BE A CHANGEMAKER

Yup, I’m an Idol fan, and I love love love David Archule­ta. Now he’s teamed up with one of my favorite organizations:

“I know as well as any­one that teenagers have the pow­er to do some­thing. So I’m gen­uine­ly excit­ed about this cause and orga­ni­za­tion. When I heard about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved with DoSomething.org, I jumped at the chance. Thanks to this pro­gram, when a dis­as­ter strikes, teens will be part of the relief solution.”

What a cutie-pie!

Bill Dray­ton, founder of Ashoka, is one of my per­son­al heroes. Thanks to Jack at Youth Ven­ture Seat­tle, I had the most amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear him speak in per­son a few weeks ago. I also got to meet him after­ward, and we talked for quite awhile about my cur­rent work-in-progress–a hand­book for young change-mak­ers! Despite being sick, and in total awe, I hope I was able to sound rea­son­ably intel­li­gent. I think it worked, because he was very sup­port­ive and had a bunch of great sug­ges­tions and advice. What a thrill. Thanks, Bill!

Here’s a video (not mine) where Bill presents some of the same issues he talked about here in Seattle.

I think he is absolute­ly right on all counts. Empa­thy, team­work, and lead­er­ship skills—for everybody—are going to be ever-increas­ing­ly essen­tial for our sur­vival. What can you do to help change the world?

Teens, pop on over here for more infor­ma­tion about an essay con­test that could help you “fund your dream”. Lisa McMann wants to know, “What is the great­est obsta­cle you’ve over­come?” Answer in 500 words or less and sub­mit your essay to enter the con­test. Lisa McMann and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Simon & Schus­ter will choose one win­ner who will receive $1000 toward meet­ing his or her life goals! The con­test runs from 12/23/08 to 3/6/09 and is open to legal res­i­dents of the fifty Unit­ed States and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia who are 14–18 years of age. Good luck!

The Sta­ples Youth Social Entre­pre­neur Com­pe­ti­tion combed through a record-break­ing 530 entries from 61 coun­tries and chose 15 final­ists who rep­re­sent the best of the best. Check out the final­ists and vote for your favorite here.

Star­bucks and (RED) today announced a mul­ti-year part­ner­ship that will give cof­fee lovers a chance to do good every day.
Through­out the hol­i­day sea­son, Star­bucks will con­tribute five cents from the sale of any of (Star­bucks) RED Exclu­sive bev­er­age (the three bev­er­ages that make up the Star­bucks pop­u­lar hol­i­day trio) at all of their US and Cana­di­an stores to the Glob­al Fund to invest in AIDS pro­grams in Africa.
“(RED) is mak­ing remark­able progress in the world­wide effort to address AIDS in Africa,” said Howard Schultz, Star­bucks chair­man, pres­i­dent and CEO. “We have a deep part­ner­ship with cof­fee grow­ing regions in Africa. We are proud to part­ner with our cus­tomers to con­tribute toward an AIDS-free Africa.”
Schultz joined Bono, co-founder of (RED), for today’s announce­ment in front of 10,000 Star­bucks part­ners (employ­ees) at the com­pa­ny’s 2008 Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence in New Orleans.
“(RED) is com­ing to a cor­ner near you thanks to Star­bucks. I’m very excit­ed to be able to say that,” said Bono, co-founder of (RED). “The busi­ness of Star­bucks with roots in Africa and branch­es all over the world is an ide­al fit for (RED). It’s pret­ty mind-blow­ing to think that mil­lions of peo­ple can buy (RED) going about their dai­ly lives and in doing so raise mil­lions of dol­lars to fight AIDS in Africa. That’s not a bad hit from your caffeine.”
(Star­bucks) RED Exclu­sive Hol­i­day bev­er­ages go on sale Novem­ber 27, 2008 and con­tin­ue through Jan­u­ary 2, 2009.

Accord­ing to a recent press release:

Bor­row­ing pri­vate sec­tor tech­niques, Do Some­thing is issu­ing an IPO that promis­es sig­nif­i­cant Social Return on Invest­ment (SROI). The growth cap­i­tal invest­ment will fos­ter expo­nen­tial growth and bol­ster the orga­ni­za­tion’s self-sus­tain­ing programming.

OK, this is cool, but real­ly just an inter­est­ing way to put out a call to donors and raise funds. Will it work?

Ashoka’s Youth Ven­ture and Change­mak­ers is part­ner­ing with Sta­ples to launch their first glob­al com­pe­ti­tion to rec­og­nize young lead­ers who are find­ing new ways to cre­ate pos­i­tive change in their com­mu­ni­ties. They are seek­ing the most inspi­ra­tional ideas and projects led by young peo­ple between ages 12 and 24. Spread the word about this ini­tia­tive and nom­i­nate young lead­ers with fan­tas­tic ideas! Now through Octo­ber 15, 2008. Win­ners will be announced Novem­ber 12, 2008.

http://www.changemakers.net/competition/staplesyv/