Neighborday Recap: The 10 Best Things That Happened This April 27th
- Hannah Wasserman wrote in Culture, News and Communities
This past Saturday, April 27th, marked the first annual Neighborday. In 22 countries around the world, thousands of people reached over their fences and got to know their neighbors. Like many of you who hosted Neighbordays, we found out that the community really wanted and needed this excuse to get together. We were floored by the enthusiasm, creativity, and doing we saw from the GOOD community. Thank you all so much for your participation. You truly made Neighborday a success!
Here at GOOD HQ we do a lot of top 10 lists, so I’ve crafted an initial top 10 best things that happened on Neighborday 2013. These are in no particular order and I am still getting in a bunch of pictures and stories, so don’t be surprised if this becomes a top 100 list by the end of the week. Have your own top moments? Share them in the comments and/or send to neighborday@goodinc.com
View the full list 10 Best Things from Neighborday on good.is
10 Days Till Neighborday: How Are You Celebrating?
- GOOD HQ in Culture, News and Cities
On April 27, GOOD community members everywhere (in 34 states and 12 countries so far, but our list is growing!) will be celebrating Neighborday. From potlucks to street clean-ups, people have inspiring plans to be social the old-fashioned way—spending quality face-to-face time with the friends and neighbors in their communities.
Will you join us? With only 10 days left, we’re hoping you’ll sign up and create your own Neighborday with our toolkit. It’s easy—check out the map above to see where people all over the country are celebrating and read on for inspiration to create your own.
Illustration by Tyler Hoehne
Your Neighborday Toolkit is Here
- GOOD HQ wrote in Neighboring, Neighborday and Culture
Introducing a holiday to people you barely know is easier said than done. Regardless of what you think of the people living in your neighborhood, we hope you can find something useful among these following resources that will add value to your Neighborday participation.
What type of Neighbor are you?
See the full toolkit on good.is
Infographic: Do You Know Your Neighbor?
- GOOD HQ and Oliver Munday contributed in Culture, America and News
Being neighborly isn’t just giving a smile and nod to your neighbors when you see them on the street. It’s a way of life—a way to build a real social network that can connect you to hyper-local current events, political action, and groups you can join to make your community a better place to live and work. What are ways we can improve how we engage with our communities?
Push for Good: This Week’s Guide to Crowdfunding Creative Progress
- Alessandra Rizzotti wrote in Technology, Design and Culture
Innovation makes the world go around, so why not crowdfund it? The best thinkers and ideamakers are the those who can make collective progress, so if we support their causes, projects, and ideas, we can be a part of bettering the future of our planet.
Maybe you don’t know what causes you care about yet, or maybe you’re still searching. Consider this a guide of the goodness you can get behind. Take a look at GOOD’s curated Kickstarter page, which we’ll be updating regularly, and check back every Saturday for a round up of our favorite projects from the crowdfunding world.
Here’s a success story that wouldn’t hurt to add a little crowdfunding to:
Push for Good: This Week’s Guide to Crowdfunding Creative Progress
- Alessandra Rizzotti wrote in Environment, Culture and Food
Innovation makes the world go around, so why not crowdfund it? The best thinkers and ideamakers are the those that can make collective progress, so if we support their causes, projects, and ideas, we can be a part of bettering the future of our planet.
Maybe you don’t know what causes you care about yet, or maybe you’re still searching. Consider this a guide of the goodness you can get behind. Take a look at GOOD’s curated Kickstarter page, which we’ll be updating regularly, and check back every Saturday for a round up of our favorite projects from the crowdfunding world.
Now to share some successes…
Tell us what projects you’re getting behind in the comments below. Push progress forward, and do it for our collective good.
Click here to add crowdfunding projects you can care about to your To-Do list.
Building Block #9: Become a Member of a Culture Institution
- Joshua Neuman wrote in Creativity, Living and Culture
You walk into a contemporary art museum and spot two doting parents hovering above a child in a stroller parked right smack dab in front of a sprawling Jackson Pollack canvas. “Look at the silly painting!” says the daddy. “Look, at all the pretty colors!” extols the mother. The kid’s eyes wander off to the adjacent, bright red fire extinguisher. The couple sees in the action painting an opportunity to foster their child’s appreciation of culture—and they’re right in doing so. All of us need help integrating a steady diet of art and culture into our daily lives. That’s why obtaining a membership to a cultural institution is such a good thing. Unlike the mug and/or tote bag they might send you as a token of your commitment, you cannot put a price on supporting culture and the arts—especially in an era of austerity measures. So, don’t just stand there pointing at action painting, this week take action by becoming a member of a local museum or cultural institution.
Announcement: The New GOOD Pets Hub Launches Today!
GOOD Partnerships wrote in Culture, News and Lifestyle
Starting today, we’ll be bringing you more than cute and fuzzy posts about cats and dogs. We’ll provide food for thought, including content like:
- Pet Diaries: Our continuing column features comedians, authors, musicians, and other pet owners writing about how their relationships with their neighbors and communities changed after pets came into their lives.
- Profiles about animal shelters and nonprofits that are finding inspiring ways to get their communities involved.
- Stories about people who are driven by curiosity to fuel change in their neighborhoods.
- A series elevating the extraordinary pet research that’s helping to improve the lives of our companions, including mapping the dog genome, studying dog happiness, tracking cat ancestry, and working on ways to help sustain a bright mind for dogs as they age.
- A GOOD Guide to keeping your pet healthy and happy in an urban city.
- Infographics that will include scientific facts about pets.
- And Maker Challenges, which will result in donations to a pet welfare nonprofit or shelter.
Illustration by Jessica De Jesus
Push for Good: This Week’s Guide to Crowdfunding Creative Progress
- Alessandra Rizzotti wrote in Culture, News and Goodness
Innovation makes the world go around, so why not crowdfund it? The best thinkers and ideamakers are the those that can make collective progress, so if we support their causes, projects, and ideas, we can be a part of bettering the future of our planet.
Maybe you don’t know what causes you care about yet, or maybe you’re still searching. Consider this a guide of the goodness you can get behind. Take a look at GOOD’s curated Kickstarter page, which we’ll be updating regularly, and check back every Saturday for a round up of our favorite projects from the crowdfunding world.
Tell us what projects you’re getting behind in the comments below. Push progress forward, and do it for our collective good.
Illustration by Jessica De Jesus. Image from Vintage Printable.
The GOODEST: Make a Pro Bono Commitment
-Alessandra Rizzotti and Jessica De Jesus contributed in Business, Culture and News
The GOODEST can be so many things, but why not just narrow it down to one thing each week? We’ll change it up and keep it fresh. After all, we consume so much daily, so for the weekend, why not just take away one great learn and do from the week?
Help Your Company Add a Pro Bono Service Program
Public Architecture wrote this downloadable letter so that you can urge your CEO tomake meaningful work a part of actual work.
Will you fill out the letter and send it off? Tell us here.
Illustration by Jessica de Jesus. Original image from Auctiva.
The GOODEST: Five of Our Favorite Things to Learn and Do
- Alessandra Rizzotti and Jessica De Jesus contributed in Culture and News
We’re picking five great things to highlight from this past week, plus a community member that’s making waves on our online platform.
Illustration by Jessica De Jesus. Original photograph by David Gonzalez
Help Build a Vibrantly Multilingual World
- Laura Welcher wrote in Culture, Future and Language
Most people don’t know this, but there are a lot more languages spoken in the world than the ones we hear every day. In fact, there are around 7,000 different languages, and each one tells a part of the story of our human experience on Planet Earth.
This tremendous richness of human linguistic diversity took thousands of years to develop, yet it is rapidly disappearing. Linguists expect that within the next century we will lose up to 90 percent of the world’s languages as we converge on a few of the mostly widely used ones for global communication and commerce.
Illustration by Tyler Hoehne
Infographic: How to Recycle Your Christmas Tree
- Column Five contributed in Environment, Culture and Christmas
The tinsel is undraped and the ornaments carefully stores away. All that is left is a dry, majestic, 6-foot-tall Douglas Fir in the corner of your living room. Every year, an estimated 30 million of these fragrant, fresh, Christmas trees are sold in the United States, but as much as 10% of them go straight to landfills—never to be recycled.
What can you do to keep your Yuletide centerpiece from going to waste while also helping your community? For more ways you can help conserve, visit our Environment hub.
Innovative Product Placement Makes This Music Video a Vehicle for Good
- Carolyn Malachi wrote in Creativity, Culture and Advertising
Red Coca-Cola cups rest, glistening, on the American Idol judges’ table, and you think to yourself, “Am I thirsty?” What if, instead, your thoughts turned to children in East Africa, hungry for an education?
Product placement is both subliminal and pervasive. Since I believe this lucrative and compelling form of advertising can be used to affect change, I decided to bend the “product placement” model with my latest music video and make “Free Your Mind” a vehicle for good. We’re honored and proud to officially release this video today on GOOD.
Amid threat of world-wide recession, the currency of clicks is as strong as ever. Matt Severson, one of my Facebook friends, is president of the global education nonprofit The School Fund. I am a recording artist and songwriter—just one artist whose music lives in Matt’s mobile devices and in his heart.
Our organic partnership, the #IAM Campaign, harnesses the power of social capital to fund the education of students in developing countries. What makes this initiative so special is that, for every view of my “Free Your Mind” music video and download of the song, one hour of class time will be donated to students in East Africa, courtesy of The School Fund’s corporate sponsors. Our goal is to provide 10,000 class hours per month, for six months.
Here’s where the GOOD community comes in. You may have 359 Facebook friends (the global average) and half as many Twitter followers, but post an idea that resonates with just one active user (there’s that number again), and you could land the world’s most coveted role: thought-leader.
Just by clicking “play” or “download,” you are helping a student to one day say, “I AM a doctor,” “I AM an engineer…” Get the picture? Our hope is that the #IAM Campaign shifts the politics of change by innovating the way we use our social media platforms. Not bad for a couple of dreamers brought together by music and education.
Are we breaking the rules by using our platforms to solve the problem of access to education? Perhaps. Do we risk failure? Certainly. But with great risk comes great reward. Any innovator worth their salt will tell you that.
In fact, our plan is already working
Matt and I have learned that, to make a meaningful, measurable impact, all you need are the right tools—an idea, an outlet, and a network. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business Civic Leadership Center discovered us through our friends at the Carmelita Group. We soon found ourselves on stage at the 2012 Citizens Awards introducing the #IAM Campaign to 400 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) executives.
Chegg, our first sponsor, committed their support for 20,000 class hours. The list of companies excited to attach their brand to this cause continues to grow. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have exploded with supportive posts from corporations and customers alike. Our social snowball is turning into an avalanche. Only you can keep it going.
The next time you watch TV and notice the camera not-so-subtly zoom in on your favorite character’s iPhone, think about the need for broadband development in rural America. Or, when your favorite action movie star crashes a Cadillac during a high-speed car chase, think of ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions around the globe. Think and figure out what you can do, because every one of us can do something good.
The GOODEST: Our Favorite Things to Learn and Do This Past Week
- Alessandra Rizzotti wrote in Culture, News, and Do
From freestyle rapping to starting your own compost, we have things for you to learn and do from this past week.
See the full Learn/Do list on good.is
Illustration by Jessica De Jesus
