Giving Tuesday is upon us again. I have to admit, before this year I always thought of this day as a nice idea that would encourage people to remember that the holiday season is about more than just buying gifts, but now I see it as much more. In January Design Cause Inc will be 1 year old. I have learned a lot about non-profit work in these past 12 months. Some things have been awesome, like working with the community in Cameroon, and some things have been less than awesome,

Hello Design Cause community. I know there hasn't been a blog in a few weeks and I am about to tell you why. Things have been crazy- like I thought I was going to have to drop our first project and two weeks later i'm calling Cameroon to tell them we are ready to get construction started- kind of crazy. It has been a whirl wind of emotion and i'm about to give you the inside scoop. So about three weeks ago I received the news that a major fundraising partner, who had agreed t

Recently, I've noticed what a difference it makes to know even a little bit about a topic. There are so many things to know about in this world, things you can research and delve into - and one person can't possibly know it all. But if you know just a little bit about something, it becomes much easier to connect with people who know a lot and have deeper conversations with them and learn things. My goal with this post is to give you a bare-bones education on Cameroon - its hi

Africa is a huge continent, made up of over 54 countries. The landscape ranges from desert to beach to jungle to savanna to subarctic mountain, and everything in between. As such, it should go without saying that Africa is an incredibly diverse continent, both in terms of landscape and culture. Despite that fact, many people often get the same images in their heads when they think "Africa": -Safari animals -Mud huts -Tribal music/ drumming -Corrupt, violent governments These

The summer is a slow time for nonprofits. People are preoccupied planning vacations and spending long summer days enjoying the sun. We knew this going in and decided to spend most of the summer planning our next moves. Our online campaign is set to finish on August 5th ( if you haven't contributed you can here: https://www.crowdrise.com/Build-A-Classroom/fundraiser/kelseybradley1 ) and after that we are in full strategy mode until the fall. So here is a little snap shot of w

Charities are widely known for doing good in the world. However, there are a number of people who don’t believe in donating to charities. Why would they feel this way? First off, it’s important to understand the difference between a charity and a nonprofit. I had always pictured the two terms as meaning the same thing, but was surprised to find that the National Hockey League and PGA Tour are both technically nonprofits. According to Charity Central, a charity “must be establ

Get ready for a very heartfelt and honest blog post. Design Cause is my baby and the thing I care most about in my life right now, but I would be willing to bet most people don't know that. This is because I never talk about it. I spend at least 75% of my day thinking about our first project in Cameroon; how the money can be raised, how to involve more people, how to get people excited about it, and how to further that into more projects so we can help more people, but I hard

Everyone has heard of, or maybe even been a part of, a service trip that benefited a community in a far off country. They went for adventure, to learn about a foreign place, and to feel a strong sense of achievement and fulfillment from helping those in need. The only problem with this model is that it only looks at working in the developing world through a simplistic, transactional sense, where the volunteer presumes that their work will directly produce a positive outcome.

Nonprofits act as mediators that connect different groups of people in order to build positive social change Nonprofit means different things to different people. If you asked 15 people what is the first thing that pops into their head when you say nonprofit you would probably hear things like, 'donation, clean water, poverty, Africa, hunger, natural disaster, or medical services.' Probably the largest role a nonprofit organization plays is nowhere to be found on this list. I

It has been three months, almost to the day, since Design Cause was born. In that time we have done a lot of work to realize the goals of the organization and things have been going well. Earlier this week we reached our first fundraising goal of $5,000! Although this amount is less than 7% of our total goal of $75,000 it is a big step in the right direction. Being able to reach this small mile stone tells us that other people are interested in, not only our inaugural project