President of the TOMS Campus Club at Indiana University, Cassie committed herself to spreading the word about movements, organizations, companies and campaigns that inspired her, and so she hoped to follow that commitment post-commencement. One day, she stumbled upon a few that likened a company called ESPEROS to the One for One promise that’s the backbone of TOMS, and after some exploring what that meant and reaching out by email, she landed herself an internship at a company she believes in.

ESPEROS is a backpack company that funds children’s education, founded on the idea that, in Central America, a child can be educated on US$20 per year.

Of becoming an intern, Cassie said, “It was surprisingly simple, actually. I loved the idea of providing education for development, and this company was helping do that. So, I emailed the team in Austin, Texas to explain my passion for the cause and who I am, and now I work remotely from Bloomington.”

We asked Cassie to break out some tips for young folks looking for places to look for good projects. Here’s what she said….

-Simple as it is: go for it! 

Social enterprise is the way to go, and there are new organizations and companies popping up all the time now that really get it. If you’re into what they stand for, reach out and tell them why.

-If you’re turned down, don’t turn away. 

I sent more emails than I can even recall, but I kept searching and following leads from every organization and company that I thought was cool. If they worked with another good group, I looked into that group, and may have applied there too.

-You may have to start unpaid, but do what you can to make it work. 

Especially with start-up ventures, anything helps. So if your situation seems complicated, simplify it and present why it’s good for everyone. For example, I could not have worked without pay in Austin because I would have to move, so I am working hard, but remotely and offering my skills in the way that I can.

-Don’t wait until you’re job-hunting to get involved in things you care about!

Join clubs built around your passions and build relationships with organizations, companies and groups that stand behind those clubs. Those relationships, along with the ones you’ll form with your peers who are equally as passionate, are a great way to set you in the direction you need to go.

-Ask, ask, ask…and then really listen.

Don’t assume you know everyone’s story based on their website’s description. When you reach out, ask questions, and then pay close attention to the details of how people respond. This usually tells a lot about the level of passion behind a project. The same goes for me now, as I help build a campus presence for ESPEROS. For every 65 emails I send to students about their interest in spreading the word on campus, I maybe get 15 responses. This could be discouraging, except the people that do respond have passion that is so inspiring that it makes the whole process worth it. 

At 11 years old, I was diagnosed with a leg tumor and needed to have surgery. Luckily, the tumor was benign, but I still experienced a long recovery: a 10-day hospital stay, followed by a month in a full-leg cast and wheelchair, and seven months with a brace and crutches. I found myself with new free time and was looking for a distraction. I decided to teach myself how to program iPhone apps.

I’ve always liked technology, but it didn’t consume me. I was interested in more common 11-year-old things, like sports. I had never taken classes on iPhone app development; most of what I ended up learning was through Google-ing and watching videos from Stanford professors.

The December after my surgery, I created my first application, a drawing app called iSketch. I never expected iSketch to generate much money, but I hoped the story might attract some publicity for the hospital. Much to my surprise, iSketch became a big success, and I was able to donate $20,000 towards electronics purchases such as MacBooks, iPads, iPod Touches, iPod Nanos, and iTunes gift cards, for other children at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. There were many children who might not have had access to fun technology that could keep them distracted from the medical challenges they were facing. I know first-hand how lousy it can be in a hospital! I know playing with these new devices is improving their hospital stays.

Last year (at 13), I released my second iPhone app, a word game called AnimalGrams, and pledged to donate to research that helps kids with bone cancer, the disease I could have developed had my tumor not been benign.

My parents raised me to understand the importance of giving back, but on the business side, I didn’t even know what the word “entrepreneur” meant. In the time since this all began, I have started my own business (which my dad helped me register), called CCC Development (short for Cameron Chase Cohen Development).

When I tell my story, most people are surprised; they don’t really think I’m 14 at first. That’s usually part of my punch line at the end, but I think people are also really happy that kids can see such a necessity to give back, and I am glad I do!

How Smile Squared came to be: All of our children are adopted, and our son, Benny, who’s the oldest of our three, is from Guatemala. Our hearts have been invested in that country since we picked up Denny in 2005. Our loyalties and desire to help came to a head in 2012, when my wife and I decided it was time to give back to the communities surrounding the one that gave us our boy.

As per the dental health give: well, that seemed more of a decision made FOR us instead of BY us; it really happened by chance. We went down to Guatemala in 2010 to fact-find to see how we could best help local women and children. At the same time we were packing up for the day, a group of volunteers with the same travel host were headed to a dental clinic and asked us for some help. It was kind of a natural situation, but I felt a little silly since I didn’t know any Spanish and I didn’t know much about dental health, until someone in the group asked me, “You know how to brush your teeth, right?” And I said yes; and he said, “Great! Show the kids.” So I did, and with no sinks or running water, I was also assigned the task of holding trash sacks open for kids to spit in.

And the rest is history, really. Being in Guatemala and seeing the severity of the dental situations brought on because poverty doesn’t always make room for purchases like toothbrushes gave way to the realization that there exists so much opportunity to help improve children’s health.

By the time we returned home, this full-circle concept was etched in our hearts and minds.

Shortly after the trip to Guatemala, I was doing more research than I’d done in a long time, and ran running across an article about a trash vortex in the Pacific that floats around collecting garbage, and it’s basically the size of Texas.*  With the article there was a picture of a scuba diver holding up plastic, alongside a caption that read, “Is this your toothbrush?” And there was the lightbulb!

I didn’t want to keep contributing to that problem, and this solution linked directly back to our learnings of a need in Guatemala. Eventually, after tons of research and consulting with people who understand environmental affairs better than we do, we arrived at the concept of a buy-one-give-one business built around bamboo toothbrushes, which are excellent to people and good to the Earth.

How they give: Right now, we have a few giving partners, and as the business grows, we will do more, but we know we need to remain sensible and responsible, taking good care of the partners we already work with.

With Buckner International, the organization that helped us get started with giving, we plugged into an already-existing, strong and meaningful program. Smile Squared has also donated to other programs, one of which is International Justice Mission (IJM).  When IJM rescues someone in from abuse or opression, be it a man, woman or a child, they give that person an after-care kit with some basic goods, like clothes, toiletries and other articles, including a toothbrush. All the items come from local vendors to keep the package culturally appropriate, but we donate the toothbrushes. We’re proud that our contribution is impactful but still simple enough to not require an instruction manual.

Why Smile Squared makes Eric a happy businessman: When all is said and done, it’s simply amazing to work full-time on a project that does good. The mouth affects so many systems in the body; plus when there’s pain and infection, kids don’t want to smile. With Smile Squared, we’re enabling consumers to buy an item that they already have made habit to include on a grocery list, plus to give the opportunity for better health to a person in need. That’s why we call it Smile Squared.

*Source:  http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914145,00.html

From the moment my co-founder, Emily, and I decided to build our company, giving has been super important to us. From the time we launched ecomom in February of 2009, we have donated a percentage of sales to various charities that aligned with causes we are passionate about. As ecomom has grown, we’ve learned that there is more we can do beyond writing those checks. We were donating money to amazing causes, but we didn’t have a meaningful feedback loop in place that allowed us, and more importantly, our customers, to see that ecomom purchases were really making a difference.We said, “We can do better.”

ecomom is about providing moms with easy access to the best, safest, healthiest products for their families. We take great care in researching all we sell so our customers have nothing but the best products to choose from. Because the company found its start selling a single line of organic baby food, we looked right to nutrition when evaluating how our charitable contributions could make an impact in local and semi-local communities. When we followed that instinct and looked more closely into the figures, our growing team learned that, in the United States approximately 16 million children* do not have consistent access to adequate food. With new perspective and motivation, we knew hunger would be the issue ecomom would help combat.

Along the way, as we would hear about other companies that have made giving a meaningful part of business, we were especially inspired by TOMS and its One for One promise.  TOMS has done such a great job of clearly articulating the need and the benefit for its consumers, and we at ecomom are hoping to follow your lead.

Within the past couple of weeks, we (proudly and excitedly) launched ecomom’s giving program, “It’s all good,” and with it comes a promise that every order placed on ecomom.com — no matter how big or small — will feed a hungry child in America.  That’s one full day of the same high-quality, organic baby food we sell on our site and feed our own children.

To kick-start the giving, we’re delivering meals for 25,000 children directly to food pantries in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, and Indiana. This means 75,000 total meals will provide 3 healthy meals for children from those pantries. As “It’s all good” grows, so will the list of pantries that receive. Each month, we will deliver to local organizations that can put this food to immediate use. Our goal is to feed at least 100,000 children in America this year. It’s an ambitious one, we know, but we’re confident ecomom and our loyal customers will make it happen. We’ve never been more energized about our business than we are right now!

If we can significantly impact this epidemic, then “It’s all good” will mean what we sincerely intend for it to: that life is better for all that are a part of the program. We hope we can inspire others as TOMS has inspired us.

*USDA report, Household Food Security in the United States, 2010, published September 2011

Many of you wrote in telling us how inspired you were by their story (it’s one of our favorites too), and now we have an exciting update for you: the guys of The Buried Life just released a book, “What do you want to do before you die?” and they’re signing all copies ordered from http://theburiedlifebook.com!

Act fast – the offer ends tomorrow, Tuesday March 27!

Happy reading!

I first met Blake Mycoskie in 2008 when I was working as a speaker’s agent. He told me the story behind TOMS and I was duly impressed. As he explained his “One for One” business model that harnessed consumer dollars to solve a health and education issue halfway around the world, I became understandably inspired. I can honestly say that hearing Blake’s story actually changed my life in a very profound way.

I soon realized that many young social entrepreneurs like Blake are accomplishing these extraordinary feats outside the “traditional” channels to do so. Many of them are innovating and delivering results in arenas that they aren’t particularly qualified – from the standpoint of education and experience – to work in. At least by conventional measures. In fact, none of the social entrepreneurs I’ve met over the years had the “right” to expect that they would succeed at what they were attempting to achieve. And yet they were succeeding. Often on a global level. And that planted the idea in my head that we, as a generation, have a lot more power than we sometimes think we do.

I was so inspired by what many of these individuals were accomplishing, and how fast they were executing their goals, that I wrote a book about them and their work called Shake the World. In his review for the Financial Times, Philip Delves Broughton called the book a “Call to arms for the breathless young.” I hope he is right, and that the collective stories of these young game-changers are a call to arms for our generation.

When I tried to distill what I learned from each of the individuals I interviewed, I came up with words and terms like “fortitude,” “passion,” “innovation,” “gratitude,” “meritocracy,” “synergy,” “disruption,” “self-education,” “dogged-perseverance,” and “blind, willful audacity.” I open my book by saying that these individuals are some of the most important young people of our generation.

Here is some of what they taught me:

Blake Mycoskie/TOMS – Blake taught me that “One for One” does not add up to two. If you do the math Blake’s way, what results is immeasurable and exponential instead. Blake taught us that a pair of shoes can be so much more than foot covering or a fashion item – it can be a route to transformational change – if you happen to buy the right pair. And we’ve all seen the astounding results.

Jason Russell/Invisible Children – Jason taught me that a video camera can be a weapon of mass instruction. The footage that Jason and the Invisible Children team captured of what was happening to children in Uganda made the invisible children of Joseph Kony’s war, visible to the world. Through their work, Invisible Children has made a significant global impact, including being the driving force behind a bill signed into law by President Obama calling for the removal Joseph Kony from power.

Ellen Gustafson/FEED/30 Project– Ellen taught me that many global issues – from education to terrorism – have their roots in hunger. Through her work with FEED, Ellen and partner Lauren Bush have provided over 55 million meals to children across the globe. Just like Blake, Ellen taught me that social entrepreneurs who harness the purchasing power of conscious consumers have created a movement that will feed and educate the world’s hungry and make inroads to solve many of the health problems that face our global society.

Tony Hsieh/Zappos– Tony, the CEO of famed Zappos, taught me that, “Failure is not a badge of shame, it’s a rite of passage.”  It’s a phrase that I repeat to myself on a daily basis.  Rather than dwelling on our “mistakes,” “failure” is something we should learn from, as we move forward – applying each lesson to our subsequent endeavors.

Jessica Jackley/KIVA– Jessica taught me the power of story and connectivity, and about the critical and subtle nuances in the dynamics of “people building.”  As the co-founder of KIVA, Jessica is responsible for helping to facilitate hundreds of millions of dollars in interest-free microloans to the world’s poor. But KIVA goes far beyond the loan of money; Jessica helped create a powerful model for personal engagement that changes lives on a far greater scale than possible with mere dollars. By connecting donors and recipients on a human-level, KIVA creates relationships of meaning.

Shawn Fanning/Napster/AirTime – Shawn taught me the importance of being a disruptive force, and that you don’t have to be an expert in a particular field to change it for the better. Rather, one has to be an expert at identifying problems and then applying his or her own unique skill-set to provide innovative solutions to those problems.

Sean Carasso/Falling Whistles– As the founder of Falling Whistles Sean is an advocate for peace in Congo, which is home to one of the most brutal wars our world has ever seen.  Sean taught me that you don’t have to be a politician to work in politics – or be in the military – to fight a war. He taught me that community action is now possible on a global stage and that cause marketing – propelled by relentless perseverance – can be an effective, even explosive, weapon of change.

Collectively, all of these young leaders taught me that failure is a stepping-stone; innovative thinking and perseverance are like a religion; passion is a leverageable tool; and that a for-profit venture can facilitate a non-profit goal. But, most of all, they showed me that all of us have significantly more power to impart change than we think we do. So, like Blake, TOMS, and many of the others that I interviewed are doing, it is my hope that more of us will set forth and, in our own way, shake the world.

If you want to start something that matters, at some point early on you need to figure out where to begin. It was with the below-listed items that I took the idea for creating baby food in a new & different way and turned it into a reality.

INGREDIENTS

1 Thing you care passionately about (in this case, organic foods and healthy babies!)
1 Hardworking and trustworthy partner
4 Advisory board members
3 Reputable suppliers
1 “Yes” from a buyer(s)
180k in startup funds
Countless hours on the road, at the computer, in meetings, on the phone, etc.
An open mind to the opportunities that await
A will to make a difference and give back

PREPARATION METHOD

After I gathered and made use of the first seven ingredients, things began to happen. Last March, my partner Lauren and I were setting up a booth to debut our product at an annual, all-natural foods expo – the Mardi Gras of all things organic, eco, and basically, cool. Seriously – even Fabio was there. It was late, we were tired, my two-year-old was overdue for bedtime, and we still had several green carpet tiles needing to be installed. We’d been traveling since 6:00 in the morning and had spent a good portion of the sparse funds we had to attend the show – we were hopeful that our investment would pay off. The morning of the show, we arrived early to our partially assembled, cheerily green-floored booth, completed the installation, and waited.

Suddenly, it started to rain. Passersby nodded enthusiastically when tasting the foods. Bloggers smiled heartily when listening to the story of how we got our start. Distributors and brokers filled their pockets with samples and sell sheets. Investors pressed business cards into our palms. Most importantly – especially at that early stage – the buyers came. A team of three sales execs from a baby superstore chatted up Lauren while a broker interrupted his sales pitch to me by saying, through clenched teeth, that’s our biggest competitor, before he turned around to address the threesome with polite flourish.

Over the course of the three-day expo, we landed several new accounts, including one 400-plus store chain that would take our brand to a national level. As thrilling as it was, it wasn’t unexpected; it felt as if what we’d been working towards was beginning to unfold before us.
Then other things started to happen. An opportunity to blog for Forbes.com. A trip to the Hamptons to present our product to a nationally televised audience. A blurb in In Touch Weekly – a favorite guilty pleasure of mine – that mentioned Ivanka Trump’s preference for our baby food. Could all this really be happening?

Needless to say, all of the hype was exciting. But, in the twenty months since our product launched on retail shelves, another more meaningful opportunity has also emerged among the noise. Quietly and consistently, throughout the entire time our product has been on the market, people have suggested to us that we get involved in some sort of charitable effort. I’d love to see you feed a million babies in Africa!, said one enthusiast. When disaster struck the Midwest last year, why don’t you send NurturMe to families in Joplin?, asked one of our Facebook followers. Our product is lightweight to ship, it’s got a long shelf life. It’s uniquely perfect for humanitarian & disaster relief efforts in ways that other products are not.

Here was yet another opportunity presenting itself, almost effortlessly. All we’d set out to do was start a cool new baby food business, and here we were with the chance to really do something that mattered. A byproduct of pursuing your dreams, it turns out, is having what you set out to do evolve into something much bigger & more meaningful than you could have imagined.

After months of considering our options, then weeks doing due diligence on an appropriate partner, we decided we wanted to feed needy children in the US. Through a partnership with Feed The Children, we’ve launched a buy one donate one campaign with the goal of feeding 100,000 meals to children across the country over the next six months. (You can join us in these efforts by clicking here.) We are privileged to sell our product on shelves at places like Whole Foods and Babies R Us; but having the chance to feed healthy, organic fruits & veggies to families who would not be able to buy it for themselves is an honor. Not to mention tremendously humbling: the experience at the expo left us high-fiving and patting ourselves on the back. In reality, there’s so much more we can do to give back. What really matters – it’s now clear – is that we help others, and pay forward the many blessings we’ve enjoyed since launching our product. It’s a commitment we’ll carry with us as we continue on this journey.

The charity: water team recently launched a new project, Water Forward, that taps in to the viral nature of social media to bring clean water to those in need.

Watch this video:

I have donated $5,000 to Water Forward, and feel honored to be part of it. my donation allows 500 people from my network to be “in the book” alongside me. Follow this link to claim a spot: http://c.wtr.cc/c/HjXlL

I hope you will pay it forward and invite some of your friends, colleagues, or contacts to the book as well.

The more you give, the more you live.” - Bob Dedman