Brian Cooper, CEO (aka “Chief Dot Connector”) of A Glimmer of Hope takes a moment to talk to Jena Iwata Andres about his journey from Australia to Texas to leading one of the most innovative humanitarian aid groups in the world today.

!deation 2010: Brian Cooper (A Glimmer of Hope) from Ideation on Vimeo.

Here’s a fun behind-the-scenes rap with some of our speakers and hosts including Greg Russinger, Brian Cooper, Lee Fox, Stephen Myatt, and Jena Iwata Andres. As you can see, fun times!

!deation Conference 2010: !deation Rap from Ideation on Vimeo.

During the conference, we did a series of behind the scenes video interviews with our speakers that ranged from the insightful and inspiring to the fun and hilarious. The following are the first of these videos that will be posted in the weeks to come.

Also, all of the general session talks will be available for purchase in June. Stay tuned for more details!

Our own Jena Iwata Andres talks to Scott Harrison, founder of charity: water, about some of the incredible ups and downs he has experienced both in his personal life and in the life of his organization.

Scott Harrison and Lotay Yang (founder of the Black Card Circle Foundation) share with each other the stories of their organizations. But something doesn’t seem right…

Be Hope to Her 2010

by Guest Blogger — Billy Williams, Grassroots Movement Director of Nuru International

Last year, Nuru International hosted its first nationwide extreme poverty awareness event and campaign. It was an experiential event designed to raise awareness and empathy for the daily routine of hundreds of women and girls in the developing world. We called it “Be Hope To Her.” The event had nearly 1000 people participate on 11 college campuses, and raised over $36,000 that led to the drilling of four deep water wells in Kuria, Kenya and thousands of changed lives.

This year, we are pleased to announce that there are twenty four colleges who are participating in the event (including one in Florence, Italy). We also have three city-wide events happening in SoCal, Seattle, and Pittsburgh.

So what is it all about? In essence, it’s an event about being hope. Over 2.4 billion people go daily without nearby access to safe, clean, drinking water. Women and girls in these communities are usually charged with the task of gathering the water for their families as a daily practice. Imagine spending three hours of your day gathering water so you and your family can have it to drink, to bathe, to do laundry, to wash dishes. Imagine if that water were contaminated and needed boiled before anyone could drink it. Imagine not being able to attend school because you had been charged with this task for the sake of your family’s survival. It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, you can be part of the generation that stands up and says enough is enough, and chooses to make a difference

Recently, I was reading a blog from our water and sanitation program manager, Nicole Scott, that talked about how life has changed in Kuria since the drilling of wells in the community. One of the stories told was about kids at one of the schools where the wells were drilled. The teachers said that the kids are playing now instead of running into the bush to try to find water during recess. This statement really hit me personally. I started thinking back to elementary school and recess. I can remember running, playing football, tag, and kickball, and just all around having a good time with friends. I remember running myself into a frenzy knowing that at the end of recess, everyone in my class would line up at a water fountain (I think the fountain was in my classroom too), and get a drink of water before settling back into class. What would it have been like if there were no drinking fountains in my school. What if my recess was spent looking for ANY water source near the school? What would my concentration level have been like in the classroom? It seems utterly unthinkable that anyone in the modern era would have to deal with this on a daily basis.

And that’s why we are asking you to join in Be Hope To Her this year. We believe that together we can end extreme poverty. We believe that together we can pioneer solutions for whole communities to not only have convenient access to safe, clean drinking water, but to lift themselves out of extreme poverty for good! Will you join us in this effort?

The first thing you can do is register for the event. This event is going to take place in a variety of locations across the country, so chances are you live fairly close to one of the locations (and if not, road trips are always fun—especially those with a greater purpose!).

Then, invite your friends, relatives, coworkers, and classmates to get involved. (What’s a road trip without friends?) We truly believe we can end extreme poverty, together, one community at a time, and we will work faster and more effectively as we have more people involved in this work. Imagine what it will be like to one day say that WE were the generation who said enough is enough and ended extreme poverty! This goal is within our reach, but it is going to take more than a few getting involved. Be Hope To Her is a great “first step” for folks to take as they join us in this work.

After you have registered and started recruiting your friends to get involved, you can begin raising funds for your campus. There was actually a recent blog post on the Nuru website that includes some helpful hints to some FUNdraising activities! I definitely recommend you check it out.

I can guarantee that if you participate in this event, you will NEVER look at this issue in the same way again. And your friends won’t either. Not only that, but you will be offering them a tangible first step in the journey to be the generation that ends extreme poverty!!!

Thanks again,

Billy

We’re excited to have Ben Keesey, Executive Director and CEO of Invisible Children join us at the Ideation Conference! Invisible Children began as a project of three young filmmakers from Southern California who traveled to Africa in search of a story and discovered the tragic reality of night commuters and child soldiers in Uganda. Upon returning to the States, the three filmmakers released their footage as a documentary and the film has since spawned an international movement of storytellers, visionaries, humanitarians, artists, and entrepreneurs who are seeking to improve the quality of life for individuals in the Ugandan community and other war-affected regions.

Please take a moment to check out the trailer for the film and learn more about Invisible Children’s upcoming Legacy tour.

We’re privileged to be joined at the Ideation Conference by Lotay Yang, Founder and Chairman of the Black Card Circle Foundation (BCCF). BCCF is a non-profit organization that exists primarily to highlight and benefit the work of other IRS-recognized non-profit organizations that serve one of the following core areas: education, environment, health care, community development, and poverty relief. BCCF raises awareness and funds for these organizations through creative campaigns and charity events targeted primarily to prominent business professionals who share the vision of using their wealth, influence, and social capital to help those in need.

Please take a moment to watch this coverage from a recent BCCF event and learn more about their work.

Keith Kall, executive director for Corporate Engagement at World Vision, will be joining us at the Ideation Conference! World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Working in nearly 100 countries around the globe, World Vision constantly seeks out sustainable solutions to combat root causes of poverty while remaining available to respond immediately to disasters as they happen. World Vision is well-known for successfully partnering with communities in areas of water and sanitation, food and agriculture, education, economic development and more.

Please take a moment to learn more about the life-changing work of World Vision.

We’re excited to share that we will be joined at the Ideation Conference by Beth Kanter! Beth is a trainer, coach, and consultant to nonprofits in the area of effective technology use, and she has worked on projects that include training, curriculum development, research, and evaluation. More notably, Beth is a professional blogger whose blog (beth.typepad.com) is one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits; she is co-author of the forthcoming book, The Networked Nonprofit, to be published by J. Wiley in 2010; and she is the CEO of Zoetica, a company that serves nonprofits and socially conscious companies with top-tier, online marketing services. Beth has helped many in the nonprofit world with her expertise in how to use new web tools to achieve their goals.

If you are interested in Beth’s work and keeping up with the latest news and discussion in the world of nonprofits and social media, please pay a visit to her blog. It will be well worth it!

It’s our pleasure to share that Rev. Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission (URM), will be joining us at the Ideation Conference! URM is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving men, women, and children experiencing homelessness. Established in 1891, URM is one of the largest rescue missions of its kind in the United States, and the oldest in Los Angeles, where approximately 80,000 people sleep on the streets every night.

URM provides a wide range of services for the homeless which include food, shelter, clothing, medical/dental care, recovery programs, transitional housing, legal assistance, education, counseling, and job training. Take a moment to learn more about URM’s work and the lives they are changing.

The following article was contributed by Lee Fox, Founder of KooDooZ. It is a great read on the need and potential of empowering the current generation of youth to be active contributors to the community. These “Digital Natives” have all the passion and persistence to make a world of difference; they just need to be given the opportunities. You can jump to the article here (PDF file).

Interested in KooDooZ? Find out more about their work and activities via their blog or follow them on twitter.