One of the microsites designed for the Battered Women's Support Services during Goodstock in Vancouver has gone live.
Visit the website and upload your pledge photo. Tell the world: the violence stops here.
HMA Writes for Rights!
and you should too!
On International Human Rights Day HMA Vancouver and Toronto took some time to participate in Amnesty International's Write for Rights Day. With us internationally, individuals, friends, co-workers, families etc joined in on this succesful campaign lobbying leaders to condemn human rights abuses and promote justice and sending messages of hope to prisoners of conscience across the world.
While a majority of causes are international, two case studies focused on issues in Canada. We all wrote to Mr. Ignatieff asking him to support Bill-300 (and so should you!) to ensure that Canadian mining companies overseas respect human rights in the countries in which they are working. We also wrote to Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach asking him to ensure justice for the Lubicon Cree and their land rights struggle against oil and gas companies. Kudos to Amnesty for highlighting these local and urgent issues.
The combined efforts of HMA produced 62 letters and message of hope! Congrats team!
The Amnesty tally for letters written and sent so far is: 4425. Amazing!
More more info please visit or to participate next year, please visit:
www.amnesty.ca/writeathon/
Closing words...
...two days later!
I was at a loss for words as Goodstock 2009 came to a close around 10:15 Saturday morning- and not only because I couldn't physically string a sentence together...
At 9:00 am Saturday morning our charity representatives gathered into our boardroom eagerly anticipating what we had prepared for them. We, team goodstock 24- hours, desperately tried to gather ourselves and show them how our hard work had paid off. The result? Success. Each team delivered astonishingly eloquent and coherant presentations showcasing the impressive quality and quantity of work we had managed to create throughout the day and night. As the presentations ended our exhaustion was met with enthusiastic applause, a few tears, snuggles from some cuddly creatures (on behalf of Small Animal Rescue Society) and immense gratitude and excitment from all the participating non-profits. The positive feedback from the charities renewed our energy (a little..) and we all walked back into our offices (...new found homes...) proud of what we had accomplished and feeling surprisingly good. Our first attempt at Goodstock was an immense success and while we don't want to think about it just yet... I think we'll be back for round 2 in 2010! A big thank you to all of our sponsors, the 4 participating charities and our amazing volunteer designers and copywriters!
Goodstock! Hour 9 of 24...
only 15 hours to go...
Group update!
Nancy is eating her Xth piece of pizza while her and the folks working on the Battered Women's Support Services have finalized some logos and copy and are working on key messaging and a viral video! Small Animal Rescue Society (yes, still SARS...) is feeling a little chaotic but will start to come together around 10, Glenn assures us. He is moving web content to wordpress while external copy heroine, Rachel, is busy writing form home. Jas is brain storming for fundraising activities enjoying the backdrop of her tropical palm tree and her mango snack at hour 7 (also enjoyed by myself and Christine). Team From Grief to Action has drafted a first DM letter with a special Harvey edition and Elaine and Francis are busy crafting out designs for web banners, brochures and packs oh my! L'Arche Greater Vancouver is close to two final concepts from their poster which feature amazing artwork by a resident artist (see below).
Group photo: check!
A homemade muesli snack (courtesy of one very kind lady....): check!
And while most of you heading off to start your weekends- we're back to work!
!
Harvey will be presenting at the 2009 AFP Congress next week from Nov. 30 – Dec 2, 2009 in Toronto. Harvey and Mike Johnston of HJC New Media will duke it out in a ‘CBC debaters’ style (lots of laughs) seminar in the last half hour of their session: 25 Take-A-Ways to Kick Start Multi-Channel Fundraising in Your Non-Profit on Wednesday, December 2nd from 9 am to 11:45 am. Be sure to get in on the action as direct mail and new media go head to head! For more information please visit the AFP website: http://www.afptoronto.org/index.php/congress.
During your trip to Congress please stop by the Harvey McKinnon Associates booth and catch up with our Toronto staff.
Recently, a charity:water video was passed around HMA that left everyone at their desks dramatically taken aback. The video is both inspired and inspiring. Fast paced, high contrast, bright colours, highly momentous music, a brilliant concept, human joy, a humble yet passionate front man, and of course - fulfilling a basic human need, water.
New to this world of fundraising, but well versed in pop culture, I was acutely aware that while the cause is phenomenal, the success of the video lies beyond that. It is not by coincidence that this video strikes a chord in everyone! The design, the images, the editing is meticulous; a well-crafted aesthetic with a stylistic appeal that is flawless but hard to put into words: it is just so cool. Is that what makes me want to get on board?
After launching the paperback edition of The Power of Giving on October 15th, Harvey and Azim are very proud to announce that it reached the Number 1 spot at Barnes and Nobles on October 17th! We are incredibly grateful to all those who gave their tremendous support by buying the book and we hope that the message of giving continues to spread throughout this holiday season.
Thank you!
