buylesscrap.org — Who needs more stuff? You don?t have to buy (RED) to make a difference.Join the (LESS) movement that rejects shopping as a solution to human suffering. Donate directly. Make a real difference. Limit the consumption of more meaning(less) crap.
Feb 26, 2007 View in Crawl 4
rtolmachMar 6, 2007
For another approach to doing good, please take a look at <a class="user" href="http://www.ChangingThePresent.org.">http://www.ChangingThePresent.org.</a>For just a few dollars, you can provide a child with her first book; fund an hour of cancer research; protect an acre of the rainforest; or restore a blind person?s sight with cataract surgery. ChangingThePresent.org offers a remarkably wide range of inspiring donation opportunities, so you?re sure to find something that moves you.Donation gifts are also a wonderful way to honor friends and family for their birthdays, weddings and holidays. (After all, how many of us really want another fruitcake or fuzzy slippers?) Wish lists and registries make it easy to find the perfect gift, which you can share with a personalized greeting card.Imagine, for one delicious moment, the scale of our impact when donation gifts become a social norm.
katelynmaierMar 6, 2007
I agree. I love the concept and executionHelp me spread the word to empower people to be smarter donors and to ask questions: Exactly where is this money going??...Who is getting rich???Also, here is a place to give money directly: <a class="user" href="http://www.ChangingThePresent.org">http://www.ChangingThePresent.org</a>ChangingThePresent.org puts all of the nonprofits and causes in one organized place, or marketplace. Another great organization is Charity Global [Charityis.org]. This is a nonprofit organization stimulating greater global awareness about extreme poverty. 100% of your money goes to the water well digging projects...and they send you pictures of the resulting wells within a couple of months.
timtasticMar 6, 2007
Spending $200 on a phone is ridiculous, but tens of thousands of people do it every day. What's not ridiculous is giving some of that money to save lives.
goodspeedMar 10, 2007
Nice! Attack a successful charitable campaign to draw attention to itself and stir up controversy. An old trick in the book. No diggs for this one...
chesterfieldMar 11, 2007
<a class="user" href="http://adage.com/article?article_id=115287&rf=23m">http://adage.com/article?article_id=115287&rf=23m</a>100 million spent to raise 18 million?!Quote from article: "There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it," he said. "It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes."
beatselectaMar 15, 2007
Private sector donations were always much lower. Read the article in the UK's Independent. The $25 Million that RED actually raised is 3 times more than previous year's totals for private sector donation to the Global Fund. Private sector companies are going to do what is good for their bottom line, period, that's the way they work unfortunately. If we can find a way to make it profitable for them to provide funding for charitable causes the better in my book. Besides as someone else mentioned above, this is a more sustainable model for private investment into causes. What's wrong with that? Do you really think we're going to reverse decades of rising consumerism in the US with a simple website? No, but bad PR can easily sink promising experiments such as RED. If the guy who created Buylesscrap.org would have really wanted to start conversation, he would've provided a forum for discussion instead of a static site with no feedback mechanism, typical, people criticize and then duck for cover. I mean it's been what, a year? Geez people, give the idea some time. We need new ideas not retreads of old cause marketing ideas. No offense to traditional cause work, but last I heard we weren't much closer to ending African poverty with them. There is always a segment of society that will donate, usually lefties (like me) who just can't stand the thought of giving up on economic socialism (not me), lambasting the invasion of any capitalist mechanisms at the price of torpedoing any socialist social policy gains. Without these capitalist mechanisms, any African recovery would quickly sink in the rapid currents of global economics.Sustainable economic models are what Project RED is about, after all, all of the Gap RED products are actually manufactured in Africa where workers are provided good working conditions, far above market pay, and free AIDS treatment. Expecting people out of the goodness of their hearts to save the world is a bit naive. The problems in Africa are institutional, so taking a look at the roots of the problem is a better alternative than expecting everyone else to foot the bill. These solutions are hard, they are never simple. In the meantime, keep donating, it is critical to helping our poverty stricken African brothers and sisters survive, but alone, it is not a long-term solution.Oh and I know for a fact that Project RED's marketing costs were nowhere near $100 MM, a third of it at best (which represents a great return for a fledgling brand, so it does make business sense).
kelly454Mar 18, 2007
Oh yeah..i'm sure most of you making these negative comments make all of your own clothes and gifts, and don't own cell phones/blackberries/ipods...give me a break! GET REAL!!!Stop rationalizing, this is ONE of MANY ways to give back!Your complaining is just negative energy...it would be more worthwhile using your energy on more positive emotions and actions.
kelly454Mar 19, 2007
I am amazed by your humility greenjoe!
jessiebennettNov 27, 2007
Fantastic idea!