A great business advice for any start up or organization is “expect the unexpected.” It’s a nice surprise to see something that you’ve planned develops into something far greater than what you’ve expected. That’s what happened to the nonprofit business TisBest Charity Gift Cards. Their gift cards grew into something more than giving and supporting charities, but a tool to teach nonbelievers that giving is good.

We are a giving company. We donate a portion of our service fees to our client’s favorite charity. We  include the donation receipt in a card and thank them for their business. But, we will change the way we process the donation with a TisBest Charity Gift Card.

A couple of years ago some friends gave us a TisBest Charity Gift Card during the holidays. This was the first time we’ve seen or heard of the alternative gift card and we’re intrigued about how it worked.

When we got the TisBest Charity Gift Card, we went to their website www.tisbest.org to research the company and how to use the gift card. We entered our TisBest code from the gift card, chose our charity, and confirmed our donation. Simple. Quick. Felt good to give.

What took the longest in the process was picking the right organization to donate to. There are over 250 charities listed on the site. Researching the organizations to see what they were all about and what they advocated for was an educational experience — even for cause evangelists who are familiar with a lot of nonprofit organizations.

TisBest Philanthropy created this fantastic donation gift card for friends, family members, sweethearts, customers and everyone else truly important. The recipient spends their TisBest Charity Gift Card by donating to a charity they believe in. – TisBest

After speaking with Erik Marks, Founder of TisBest Charity Gift Cards, he said “the gift cards evolved into something that wasn’t originally planned.” It’s developed into a tool that teaches young children, young adults, and parents the meaning of giving.

When a recipient receives a TisBest gift card they have to choose a charity to donate to (over 250 charities). They’ll pick a charity that speaks to their heart and not predetermined by the sender. If your friends are like us, we don’t donate to charities haphazardly. We research the organization’s cause and background before we decide to support their efforts – the same actions your gift card recipient will probably follow. Once the charity has been selected and they have made their donation, it’s done. At the end of the day your recipient will learn about different causes and nonprofit organizations available, and they will have a feeling of gratitude because they gave to a charity that they believed in (ownership in the process). Win-win-win.

There a several books about the philosophy of giving and why certain people feel compelled to give back. We know. We own some of those books. However, we found out that the easiest way to teach people the value of giving and have that “light bulb” moment is to let go and let the giver give at their free will. Non-givers must have a reason to give (a compelling story) and see value of it before crossing that bridge. The TisBest gift card is the vehicle for that journey.

In a time when tragedy and disasters are in the news almost daily, and charities plead for donations to help with relief efforts. Giving and helping those in need is ever so important. Let’s teach this generation about giving back and the needs of others by empowering them with a TisBest Charity Gift Card.  It will change their life.

What tools do you use to teach the value of giving?

Thanks Joe Waters, author of the “Selfish Giving” blog, for reminding us about the TisBest Charity Gift Cards.

One of our strong desires at [B]cause Media is to ensure that our business model reflects our personal beliefs — giving back to our community to make it a better place. We do that by volunteering and donating to causes and organizations that speak close to our hearts.  Rarely, a weekend goes by without us doing some type of volunteer work — online or offline.

In the spirit volunteering and engaging our clients to give back to their community, we have come up with a service rewards price plan. Every hour you or your company (a team) volunteers in the community, we will donate $10 (every volunteer hour) of your [B]cause Media service fees to the cause or charity of your choice. For example, if your company volunteers at the local community garden or food bank for 10 hours, you get to donate $100 of your [B]cause Media service fees to any nonprofit or cause. Sweet, right?

There are rules:

• The volunteer hours must be done within the service contract period with [B]cause Media | Social Media Communications
• Community service must be approved by a staff prior to participating in the [B]cause Media Service Rewards Program
• We have the right to approve or disapprove the community service (i.e., walking your neighbor’s dog is not an approved community service project, but participating in Meals-on-Wheels and transporting hot food to those in need is an approved community service project).
• Maximum of 20 volunteer hours allowed to earn [B]cause Media Service Rewards. However, that shouldn’t stop you from continuing to volunteer

Here are some volunteering ideas:

Habitat for Humanity - This organization builds homes in poverty-stricken areas for those in need and you may even make a new friend while you’re at it! Go to www.habitat.org and click on the “Get Involved” tab in the upper left hand corner, or click on “Volunteer Locally” on the home page.

American Red Cross - These are the people at the heart of our disaster situations. You can even volunteer your time by donating blood, which is so important for those who depend on it! At the home page, on www.redcross.org, click on “Giving and Getting Involved”, and select “Volunteer.”

United Way - This organization is good for people that like variety or that can’t find a volunteer opportunity that they’re crazy about- they can connect you with everything from seniors living at home to children that need help with schoolwork. Visit the site at www.liveunited.org, and click on “Volunteer” under “Education.”

Big Brother/Big Sister - If you enjoy working with children and would like to meet someone with the same interests as you, this is the one! Big Brother/Big Sister programs pair you with a boy or girl, based on your interests, and you are their mentor. Have fun going on a walk together and grabbing an ice cream cone in the middle of July, or sit outside and do Algebra homework together! Many people stick with this for long periods of time because of the friendships that are made, and this helps the children have someone stable in their lives. Check out www.bbbs.org and click on “Volunteering” on the left hand side.

Meals on Wheels – This organization provides meals for seniors that live at home independently. Another wonderful way to meet some new friends! Click on the link: www.mowaa.org and go to “Take Action” near the bottom of the pages.

If you are interested in participating in the [B]cause Media Service Rewards Program or have any questions about social media communications, feel free to contact us.

When was the last time you gave back to your community?

We can end hunger with social innovation.

In the age of instantaneous communication and organizing, it’s fairly easy to capture the attention (at least briefly) of a large group of people, especially when talking about hot-button issues like hunger and food security.

With this problem in mind, Scott Henderson and the crew at Causeshift launched a new online campaign called WeCanEndThis that seeks to move people away from “one-click activism” and instead encourage Americans to rethink and reshape the problem of food scarcity.

What makes this so unique is that it gives each and every one of us the opportunity be part of the solution and enter into the discussion about alleviating hunger. This is not only an opportunity to be heard, but to have your idea matter.

Visit WeCanEndThis.com and share your ideas on how to end hunger in America.

Dig in.

[B]cause Media | Social Media Communications is a small company located in Vancouver, Washington (Not Canada but the United States). We help small businesses strengthen their brand and increase productivity by connecting with current and potential customers in the social media world.

During the process of building our company, launching a website, and working with a few clients, we’ve defined our services and honed our voice — show and teach small business owners the power of social media communications.

After researching the field and doing a competitor analysis it’s clear to us what we want to be and what we don’t want to be. We don’t want to be just another consulting company. No. We want to be more than that.

Our core values as individuals will always come first with [B]cause Media — that is helping our community become a better place to live. Giving is our passion. Social Media is our interest. We started this business because we know how effective social media can be (if used properly), and if small businesses in our community fail because we withheld this information than we failed as individuals.

Along with our charitable contributions (client’s choice) and making a conscience effort not to display any advertisements on our website — we are here to help our community succeed more than ourselves. That’s the message we hope to get across — “Good for Business. Good for the Community.”

These past few months have been busy, but rewarding. We’ve seen our clients turn around from non-believers to outright preachers of social media. They are excited, enthusiastic, and have hope for the future of their business. Amen.

We will continue to spread the social media gospel and help small businesses thrive and become successful in a little town called Vancouver, WA.

How does your business reflect your self-beliefs? How does your company give back to your community?

The third wave of results from the Small Business Success Index™ (SBSI) sponsored by Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business reports social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year.

Nearly one out of five small business owners are actively using social media in their business, including blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. 61% of the respondents indicated that they use social media to identify and attract new customers.  75% of companies surveyed have a company page on a social networking site, and 45% expect social media to be profitable in the next twelve months.

Overall, social media investments rank third in small business investments to be made in the next two years.

More details and links to the full report at Grow Smart Business.

Here is the latest statistics on the social media rage:

Social Media Statistics

• Facebook claims that 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would mean at least 175m users every 24 hours.
• Twitter now has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis.
• LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide..
• Facebook currently has in excess of 350 million active users on global basis.Six months ago, this was 250m…This means over 40% growth in less than 6 months.
• Flickr now hosts more than 4 billion images.
• More than 35m Facebook users update their status each day.
• Wikipedia currently has in excess of 14m articles, meaning that it’s 85,000 contributors have written nearly a million new posts in six months.
• Photo uploads to Facebook have increased by more than 100%. Currently, there are around 2.5bn uploads to the site each month.
• Back in 2009, the average user had 120 friends within Facebook. This is now around 130.
• Mobile is even bigger than before for Facebook, with more than 65m users accessing the site through mobile-based devices. In six months, this is over 100% increase.
• There are more than 3.5bn pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook.
• There are now 11m LinkedIn users across Europe.
• Towards the end of last year, the average number of tweets per day was over 27.3 million.
• The average number of tweets per hour was around 1.3m.
• 15% of bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging, according to Technorati’s new State of the Blogosphere.
• At the current rate, Twitter will process almost 10 billion tweets in a single year.
• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the USA.
• India is currently the fastest-growing country to use LinkedIn, with around 3m total users.
• More than 250 Facebook applications have over a million combined users each month.
• 70% of bloggers are organically talking about brands on their blog.
• 38% of bloggers post brand or product reviews.
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since December 2008 and more than 60m Facebook users engage with it across these external sites each month.

via EConsultancy

With its 350 million users and average daily session time of 25 minutes, Facebook provides an exceptional opportunity for visibility, Google indexing, live search ability, and fan engagement–whether you’re a solopreneur, a large brand or anywhere in between.

But, if you build it, will they come?

There are two primary components to Facebook fan page engagement:

1) Sharing quality, relevant content and

2) inciting comments.

To learn more, visit Social Media Examiner here

Saw this cartoon and it made me think of whats to come in the next year or two. A few “experts” will claim to be  “Social Media Specialists” just because they are on Twitter and Facebook.

Not.

Success in social media for a business is more than being on the web, but an overall communication strategy that engages passive customers into loyal customers.

How many customers say “I saw your announcement on Twitter or Facebook?” If the answer is none to a very few, then your social media communications strategy by your “Social Media Specialist” isn’t working.

I found this fascinating quote today:

Quit counting fans, followers, and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you’re hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you’re doing.socialmediatoday.com, 10 Ways to Get Serious About Social Media, Jan 2010

You should read the whole article.