The Lend4Health Journey: Reflecting on #TweetsGiving

If you are not on Twitter, you should be. Not just because it's a great way to connect with and learn from like-minded folks, but also because it is a new frontier for social actions. A friend of mine, @Stacey Monk, (whom I've only "met" on Twitter) recently led a brilliant campaign for her non-profit, Epic Change. Called "TweetsGiving," her goal was to raise $10,000 in 48 hours, leveraging only the power of Twitter and of shared stories of thanks. The $10,000 would be enough to build a classroom (including windows, desks, etc) for a school in Tanzania. I loved the concept, but I thought $10,000 was impossible!

Well, Stacey proved me wrong. She raised her $10,000 in less than 48 hours, and even went over her goal. Impressive, to say the least! "Epic" they will say in the Twitter history books. I was happy to be involved in #TweetsGiving (the Twitter hashtag used to identify and track related tweets). In fact, I donated $110 -- enough to buy 11 bricks for the school and be given the title of "Top Turkey" (for those who contributed $100 or more).

My involvement in, and indeed the ultimate success of, #TweetsGiving got me thinking with a new perspective on Lend4Health and social actions in general, and I wanted to take a moment here to share my reflections with the larger Social Actions community.

Reflection #1: Get Out of Your Own Kitchen
In all honesty, I knew that getting involved with #TweetsGiving would be a good marketing ploy. I knew it would get my @lend4health name out there in the Twitterverse, and doing so would be a cheap and relatively painless way to "sow seeds" for future harvest. So I donated my money, got my name on the Top Turkey board, and thought that would be the end of it.

But something happened . . . I got hooked! For those 48 hours, I basically became an Epic Change volunteer. I decided not to tweet about Lend4Health; that would be like talking about my engagement on Stacey's wedding day. Instead, I tweeted about #TweetsGiving and encouraged and challenged others to do the same. I came up with creative little ways to get people involved, and one night past midnight I found myself trying to figure out in which time zones it was morning and then which Twitterers were there so that they could carry the campaign while the U.S. was asleep. In short, I gave myself pretty fully to somebody else's cause. AND IT FELT GREAT!

In many ways, I think #TweetsGiving gave me a "vacation" from Lend4Health. I had been having some deep thoughts and, honestly, some angst with Lend4Health and what I should do with it, so it was refreshing to think about somebody else's cause for a while. It reminded me of how I can actually enjoy cleaning somebody else's kitchen when cleaning my own can be a bore.

While reflecting on this phenomenon, it made me understand better the reports I get from many of the lenders on Lend4Health -- particularly those on the difficult autism recovery path themselves -- when they tell me they feel refreshed when they can "lift their heads" out of their own circumstance and reach out to support another family's autism journey. There will be a separate blog post on this intriguing aspect of Lend4Health (and how this makes it different from the Kiva model), but the basic message to other change-makers is, "When you're feeling down or confused or just plain too immersed in your own cause, take a break and go help somebody else's. You will return refreshed, bringing new perspectives to your work, and new doors will open."

Reflection #2: Give to Receive (aka "Karma")
This may sound trite, and certainly we have heard this before, but I really experienced this phenomenon first-hand with #TweetsGiving. A certain co-worker of mine (at my day job), who is very focused on maximizing profits and the Google rank on his blog, would not understand at all why I -- a person who is trying to nurture and build her own online giving platform -- would spend $110 of my (scarse!) money on somebody else's project. Because, certainly, that is money that could have been put to good use on Lend4Health, either to pay for PayPal fees or to make a loan for a child on my site. And WHY, he would wonder, would I spend hours (yes, I literally spent hours of my time over that 48 hour campaign) trying to gin up "business" for somebody else's website? Indeed, I could have done a lot on Lend4Health with those hours.

But if you are like me (and if you are reading this and are part of the SocialActions community, you most likely are like me), you know that we must give in order to receive. This is the same phenomenon you may have experienced in your personal life -- when your heart is closed and wary, it's hard to find love. But when you open yourself up to loving others and being vulnerable with them, all of a sudden love walks in and finds you.

So it is with our causes. Are you having trouble finding a new donor? Fundraisers flopping? Media not catching on? Try becoming a donor for another cause. Try emailing your friends about another non-profit's upcoming campaign. Tell your friendly media contact about somebody else's milestone. It may be just the kick in the pants your karma needs to get things moving again. (Indeed, within the 24 hours after I helped Stacey's cause reach her goal, I had offers for pro-bono web strategy support, pro-bono legal advice, and my first financial sponsor!

And, to take this concept a step further, it appears that we must open ourselves, our websites, our databases, and our failures to our collective communities and users/customers in order to grow. We must let go of our egos in order to gain respect, and we must let others take the lead in order to be good leaders. The best thing to happen to our causes may be an idea, a connection, or a strategy that a stranger -- not us -- will originate. And we need to be open-minded, vulnerable, and aware enough to allow these people to enter into our lives and take our causes in directions we may not have imagined ourselves.

Reflection #3: There's Plenty of (Pumpkin) Pie to Go Around
Is Epic Change a "competitor" of Lend4Health? Did I just help Stacey Monk raise $10,000 that could have otherwise flowed to my own cause? Is that $10,000 now gone from the collective philanthropic pie? (And did it surprise you that Kiva's own co-founder, Jessica Flannery, joined the Opportunity International Board of Directors?)

Believe me, I asked these questions of myself over the 48-hour #TweetsGiving extravaganza. "Am I nuts?" "Maybe that person would've given that $10 to me!" But, no. I trusted my gut instinct that what I was a part of was something good -- something bigger than me and my little microlending blog. I went forth and I worked hard to help generate the $10,000 for a classroom in Tanzania, for kids like Sayuni.

If you are a parent of more than one child, you most likely have experienced this "pie" phenomenon yourself. Before that second child comes along you wonder, "How could I ever love that child as much as this child (that I already have)? This child consumes my every cell, my every hope, my every ounce of love. What if there's no more love in the tank?" But then it happens -- the second child comes and your heart automatically expands to exude as much love for that child as for your first, and you can't remember a time when there was only one.

I believe this is the same for philanthropy, for change-making, and for all of us here in the SocialActions community. There is enough to go around. Just as the diversity of humankind and human thought is endless, so too is our collective ability to effect change and find or create the resources (financial and otherwise) to make that happen.

That $10,000 is not "gone." (Indeed, in the Epic Change model, it will loaned and repaid then loaned again to another cause as important and inspiring as the school in Tanzania.) That $10,000 collected from #TweetsGiving most likely has generated another $10,000 -- from those who will hear the story of #TweetsGiving and learn the power of collective giving, and from those who got a "rush" from participating in #TweetsGiving and are now looking for their next opportunity to feel that rush again.

We are all in this together, and only by working together, joining forces, and even anonymously supporting other causes, will we truly be able to effect change in our organizations, our communities, and our collective world.

Epic Change, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, believes that people's stories are assets that can be used as resources to improve their lives. The organization, founded by Stacey Monk, helps people in need share their "epic" true stories in innovative, creative and profitable ways to help them acquire the financial resources they need to create positive "change" in their communities. [from the Epic Change website]