Cause It’s My Birthday Press Hits aka Mom Aren’t You Proud of Me?

Archive for October, 2009

Cause It’s My Birthday Press Hits aka Mom Aren’t You Proud of Me?

October 29th, 2009, by Sloane Berrent. No Comments »

Really why do we do anything but to curry favor with our parents? In my case, my mom. I told her I was up to BIG things this year and that my good deeds wouldn’t go unnoticed. So see Mom! Aren’t you proud of me? At any rate, what I really want to share is that our grassroots campaign Cause It’s My Birthday is closing in just a few days (10/31 at midnight EST to be exact). We’ve kept the donations open all month in part because we’re sooooooo close to our $20,000 goal. Yes, only $1,200 shy. That’s a few clicks of the button from people like YOU. Ahem, just saying. But also because donations REALLY do keep coming in. In large part because of press, blogs, word of mouth and we figured, hey why not keep it open all month.

I wanted to give a press update then – as a follow up to THIS post on the first round of press.

Triple Pundit by Gennefer Snowfield; It’s My Birthday and I’ll Give If I Want To
Socialbrite Interview by JD Lasica (video seen at the top of this post); An inventive cause campaign to fight malaria
Social Earth by Ashley: October 3rd-9th: Bring Out the Birthday PresNETS!
LAist post by Christine Ziemba: Pencil This In: ArtNight in Pasadena and Sloane’s Birthday Bash
Escape Hatcher podcast with Susan Baker (this one was super fun, LONG story how I know Susan but she’s one of the first five people I EVER met in LA. Ask me about it sometime. Small world); Sloane Berrent of TheCausemopolitan.com and Causeitsmybirthday.com
Pirate Cat Radio by Steph Dub; CAUSE it’s my birthday- Fight Malaria benefit
les pensées insouciantes a blog by Matt Rosen: GPICT – “Cause It’s My Birthday:” A Birthday Celebration and Fundraiser All in One
Drew Meyers (a Seattle host has this to say): Help Raise Money for Malaria
SeaMo: Connecting the Microfinance Community happily promoted in Chicago and Seattle (thanks!): Cause It’s My Birthday

Of course to everyone who twittered, facebooked, emailed, spread the word and in general rawked and made things awesome – WOW. This literally could not have happened without everyone’s support and from our nonprofit partner Netting Nations and the net manufacturer, Vestergaard Frandsen to the families you’ve helped and from Doug and I – THANK YOU.

If you liked this post you might like:
What You Can Do To Help Cause It’s My Birthday
#fightmalaria campaign update
The Fight Against Malaria Press for Cause It’s My Birthday!

Melts In Your Pocket Guest Appearance

October 28th, 2009, by Sloane Berrent. No Comments »

Chocolate. You either love it or hate it. Me? I’m of the love it category. Especially dark chocolate and I mean only for the all those feel goodery things it gives you when you have a daily dose. So when my good friend Andrew Seely started a web show, Melts in Your Pocket AND asked me to be a guest star (only his second next to Natasha) well how could I say no? Plus post Cause It’s My Birthday, I was staying at Doug Campbell’s gorgeous Brewery loft to work out of. Bliss.

Now we did go out and buy chocolate together, Green & Black to be precise, but we had a lot to catch up on (he’s launched a show after all and I’m back from Kiva and always on the go) so we didn’t exactly talk about WHAT we would be talking about on the show. Hey, I’m not the web star ok. And in the middle you’ll catch I really have no idea what chocolate smells like (I mean who ever thought such things?) So don’t judge me on that. But you know what – this was definitely stretching my boundaries. It was uncomfortable (theme of the week – and of my TribeCon panel remember?!?) It was fun and I hope you like it. I mean a show ALL about chocolate? What will these kids think of next?

To learn more about Melts In Your Pocket, follow the show on Twitter here.

If you liked this post, you might like:
When You Look For Something
Climate Change, Food Production and You
Day in the Life of a Kiva Fellow

Making Lemonade From Lemons

October 28th, 2009, by Sloane Berrent. 19 Comments »

You know what would have been easy? Or easier anyway. The day after the day that a part of my world crashed into flames right before my eyes? To go out there and get a new job doing exactly what I was doing. To keep my life basically as it was. To not make a big deal out of things. To keep going on that path I had worked so very hard at.

That, was not meant to be.

I set out on a different journey. One where I gave up my home to be a nomad for an undisclosed amount of time, sold most of my things and put the rest in storage, said farewell to good friends and bought a one-way ticket to South America to go on an adventure. Where that adventure would lead, I didn’t now. I just needed to be someplace, anyplace, from where I was. I told myself I would rebuild from there.

I am one month away from the 1 year anniversary of that change. And I’m nervous now, more frightened than I’ve been all year. You see, all year I was in transition and moving all the time and going from a South American renewal of my spirit to a New Orleans revival of my soul to a Philippines emergence of my humanity. I found comfort in the unknown places and faces and foods and music. I felt connected, but just enough. I went out into the world to do good. I was completely free of whatever strange and curious confines society had put around me.

I’ve told my story all year. Sometimes little bits and pieces, sometimes big chunks, sometimes nothing at all. I have a overflowing suitcase full of elevator pitches and easy get-aways and one-way tickets to my next destination in my always moving and hardly sitting still version of a life.

There is safety you know, in having it all. But there is safety in giving it all away too. People say to me, “I never could do what you’ve done.” or “Wow, tell me how be like you.” And you know what I say? Please don’t. Don’t make me the poster child for giving it all away because I didn’t have a plan, I’ve winged it pretty much all year, and now, nearing the end of that journey, I’m exhausted. Enriched beyond belief, taller, stronger, wiser, more able to understand who I am and the situations around me, I’m all of these things and more. But also plain tired.
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$5 or 5 Minutes = 1 Way to Make a Difference

October 26th, 2009, by Sloane Berrent. 6 Comments »

You know what people say to me all the time? I want to get involved but I don’t know how. Where do I start? It’s too overwhelming, there is too much information out there.

Well, I’ve heard you, and I’m here to help. Today launches the newest series on The Causemopolitan. It’s called $5 or 5 Minutes = 1 Way to Make a Difference. I’ll show you how with a few clicks of the mouse you can give back. And you know what? That’s not a bad place to start. Remember if you and you and you and you ALL do it, real change happens. So don’t give me any of the “does my $5 really make a difference.” Because it does. And since I’m hand-picking the campaigns, you have my word I’ve checked them out. I’ll only recommend campaigns that are real and authentic, none of that “portion of the proceeds” trash. I hate that.

So come along for the ride. I told you I’d focus more on YOU and not just ME once I got my act together for the next chapter of The Causemopolitan. That starts now.

1) Leave a comment. Go to this post: Philippines floods affect many of our microfinance entrepreneurs. Let’s give them an extra hand! and $5 will be donated to Kiva’s Ahon sa Hirap, Inc. borrowers in the Philippines affected by the recent typhoons. I am biased to this one since it was the women that I was working with this summer. But let me tell you this is the real thing. Over $2,500 has been raised since this campaign started. Every $5 means so much to the women there, so many have lost everything in a typhoon that was of “Katrina” size damage to the countryside. The money is being given by members of a Kiva lending team called The Road. By joining the team you could also help by making a contribution.

Seriously, this campaign is picking up steam. Here are the updated stats:

October 21: Turning words into deed: I donate US$5 per comment on this post
October 22: 208 comments, US$1,040 raised in 24 hours
October 23: 400 comments, US$2,000 raised in 48 hours
October 24: 500 comments, US$2,500 raised. First new loans allocated

Campaign runs through OCTOBER 31, 2009. Go here. Leave a comment. Feel good.

2) Follow @DrewFromTV on Twitter. When he reaches a million followers, he’s going to give a million dollars to Live Strong. So far, he’s at 118,643. He’s got a ways to go. But it’s a cool idea, I mean WHY NOT. Having followers on Twitter is a kind of currency now. Why not make something from it.

You know, this gets me thinking…anyone could do a challenge like this on Twitter. Next time you want to reach a milestone, why don’t you throw a little cause-action into it? Might surprise you how good it feels to run your own campaign.

Read more about Drew here and remember to follow him here.
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Say Hi! Contact Page

October 22nd, 2009, by Sloane Berrent. 1 Comment »

In today’s episode of “I’m Not Perfect” and the web in general telling me to get with the picture, it seems the CONTACT FORM in my blog was not sending me the emails from the form for the last oh…well, I’m not sure. Say 3 weeks?

A WordPress Plugin should have a built in, “Hey YOU, something’s not working” but it seems that’s NOT the case.

Forms aren’t archived so I have no idea really of who wrote me. But I do get a lot of straight up emails from people saying hi, and the web traffic on the CONTACT PAGE is fairly low, so I’m hoping no one out there hates me for not getting back in contact with them.

At any rate, here’s the deal. The contact page is updated. I love to hear from people who read my blog, so whether by leaving a comment, writing me an email, connecting with me on Twitter, or (gasp) finding me offline – please do say hi and do let me know what you think of my little spot online.