Want to crowdfund changing the world? Two great opportunities
Plastic recycling and job creation in Senegal, or empowering student sustainability leaders in Asia. Take your pick … or support them both.
This is the May 2017 issue of our WaveFront newsletter. WaveFront gives you a regular dose of inspiration, reality, and reflection. If you would like to receive future editions directly in your inbox, subscribe here.
Not long ago, I rang a big bell and asked for crowdfunding help to support a museum exhibit on plastic. Many of you responded. And thanks to you, the local exhibition you helped to fund, which is still showing in Stockholm, has been making global waves — it was even the opening of my keynote speech at European Maritime Day. (You can read about that successful crowdfunding project on my Greenbiz column, “North Star”.)
Crowdfunding works. Crowdfunding also helps people to make targeted investments in things they care about, to support people they can believe in. That’s why I’m offering you another chance to make a big difference, with a small amount of your digital cash.
As you know, I don’t usually ask for money with the Wavefront newsletter. But the AtKisson Group network is full of caring, dedicated, and entrepreneurial people. I’m very proud of everyone in it. (That’s why we are starting to profile the network on our website.) They create wonderful initiatives. And, well, they deserve our support!
So in this issue, I am making a special request — let’s call it an invitation — on behalf of two very different projects, created by two of our AtKisson Group affiliated organizations, in two very different parts of the world.
Both of these projects are beautiful, small things, very localized to their environments and cultures. Both contribute to sustainability in all its dimensions.
But here’s the clincher: both of them have the capacity for creating global ripple effects. Which means your one-time crowdfunding investment can bring multiple returns, over years to come.
The first project: Waste & Hope. Our French affiliates and their organization Cabinet Espere (“The Hope Office”) have created a very successful pilot program in Senegal that creates jobs for unemployed village women in the plastics recycling business. This keeps the plastic out of the sea, where it does tremendous damage, and returns it to the industrial cycle, https://clippingpathstudio.com/seroquel-online/ where it can be part of the circular economy. And the social benefits are enormous. This ground-breaking project has been studied by the London School of Economics and featured on French TV. They want to scale up. Their goal: 50,000 Euros. And every euro, dollar, yen, krona, whatever, helps. Click here to learn more (in English, French is also available) >>
The second project: Compass Education’s Youth Sustainability Leadership summer camp and training session. Help sponsor one or more young people, aged 14-17, to get trained in the principles of sustainability, empowerment and change. Imagine what one young person can do to advance their vision of a sustainable world! Compass Education, a non-profit based in Thailand that has spun off from AtKisson Group, is trying to raise a mere $2,500. What could these motivated young people go on to do, after a life-changing summer camp? Just use your imagination … and then give them a boost. Click here to learn more >>
(Want to read an inspirational story about what one empowered young person can do? Read this article about Boyan Slat on our new sustainable ocean website, SDG14.net, and how he started a massive ocean clean-up project while still in his teens.)
I realize there are a lot of things you can invest your money in. So let me just add a personal note here, about the people behind these projects. I have known them for years. They are extraordinary people who juggle multiple professional assignments … yet still find time to create initiatives whose only purpose is to advance social and environmental good. They are worthy of your support — as are the people they are working to empower.So I hope you will take the time to click the links, above or below, and make a small (or large) contribution to these causes. I am quite sure you will not regret it.
Waste & Hope: Go to crowdfunding site >>
Compass Education: Go to video & donation site >>
Thank you … and in the next WaveFront, I will have news for you about several other (already funded) projects — and how they are advancing positive change in a world that clearly needs more of that, more than ever.
Warmly,
Alan AtKisson
Pres., AtKisson Group