It’s always a telling sign when my favorite friends are suddenly all telling me that I simply have to meet someone because we’re from the same cloth and we’re destined to know one another. That is what happened with me and Becky Straw this fall. And honestly, everyone was right. We have tons of friends, passions and travel experiences in common and Becky instantly become a woman I not only wanted to be friends with but great admired. Soon it was my turn to be telling people about Becky and her new nonprofit, The Adventure Project. I’m proudly on the host committee for tonight’s Join our Nice List: A Celebration of Global Entrepreneurship honoring The Adventure Project and invited Becky to share her story of how The Adventure Project came to be and what we all can do to help.

If you’re in New York tonight, come on out and join us (RSVP here). For everyone else, consider making a $20 donation to buy a cookstove or shopping in their online store.

And now, Becky’s story.

*****

“People will tell you that it can’t be done. And you know what? They’re wrong. Nothing is ever impossible,” Gayle said matter-of-factly, before finishing off her glass of wine.

I admit I have ambitious dreams, but Gayle’s statements are not what I usually hear at happy hour. I was sitting in the clubroom at The Sheraton in Times Square, surrounded by five phenomenal women. Gayle Lemmon was speaking at the TEDxWomen conference in two days, and her friends gathered around her hotel room to hear her practice.

Gayle’s book, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, has recently become a New York Times bestseller, chronicling a young heroine working as a successful entrepreneur under the Taliban. I had been invited because my nonprofit, The Adventure Project, works with female entrepreneurs around the world.

To say Gayle’s speech resonated would be an understatement. She shared her stories behind travels to Afghanistan and Bosnia in her quest to meet heroic businesswomen thriving in conflict and post-conflict settings. I remember thinking, “Could I twitpic this, or would that come across as totally uncool?” She was bold, smart and honest. My mind kept repeating, “I want to speak as boldly as her.”

I want to speak out like her, because I share her beliefs.

A few years ago, on a ten-hour bus ride across Tanzania, I remember having a crisis. Too often, our aid dollars excel at giving, but lack long-term sustainability and measurable results. I knew it firsthand, and read it from the academic articles strewn across my lap.

I know if more people invest in high-impact social enterprises, we can end extreme poverty. I came to the conclusion that I like charity, because it makes me feel good to give. But I want to support entrepreneurs, because I know it will change the world.

Two weeks ago I was in Haiti. I had not visited the country for a year, and I was hoping, quite frankly, it would look a lot better. The tents are still there, but most aid workers are not. Our hotel was almost empty. Two years ago, right after the earthquake, I slept in a tent in a hotel parking lot – every room in the capital was booked.

Last year, The Adventure Project supported the launch of a stove enterprise in Port au Prince. The stoves keep families from cooking over open fires, breathing in toxic smoke. The program now employs five women vendors, who earn commission selling the stoves at affordable prices. The stoves are also made locally, providing jobs for 15 masons.

On her stoop, under the hot Caribbean sun, I had a brief conversation with the best selling stove vendor. At only 19 years old, Noelle has sold 142 stoves in the last six weeks. We chatted about her business, her family, and what she purchased with her net profits (she invested in more stoves, of course).

I asked her, “Since you’re so young, what do you dream of becoming when you’re older?”

Noelle replied in two words, “The mayor.”

I smiled and thought, here’s a girl living in one of the poorest places in the world. Half a million people are still living in tents and 70% of the population is unemployed. Many people are eating only one meal per day, because all their savings have dried up. And yet, she’s a thriving entrepreneur. Noelle is selling stoves everywhere. She’s in the market, making house calls, setting up a display on her small stoop. She doesn’t just sell one stove to one customer, she sells multiple stoves to one customer. Delivering them in wheelbarrows.

I realized we may have given her that chance – but she took the opportunity, and ran.

Gayle perhaps said it best on Thursday, standing on stage in front of thousands of inspired minds, “We must move beyond micro-hopes and micro-ambitions for women, because they have so much greater hopes for themselves.”

And that is why my co-founder and I launched The Adventure Project.

*****
The Adventure Project is helping Haiti again this year, and we want to get 10,000 stoves into the hands of these vendors. To meet demand, they will expand the business to hire ten additional women, and support the four current vendors, and the one future mayor. Every $20 donation enables a stove to be sold to a family in need. Learn more at: www.theadventureproject.org

I was so honored to be invited to the recent WIE Symposium that took place in NYC during what is becoming known as Social Good week – a week that includes the UN Open Plenary, CGI, Social Good Summit and the dozens of events that surround those conferences. I attended the “Inspiration Day” which started with a breakfast for the White Ribbon Alliance and continued with talks and panels throughout the day.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the day:

“It’s the we not the me that makes a difference in the world.” – Donna Karan #WIE2011

“Don’t worry about falling on your face, at least it’s a forward movement.” – Pat Mitchell of @paleycenter #WIE2011

“We need to mentor women in all stages of our careers. I take a meeting with any young woman who asks for that 15 min.” - @hilaryr#wie2011

“The world is in chaos & we have to create the calm within the chaos.” – Donna Karan @Urban_Zen #WIE2011

“It’s not enough that I have my health, my children’s health. I want every woman to have choices & options.” - @CTurlington #wie2011

“Women aren’t dying because we can’t treat them but because society hasn’t yet made a decision they’re worth saving.” – M. Fatullah #WIE2011

“You must know your power and the difference you can make.” -@NancyPelosi #WIE2011

These events bringing together women thought leaders and are so powerful and important. I’m so honored to be able to attend a select few of them – but what I love more than anything is reading and following along online! Here are a few posts from around the web that share highlights from the talks and events that surrounded WIE Symposium 2011.

FORA.tv live-stream videos
WIE Symposium 2011: HuffPost Women Talks The Future Of Media
Global and Green: Beauty Trends from the WIE Symposium

“If we can fix things for mothers – and we can – we can fix so many other things that are wrong in the world. Women are at the heart of every family, every nation. It’s mostly mothers who make sure children are loved, fed, vaccinated, educated. You just can’t build healthy, peaceful, prosperous societies without making life better for girls and women.” – Sarah Brown, Global Patron, White Ribbon Alliance. From White Ribbon Alliance Atlast of Birth.

I first came across the White Ribbon Alliance at the World Economic Forum in 2010. I met their founder and was moved by not only her stories about women in the developing world but her hard facts about maternal healths and the truth about what is happening in many parts of the world today where little to no care is given to women giving birth and the very real mortality rate for mothers and newborns.

I have been a supporter ever since. Those who know me often say I’m a “cause filter” because I look very carefully at organizations, what they do, what their intentions are and where they are spending their money. I proudly support WRA because they are making a real impact, with powerful campaigns, partners on the ground and patrons around the world all working towards the same goal – to reduce mother and newborn mortality around the world.

I wrote about White Ribbon Alliance on Help A Woman Out (my Tumblr where I focus on women’s issues only) and frequently tweet and post about their events and campaigns.

I was honored to be invited to a seated breakfast during the recent WIE Symposium hosted by Arianna Huffington, Donna Karan and Sarah Brown. At the Wake Up Call For Women and Newborns of the World Breakfast, I had the opportunity to meet and talk to many women like myself – in positions of influence (though certainly many of them were WAY more influential than me) and use our voices to spread the message of WRA and their mission. We heard from not only our hosts (who are just as fabulous and inspirational as you might imagine) and also hear from Frontline Health Workers on the ground and leaders in the vaccination space like the President of Merck Vaccines, Julie Gerberding.

The good news is that things are getting better. The investments have been made and now the hard work has to be done. Campaigns like Mothers Day Every Day are helping bring awareness to the ground.

The top priority for many of us in the U.S. is education. From there, we must speak up and use our voices to say that this issue matters. To help, here is more information on White Ribbon Alliance and some fast facts you should know. For more information, I encourage you to visit their website and you can also ask me any questions and I’m happy to help or direct you to someone at the organization.

Why White Ribbon Alliance?

A thousand women still die needlessl each day around the world giving birth, leaving millions of orphans. Their newborns often die too.

Half of women giving birth in Africa today do so alone, or with only a neighbor or relative to help them. A million more health workers, better supported, could save millions of mother and their newborns.

Never had so much been promised to maternal health ($40 billion in 2010); now we must make sure those promises are kept.

White Ribbon Alliance is a grassroots network of many thousands of individuals and organizations around the world, making women’s voices hear and holding leaders to account.

Together, are are succeeding. Join us to help make needless maternal and newborn deaths a thing of the past – for all women.

More Fast Facts:

• Every day, 1,000 girls and women die in pregnancy or childbirth.
• Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries.
• In sub-Saharan Africa the chances of dying in pregnancy or childbirth can be as high as 1 in 14, compared with just 1 in 4,200 in Europe.
• The world needs 3.5 million more health workers, including community workers, midwives, nurses and doctors to provide specialist emergency care.

Click here to learn more.

“Women are not dying of diseases we can’t treat…they are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving.” – Professor Mahmoud Fatullah

On Friday I attended the second annual Beyond Cause Marketing in Boston. Produced by Scott Henderson and the good folks at CauseShift and hosted by Microsoft’s NERD Center, it was a jam-packed opportunity to meet and mix with 60 of the best practitioners in a wide variety of fields including PR, communications, marketing, nonprofits, corporations, government and media. You can see more of the live action, tweets and updates by looking up #BeyondCM.

The theme of the day is the essence of what Beyond Cause Marketing is all about. What happens when you take money off the table? What happens when you go beyond just marketing and really talk about what it takes to move the needle forward. I kept remembering a quote from former President Clinton that says we are meant to leave the next generation with a new set of problems to solve, not leave them our same issues and problems (paraphrased).

It started with a conversation gauntlet led by Brian Reich (author of Shift and Reset: Strategies for Addressing Serious Issues in a Connected Society). This was one of the best innovations in conference-land I’ve seen in a long time. Experts in the field sat in a hot-seat and talked about what they see and experience in the field. The gauntlet included two of my all-time favorites, Robbie Vitrano of Naked Pizza and Becca Colbaugh of JESS3.

I was asked to attend to lead a breakout session where we gathered a small group of attendees to talk about one issue ranging from hackathons to gaming for good and digital storytelling. Other session leads included Joe Waters – who just released Cause Marketing For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))- if you haven’t read it you should!

I led a session on public and private partnerships. We outlined 11 keys tips for building a social contract. Think of these as a check-list that you use when looking to build a partnership of any kind. They all don’t have to be used – but the more of them you can incorporate, the better and stronger the partnership.

1. Buy-in from all partners. This can include government, corporate and nonprofit.

2. Identify responsibilities and goals. Who is doing what and how much clarity can you get on this before you start?

3. Do your research. All sides have a responsibility to know who they are doing business with. Do background checks, be prudent in who you partner with.

4. Create a contract of expectations. This is different from a scope of work or a contract. This is something all parties create that outlines what they expect from the partnership and what both sides are going to do to get there.

5. Leverage Resources. Leave nothing on the table.

6. Avoid silos. Collective impact will, by definition, have the most impact. Don’t think you can operate alone – you can’t.

7. Be tactical on timing. Double the money and double the time it’s going to take to build/launch.

8. Hook ‘em. What is the partnership going to do to hook the audience? Don’t forget the PR when you’re building a program. People need to know what you’re doing to support it and tell others.

9. Define measurable goals. The goals can change, but outline them when you start. Don’t be afraid to be bold. Really push for what you want this partnership to accomplish.

10. Reassess the impact of the program. If you’re going to take a partnership to year 2 or year 3, you have to take your measurable goals and align them with the objectives and really look at what you’re looking to do in future years. Critical for all sides to do this – first separately and then together as a team.

11. Take an agile approach. Launch and then reconfigure. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect at launch – often it can’t be – because you have to see the partnership in practice to really know what is going on and that you’re hitting all of your targets, goals and objectives.

This isn’t all of it – but it’s a great start and a lot to chew on. Huge thank you to Scott and his team for providing the atmosphere to engage in this conversation with my peers and stretch my way of thinking about programs from the agency, brand and nonprofit side.

What do you look for when building partnerships?

More than 300 speakers from 40-plus nations will participate in the second annual Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference and two conferences within a conference: Sustainable Haiti and Media2Movements, organized by Ashoka. They take place April 4-6 at the Miami Beach Convention Center as part of Sustainatopia, a gathering of social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders.

I’ll be speaking at two of them and, to kick off the first, my colleague from SocialBrite, JD Lasica, will present a social media bootcamp — please check it out: Move the Needle! How to Mobilize Your Supporters to Take Action. (Email us for a 15% discount code.)

See the agenda. We hope you’ll come on down!

Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference is the largest annual impact investment conference on the East Coast of the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Sustainable Haiti is the largest economic development conference in the world for Haiti, with more than 100 speakers and 40-plus panels over three days.

Sustainatopia Honors: Awards for social good

JD and I will also be on hand at Sustainatopia Honors 2011 presented by Plum TV, an awards ceremony and celebration for those doing social good through impact investing and sustainability. It takes place the evening of April 3 at the swank new Frank Gehry/New World Center.

Honorees include Maria Bello, Selita Ebanks, Romero Britto, Michael Capponi, Americas Business Council Foundation and others. Special guests for the evening include actress Patricia Arquette and musician Tico Torres of Bon Jovi.

Some 60 individual events comprise Sustainatopia Miami, including film, art, music, eco-fashion, food, design and parties taking place on the weekend before start of the impact investment conferences. Sustainatopia will bring together thousands of individuals from over 50 countries, all seeking to make a profound difference and help push the world toward a more sustainable path.

Please share this with any friends who will be in Miami next week! Stay tuned for updates on the conference and the bootcamp.

The second annual Digitini is here! I’m so excited to be able to bring back this incredible event to SXSW Interactive this year. And bigger than ever with the event being held in the CNN Grill and co-hosted by PepsiCO WIN.

This event brings together incredible women in digital and technology communities to highlight their contributions over the past year! To follow along with today’s festivities, follow #digitini or #pepsicowin on Twitter.

A full recap to come after the event!

I wanted to share another campaign I recently worked on. In partnership with JESS3, Samsung, The Dan Marino Foundation, I joined the team as a digital strategist. The campaign was two-part. The first was to support the first annual WalkAbout Autism in Miami, Florida hosted by The Dan Marino Foundation. The Dan Marino Foundation, was established in 1992 by Marino and his wife, Claire, after their son, Michael, was diagnosed with autism. The foundation has distributed over $22 million to research, services and treatment programs serving children with neurodevelopment disabilities.

The Dan Marino Center, which opened in 1995 along with the Miami Children’s Hospital, is an integrated neurodevelopmental center specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of children at risk for developmental and psychological problems. The center saw more than 48,000 children last year alone.

This was the first one, but have you ever been to an event and from the moment it starts everyone knows it will happen again? That was this event. Everyone there from current and former NFL players to the 7,500+ people who showed up, everyone was talking about next year. That is a pretty amazing and powerful thing to have happen. Their goal was $500,000, partially raised by sponsors and the other by donations from walkers. Why WalkAbout Autism? From The Dan Marino Foundation:

WalkAbout means, A “rite of passage” during which Australian Aborigines would undergo a journey during adolescence, live in the wilderness tracing paths that their ceremonial ancestors took, and imitate their heroic deeds. The Dan Marino Foundation WalkAbout Autism is a “rite of passage” for our children and adults with autism and their families. It is a reflection of where we have been and where we are going – the pathway to a better future for all of our heroes with autism.

I didn’t know at first I would be going to the Walk itself. I was assisting Dan Marino and his Foundation on digital strategy for fundraising and spreading the word. Yes, I even helped secure Dan his own verified Twitter account –> @DanMarino and work with @DanMarinoFdtn on their tweets and also their Facebook page. After a few weeks of working with everyone, they were like, come support the Walk. I’m so thrilled to have been able to take part in such a significant and powerful day.

I have all my photos up on Flickr here, but also wanted to share a few below. Stay tuned for my next post about the Team Up For Autism, the second part of this campaign!

If you want to support The Dan Marino Foundation and the amazing work they do, please make a donation. They are trailblazers in supporting kids and families with autism and I can’t say enough about their integrity and passion to this cause.

I’m really excited to announce that I’ve been asked to co-lead the uber-fabulous #kaizenblog this week. I’d love for you to tune in on Friday at 12pm EST to join our conversation. This week’s topic is Digital Storytelling; Connecting Us to Our Causes and Ourselves.

Some of the questions we’ll be asking, talking about, and debating include:

• How does social media connect us more to each other and to causes we support?
• What does storytelling mean for an individual versus a nonprofit or organization?
• How do we want to hear the story? What about a story compels us to want to know more?
• What is the difference between a connection and noise?

What is #KaizenBlog? This weekly chat uses the concept of “kaizen” for continual improvement in how we think and act in business. And what is kaizen?

Kaizen (改善?), Japanese for “improvement” or “change for the better”, refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and management. It has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life-coaching, government, banking, and many other industries. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses after the Second World War, influenced in part by American business and quality management teachers who visited the country. It has since spread throughout the world and is now being implemented in many other venues besides just business and productivity.

It was started by Valeria Maltoni (@conversationage) and Elli St. George Godfrey (@3keyscoach), two amazing women I admire and so I’m really excited to be joining them in leading the conversation tomorrow.

Look forward to seeing you tomorrow in #kaizenblog. Let me know in advance if you have any specific questions you’d like me to cover!

I wanted to share a recent project I worked on that I’m really proud of with an awesome client, The Grammy’s! Many award shows are just about that ONE night. The Grammy’s have made an effort the past two years to showcase events leading up to The Grammys that are relevant to those in the music community. This year, I worked with SocialPeople on digital strategy and blogger outreach to promote an invite-only event called Show Me The Green Light: A Conversation About Greening The Music Industry.

Between spending five years in LA (lord I miss that place), working and heavily volunteering in the green space, I had a huge list of names of friends, contacts and peers I wanted to invite to the event. I would have attended myself but I had a previous commitment to be in New Orleans last weekend and hard as I try, I just can’t be in two places at once!

I was thrilled to see so many blogs posts, tweets and status updates about the event. I am really excited when my digital work comes together with my passion for sustainability..and music!

Here’s an excerpt from the official press release:

The Recording Academy will partner with Waste Management — the official recycling partner of The Academy and 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards — to present Show Me The Green Light: A Conversation About Greening The Music Industry as part of GRAMMY Week. The event will focus on the incorporation of a reduce, reuse and recycle philosophy and its emerging presence in an ever-changing industrial climate.

At the celebration of The Recording Academy’s 50 years as the most recognizable brand in music in 2008 — the GRAMMY Awards — the organization set a goal for the next 50 years to have a positive cultural and social impact, with a focus on its environmental impact.

This year The Academy is working to balance its carbon footprint during the production of the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles For example, we have been balancing our carbon footprint during the production of the GRAMMY Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles through the purchase of solar and wind power, and investing in sustainable energy initiatives through the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, an entrepreneurial nonprofit that creates and markets innovative solutions to energy and water issues.

Waste Management — the official recycling partner of The Recording Academy and 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards — has strengthened The Academy’s green initiatives by providing recycling receptacles at the GRAMMY Celebration, The Academy’s official after-party, which will divert an average of 6 tons of waste from landfills. Additionally, the Natural Resources Defense Council has provided consultation to determine the best greening practices for The Academy, both during the annual GRAMMY Awards and throughout the year.

Made out of recycled plastic water bottles, the GRAMMY red carpet has lived a second, third and fourth life over the course of the last few years. As a result, The Academy has diverted thousands of bottles from landfills (where they would have lived lesser lives, never having touched the soles of music elites).

Last week I had the priviledge of going to Ireland (my first time) for not one, not two, but three reasons. First, one of my clients, ezetop, is located there. I conducted a day and a half workshop with their online communications and marketing team on a wide variety of buckets we created in advance based on their needs with emphasis on how social media and online communications can help get their message across.

Next, I spoke at the Dublin Web Summit, which is where the above presentation comes from. There I spoke to the nonprofit/NGO track about finding the social entrepreneur in all of us. What does that mean? That all of us have the ability to look at a problem and find a way to solve it in an entrepreneurial way that ties in social innovation.

Last, I attended F.ounders. An invite-only event that was two nights and three days in Dublin. Everything was included from the pub crawl to dinners to panels and walking tours. 200 founders of companies got together to talk, network, learn and just be together to see what happens. It was an ambitious project and a huge success. Truly one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to, from start to finish, not a detail was overlooked.

Best part? All attendees got a “gold key” that provides a fully paid return to Ireland to futher explore business and investment possibilities in Ireland. So while I didn’t make it too far past Dublin this time around, I’m looking forward to returning soon and seeing more of the country and deepening the conversations and relationships I met while I was there.

Hope you enjoy the presentation above, I loved giving it! Thanks to Paddy Cosgrave and the whole Dublin Web Summit and Founders (#dws4 & #founders respectively on Twitter) team for a terrific experience.