Wow. So it has been a month since my last post and I'm getting excited, as I know a lot of you are too, of our launch (okay, excited, nervous, stressed, anxious...). I realize now as I write that fall is really just around the corner, and as much as I love that season of the year, I feel that I'm not quite done yet with summer! Those in New York City, have you noticed the days getting somewhat cooler? I remember walking to work this Monday morning and as I was turning around to Henry Street, there was this chilly crispiness in the air that really felt like fall.

In fact it makes me a little sad that we're nearly done with summer. Can you believe how quickly time flies? My professor from Boston always said, it takes forever to get to July 4th, but after that, everything just zips by.

So as with every ending, there's always a new chapter to turn and here's where we'll all finally get to see our initiative take off. Never be afraid to try-- that's probably the one thing that I learned throughout this whole process so far. Most of you may have heard my $10 vodka-cranberry story, but really, I think $10 is a product of everyone just giving it shot, sometimes without a clue what we're doing, but trying it out anyway.

I wanted to share with you what I learned from Mon's trip back home, the kind of difference $10 can really make. (Mon since you've taken forever to come up with a new entry here, I may have to pre-empt some of the material you may be thinking of putting down :-)).

Equity in Education is, translated to simpler terms, the vision of $10-- to provide underprivileged students access to quality education. Here's an example. ERDA, one of our non-profit partners, would like to receive funding for some science equipment to help test the ph level of water in a Chemistry class. Their plan then is to use that equipment to test the ph levels of the water in the Pasig River, and then as a key project component, students will brief Baranggay Captains (local town leaders) surrounding the Pasig River on the key hazards that could aggravate water pollution. I was thinking, wow, what a great example of how the supplies, which our donors have generously funded, could be used in a really relevant way. This is the point I believe where equity is achieved-- that learning experience in an underprivileged school in Manila will have been no different from that in a New York City school, because of the resources our donors have provided these underprivileged students. What a great way to level the field of education.

As we move forward with our initiative, there's an opportunity out there to make a real difference. And if we give it all a try, I do think that's there's no telling how much we can possibly achieve.

Updates

Dear Team,

I hope you all are enjoying the summer so far! The weather has been more or less quite nice here in NYC. I hope it's been good to you guys over there in Seattle, D.C., Philly and Manila!

Just some updates for you--

We're pretty much on track regarding our 501(c)(3) process. I just submitted the paperwork for the NY State Department of Education, which is a pre requisite for the full incorporation with NY State. After that process, we will then submit all paperwork to the IRS for the 501(c)(3) accreditation. Jay, our lawyer here in AIG, has been very helpful and I cannot thank him enough.

I've been receiving some news from each of you separately, and let me just go through them and share with everyone else. Here goes:

Mon's meetings with our non-profit partners in Manila are going quite well. He's been going with Will and they both have met with 5 organizations, I believe, all in all.

I briefly spoke with Ainee, and I believe they were all meeting up for dinner in Manila July 29th, with Flem, Grethel and possibly our strategists from McCann. It will be hard to gather all of them at the same time with their crazy ad agency schedules but I hope they're able to do so!

Pao's happy to report that the Tech team seems to be doing quite well with their timeline. You guys at the Tech team have been really wonderful and I cannot be prouder to be working on this project with you.

Anna and Ria are closely working together in seeking out grants for our foundation. They've been looking at a couple that could potentially provide a large sum of resource that can help us scale and increase the capabilities of our non-profit. If we do end up with a pretty hefty and solid war chest, these two ladies will have made it possible!

Nicole and I will be meeting with Mumbuso Zamchiya this Friday to formally introduce our organization to him and explore how we can work together in Africa.

Greg is trying to build a committee that can help plan and execute fund raisers, and events. Cricket Limlingan and Anna Coloma both expressed their interest in helping out, and this committee has been trying to figure out potential opportunities for fund raising activities. I'll be speaking with a friend tomorrow who owns a bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and explore the possibility of holding a fundraiser there. Stay tuned for that.

Seng mentioned to me that the partnership in Kenya is doing pretty well. Jo-Ann found an audience of potential donors and would be telling them about the $10.

Camille has prepared the financial projection and 3-year budget of the organization. If any of you is interested in checking it out, let me know!

Thank you everyone for being part of this wonderful process. It's been a great ride so far.

See you all soon at the launch! Stay tuned for more updates.

behind the scenes and sneak preview...here are some picture studies for the first batch of web design pages

Where we need to go...

Everyday as we come closer to launching our initiative, I think about it a lot more, and where I hope we can go.

The $10 Initiative. The other day, Jo-Anne wrote an e-mail regarding what she tought the initiative meant-- everyone can be a philanthropist; $10 allows you and me to make a real difference somewhere in the world.

Through our efforts we not only become philanthropists, we make philanthropists of others who would like to be part of this initiative as well. Indeed, the $10 Initiative is for and of everyone-- the internet using public, our non-profit partners, educators, students, corporate partners, peers, grant-giving bodies, etc.

I think that's where we need to go-- make this possibility real among everyone that I mentioned above. And if I try to break that down, that would include just 4 key ingredients:

1. Establish a fully functioning relationship with our non-profit/school partners.

2. Create awareness of the $10 Initiative and drive a response among the internet using public.

3. Develop a tool (website) that will not only allow our donors to fund school projects, but engage them in a personal connection with the faces of teachers, and students whose school lives are a tad better with the newfound access to better resources they've received from this initiative.

4. Involve corporate establishments by partnering with them and showing how they can make an impact through the $10 Initiative.

As you all know, behind the scenes, each of these 4 ingredients involves a lot of preparation, planning, nurturing, growing, and execution. But builders create pillars only once-- what happens next are hopefully the rewards that come with creating something out of nothing.

108 days to go.

Where we are now News Feed (ala Facebook)

I was counting the e-mail addresses in my e-mail to our team, and I was quite amazed how many of us are now part of the $10 Initiative.

Allow me to give you all an update of what's happening to each team and to everyone, and feel free to exchange thoughts or suggestions here on our blog!

Here goes the News Feed (ala Facebook :-))...

Jo-Ann and Mon just finished writing the Primer for our local partners.

The Groundwork Team just had a call conference meeting last weekend to discuss plans and strategies before launch.

Seng is planning to open up a contact with a school in Kenya. She also just finished preparing a check list for our spotcheckers and evaluators.

Mae is working on partnering with Caritas, Senegal.

Vida Gabe just joined the Groundwork Team! She just finished compiling a list of potential partners and an internal directory for our foundation.

Mon is traveling to the Philippines this summer and will meet with local non-profit partners, and our design and strategy team!

Camille gave Richie (Jericho) our 3-year financial projection for the $10 Initiative Foundation!

Richie just met with Jay Rittberg, AIG corporate lawyer who's expressed willingness to provide help with the organization's legal founding requirements.

Richie just spoke with Mubuso Zamchiya, founder of School Ventures, who's expressed interest in helping our organization establish contacts in Africa. Richie will go to D.C. on August 1 to meet Mubuso.

Richie and Nicole met with Dennis Whittle, CEO of GlobalGiving, and Matt Flannery, CEO of Kiva. See Nicole's blog below for their parting words for us. It was Dennis who suggested us to contact Mubuso.

Vicky Garchitorena, President of Ayala Foundation checked in to say hello and see how we're doing. She invited Richie to stop by the AF NY Chapter meeting to share with them the details about our foundation. The AF staff are quite interested to know more about us.

Anna, Mon, Nicole and Paolo have all finished their calendar of planned objectives to prepare us to launch at end of October!

Anna is scheduling a brainstorming session with Greg and Richie this weekend.

Anna and Ria are doing research which grants we should target and what we will need to submit our proposals.

Flem is finalizing the logo of our foundation.

Grethel is busy designing our website. Jared is busy implementing Grethel's designs. Ainee is getting ready to write the copy on our website. George, our strat planner from McCann Erickson is busy crafting our strategy which Ainee will use to guide her copy, and Nicole to guide branding and marketing plans.

Paolo is busy building our website.

Paolo is holding a Tech team meeting tomorrow (July 12) with Paul, Jared, and Will.

Oliver Hurst-Hiller, CTO of Donorschoose.org, has responded to Paolo's e-mail to set up a meeting. Richie would like to stop by and say hi to Charles Best.

That's all the news feed I've got. If any of the information above interests, intrigues you or piques your curiosity, feel free to ask the person about it, or get involved in any specific team project.

If I missed anything please feel free to add yours! Have a fantastic weekend everyone!!!

Kiva Launches Facebook Campaign Using New Marketing Tool, Involver

Check this out: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kiva_launches_facebook_campaign.php

Pao and team, any thoughts on this?

Why $10?

Ok, why are we doing this? Don't tell me because you got a random call from a friend who twisted your arm to do this initiative. True enough it started that way hehe but kidding aside, something about this must have appealed to you... C'mon team why are spending time when we can just sleep or hang out with our friends or grab some drinks and not care less about education and developing countries. We're not THAT good ;) ...so Why $10? Why did you volunteer.

And if you're visiting this blog, what do you think of our site? You can say it's lousy 'cause there's nothing there (true enough haha) or you can leave something encouraging to keep us going ...either way we'll love to hear the good and the bad...leave your one-liners and make us smile or smirk =p