WebProNews

Tag: Causes

  • Instagram a Feet Pic and Toms Will Donate a Pair of Shoes to a Child in Need

    Instagram a Feet Pic and Toms Will Donate a Pair of Shoes to a Child in Need

    Somewhere between the bad food pic and the car selfie lies the bare feet pic, an Instagram post that very few people really care to see.

    But now, that foot selfie will actually do some good in the world.

    Toms, the shoe company known for donating a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased, is taking the purchase requirement out of the equation for a couple of weeks.

    Through its One Day Without Shoes initiative, all you have to do is post a photo of your bare feet on Instagram, hashtag it #withoutshoes, and a needy kid will get a pair of shoes.

    Toms has pledged to give up to one million shoes from May 5 to May 21, limit one per Instagram account.

    According to Toms, access to a good pair of shoes can help treat disease, increase access to education, and encourage healthy lifestyles.

    I know, your feet are ugly. Whose aren’t? But I think this one’s worth it.

  • Nightclub Death: 2nd Woman Arrested, Looking For 3rd

    As earlier reported by us, an innocent night out on the town left recent graduate Kim Pham lifeless on the sidewalk suffering from brain damage that resulted in her later death with other women now being charged with murder.

    Vanesa Zavala was first charged in the deadly beating, and now another woman has been charged with the California murder. While her name has not been released to the public, Associated Press tell us that Police Chief Carlos Rojas verified that a 27-year-old woman has been arrested on Friday.

    The two women were chosen as suspects out of a group of five women who encountered the late Kim Pham’s group. A third party has been named a person of interest, but has yet to be arrested.

    The cause for the fight is still unknown, but more information is sure to follow as all parties involved are apprehended and fully questioned. Kim Pham’s group was reportedly mostly of Vietnamese descent, while the ones charged were of Latino descent. Racial violence has been cited as a possible cause for the brutal fight that resulted in vicious head injuries to the departed Kim Pham.

    A large vigil was held on Friday for Kim Pham outside of the nightclub, while Kate Larsen of NBC4 news and others ask for assistance in finding the third person of interest for further clarification of an unnecessary death.

    The Los Angeles Times provides a bittersweet silver lining on this dark cloud– Kim Pham was a member of the California Donate Life California Organ & Tissue Donor Registry, and her organs have already helped five patients in need of a heart, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and liver.

    Image via NDN

  • Spirit Day: Go Purple on Social Media to Take a Stand Against Bullying

    If you see a bunch of purple profile pics, Timeline photos, and Twitter avatars today – don’t worry, everyone hasn’t uploaded a new photo from their iPhone 5 cameras. All that purple is for #SpiritDay, an anti-bullying awareness campaign first launched back in 2010.

    For the third time, October 19th serves as Spirit Day – a day where people add a splash of purple to their lives (both online and offline) in support of LGBT rights. The national awareness day was started by a high schooler named Brittany McMillan.

    “Ultimately, I want Spirit Day to make just one person feel a little bit better about his or herself, to feel safe enough in their own skin to be proud of who they are,” she says.

    I’ll let GLAAD sum it up:

    “Millions of Americans wear purple on Spirit Day as a sign of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and to speak out against bullying. Spirit Day was started in 2010 as a response to the young people who had taken their own lives. Observed annually, individuals, schools, organizations, corporations, media professionals and celebrities wear purple, which symbolizes spirit on the rainbow flag. Getting involved is easy — participants are asked to simply ‘go purple’ on October 19th as we work to create a world in which LGBT teens are celebrated and accepted for who they are.”

    So today, supporters will take to social media to show their support in a number of ways. Avatar-altering Twitter cause supporters Twibbon have a hub where people can tint their profile pics purple, as well as tweet and Facebook standard support messages. There’s also an official #SpiritDay Timeline cover photo available for use.

    You’ll probably see social media properties getting in on the purple as well. Facebook will tint a few of their official pages purple, including their Diversity and Safety pages. Facebook has been a big supporter of Spirit Day from the start, even winning a GLAAD media award for their attention to LGBT causes. Yesterday, Facebook ramped up their anti-bullying initiative with a new safety page, videos, and a rededication to a national ad campaign involving its “Stop Bullying: Speak Up” project.

    Facebook’s not the only one. Tumblr will also participate in Spirit Day, as will StumbleUpon, Hulu, and Instagram. More info on all the participants is available on the GLAAD website.

    Of course, it’s not just about going purple in support. If you want to make a financial contribution, you can text PURPLE to 80888. That will donate $5 to GLAAD, GLSEN, and The Trevor Project.

  • Microsoft Creates Facebook Page To Address Issues In Washington State

    Microsoft Creates Facebook Page To Address Issues In Washington State

    Microsoft is based in Redmond, Washington, and they have always been a company that’s concerned about with the state in which they are based. They say that since Washington state houses more than 40,000 employees, they have a “huge stake” in the policy that will shape the future of the community.

    With that goal in mind, Microsoft has launched a Facebook page called “Microsoft in Washington State.” The purpose of the page is to “provide updates and information about Microsoft’s engagement with public policy issues in Washington State.”

    The page is broken down into four subsections, outlining the four areas that Microsoft is focusing on in the state. This includes Transportation, K-12 Education, Higher Education, and a program called Benchmarks for a Better Washington.

    Our top four priority areas are:

    Improving public education so that families can send their kids to great public schools, colleges and universities and the higher education sector can continue to be an engine of local economic growth.

    Improving transportation infrastructure so all Washingtonians have a safe, reliable, efficient, and sustainable way of getting from place to place.

    Promoting a healthy business climate including a sustainable state budget, so that Microsoft and other Washington employers remain competitive in the global information economy.

    Advancing the quality of life so current and future citizens will live in healthy and vibrant communities enriched by arts, culture, natural outdoor resources, a human services safety net, and lifelong learning.

    Simply Like the page to participate in discussions surrounding these core issues.

    Microsoft is not shy about getting involved in governmental issues. Earlier this month, they came out strongly in support of marriage equality in Washington State.

    [Via Redmond Reporter]

  • LinkedIn Cause Features Can Help Your Visibility

    LinkedIn has added a “Volunteer & Causes” field to profiles, allowing members to show off what causes they have volunteered for, presenting networking opportunities in the non-profit realm, similar to the the opportunities LinkedIn already presents in the professional realm.

    There are added benefits to the professional side of things as well, however. LinkedIn Senior Manger of Corporate Communications Krista Canfield tells WebProNews, “By enabling professionals to list their volunteer experiences on their LinkedIn Profile employers, business partners and co-workers are able to see another dimension of your professional identity.”

    “It shows that you’re a passionate professional who’s adept at multitasking,” she adds. “An analogy would be a college student who’s pursuing a degree while also working part-time. If you’re comparing that college student side-by-side to another college student who’s just going to school, then you might consider the college student who’s also working part-time to be more driven and harder working.”

    “It’s also worth noting that you can develop new skills during your volunteer work which will help you become a multifaceted professional,” Canfield tells us. “You may be a sales person by trade, but perhaps you helped organize your non-profit’s most recent fundraising event. Noting that experience, and the skills that you learned during that experience (‘event planning,’ ‘event marketing,’ etc.) can make you a more attractive employee and business partner.”

    LinkedIn Causes Profile Field

    Canfield says she’d advise professionals to not only add their volunteer work, but to also add LinkedIn Skills to their profile if they’ve truly mastered new ones as a result of those experience. LinkedIn Skills can be searched here.

    “Adding LinkedIn Skills will help you come up in relevant searches when business partners, clients or hiring managers are doing a search for people like you,” she notes. Certainly a good thing to keep in mind.

    “I’d also add that viewing a member’s volunteer experiences on their LinkedIn Profile is another way to find other professionals that have similar passions or interests to your own,” she says. “If before a business meeting you check another member’s LinkedIn Profile and see that he or she helped build a house during a Habitat for Humanity project (just like you did a few years ago), that can be a great conversation starter and a nice way to find common ground with that other professional.”

    There are other ways to utilize LinkedIn in the nonprofit realm. Nonprofits can set up company pages, for example. “To date there are more than two million LinkedIn Company Pages,” says Canfield. Listed nonprofits include the American Red Cross, DonorsChoose.org, The Humane Society of the United States and many others.

    “You can click the ‘follow’ button on a company page if you want to get updates when someone leaves or joins that company and to get updates when that company has posted a job opening on LinkedIn,” says Canfield.

    “Nonprofits are encouraged to set up LinkedIn Groups,” she adds. “I just did a search and there are currently over 83,000 nonprofit groups on Linkedin.”

    There are tips on nonprofit use of LinkedIn in the company’s learning center.

  • Should Bert & Ernie Get Married? Online Petition Thinks So [UPDATE]

    UPDATE: Sesame Street responds to the online petition.

    Bert & Ernie, America’s beloved puppet best friends, have been around for decades. And for much of that time, some have speculated that the Sesame Street duo represent a gay couple.

    So, here’s the evidence that leads some to this conclusion: Bert & Ernie are two men, living together for an extended period of time. Although they sleep in separate beds, they sleep in the same room – kind of a Lucy/Ricky scenario. Many point to specific mannerisms that might give away a specific sexual orientation, but their existence is subject to debate.

    And they love each other. Deniers say that it is a best friend type of camaraderie, supporters of the gay-couple belief would say that the characters “conduct themselves in the same loving, discreet way that millions of gay men, women and hand puppets do.”

    And then you have these kinds of things that make it seems like Sesame Street has been hinting at something for a long time now –

    While gay marriage supporters have, for quite some time, used the example of Bert & Ernie as a couple as a sort of rally cry for their cause, one online petition thinks that allowing Bert & Ernie to finally marry would be a great thing for LGBT rights.

    Hosted on the popular change.org online activism platform, the petition “Let Bert & Ernie Get Married on Sesame Street” was started by one woman and now has over 1,100 signatures. it was started exactly one week ago today.

    Here’s what the petition letter says:

    In this horrific age of LGBT kids taking their own lives, they need to know that they ARE BEAUTIFUL and their lives are worth living. Aside from those that are committing suicide, the bullies that facilitate these tragedies need to learn that homophobia is NOT okay. They need to know that acceptance of their fellow human beings would indeed plant a seed of peace that will reverberate throughout the world. We are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful. Only that they allow Bert & Ernie to marry or even add a transgender character to the show. It can be done in a tasteful way. Let us teach tolerance of those that are different. Let Sesame Street and PBS Kids be a big part in saving many worthy lives

    The cause has also launched a Facebook page.

    The Sesame Workshop has denied that Bert & Ernie were created as a gay couple, saying that “Bert and Ernie, who’ve been on Sesame Street for 25 years, do not portray a gay couple, and there are no plans for them to do so in the future. They are puppets, not humans. Like all the Muppets created for Sesame Street, they were designed to help educate preschoolers. Bert and Ernie are characters who help demonstrate to children that despite their differences, they can be good friends.”

    The rumor gained steam in 2010 when the official Sesame Street Twitter account (which posts messages from its characters) said this, speaking as Bert:

    Ever notice how similar my hair is to Mr. T’s? The only difference is mine is a little more ‘mo,’ a little less ‘hawk.’

    Some said that the “mo” was a clear reference to “homosexual.” Are the makers of Sesame Street giving sly hints about Bert & Ernie via Twitter? Here are some recent tweets, you decide –

    @sesamestreet
    Sesame Street    Bert: Ernie says he has a great joke about peanut butter but he won’t tell me. Says he doesn’t want to spread it around. (OHH I get it now.) 15 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    @sesamestreet
    Sesame Street    Ernie: No I didn’t, Bert – they were MY feet. Heeheehee! 161 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    What do you think? Could a Bert & Ernie marriage help teach equality and tolerance? Let us know in the comments.

  • Ask Unveils Q&A Platform to Get Users More Answers

    A couple months back, Ask unveiled its new redesign with a heavy focus on Q&A (read our interview with Ask SVP of Product Management Tony Gentile here). Now, the company has launched a Q&A Partner Platform to help grow its community of people who can answer questions.

    "This new platform is an important part of our multi-pronged approach to grow our Q&A community, while giving back at the same time," say sAsk.com US President Doug Leeds. "We see huge long-term opportunity for partnering with both non-profit and, eventually, commercial organizations to build our user community with motivated, knowledgeable experts who can provide high quality answers to other users’ questions. Today’s news is a first step in that roadmap."
     
    The platform includes features like membership badges and contribution progress meters to help members support causes by answering questions that are routed to them. 
     
    Ask has an "Answers for the Cure" program in place, powered by the new platform. The company teamed up with Susan G. Komen for the Cure on this. 

     

    Answers for the Cure

    "This is a great example of innovation and technology combining to help build a sense of community through shared information," said Karen White, director of corporate relations for Komen.  "We’re excited by the potential of this program to educate women, while also raising much-needed funds for Komen’s extensive research and community outreach programs." 

    Ask uses proprietary routing technology to get the right questions to the right community members, when there are no published answers indexed in the Ask.com search engine.