When a major natural disaster hits, the American Red Cross has been there for emergency aid for those in need since 1881. The recent devastating earthquake in Haiti prompts the return of the Red Cross as My Monthly Charity.

See my previous post about a string of tragic natural disasters in My Monthly Charity May 2008 featuring the Red Cross and all the great humanitarian things they do.

My Monthly Charity January 2010 will bring the Haiti earthquake aid to the spotlight featuring the Red Cross.

How the Red Cross is Helping

Funds Spent/Committed for Haiti Earthquake Response
American Red Cross Funds Spent/Committed for Haiti Earthquake Response [PDF]

In an operation that has involved more emergency response teams than any other single-country disaster in global Red Cross history, the American Red Cross has so far spent or committed more than $67 million to meet the most urgent needs of earthquake survivors in Haiti.

The American Red Cross is currently focusing on three areas through its emergency responders and partners:

1. Sending food to those in need, including 3 million pre-packaged meals and funding for World Food Program efforts that will enable them to feed up to 1 million people for a month.
2. Providing clean drinking water, including 3.5 million liters distributed to date in 68 settlements. Each day, the Red Cross is distributing enough water for 100,000 people.
3. Distributing shelter items, such as blankets, tarps, sleeping mats and tents, to families who have been left homeless.

The Red Cross is also meeting the health needs of Haitian survivors and providing support to Haitian families in Haiti and the US. This includes providing relief supplies, shipment of blood products, family linking services and providing Red Cross volunteers to the USNS Comfort, which have been in Haiti for one week.

Ways you can help the Red Cross:

• Make a donation
  • A new way of giving is now available right through your phone by texting “Haiti” to 90999 and a small donation will be made to the Red Cross. (See my post about “A New Way of Giving”)
• Volunteer your time
• Give blood

The effects of this earthquake has been magnified by the fact that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Haiti will needs lots of help to recover and you can help today. Aid the Haiti relief effort today through the Red Cross

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It’s been just about 2 years since Tastefully Driven was launched in April 2008 and sadly to say it’s not working out for us and it will be closing down for good on March 1, 2010.

Why close down?

• Streamlines our warehouse and shipping processes
• Eliminates the cumbersome Amazon sales
• Lack of resources to make Tastefully Driven successful
• Focus on the growth of Detailed Image
• Opens up opportunities for new non ecommerce projects
• Amazon customers we get have no loyalty

The bottom line right now is that Tastefully Driven requires too many resources for a minimum profitability. There were big hopes for Tastefully Driven but unfortunately the resources just weren’t there to really do what we wanted to. Every time I go to the site I’m a little bit surprise on how great the site was developed but this is the best decision.

I personally like the decision to go less ecommerce because we’re in this vicious perpetual cycle of debt because of how retail works. As we grow we will need more inventory, which cost more money up front, which will continue to happen over and over till you max out your growth and profits are put towards debt and that’s not even including any expansion to new products. My view is that this cycle won’t stop for a while and this year we hope get more into self sustainable sites that make us money like a Sports Lizard or our new WoodyPaigeQuotes.com which should generate some ad money.

Overall this was a pretty simple decision for us to make as we always review what we do in our business and make the necessary changes. This is what I love about the business that my partners and I have created, is the fact that we have the flexibility to do what is needed and what we want to do.

Good bye Tastefully Driven! CLOSING SALE – 30% OFF EVERYTHING

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The recent devastating earth quake in Haiti has brought forth a new way of giving through text messaging. Help Haiti by making a $10 donation to the American Red Cross by simply texting “HAITI” to 90999. Michelle Obama has been all over TV promoting this simple way to give (see video below).

Mgive has provided this very simple way for people to make a donation in seconds to the Red Cross. Mobile donations have raised millions of dollars for Haiti already and still counting. Basically by texting “Haiti” to 90999, a charge will show up on your monthly bill or debited from your pre-paid balance and a $10 donation will be made to the Red Cross relief for Haiti. In a short amount of the time this way of giving has proven how powerful mobile transactions can be.

This is just the beginning of mobile transactions as our mobile devices become more and more powerful.

• Texting donations like the Red Cross has done
• Paypal Mobile offers an easy way to send money using text messaging
• iPhones offer the capability to be a credit card terminal.

I can imagine a future where my mobile phone will become my central hub for financial transactions. Think about your mobile phone as your credit card, debit card and all your club and store cards. We’re making our way there and texting a donation is just the beginning. Mobile transactions are coming to a phone near you!

Like always when new ways of transacting become popular there will also be scams out there. Always be aware of who your are giving to, donate to reputable organizations and check the organizations credentials.

Help Haiti today by making a $10 donation to the Red Cross today by texting “Haiti” to 90999 or visiting RedCross.org.

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Sometimes using the trackball can become a pain the ass while using Pandora on my Blackberry, so I went to seek out enlightenment from the almighty Google. A couple of searches later I got nothing.  Let the experimenting begin. After a little experimenting later I was able to figure out the most important keyboard shortcuts.

Pandora Keyboard Shortcuts for Blackberry from the now playing screen:

Space Bar – pause/play
L – goes to station list
U – thumbs up
D – thumbs down
A or S – next song
C – closes the ad
M – takes you to “more info” link on the ad

I’ve only done this on my BlackBerry Curve 8330 so I don’t know if this applys to other Blackberrys but I’d assume they’d be the same.

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I present to you Woody Paige’s Chalkboard from Around the Horn. We threw this site together in a matter of days after Adam did some analytics evaluation of Tastefully Driven and discovered that our Woody Paige thread was one of the most popular pages.

WoodyPaigeQuotes.com features Woody’s past chalkboard quotes, submit your own Woody Paige Chalkboard Quote, easy way to follow via RSS Feed, Twitter, and email, and lastly user comments.

This was a quick and fun project. Adam posted details on the our WoodyPiageQuotes.com to do list on his blog. Woody Paige’s Chalkboard always gives me a laugh which made making this site all the more fun to do. Enjoy Woody Paige’s Chalk Board Quotes.

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My Monthly Charity for the final month of 2009 will be the Network for Good. The Network for Good has made it very easy for me to give to charities with it’s one stop place to make donations securely. This is extremely helpful to me, especially for My Monthly Charity selections.

“Imagine what the world would be like if every time you were inspired to help someone or something, you could — with just a few clicks of a mouse, anywhere online. That’s the mission of Network for Good. We make it as easy to donate and volunteer online as it is to shop online, and we make it simple and affordable for all nonprofits, of any size, to recruit donors and volunteers via the Internet.” – Network for Good Mission

Some of their accomplishments:

• Have created a secure, convenient donation system that makes it possible to give to any charity, anywhere, anytime online
• Returned $25 to the sector for every $1 invested in Network for Good
• Raised over $300 million in online donations to more than 50,000 different nonprofit organizations
• Built a Volunteer Network that connects users across the country with more than 200,000 local, international and virtual volunteer opportunities
• Taken fundraising viral and raised well over $2.7 million via fundraising widgets
• source: Network for Good About Us Page – http://www1.networkforgood.org/about-us

The Network for Good works great for giving and charitable organizations. They give you research of over 1 million charities, track your donation history, volunteer opportunities, and much more. For charities they give them more exposure and an easy way for people to give to give to them. It really is a one stop donation location with everything you’ll need to make a quality donation decision.

Thank you to the Network for Good for making it easy to donate and help charitable organizations. Check it out for yourself at http://www.NetworkforGood.org.

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