Photo courtesy of Taylor Davidson

I started this meme in 2009 and continued it in 2010. Thanks to Taylor for inspiring me to do this project – his meme of cities goes back to 2006. Unlike him, I don’t have a photo of all of the places I slept, but that’s certainly something to aspire to!

As in previous years, a city makes it onto this list when I’ve slept there so any day trips aren’t included. If I was in a city and slept in multiple places, that counts as it’s own entry – since it counts against the total nights away and not spent at home in my own bed.

The big thing this year was having ONE home. A home that started unfurnished – a huge step for me compared to 2009 and 2010! It was still a year of travel (both in the U.S. and then to Haiti, Mexico, Barbados and Portugal) but it was also a great year to sink into New York City and enjoy everything that this glorious city has to offer and start to build a home. It’s been a good year. Here’s where I was in the year that was…

January
New York City (homebase)
Miami (1)
Boca Raton, FL (2)
York, ME (1)
Boston, MA (1)

February
New Orleans, LA (3)
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (2)
Jacamel, Haiti (1)

March
Austin, TX (2)
Austin, TX (2) *separate place
Los Angeles, CA (1)
Los Angeles, CA (2) *separate place

April
Miami, FL (1)
Tecate, Mexico (7)
Fairfield, CT (1)

May
Asheville, NC (3)

June
Kittery, ME (2)

July
Barbados (4)
Manchester, CT (2)
Boston, MA (1)

August
San Diego, CA (3)
Pittsburgh, PA (3)
Luray, VA (3)

September
Hidden Valley, PA (3)
Boston, MA (2)

October
Chambersburg, PA (2)
Kittery, Me (2)
Santa Monica, CA (1)
Burlington, VT (2)

November
Wahington, DC (3)
Hidden Valley, PA (3)

December
Scarsdale, NY (1)
Pittsburgh (5)
Lisbon, Portugal (2)
Duoro Valley, Portugal (2)

Total nights away from home: 76 (20% of nights)

Where did you go last year (work/personal or both? Where are your travels taking you this year? To all the places you’ll go and beyond – happy travels!

There is a story I recently heard that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. I told some of my team and then I’ve found myself telling it to friends, in meetings, on the phone. That’s called “stickiness” and so I want to share it here as well.

There are two supermarkets. You walk into the first supermarket and they’ve run out of a product you want and you think, “That’s really a crap store.” You walk into a second supermarket that you really admire and they’ve run out of the product and you think, “I should have been here earlier.”

That’s good branding.

How we feel about places, people, things we interact with on a daily/weekly/monthly basis matters. It matters because our perception of a place becomes reality. Reality is a hard thing to shape, it’s not as cut and dry as everyone would have you believe. After all, the second a moment passes it stops being reality and becomes memory – the most personal and subjective emotion in the world.

Whether you’re creating a Brand from scratch, in the process of reinvention or elevating your Brand to another level, remember you have limited opportunity to create a “moment of truth” and those moments matter. This message applies to all businesses, nonprofits, startups, etc. It’s these succinct stories and messages that I’ve been thinking a lot about as I work to build brands in my day-to-day work.

What’s your story? Which supermarket are you?

This story comes from Michael Wolff, Founder of Wolff Olins (and comes at 3:42 on the video above). I found his video on m ss ng p eces, a Brooklyn-based creative company who created videos for the Intel Visual Life series. I found them through Cowbird, the new storytelling project website from Jonathan Harris. I met Jonathan at Davos in 2010 and greatly admire his work, creativity and creation of new projects on the web.

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

Make a donation here:

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This is a guest post written by Adriana Mistick, a junior at Wheaton College. She also happens to be my sister! This past summer she had the incredible opportunity to go volunteer with Mama Lucy at Sheperds Junior School in Arusha, Tanzania. This is her story.

***

Addy and the students from Sheperds Junior School, Summer 2011

I’ve sat down to write about my summer in Tanzania so many times without ever being able to find the words or the descriptions that are just right. I’ve decided now that it was one of those experiences I will never fully be able t explain or attempt to show with photos because what I really want is for everyone to be able to go and experience it for themselves.

It was early this year when I decided I wanted to do something different for the summer. I was about halfway through college at that point and had been lucky enough to take some time off early in college to help me get my head on straight. Now I guess you could say I’m focused. On what, you ask? Water and teaching kids, or teaching anyone I can, about water and our environment. I’m a self-proclaimed “water junkie”. Thinking about my summer and not knowing where to start, my sister Sloane (maybe you guys know her??) was eager to help me find a good match in terms of location and program. The moment I told her what I was thinking she had something perfect in mind but still worked wonders by facebooking, tweeting and emailing a personal ad for her baby sis.

EPIC CHANGE. That’s where Sloane’s mind was from the start and from the moment she first told me about meeting Stacey Monk at a conference and following their progress, that’s where my mind was too.

Epic Change has worked to raise money for a school in Arusha, Tanzania called the Shepherds Junior School. They have done this through various campaigns like TweetsGiving, To Mama With Love and even more recently were able to bring two of the star students, Gideon and Leah, from the first graduating class of 7th graders all the way to America to tell their story across the country.

The school itself, Shepherds Junior School, was started by a woman named Mama Lucy, the most inspiring woman I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Sloane connected me to Stacey, Stacey to Mama Lucy, and then Mama and I had a brief email exchange before deciding that I was coming to live in Arusha for two months to work at the school. Even luckier than just being connected to this incredible woman was that my college thought it was a great idea too and awarded me the Davis International Fellowship, which came with a hefty grant, that made it possible for me to go. My favorite perk of the fellowship has been telling my story at different events and presentations on campus this year.

Each interview goes a little bit differently because there is so much that I want to say. My favorite questions are along the lines of, “What surprised you most about being there?” or “What is the most important thing you left with?”, “Did the experience change your thinking about the future?”

And my responses go like this:

They have some of the best smiles I have ever seen, you know those smiles you can see in their eyes. They truly hung on my every word and would spend break times coming up to me and asking more and more questions about anything. “What is the deepest lake in America?” or “Is there HIV/AIDS in America?” and “What is your favorite food in Tanzania/America and why?” to “How does the rain fall?” and “How does water become a cloud?” – without me even prompting them. I’ll be honest, the questions about the deepest lake in America or how many national parks we have I actually had to look up and come back with the answers another day. The have an undying thirst for knowledge, unlike I’ve ever seen it before.

In terms of changing my thinking about my future and the world’s future it comes down to one word, HOPE. It can be easy to feel defeated by many news stories and through studying climate change and listening to seemingly endless debates in politics that leave us with no real answers or solutions but seeing and working with the people at the school and the children there inspired me and gave me hope. It reminded me that people are stronger than we think and often times deserve more credit. The teachers at that school give up almost all of their time, even weekends, to teach and help those kids. Many of them go home in the afternoon when school gets out and will go to visit children in their village that don’t get to go to school and will tutor them, for free, from home. Knowing that there are people that committed to the future help me to believe that the future is going to be a good place. Those children at Shepherds Junior School, dreaming of becoming astronauts, doctors or teachers, I believe that they can do it. I know that if those children succeed, they will honestly make our world a far better place than we ever could have expected.

For my future, I now feel that I, myself, can make a difference. One person alone can be powerful, and change making. One person can start a school from nothing. One person can inspire hundreds or thousands of more people.

I am now one of the many inspired by Mama Lucy, Stacey Monk and Sloane Berrent. And that’s why this year I am thankful for the places I have been, the things that I have seen and most importantly the PEOPLE that I have met.

Asante sana,
Addy

Dear friends, family and everyone else who has stumbled onto this page,

Let me set the stage…the big one was my 30th birthday in 2009 – that was the year Cause It’s My Birthday was born and we raised $20,000 for Netting Nations and for malaria nets in Ghana.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to shake the power of social media to help drive social change. I eat, live and breathe in this space.

I’m at it again! This year, I’m celebrating my Sweet Sixteen (x2) and 100% of online donations and donations at my birthday party will go to She’s The First.

She’s The First supports girls education in the developing world. The partner school I’ve chosen is Starfish One By One School in  Solola, Guatemala. Only $300 provides a scholarship to one girl for one year.

I am so incredibly passionate about education and girls. Education is quite simply not an option for many girls in many parts of the world. Often it’s because families can’t afford the very basic school costs. I’ve researched nonprofits in this space and have been a supporter of She’s The First for the past year. I carefully picked this school in Guatemala and have talked to volunteers who have been there on the ground and met the students. Your donations go DIRECTLY to support these students and provide them with a future that is not possible without your support.

Please join me in making a donation today and reaching my goal of $16,000.

Every dollar counts. Thank you for your donations and for supporting my birthday wish.

If you’d like to help spread the word, please post this message to your social media networks:

I’m supporting @sloane’s birthday fundraiser to support #girlseducation through @shesthefirst: http://slne.us/sweetsixteenx2

More about She’s The First:

She’s the First is a not-for-profit that sponsors girls’ education in the developing world, helping them be the first in their families to graduate. In the process, She’s the First fosters leadership and self-awareness in young Americans, by inspiring them to lead creative fundraisers and correspond with sponsored students. Our efforts shape a rising generation of well-educated global leaders, future philanthropists, and cross-cultural communicators.

Come out and celebrate in person!

Tuesday, 10/11 in Los Angeles, CA

Thursday, 10/13 in New York, NY

Thank you,
Sloane

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

One thing in, one thing out.

I don’t know when exactly I adopted this rule. There isn’t one clear moment where I decided this would be guide for what comes into my home. I think it started as a saying, a general guideline, a concept not yet 100% adopted. But somewhere in the last year, it has in fact, become a rule.

It turns out it’s a rule that is talked about a lot online in the big declutter blogs! It makes total sense, I just landed on this one on my own.

When I left Los Angeles in December 2008, it was the first time I gave up one home without moving into another. I had to compress and declutter, then pack and give away all in two weeks. I held a weekend long garage sale and sold as much as I could, then packed as much as I could into my RAV4 and drop it off at Goodwill. The rest, I moved into storage.

I didn’t have a permanent home again until October 1, 2010 (a year ago yesterday). And that home was one that I was building with someone else. And that someone else had a lot less “stuff” that me. I spend hours every few months just going through my stuff to give away more things. Clothes I don’t wear, papers and books I don’t look at, DVDs I don’t watch. My big revelation? It’s EXHAUSTING! Stuff is quite frankly exhausting. The getting it, the keeping it, the organizing it and eventually the giving it away.

In order to free myself of this cycle, I had to free myself of the things themselves.

It’s hard to explain what happens when you free yourself of things. I mean, I still need clothes to wear, still have a “favorite shirt” and still look longingly at things I want to buy. The one thing that has changed is that when one thing comes into the house – one thing must go out.

Here’s how I do it…

I keep a canvas bag under the island in the kitchen, and that’s the “donate pile.” So I do, from time to time, buy things. Just last week I was in Boston and found a great chunky sweater at GAP. I good “winter is coming and I’m going to curl up and read on a Sunday” sweater. I bought it. I came home and the first thing I did (after putting down my keys and overnight bag) was to open my closet doors and give it an honest look. I never wear that longsleeve shirt, I am over those summer sandals and will most likely get a new pair next summer and I inherited that purse in a swap with girlfriends but actually have never worn it. They all went into the donate pile. When the bag is full, I walk it down the street to the Goodwill and drop it off. I’ve never regretted anything I’ve donated, or missed it, or wished I had it back. Life is funny that way, things we are so attached to when suddenly they are gone, they aren’t so important anymore.

It’s not a perfect system but it’s a system that FEELS pretty good once I got into the swing of it. The whole thing makes me pause before buying things because let’s face it, if you love the things you own and you buy something new, in essence, you have to give one thing up.

Do you have a “one thing in, one thing out” rule in your house? I’d love to hear about it! And if you’re interested in finding out more about decluttering and other organizational tips, here are some blog posts I’ve discovered:

15 Great Decluttering Tips
Instructions for decluttering your home (in less than 500 words)
Top 10 Blogs to DeClutter & Simplify Your Life

I have exciting news to share! I’ve started on a wonderful and new adventure to add to my already wonderful and full plate. I have just started graduate school as a part-time student at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service working towards a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in management.

The definition of public service is “a service rendered in the public interest” and I have always had such a strong pull to serving in the best interests of the public. That can be seen through all of my community activism and projects in social media for social good. Now I have the chance to deepen my understanding and my learning in these topics in a community of my peers.

I did consider MBA programs, but context matters folks. For me, it was a lot about the people in the program itself, as much as it was about the program and reviews on Wagner (one of my mentors is an alumni) are stellar. In fact, every time I mention it now to someone I often here about a person I have to meet in the program or someone who graduated from there that I would connect with.

Ranked in the top 10 graduate programs for Public Affairs by U.S. News and World Report, the school is an excellent blend of academics and practitioners. Many of my classmates also work full-time and the classes I’m taking are in the evenings which allow me to work all day and then make it to class on-time.

While my concentration is management, I am also going to be focused a lot on the two subjects that have been woven through much of my work during my careers – social innovation and access to education for girls and it’s implications on health, wellness and economic development. I am working in tandem to broaden my horizons of what is possible in my professional career and hone in and focus on the subject areas where I want to deepen my knowledge and network.

I’m kicking things off with Introduction To Public Policy and Microeconomics. If you see me in person you might have already noticed the shift in my lexicon – I posed the question last night about how I wanted my life to be linear and not parabolic (yes this happened). I also have been talking about public/private partneships a lot – in particular how something that is private becomes public and becomes policy. You can expect more of my musings and what I’m learning here, and of course in greater “live-time” on Twitter. You can also follow NYU Wagner on Twitter at @NYUWagner.

It’s going to be a long road, I know I’m putting a lot on myself to perform at work and now at school. I couldn’t do this without an amazing support network of family and friends and also the conviction that now is the time for this next steps in my formal education. You might hear less from here on this blog as I have to reallocate my time and focus on lectures and homework. Then again you might hear from me more as I’m learning so much and busting from the seams to share it. We’ll see. Either way, wish me luck! And if you want to talk at all about if going back to school is right for you or talk about Wagner in particular, you know where to find me.

It has been such a tremendous journey to watch charity: water evolve, grow and change lives over the past 5 years. Five years ago (and five birthdays ago), charity: water’s Founder, Scott Harrison, had a dream to bring safe and clean drinking water to those who need it around the world. More than just providing water, he wanted to find a way for people in the affected areas to be a part of that process, provide them with opportunities to drill wells and know how to fix the water source locally.

In that time, they have donated an always-promised 100% of public donations directly to fund water projects, working in 19 countries with 25 different partners and funded 4,282 projects affecting 2,060,000 people. Wow.

The charity: water 5th Anniversary September Campaign continues to amaze this year. The place where digital and fundraising collide are nowhere more evident than at charity: water. From the beginning their videos and outreach has been unique in that it’s been highly visually appealing and personal. This year steps that up a notch with personal thank you videos from Scott and the staff. Many of them don’t have high page views but they are all personalized and what an incredible thank you that is to the people who donated their birthday instead of asking for presents. They are $60,000 into their goal of $150,000, I made a donation to support them this year. I encourage you to join me!

As an October baby, I am inspired by what they do. Many of you might remember my Cause It’s My Birthday campaign and it’s always so inspiring to see what organizations are doing that is focused on bringing digital into the conversation from the beginning and not just including it as an afterthought.

Find out more by making a donation today, liking their Facebook page, following them on Twitter or watching more of their amazing stories and videos on their media page.