A little goes a long way in the hands of our creative and innovative partners in Kenya. Together with your support, we provided the capital needed for YOCHAN to purchase land, pay title fee, and construct a new Resource Center. Charles Owino, founder of YOCHAN, listed the ways this investment is changing his community:

• “Alleviate poverty since the needy youths…earn livelihood from the proceeds of the detergent business
• Our community will be more empowered by information accesible in our resource centre on issues of hiv, drugs, development,human rights-youth,children,women and health.
• OPTIMISTIC ATTITUDE DEVELOPED THROUGH OUR PEER COUNSELING AND EDUCATION SESSIONS IN THE RESOURCE CENTRE.
• Prolonged lifespan due to ability to protect oneself against hiv through our advocacy programs in hiv/aids.
• Increased security since most of the youths are kept busy through the games available in the resource centre and other YOCHAN activities.”

We are in the final 2 days of our “Stand With Us” campaign. We are about half way to our goal of 200 investments. Will you stand with us so we can continue to stand with our incredible partners like Charles and YOCHAN?

I know it’s poor manners to toot your own horn. That’s why we’ve been so grateful for the attention we’ve received in the last year on Twitter. Our good friend, current consultant, and former Social Media Guru of The 1010 Project Tim Brauhn noted some of the highlights:

1. The 1010 Project came in 1st (disclaimer: it was an alphabetical list! ) on Lon Cohen’s list of “26 Charities on Twitter“, which attracted a lot of attention (and followers) on Mashable in April. We were in very, very good company on that list.

2. Follow Fridays have been good to the organization this year. We are regularly grouped into #FF tweets with other luminaries like charity:water, Save the Children, and the National Wildlife Federation.

3. Yasamin Beitollahi, a marketing strategist and Huffington Post blogger, included The 1010 Project in her “Tis the Season for Charitable Giving: 7 Extraordinary Nonprofits on Twitter“. Some of the other luminaries? LIVESTRONG, Habitat for Humanity, and Susan G. Komen For the Cure.

Tim then notes that “compared to these other nonprofits, The 1010 Project lags behind in almost every conceivable dimension,” but that we’ve earned our audience through being “genuine,” not worrying about ROI but about relationships.

Again, since it is poor manners to toot your own horn, I will address the only GLARING OMISSION from Tim’s article. Our success is directly connected to the skills and passion of people like Tim Brauhn, and staff like Mark Mann.

You can’t help everyone, but you can help someone

Whether your skills are with social media, stocks and bonds, or swinging a hammer, your support of humanitarian organizations helps them achieve incredible things. As 2010 approaches, is there a charitable organization you can support through the gift of your expertise?

Donate between Dec 13-28th and do two things:

1: Help us reach our year-end goal of 200 donations!

2: Enter to win a night on the town for 2 This includes 2 tickets to see comedy improv at The Bovine Metropolis Theater and dinner for 2 at Rialto Cafe ($25 gift certificate).

We will draw the winner on Dec. 22nd! Don’t miss your chance to win!