On June the 28th and 29th people from all over the World came together at the Vredespaleis in The Hague to celebrate the ten year existence of the Earth Charter. The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles considered useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century; you could say it is a sort of “compass” which gives us directions to improve the situation in the World. Within the last 10 years already 70 Youth Groups have affiliated themselves with the Earth Charter and started up Youth Groups for Action!

During the celebration of the 10th Birthday of the Earth Charter; the Earth Charter 10+ Event, many VIP’s were present: Beatrix, the Dutch Queen, Mister Balkenende, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Ruud Lubbers, Worldconnector, former Prime Minister and one of the initiators of the Earth Charter (and member of the Board of Advisory of the 1%CLUB).

Since June this year the 1%CLUB partners with the Earth Charter International and has created an Earth Charter Action Project Platform where Earth Charter inspired Youth Groups can seek for support for their projects. Several Earth Charter Youth Groups have already taken this opportunity and sent their project proposals to 1%CLUB. You can see and support them also via Facebook!

This new cooperation between the Earth Charter Youth Groups and the 1%CLUB  is supercool because these youth groups have great ideas how to improve the situations in which they live with quite simple solutions.

For example there is a group of young people in Colombia, represented by Juan Claudio, who want to train local fishermen in the Uraba Gulf (Choco) to fish more eco-friendly. The project, called “Sustainable Ecofishing Development in Acandi” concerns a training that will teach the fishermen methods of environmentally responsible fishing and the protection of biodiversity, together with investigation and recovery of species, in order to benefit not only the fishing community but the environment too. At the same time they will be connected to restaurants who will buy the fish of the local fishermen. These restaurants will then get a Green Label!!

The coming months we will work together with Jaana Laitinen, Dmitry Savelau and Mike Sheehan to get as many people on board at the Earth Charter Action Project Platform! Also we want to look upon the possibilities to integrate the e-GLO training in it. I keep you posted on the developments and all ideas…. are always welcome!!

Here you can see a short video of me talking about the 1%CLUB during the Earth Charter 10+ Event (Video made by Ashley Young for the Feather Project: a collaboration Between the Generations For Survival on Earth: Thank You Ashley!)

Feather Project Activism: 1% CLUB Project Manager Margreet Van Der Pijl

Every day new project plans enter the backoffice of the 1%CLUB (the ‘backside’ of the 1%CLUB-website). People who wrote down great ideas about how to organize activities to change situations with the intention to improve the living conditions of people in developing countries.

To help optimize these project plans, to assist in the execution of these ideas and to blog, Twitter and in other ways promote the idea we need the crowd. People that contribute  their (best) 1%. 16 1%COACHES are now trained for this and are ready to rumble!

Coach session at Swingbo

During an extra-ordinary hot weekend in the Netherlands (35 degrees Celsius) on the 10th-11th of July, just before the Dutch football team unfortunately lost the World Cup final, 16 people with different backgrounds came to the Swingbo in Utrecht. Both days from 9 till 5 they worked with each other, listened, and created a great energy level.

Before the 1%COACHES system was developed, Nadia (1%PROJECT Manager) and me were helping the 1%PROJECT owners (the people with the ideas) to optimize their project plans and promote these by writing interesting blog posts on their project page. However, today the 1%CLUB has 190 projects on the website and one-to-one attention becomes almost impossible; at the same time this type of coaching is so important to get the quality of the ideas of the 1%Project owners on a higher level!

How nice is it that people with a more objective view want to think along with the 1%PROJECT owners? The first 1%COACHES are already connected to project owners and the reactions are very positive.

Already the second trainings weekend is planned: on the 30th and 31st of October. And the first five people send in their CV’s… who is next?

Crowdsourcing of projectmanagement: what are your thoughts? Looking forward for your comments…

Collective Wisdom is one of the basic philosophies that stands at the base of the 1%CLUB. Basically it states that a lot of people carry more knowledge than one single expert. And within a good system the Crowd can make even more valid judgments than one simple expert. In the case of the 1%CLUB this translates into our belief that all of our 5000 thousands participants can contribute greatly into effective niche problems solution encountered in developing countries. The idea is that in the end the value will be far greater than a pre-fixed system that drives on experts, even though the level of quality of the different participants varies significantly.

There are some preconditions. The Crowd must be diverse enough AND big enough for the system to work.
In his latest Ted lecture (not online yet) given yesterday at Oxford, Ethan Zuckerman highlights another precondition this kind of systems must meet. In yet another dazzling presentation he points out that sadly enough we don’t use all the varieties of information that are available to us. Instead, we choose to absorb more information about the subjects and especially people that were already familiar to us. We basically stay in the same circles, whether we are online or offline. Thus, he argues, it is more appropiate to speak about “The Wisdom of the Flock” instead of  “Wisdom of the Crowd”.

It would be terrible to miss out on all the amazing opportunities that come with a (potentially) interconnected world. Therefore Ethan calls upon us to became a Xenophile. Xenophiles are the people that visits the unknown worlds and translate them for us. In that way they generate true connection among us all.
And by doing that they hopefully will also create this highly effective Crowd with the highest intelligence ever witnessed! Thus: start being a xenophile today. There is only a limited amount of wisdom within your little circles….

Interested in attending the TedGlobal2010 talks that are being held the up-coming days? You can still join the screening at Boom Chicago at Amsterdam.

Eric Hersman has posted a more detailed description of Ethan’s TedGlobal2010 talk here.

Good ideas in combination with the right people will get you really far (see previous blog AND the whole philosophy of the 1%CLUB!).

It might happen though, that at the end of the line you are still craving for some traditional funding to get your brilliant idea even further! First stop is obviously the 1%CLUB. For additional resources here is a list of  funds that focus on SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS.

Before you start sending out your idea remember to look at all the conditions really carefully. If there isn’t a match you should be creative and look elsewhere.  Save yourself (and them) some time!

If you have the chance try to contact somebody at the organization. Perhaps you  could do this using your network? Then run your plan briefly through them. That way you will find out soon enough if you idea is  eligible or not. Even more important than to talk about your plan  it is to find out what your potential partner is looking for. Listing therefore is the key! Lots of time there are possibilities for co-operation that aren’t visible until you have talk with an actual person.

Good luck!

Anna

• Access Community Capital Fund: Develops economic support for self-employment enterprises.
• Ashoka: Ashoka makes investments in people leading in the world of social entrepreneurship.

• ClearySo Investment: List your social enterprise here to be found by organizations looking for groups to fund.
• Community Power Fund: Supports development activities working on renewable energy projects.
• MasterCard Foundation: Enables people to improve their lives through microfinance and education.
• Schwab Foundation: Provides funding for social entrepreneurship programs.
• TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund: Provides grants to charitable and nonprofit organizations serving low-income persons and groups in Canada.
• The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship: The Skoll foundation awards notable social enterprises for achievements in tolerance and human rights, health, economic and social equity, peace and security, institutional responsibility, and environmental sustainability.
• Wiser Earth: Check out their extensive list of organizations working with social enterprises,including funding agencies and lenders.

Read more about funding opportunities for social entrepeneurs at: http://www.greenmarketing.tv/2010/06/29/guide-to-social-entrepreneur-funding/

(source: www.greenmarketing.tv )

Despite it’s in Dutch I want to share with you this video which gives a good impression of UZ (read my previous blog ‘UZ, about connecting people and passion‘). Great atmosphere, great people. One thing for sure: UZ will happen again… stay tuned!