Social Good

January 16 2018

Make A Greater Impact In 2018 With International Speaker & Storyteller, Cameron Brown

Deirdre Breakenridge Leadership, Mentoring, PR 2.0, Social Good Cameron Brown, Creating Impact, Leadership, Social Good, The Impact Diaries, The Thriving Collective 0

the-thriving-collective-photo-2 The New Year is off to a great start and you may be working on the different ways to create greater impact in your career and life. I had a conversation with International speaker and storyteller, Cameron Brown, about creating impact in 2018. Cameron is also the founder of The Thriving Collective and creator of The Impact Diaries. He’s developed a helpful checklist with 47 different ways you can make a greater impact, from your own health and well-being to your business and to how you approach impact on a larger scale … for the planet.

“We as humans have the opportunity to make a a positive impact on three different levels … in our own lives, we can impact the lives of others, and we can have an impact on the planet too,” says Cameron Brown. After reviewing all of Cameron’s 47 ways to make a greater impact, it was a difficult choice, but I’ve selected my top six. These action items resonated with me on all of the three levels that Cameron mentioned.

Nurture your curiosity, it opens you up to possibilities you haven’t thought of yet.
Be ok with not knowing or needing to know, it develops your flexibility & adaptability to change.
Design the impact your company will make in the world on all 3 levels (self, others, planet).
Be ok with being vulnerable… in doing so, you give others permission to do the same and a deep bond can form quickly.
Expose yourself to different belief systems and ways of treating our planet (good & bad), contrast challenges and changes.
Stop (or reduce) watching TV and be conscious of your time online to help you personally determine your consumer behavior.

Cameron was kind enough to explain these six ways to create greater impact in more detail. You can click on the audio button to listen to Cameron’s thoughts around each opportunity, and how you can create impact too. Enjoy!

December 5 2011

Transforming Social Good into Social Responsibility

Deirdre Breakenridge Guest Post, PR 2.0, Social Good, Social media Harrison Kratz, PR, PR 2.0, Social Good, Social media, Social Responsibility, Tweet Drive 1

A Guest Post By Harrison Kratz

Regardless of what walk of life you are from or what your career is, the holiday season brings up the same topics of conversation… Gift shopping, how early is too early for Christmas music, and what you are doing to give back this year. In PR, Marketing, and Social Media, that last part has slightly evolved in recent years as giving back is now synonymous with the term social good.

Social good is definitely a sexy term for philanthropy and has really opened up consumers and brands’ minds about how they can utilize technology and social media to inflict positive change in the world.

I am happy to be apart of this movement of social good, having founded Tweet Drive – a campaign where I’ve been lucky enough to build a great community of those who are dedicated to giving underprivileged children around the world the holiday they deserve.

As happy as I am to see many similar campaigns being put together by people and brands throughout the year, I still think we have a long way to go. Social good is a noble practice, but to me its not just something those in social media can try out, it should be seen as a social responsibility.

So many of us have been able to reap the benefits of social media, smartphones, iPads, etc. while others around the world continue to suffer – even in the United States. Before these tools were available, it was very difficult for us to create positive change and directly help those in need in the furthest corners of the world. Donations could only go so far.

Since the disaster in Haiti in January, 2010 we have seen the power that social media users can have on giving back and helping those in need. It extends our reach to help those we didn’t have access to previously, as well as allowing us to build global communities around these efforts and causes. In short – that is power.

And as we all learned from Spiderman, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”

These tools are a privilege and we all have to understand that using these powers for good shouldn’t be an option, but a responsibility. I started small with a toy drive in my hometown back in 2009 before I fully understood social media and its advantages. In 2010, I realized that I could do so much more, so I did. Now, the Tweet Drive will be present in over 50 cities around the world and should expect over 4,000 collected toys by years end.

Do I have a blast putting this together? Yes. Is it stressful sometimes? Absolutely. But none of that matters in the end because this is a responsibility that I have. Social media has opened up a world of opportunities for me, and I can’t forget that.

So whether you advocate for Twestival, Movember, the USA for UNHCR’s Blue Key Campaign, or #TeamMeg – I hope you join me in transforming social good into a social responsibility.

Oh, and Happy Holidays J

Harrison Kratz is the Founder of the global social good initiative, Tweet Drive and the Community Manager at MBA@UNC, the new Online MBA program at the University of North Carolina Feel free to connect with him on Twitter, @KratzPR!

November 28 2011

Giving Back to #PR & #Marketing & Then Paying it Forward

Deirdre Breakenridge Mentoring, PR 2.0, Social Good, Social media Deirdre Breakenridge, Marketing, PR, PR 2.0, public relations, Social Good, Social media 4

When you give back, you hope it gets paid forward.

I had an idea a couple of weeks ago I thought would be great to test during the Holiday season. It’s an experiment in giving back and then paying it forward. The Holiday season fosters good will and nothing feels better then to selflessly give to those who need assistance. I thought long and hard about my own giving over the last 11 months in 2011. One of the best ways that I gave back was to mentor colleagues and students in different ways, from answering questions through email and informal telephone interviews to advice via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and reviewing resumes.

I enjoy helping my peers, and giving back is the one thing we can all do to increase the learning in our own communities. I know so many colleagues who are willing to help others and they do it with a smile. I’m really proud of the communities and the bonds we are building together. But, what I’m focusing on in my Holiday experiment is the “thank you” part. So many people will sincerely thank me and say, “If I can ever do anything for you, please let me know.” In other cases, I’ve received cards, gifts, magazines, and books (of course, always from the goodness of the person’s heart, as I would never expect this type of elaborate thank you).

However, what would you think if I said, “You can thank me by paying it forward?” Or, what if I pointed you in a direction to help people who are less fortunate? My experiment over the next few months, in the spirit of Holiday giving, is to tell all of my PR and marketing friends that I’m happy to assist, but now I need you to pay it forward to someone who needs help. I would love to see the “thank you” go toward the purchase of a $5.00 #BlueKey to support the USA for UNHCR effort to help over 40 million displaced refugees worldwide. Perhaps your thank you to me could be to purchase a small gift for a young child or for you to make a donation to Tweet Drive 2011 or #TeamMeg. You may have a favorite charity of your own to support, and when you mentor a peer, you will want him/her to pay it forward to your organization of choice. My Holiday wish is for every “thank you” to be paid forward to someone else.

It’s the Holidays and I hope my experiment will spread more good will to those who truly need our help. So, think about it, will you help to pay it forward?