Daily Archives: September 9, 2009

The first global Twestival on February 12th 2009, involved events in 202 cities, including Calgary, and raised over $250,000 for charity: water. Twestival is back. This time with a local twist. Events continue to be volunteer-run, charity fundraising events for people who know each other through the micro-blogging service twitter.com. But each city voted, via twitter, for their charity of choice and chose a date between September 10 and 13.
The Calgary event will take place on 12 September at The Auburn Saloon raising funds for Calgary-based Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids who have provided 540,600 lunches for Calgary’s school kids – and counting. Their motto: Healthy Kids. Healthy Minds.

Saturday September 12

The Auburn Saloon

163-115 9 Avenue SE,

doors open at 6:00 pm

further info at http://calgary.twestival.com/

tickets are 2 for $20. ’til September 10 at midnight, $30. each at the door

6:30 – 7:30 pm free Twitter workshop, presented by social media consultant Roger Kondrat

7:30 pm DJ Melissa Kuchner starts. Join Calgary’s Twitterati for drinks and conversation. Silent auction will feature lunch bags filled with donations from local businesses. (even if you can’t make it, please donate a bag of goodies for the auction).

The first 24 hour “‘tweet-up’ with a social conscience” inspired thousands and raised $250,000 for clean water charity, charity: water, and this next event Twestival Local, looks to be even bigger. Twestival Local again gives every city in the world the chance to hold their own Twestival, but this time they can run their events anytime between the 10-13th September 2009, and chose their own local charity. Twitter users in Calgary chose Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids. Since the first Twestival this past February, twitter use has grown hugely and Calgary has pulled ahead of Edmonton in pure numbers of tweeters. See MasterMaq’s stats at http://blog.mastermaq.ca/2009/08/24/state-of-the-calgary-twittersphere-july-2009

Calgary Twestival organiser Roger Kondrat said “We are so excited about Calgary’s Twestival and raising funds for Brown Bagging it for Calgary’s Kids. We are hoping to see lots of Calgary Twitter users coming along to have an amazing time with us and generate lots of cash and awareness! Especially since Twestival was started by former Calgarian Amanda Rose who I met in London, UK a few years ago.” Join our Facebook group, follow us on Twitter @yycfestivals, and come out on September 12.

ABOUT TWESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL

Global partners across all countries for Twestival are Amiando, Citrix Online, Blurb and Causecast. For the for the full and changing list of cities, or to get involved yourself, go to www.twestival.com.

ABOUT BROWN BAGGING FOR CALGARY’S KIDS

Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids (BB4CK) was established as a lunch program in 1990. Lunches were provided to homeless children and youth in Calgary who did not have access to food and were disinclined to visit centres that focused on adult homelessness.

In 2002 Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids became a registered charity. In 2005, following findings released by the Feeding Calgary’s Children Initiative – that almost 30,000 children and youth in Calgary go hungry while in school – the mandate changed to include all children and youth, whether on the streets or in school. BB4CK also began working on the second part of our mission: To act as a catalyst in the development of community based solutions to break down barriers caused by malnutrition. BB4CK began to seek capacity within communities and supported the creation of community programs. These programs are in churches, schools and homes and engage local volunteers to make lunches and take them to schools within their own community.

By the end of the 2008/2009 school year BB4CK was providing lunches to over 70 schools and supported 5 partner agencies. BB4CK was also the catalyst for 12 additional community based lunch programs.

Research undeniably supports a link between nutrition and healthy growth and development in children and youth. Children who eat regular, healthy meals do better in school, are sick less often and form healthier relationships with their peers. At Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids, we want to provide youth not just with a meal, but also with essential nutrients to allow them to learn and be active. In doing so, we help to eliminate hunger in Calgary’s schools and provide a chance for at-risk youth to successfully complete their education. Healthy Kids. Healthy Minds.

Allviant, Inc. today announced the launch of its Social Media Philanthropy initiative to assist local and national non-profits and communities to best leverage the power of social media in their outreach to individuals, communities, donors and partners.
“One of Allviant’s core values is a commitment to improving people’s quality of life and we have a special place in our hearts for children and teens,” said Lilian Myers, Allviant’s chief executive. “We understand that by leveraging technology to ease communications, especially through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, we can engage the greater community in a whole new way. This concept aligns with the vision for our CarePass™ technology as well, which allows consumers to quickly and easily manage the complexities of healthcare through mobile and other popular communication mediums.”

The first non-profit organization selected to participate in this innovative social media program is the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale (BGCGS). Allviant’s social media mentorship of the organization has already resulted in an established Twitter presence and Facebook fan page for the local Club. BGCGS will leverage their new social media knowledge to extend their marketing communications to popular social networking platforms, driving increased response rates, volunteer participation and donations in a cost-effective manner.

“We are grateful to community leaders like Allviant that freely share their resources and expertise, enabling us to further expand the developmental programs for our youth in the community,” said Steve Davidson, president/CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale. “Social media has become a vital communication tool for businesses and individuals, and we want to be able to connect to people on a local and global level.”

Allviant complements their online philanthropy with brick and mortar events such as the recent clothing and housewares drive held at Scottsdale-based ASU SkySong. All donations from the charity drive were delivered to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale Thrift Shop, whose sales proceeds support youth programs at the Club.

Added Myers, “Convenience in communication mediums and tools is critical to eliciting participation in any program – whether it’s under a profit or non-profit organization. Individuals are busier than ever, so you need to make it easy for them to stay informed and get involved. We are honored to contribute our time and efforts to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale and we look forward to expanding their social media impact throughout the year.”

About the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale

Since 1954, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale has provided more than 100,000 Northeast Valley youth with a positive, supervised environment to explore the power of their potential. Today we serve 16,000 children and teens through the organization’s nine branches and 12 outreach sites located in Scottsdale, Fountain Hills, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Hualapai Indian Community and other Northeast Valley neighborhoods. The Club offers more than 100 youth development programs emphasizing five core areas: the arts; character & leadership development; education & career development; health & life skills; and sports, fitness & recreation. For more information, please visit www.bgcs.org.

About Allviant

Allviant is the developer of the first-ever, consumer-centric tools and network for healthcare called CarePass™. CarePass is a technology-enabled service that gives consumers a new method of access, convenience and control by connecting existing healthcare information systems and administrative data though a personally defined set of communication mediums and methods — from phone to text to email or fax. The opposite of customer relationship management (CRM), this Service Relationship Management technology empowers the customer to determine when and how they want to interact with service providers across their unique array of relationships, making a disconnected healthcare world painless and saving time, money and frustration for everyone. For more information, please visit http://www.allviant.com or follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/allviant.

A few years back, a new online art matchmaker site called BoundlessGallery.com popped onto the cultural scene allowing artists and art seekers a worldwide a place to connect. Now, the company has spun off an innovative online “social platform” for artists worldwide that is designed to help connect artists and their works with the ideal consumers who want them. It is called TheArtistFinder.com and it is free to join and just being launched to the market this month.

“We see the online marketplace changing from the old guard of big one-stop shops like eBay and Amazon, to a new order where the actual site you buy from matters less than finding the perfect product,” says BoundlessGallery.com/TheArtistFinder.com President Luke Terpstra. “We exist to support original artists online.”

The truth is most artists use multiple online venues to promote their work and a site like TheArtistFinder.com helps support artists’ success wherever they can find it. Instead of trying to fight against all the options artists have and use, TheArtistFinder.com helps embrace all of them and provides very useful hub where artists can send potential customers to all of their sites.

It is a simple and easy site to bridge the gap between all of an artist’s web locations and can be used to synchronize ALL of that together for free. On TheArtistFinder.com, members are allowed to list all their online stores where their works are listed, as well as their social network profiles. This allows artists to take all their links from all the art sites they may have their works posted; Boundless, Esty, Yessy, etc. AND all their social network profiles like MySpace and Facebook, and now replace them with just ONE link to a new hub: www.TheArtistFinder.com

Art lovers looking to find that perfect art piece are able to browse the sites for free as well linking to multiple art sales venues. Artists are able to list their works for sale and simply pay a percentage commission when works are sold through either the BoundlessGallery.com or TheArtistFinder.com sites.

Created by Mr. Todd Brabender, who is 41 years old and a former media person himself, is the kind of PR guy journalists hate to love — but love nevertheless. An old-fashioned press agent with newfangled powers, he blasts emails far and wide from the basement of his flagstoned mid-American home. First sucessful product campaigns … now art and artists seeking commercial exposure, on what Brabender calls a “Social Platform”.