#Enviro: Does a Green Xmas List Really Help The Environment?
We enjoy looking for, and perhaps even presenting ourselves, challenging ideas for our readers. And one idea we came across challenges our desires to find just the right holiday gift for a loved one while maintaining our green/environmentalist cred. Piers Fawkes, founder and CEO of the New-York based firm PSFK, argues in a recent blog post that ‘buying green’ this holiday season really misses the boat when it comes to helping the environment or changing the habits of businesses.
Are we indeed doing more harm than good when we buy from those ‘Green Gift Guides’ that show up in many of our (e)mail inboxes?
Popularity: 2% | Category Advertising, Blogs, Cause Marketing, Civics, Climate Change, Community, Environment, Greening, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Philanthropy: How to Find and Solicit the Biggest Corporate Donors
In the midst of the present economic crisis, the debate about whether corporations should have social responsibility to give to philanthropic causes has grown heated. Some argue that CR (Corporate Responsibility) departments actually diffuse problems rather than solve them and corporations should put their resources to better, profit-driven, uses for the betterment of all. Others counter that without a role for institutionalized CR, innovation and economic dynamism are often replaced with market suppression and cronyism.
But the present fact is a number of corporations give a good deal of financial and/or goods-in-kind support for social causes (broadly defined). A list of the top 50 (as of July 2011) can be found at The Foundation Center‘s website. What are some of the ways they give? And how might your organization benefit from their philanthropic programs? Over the next few weeks, we’ll present some of the research pursued to see what can be learned about a number of these 50 programs.
We begin with the top 5.
Popularity: 4% | Category Affordable Housing, Banking & Finance, Community, Environment, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Greening, Health, Healthcare, Low-Income, Marketing, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Public Relations, Resource, Revitalization | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#interview: Miriam Avins, Founder Of The Baltimore Green Space
Greening Baltimore,one lot at a time
This is a repost of an article that original appeared on the MKCREATIVE Nonprofit Marketing Blog in December, 2010.
Shortly after Miriam Avins and her family moved to Baltimore in 2003, she and her neighbors started a community garden after a dilapidated house next door to them was taken down. A few years later when someone wanted to put up seven condos with underground parking, she became concerned about the fate of many community gardens in the city.
“What struck me was the way people could put in this type of work for many years – much more time than we had done – and still have no more security in terms of the land remaining available for the community. Gardens bring beauty, food, and often even lower crime. Yet a garden can disappear in an instant.”
Popularity: 6% | Category Community, Community Gardens, Environment, Greening, Interview, iPhone Apps, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Technology, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Cate Neilson
#Interview: Steve Frillmann, Executive Director, Green Guerillas
A community garden created by local residents with the help and support of Green Guerillas
This is a repost of an article that originally appeared on the MKCREATIVE blog in March, 2010.
Each month we look at a marketing challenge faced by many of our clients. This month the issue is when, or if, to switch from print to web-based and social media, and we chose to present it through the eyes of one of our clients. We recently spoke with Steve Frillmann, executive director of Green Guerillas, a nonprofit organization that supports hundreds of community gardens (and gardeners) in New York City.
We’ve been working with the Green Guerillas for nearly 15 years, a relationship that began when Marco Kathuria (MKCREATIVE’s Creative Director & Social Media Strategist) volunteered as photographer/videographer for a project working with children to create colorful murals within community gardens in New York City. Out of that relationship came a realization of a “shared DNA” – a commitment to enrich the lives of city residents, one neighborhood at time. The collaboration with the Green Guerillas evolved into the creation of the organization’s graphic identity and communications toolkit. The marketing mix and the strategic direction it has taken has evolved over the years as a result of the close collaboration between MKCREATIVE and Steve Frillmann.
We began our conversation by asking Steve to give us his perspective on how he sees the Social Media:Direct Mail mix for his own organization, considering that converting one’s communications from print to social media channels is all the rage in business and nonprofit circles. But how useful is a great website if the bulk of your constituents visit the Web infrequently, or never? (more…)
Popularity: 25% | Category Advice, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Environment, Greening, How-to, Interview, Marketing, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Revitalization, Social Media, Sustainability, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Enviro: Time To Plan Your Proposal For The 2012 Baltimore Green Week!
The fine folks at Baltimore Green Works have been putting on Baltimore Green Week for the past eight years, and they are calling for submissions for those individuals and organizations ready to make the ninth one the best yet.
The form required to propose your project, product, booth, or happening is available online, and is due on December 14th. The winning proposals will be announced in mid-January. GreenWeek 2012 will be April 21-28 at Druid Hill Park in northwest Baltimore. Green Week is part of BGW’s ongoing EcoFest.
If you are in need of some guidance, inspiration, or feedback, BGW is sponsoring a Q&A Meeting for 27 September at 6:pm at 2002 Clipper Park Road, 4th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21211. The meeting is open to anyone even considering submitting a proposal, though GBW asks for an RSVP either to bgw@baltimoregreenworks.com or with a call to 410-952-0334.
But if you are not part of a greening organization or company, you can still take part as volunteers for any of the seven days are always wanted.
Check out BGW’s site if you are unfamiliar with it, and mark your calendars for these upcoming events. Finally, to give yourself the good and tasty nourishment needed for this level of community action, look for your local (MD) farmer’s market and support local farmers for the rest of the summer and fall.
Popularity: 4% | Category Advocacy, Communications, Community, Diet, eNewsletter, Environment, Events, Greening, Health, Local/Maryland, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Enviro: Looking For Work? Jobs For Greenbacks And For A Green Mid-Atlantic
Click here for jobs
The jobs numbers continues to tetter between 9% and 9.3% unemployment, and involuntary under-employment blooms those numbers closer to 20%. If you are searching for work in the Mid-Atlantic region (Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia), The Mid-Atlantic Regional Collaborative (MARC) has been pushing green jobs at their website over the last couple of years – a trend that has been growing across the country over the last decade or so.
The Mid-Atlantic Regional Collaborative MARC should not be confused with the Maryland Area Regional Commuter MARC (though that too has green credentials). The MARC we are referring to allows you to search via keywords, ZIP codes, and commuting radius from your home for a job that is listed as working for the environment and/or making strides to reduce use of un-renewable resources. But the MARC provides more than a listing of some 147 jobs within 10 miles of downtown Baltimore (as of this posting).
Popularity: 4% | Category Community, eNewsletter, Environment, Greening, Nonprofit, Resource, Social Media, Sustainability, Twitter, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
Sustainability: The Ultimate Guide To Green Conferences
Image via Wikipedia
Kerry Given, a writer with Green Marketing TV, has published a very useful list of conferences focusing on sustainability and green issues that will take place in 2011.
Kerry writes that, “with [the] many different green conferences to choose from, how can you decide which are most important for your business to attend? Choosing wisely will not only save your business time and money, it will also reflect your commitment to green principles.”
Check out the comprehensive listing here.
Popularity: 3% | Category Climate Change, Community, Conference/Congress, Environment, Events, Greening, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Research, Resource, Revitalization, Sustainability | | 0 Comments
Written by: Marco Kathuria
#Interview: Erin Barnes & Brandon Whitney of ioby.org
Cassie, Brandon, & Erin
One New York non-profit is making great strides in addressing the adage — a real connection to others starts ‘in our back yards.’ The organization, ioby (in our back yards), began with the need to answer the question, ‘What is the fastest & easiest way for someone to get involved with something meaningful?’
Founding members Erin Barnes and Brandon Whitney, as well as Cassie Flynn, were all Yale graduates (2007) who had individually completed field work in Africa and South America. Back in the states they each came to New York for different career and personal paths. While pursuing their young careers and keeping in touch, they saw people who really wanted to do something good for the environment but whose options seemed limited. The three began to discuss the possibility of launching their own grassroots organization to help neighbors reach out to neighbors. For the triumvirate, career changes were in the works, as Erin and Brandon worked on ioby with Cassie, who remained on the Climate Change Team at the UN, where she has provided strategic advisory services to UN bodies, governments, and civil society groups on climate policy issues.
Popularity: 6% | Category Grants and Funding, Greening, Interview, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Perspectives | | 0 Comments
Written by: Cate Neilson
Enviro: 8th-Annual Baltimore Green Week Starts Tomorrow!
Download Emilio Martinez's poster here
It started with a handful of volunteers hoping to draw attention to some of the environmental efforts in and around Baltimore city. It grew in scope to include the business and nonprofit sectors, as well as scores of neighborhood-based organizations. And now Baltimore Green Works is poised to give us the biggest, funnest, most colorful, and most informative Green Week ever. It kicks of tomorrow with “Plant A Vertical Garden” at 2:pm at the Kennedy-Krieger Institute’s Greenspring campus: “Join Baltimore Contained as we plant organic vegetables started from seed by the horticulture students at Kennedy Krieger High School. Using Woolly Pockets planters, you can grow vegetables on any supporting structure, including a chain link fence!” Read on to see the other green goodness coming our way.
Popularity: 3% | Category Community, Environment, Event, Events, Greening, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
Event: Growing Season Kicks Off With GreenFest in Howard County
Though we are still being teased by a spring that has not quite broken the last of winter (at least not in the Chesapeake Bay region), we have entered the early days of the growing season and green festivals throughout the region. MKCREATIVE will be highlighting regional festivals through the spring, summer, and early fall of 2011, and we encourage our readers to contact us at events@mkcreative.net with information about such events in your area.
The season gets under way in Howard County – between Baltimore and Washington DC – with its free “GreenFest,” this Saturday, April 2nd from 10:00am to 4:00pm on the campus of Howard County Community College. Though the festival was launched by the county’s administration in 2007 as a hastily-developed local workshop to tie in with Earth Day, it has steadily grown under the care of co-chair Lindsay DeMarzo, Environmental Planner and Sustainability Projects Manager for the Howard County government, into a full-fledged festival in just four years. She took time away from the busy run-up to the festival to speak with us.
Popularity: 3% | Category Conference/Congress, Environment, Events, Greening, Interview, Local/Maryland, Measurement, Public Relations, Social Media, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
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