Jun06
09
The Bead4Need Race Against Time
I recently presented at an SABMiller Management Development Programme. One of the groups on the programme have taken the bull by the horns and are leveraging social software and viral marketing for maximum reach on a pretty exciting project. Their objective is to raise USD $10,000 before June 16th by auctioning off 3 unique beaded artworks.
This from their website:
The Bead4Need Team is a group of young dynamic business leaders in the corporate environment that want to make a difference in the lives of many Southern Africans. Ian, Navin, Fenias, Roger, AK and Gerrit are in a similar struggle, a race against the sun, against time.
The Bead4Need Race against Time has one simple objective, “To raise $10,000 before 16 June 2006”. Every last cent of this money will be channelled into The CIDA City Campus that aspires to making a sustainable difference in the lives of the disenfranchised people in Southern Africa.
What’s in it for the Bead4Need Team you may well ask? It’s simple, they are a team in an Apprentice Challenge as part of their Leadership Development Experience. The team wants to be the top of their class and realised that just making money is not what it’s all about. They have a golden opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of many less fortunate than themselves and they want to invite you to be part of this success.
Really great news is that SAB has agreed to double any funds that the group raise through this initiative. I think it’s a great idea, only because CIDA benefits (in other words, this is not about lining SAB’s pockets). So, check out the site, visit eBay and make a bid. Help us spread the word and lets watch this grow.
Great - it’s a brilliant cause and will help some very bright, very poor people get business degrees and make an impact on the world and many lives around them. This is part of the SAB Miller leadership programme in collaboration with the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town. I’m helping judge the results next week - any ideas of how best to judge the winning team? Innovation, cash raised, social impact, flair and imagination? What do you think?
Thanks for the mention Mike. It is really something to be included with the likes of “Milliondollarhomepage” and “1000 paintings”.
Cheers Ian
Bead4Need Team
[...] I don’t normally like to plug efforts by big corporates like SABMiller, but this one dropped into my mailbox by Mike Stopforth seems to be a worthy enough cause. [...]
Thanks everyone - in less than two weeks, thanks to help from the blogging community and others, the teams raised from this initiative a brilliant $70,000 to help underprivileged kids get a tertiary education, to help start-up enterprises and to establish two sustainable business for smart and needy people. $70000 goes along way here and makes a big difference to many lives, real changes result. Here’s a way to make leadership training real and move out of the classroom. Fittingly the challenge was completed on June 16th - youth day in South Africa - which commemorates the uprising of schoolchildren and youth on 16 June 1976 against the system of apartheid which denied black people basic human rights and education - in the weeks that followed approximately 700 hundred people nationwide, many of them youths and kids, were killed. But this sealed the beginning of the end of apartheid. Today’s contributions help redress the balance.
[...] Thanks to all the bloggers (Jon, Dave, Conrad, etc.) who helped spread the word about the SAB bead4need apprentice challenge. [...]