ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

NON-PROFITS: Effective Frontline Fundraising

 

 

Jeffrey Stauch is no slouch when it comes to asking people for money—and he shares how he gets it done in his new title, "Effective Frontline Fundraising," recently published by Apress.

Stauch got his start by canvassing for political groups on the streets of Boston and quickly progressed to his current position as a prime fundraiser for a prestigious New England College. “Asking for $5—and getting it—takes about as much skill and guts as asking for $1 million,” said Stauch. “The principles are the same. And anyone can learn them.”

 

Visionaries, Inc - Award Winning Public TV Series Since 1995

 

 

 

Full Information and Listing of Each Year's Programs Since 1995:

 

www.visionaries.org

 

Since 1995, Visionaries, Inc. has been producing Visionaries documentary series for public television. Hosted by Sam Waterston of Law & Order, the documentary series highlights the rarely told stories of nonprofit organizations all around the world that are working to make a positive difference in their community and beyond.

Visionaries' production crews have traveled across six continents and to more than 50 American cities to profile the extraordinary work of true philanthropists- people dedicating their lives and careers to the service of others. From Refugees International to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and art museums to humane societies, Visionaries tells the stories of individuals dedicated to changing the status quo in an effort to promote positive coexistence. The documentaries seek to inspire vast audiences, serve as catalysts for positive social change and promote philanthropy on a global level.

 

Visionaries: Sages & Scientists Symposium

 

 

 

 

 

Presented by the Chopra Foundation, this Third Annual International Sages and Scientists Symposium, being held from March 3 to 5, 2012 at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California, will address some of the most urgent questions facing our future evolution, including:

 

• Are we in the midst of a major paradigm shift in science?

 

• Is there an ultimate reality?

 

• Does consciousness conceive, govern, construct and become the physical universe?

 

• Is the universe becoming self aware in the human nervous system?

 

• Is the next stage of human development conscious evolution?

 

• Do we have the ability to influence the future evolution of the cosmos?

 

• How does our understanding of consciousness as pure potentiality enhance our capacity for intuition, creativity, conscious choice making, healing, and the awakening of dormant potentials such as non-local communication and non-local sensory experience?

 

• How does our understanding of consciousness also enhance our capacity for total well being—physical, emotional, spiritual, social, community, financial and ecological?

“If you find the above questions intriguing, you are most welcome to join me and my colleagues as we go deep into dialogue about our emerging future,” said Chopra, founder of the Chopra Foundation. “Everything will be examined from the perspectives of both sages and scientists with the goal of finding common ground.

“At the end of the symposium, we will summarize the current understanding of the issues that deeply affect all of us at the core of our being. We aim to propel scientific investigation and research in the areas of consciousness.”

The Chopra Foundation is requesting a donation of $1,995—$1,000 of which is tax deductible—for general participation, after which registration will be complimentary. Contributions to the Symposium will be used to support collaborative research on the realization of consciousness, carry on the Foundation’s other charitable work, and pay expenses for the

program.

Accommodations are available at The La Costa Resort and Spa. Please register online at http://www.choprafoundation.org and use the promo code #54E883 or call (800) 854-5000.

When making a reservation, please mention “The Chopra Foundation Sages and Scientists Symposium” to receive the special discounted rate: $169.00 per night. This rate excludes resort fees and taxes, and is based on availability.

Our Vision: Rediscovering Humanity's Niche

It is time to create new stories, and rediscover our place in the global web of life!

Come visit A New Story Foundation:  www.anewstory.org

 

Envision the earth's life-sustaining processes as a beautiful and diverse web of interrelationships--a kaleidoscope of patterns, rhythms, and connections whose very complexity and multitude of possibilities remind us that cooperation, sharing, honesty, humility, and love should be the guidelines for our behavior toward one another and the earth. -- Ecosustainability student   Our Vision - Rediscovering Humanity's Niche: Following the lead of author Daniel Quinn, we believe that modern society has lost its way.  Humans have abandoned the tried and true survival mechanisms established over thousands of millennia, forgetting that they were once a fully-integrated member of the global ecosystem.  We believe that the tired old story modern society tells itself has seen its last days, and that the global self-deception is about to be exposed for what it is.  We believe it is time for new stories, stories that tell of the rediscovery of humanity's place in the global web of life.  We envision a time when these new stories depicting humans within nature, and not separate from it, will be the human story.

Want to Change the World?

 

 

Change the Story!

Duane Elgin

The next five to ten years represent an unprecedented break in the human journey. We are between stories, or the guiding narratives, that serve as beacons for our collective future. For example, the “American Dream” that pulled the U.S. forward for at least three generations is fast becoming the world’s nightmare as the excesses of consumerism produce climate disruption, the depletion of cheap oil, growing income disparities, and more. Instead of a different “dream,” people want wide-awake visions of real possibilities told in ways that are believable and compelling.

We face big challenges and it will take an equally big vision to transform conflict into cooperation and draw us into a promising future. The most difficult challenge facing humanity is not devising solutions to the energy crisis or climate crisis or population crisis; rather, it is bringing images and stories of the human journey into our collective awareness that empower us to look beyond a future of great adversity and to see a future of great opportunity. Stories of great transition offer alternative big-picture perspectives that place our time of transition in a larger context and illuminate a promising future. These narratives are of universal concern, simple and relatively easy to understand, emotionally powerful, and able to call forth our higher potentials; and all involve a time of profound initiation and deep transformation.

 

What Is Your True Joy In Life?

 

 

 

 

Assignment:  Today, give some careful thought to what is your true joy in life, and perhaps write out your answer as a poem or a short vignette.  Surprise yourself!  Be honest. Write Now! GO!

*******

Here is some inspiration for you from George Bernard Shaw:

 

"This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

The Web's Secret Stories - Jonathan Harris (TED Talk)

 

 

Please, please, please watch this!  It is wondrous. It will cheer you up!!!

Assignment:  Enjoy this inspiring TED Talk by Jonathan Harris, on his remarkable project, "We Feel Fine."  In your journal, write a short entry in terms of how you are feeling right at this moment.  This is a good bit of Soul Yoga to do regularly. 

The Local-Global Flip or "The Lanier Effect" (Edge)

 

 

A Conversation with Computer Visionary Jaron Lanier [8.29.11]

 

Source:  http://edge.org/conversation/the-local-global-flip

"If you aspire to use computer network power to become a global force through shaping the world instead of acting as a local player in an unfathomably large environment, when you make that global flip, you can no longer play the game of advantaging the design of the world to yourself and expect it to be sustainable. The great difficulty of becoming powerful and getting close to a computer network is: Can people learn to forego the temptations, the heroin-like rewards of being able to reform the world to your own advantage in order to instead make something sustainable?"

 

"I strongly urge you to read this truly epic interview with Jaron Lanier at Edge. ... It's an extraordinary interview, packed with insight and often grimly funny." Matt Zoller Seitz, Salon.com

"Fascinating conversation with Jaron Lanier, influential computer scientist. On economics of the Internet – implications of networked technology, destruction of middle class and dark side of new media". — Writing Worth Reading, The Browser.com

 

Khan Academy: A Free Education for Anyone Anywhere

 

A free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

 

What Do You Want to Learn?

The Long Now Foundation - Ready for Long Term Thinking? Like 10,000 Years?

 

 

Journal Assignment:   Come over and take a look at Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation:

www.longnow.org

 

Challenge yourself to think in terms of 10,000 years in the future.   How about just 1000 years?  If this opportunity inspires you,  do some imaginative thinking about how we and our home planet might change, what values will endure, how we will live, what kind of communities we might have, and whether or not we will be able to reverse the destructive patterns that are now in play.  Take notes on what you would LIKE to see here in 1000 years, and then stretch out to 10,000 years.  Write Now! GO!

 

The Clock and Library Projects

Below is an essay by  founding board member Stewart Brand on the need for, and the mechanism by which, The Long Now Foundation is attempting to encourage long-term thinking.

Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The trend might be coming from the acceleration of technology, the short-horizon perspective of market-driven economics, the next-election perspective of democracies, or the distractions of personal multi-tasking. All are on the increase. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed-some mechanism or myth which encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries. Long Now proposes both a mechanism and a myth. It began with an observation and idea by computer scientist Daniel Hillis :

 

CowBird: A Small Community of Storytellers

 

“Of all our truest hopes and desires for our work is that, what we find, we ourselves never knew. It came as a shock. It came as a surprise. It was new. We could never have known what we were going to do before we did it, and in that sense, we discover too. Here is what I’ve got to say to you: there are things in your life you will see; there are stories you will hear; if you don’t write them down, if you don’t make the picture, they won’t get seen, they won’t get told.”

Emmet Gowin

*******

What is Cowbird?

Cowbird is a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web.

Cowbird allows you to keep a beautiful audio-visual diary of your life, and to collaborate with others in documenting the overarching “sagas” that shape our world today. Sagas are themes and events that touch millions of live and shape the human story.

Our short-term goal is to pioneer a new form of participatory journalism, grounded in the simple human stories behind major news events. Our long-term goal is to build a public library of human experience, so the knowledge and wisdom we accumulate as individuals may live on as part of the the commons, available for this and future generations to look to for guidance.

What can I use Cowbird to do?