the tea is made by the Kichwa.
Guayusa is traditionally brewed by boiling whole leaves in a large clay pot on the fire for long periods of time. Farmers harvest whole guayusa leaves, form piles of approximately 15 leaves, fold them in half, and string many of these leaf packets together on a string, forming a large wreath known as a sarta. The sarta is then hung from the thatched roof of the hut over the fire to dry.
When guayusa times comes around every morning, the women remove a few of the now dried leaf packets and place them in a large clay pot on the fire. Traditionally every family has one special black clay pot that they use only for brewing guayusa.
The leaves are left to boil in the water for anywhere from 30 minutes to 7 hours. Often times the pot will be left to brew overnight. Because guayusa leaves do not have any tannins like other teas, it can be brewed for long periods of time and never acquires an astringent or dry flavor. Once the guayusa is ready, the mother dips a large gourd into the pot and pours servings into the individual gourd that each family member has.
We’ve worked to capture a similar flavor to what the Kichwa people drink through our industrial processing methods. Community leaders often come by our factory to take samples back to their communities, because they appreciate the way we’ve captured the rich aroma and smoothness of guayusa in our drying process.
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You can learn more about Runa at www.runa.org. In particular, check out their new Amazonian Holiday Gift Basket, available exclusively from Runa!
Twitter, an instant messaging and blogging combination, has remained well ahead of other players within the rapidly growing microblogging world, since its inception in 2006. This type of microblogging allows users to create 140 to 280 character short messages broadcasted to followers or friends. More than 200 million people use Twitter worldwide as they keep in touch through generating about 65 million tweets each day.
Twitter may have the furthest reach and the most users, but there are other options out there. Should you be bored with tweeting and prefer trying something new, or a fresh perspective for your plans in social media marketing, check out what Twitter’s top competitors have to offer.
One of the widely acknowledged twitter competitors is Tumblr. It is a website known for its easy applications and functionality. You have a wide variety of sharing options that include not only messaging and chatting, but also texting, links, audio, pictures, and video. There are more than 3 million Tumblr users out there with this figure rising by 15,000 every day.
Information consolidation, from social bookmarking and social networking sites, microblogs, and blogs, is made possible through a feed aggregator called FriendFeed. FriendFeed lets you track such activities in addition to social network aggregation in one location. More than a million users access FriendFeed each month.
Using your email platform, Posterous will let you post your stuff online. Posterous takes all of your files, regardless of the type, and automatically converts them into the most web-friendly available format.
Posterous users praise it for being the top live streaming free application. While current official data regarding its total number of users is unavailable, several thousand new users are thought to be joining every month.
Available in more than twenty-five languages, Identi.ca, an open source microblogging and social networking platform, is growing rapidly. Identi.ca applicants may enjoy receiving updates from other users on various other services. If you happen to dislike something they do, Identi.ca will let you fidget with their source code and data to create a microblogging service of your choice.
Plurk microblogging and social networking service came into being as a means to create a balance between email and instant messages and several social networking features already in use. Plurk users upload links and updates, known as plurks, which proceed to appear to users who are interested in a displayed timeline.
Location-based social networking, a rapidly expanding social media tool, and social networking come together in Brightkite. This platform will allow you to check into a specific location and post updates and notes about experiences there. This platform will connect you to your existing friends or lets you meet new people according to locations you all visit. Brightkite has more than two million users and works brilliantly in promoting interesting places and local businesses.
Foursquare is another social networking service based on location, allowing you to connect through checking into diverse locations while sharing updates on Twitter or Facebook. Foursquare adds more fun to this experience through awarding you points whenever you check in. It even allows you win your way up to becoming the mayor of a specific venue. Over 4.5 million users have registered with Foursquare.
Another top Twitter competitor is Present.ly, a microblogging platform that allows various organizations, businesses, and other entities to put up their own microblogging networks. Compared to Twitter, Present.ly has additional unique features that let users create groups, which can function like intranets.
Yammer is a platform similar to Present.ly, known informally as Twitter for businesses, and a social network for enterprises. With Yammer, you can create a microblogging network where only users with your company domain name may join. Over one million users, located in more than 80,000 companies worldwide, interconnect and socialize over Yammer.
Ping.fm is a platform that gives you an opportunity to bring all the other platforms mentioned above together. With a single update post on Ping.fm, this microblogging and social networking platform send updates to all the other social networks you are registered in. Ping.fm will divide your updates three ways, letting you pick which group you wish to send to.
Any of these microblogging platforms above should add some value to your plans in social media marketing, whether you are looking for practical tools that let you customize your business or organization networks, discovering what other services have to offer, or whether you are searching for expansion avenues for your current social networks.
Source4Style is a great new resource to help eco-friendly fashion designers, interior designers, retail sourcers, crafters, and other designers find the sustainable fabrics and materials they need at affordable prices.
Co-founded by Summer Rayne Oakes, a model and environmental activist known for her work promoting eco fashion, and Benita Singh, a fair trade entrepreneur, Source4Style serves as an online trade show, allowing buyers to but directly from suppliers to help keep costs lower. It’s a win-win situation for both buyers and suppliers, because suppliers, many of them small, independent businesses, can reach a wider audience, while buyers can choose from a carefully curated selection of sustainable materials, which have both technical and sustainability specs included.
Signing up to become a buyer is free. Simply register on the site and start browsing! The Marketplace includes a variety of eco-friendly fabrics and other materials, including organic cotton, hemp, nettle, and linen, as well as reclaimed materials and recycled materials, such as a unique polyester blend made from recycled cassette tapes! Searching through the marketplace to identify sustainable materials of special interest is made easier by a system of icons that make it easy to recognize certain sustainable characteristics, such as organic, recycled, hand-made, or culturally significant. Another icon identifies materials unique to Source4Style.
When you find something you are interested in, you can add it to your “swatchbook” (wishlist), buy a swatch or sample yardage, or buy production yardage. In most cases, all materials except swatches are shipped directly from the supplier. In addition to its free membership options, Source4Style offers several different levels of paid memberships that allow access to additional information and discounts.
For suppliers, the process is slightly more complicated. Interested suppliers must fill out a questionnaire, which is then reviewed by a panel to determine if the material meets Source4Style’s sustainability standards. Among the factors considered include whether it is produced by environmentally preferable methods, whether it is produced according to fair trade or fair labor standards, and whether it contributes to the preservation of traditional crafts or cultures. Once the supplier is accepted into the Marketplace, they must pay a low monthly fee of $10-15 to list products. Source4Style will also consult with the supplier to determine the most appropriate commission structure.
Source4Style’s Marketplace currently includes more than 30 suppliers and more than 1300 different products. In addition to the Marketplace, Source4Style will open a directory of environmentally and socially responsible textile mills, dyers, cut-and-sew facilities, and other services in the fourth quarter of 2010, and a sustainable design wiki in 2011. Source4Style’s other services include consulting and workshops relating to sustainable design.
Though still a relatively new website (public beta opened in September 2010), Source4Style already shows great promise as a resource for designers interested in sourcing sustainable fabrics and materials without spending long hours on research and information-gathering. With Source4Style, the information you need is right at your fingertips!
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is an innovative non-profit organization that uses modern technology to preserve traditional indigenous wisdom and lands.
Founded by ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin and Costa Rican conservationist Liliana Madrigal, the Amazon Conservation Team uses GPS and Google Maps to create detailed ethnographic maps of indigenous territories in the Amazon rainforest. Plotkin explains that, “Westerners map in three dimensions: longitude, latitude, and altitude. Indians think in six: longitude, latitude, altitude, historical context, sacred sites, and spiritual or mythological sites.” In addition to boundaries and place names, these ethnographic maps mark places where the tribes harvest certain types of food, medicine, or building materials. They show historical sites where events of particular importance to the tribe took place, and sacred sites or spots where sacred animals have been spotted.
ACT’s strategy is to “Map, Manage, and Protect” and the maps serve a variety of functions in line with this strategy. First, they help preserve traditional knowledge and spread it more widely among different members of the tribe. Second, they help the tribes establish their legal claim to the land. For example, in Suriname, where there are no indigenous land rights, indigenous tribes are regarded as little more than squatters by the government and are often evicted from ancestral lands. The maps help plot out boundaries of traditional lands and establish their claim to the land. In Brazil, nearly 1/4 of the total area of the Amazon Rainforest is set aside in preserves for indigenous peoples, but they have no title to the land, making their hold on it precarious. Again, the maps help establish their claim and reduce the chance of eviction.
Since its founding in 1995, ACT has helped 29 indigenous tribes map more than 70 million acres of the rainforest, including hundreds of villages and thousands of areas of traditional resource use.
The maps also help indigenous tribes monitor the boundaries of their lands and assist with government efforts to crack down on illegal logging and mining. The tribes use high resolution Google Maps images to watch for changes in the forest that could indicate illegal mines or logging activity.
Plotkin calls this the “sweet spot” between modern technology and indigenous wisdom.
In addition to mapping and monitoring, ACT also assists indigenous cultures with developing culturally appropriate sustainable livelihoods. For example, one of its most successful programs is conducting courses to train indigenous park guards to help patrol and protect the borders of national parks as well as their own indigenous preserves. Training indigenous park guards not only provides those who know the forest best with the opportunity to protect it, it also gives them a steady income dependent on forest conservation, not destruction. To date, ACT has trained more than 250 new guards. In fact, the program was so successful that the government asked ACT to conduct course for non-indigenous guards as well, and ACT now offers a course for primarily non-indigenous park guards twice annually.
Another of ACT’s major programs is integrated healthcare, combining traditional indigenous medicine with modern treatment methods. These programs expand healthcare to previously under-served regions of the Amazon and preserve the traditional medicinal practices of the indigenous peoples by apprenticing young people to shamans and “mamas” (female healers), as well as an opportunity for exchange of knowledge between indigenous healers and Western doctors. The program has recently expanded to include integrated schools for indigenous youth that combine subjects such as mathematics and literature with traditional handicrafts, forest ecology, and more.
ACT’s holistic approach to rainforest conservation and cultural preservation has achieved great results through its combination of modern technology and respect for indigenous wisdom and autonomy. To learn more about ACT’s programs and how you can support their work in the Amazon, visit their official website, or follow them on Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube.