I recently learned about a great new way for nonprofits to gain more visibility and awareness in the internet community. RecognizeGood is the brain child of the Samaritan Counseling Center and John Bosch, Jr. Basically, anyone can use the site to give internet shout-outs and kudos. The idea is that when someone has witnessed or been the recipient of an act of kindness or generosity, they may want to do more than just say “thank you,” and RecognizeGood offers them a free way to do that. The second, loftier goal is to create an overall change in people’s attitudes and behaviors, fueled by the theory that one act of kindness leads to more acts of kindness. RecognizeGood’s mission is to “elevate the world’s spirit of community by creating a public forum to recognize, reward, and promote acts of kindness and unselfish charity.”
While anyone can use this service for something as simple as thanking a friend for helping them move or thanking their dog for being a great pet, RecognizeGood could be a powerful tool and resource for nonprofits. Nonprofits could use it to recognize volunteers and donors or thank board members, and Executive Directors could use it to show staff appreciation by recognizing the hard work of their Development Director or volunteer coordinator. You could even use it to increase public awareness about an event or new initiative.
Check out the site and add RecognizeGood to your list of ways to recognize donors, volunteer, staff, and more. And gain a little extra publicity for your nonprofit along the way.
Filed under: Media & Marketing | Tagged: acts of kindness, appreciation, Jon Bosch Jr., RecognizeGood, Samaritan Counseling Center
Greenlights
Tara Kirkland
Ann Starr
Kim Wilson
Tara Levy
Matt Kouri
Taylor Overstreet
Haila Yates
I just started reading a book, “Neuro Web Design.” On page 8 the author quotes a study that was done with people responding to an activity wherein “rude” words, “polite” words, and “neutral” words were in a group of words that they had to unscramble to make a sentence.
After doing this exercise, they had to report to someone who was speaking to another person. For those people who had “rude” words in their activity, they interrupted 60% of the time, vs. 20% for the “polite” word activity.
They all reported that the previous word activity had no effect on their actions afterwards.
Bottom line – most of our actions are sub-conscious. If we can “raise the bar” on the words we use, we will act in compliance with those words!
Anne,
Thank you so much for writing about this! Carol makes a good point — we aren’t even conscious of how much our words affect our actions. There is so much ‘good’ everywhere around us. We just fail sometimes to acknowledge it, and now we have a place where we can. I hope you don’t mind me asking everyone reading this to ask yourselves, “Is there anyone I could recognize today?”
We’re looking for volunteers to be community RecognizeGood reporters and videographers. Please contact : http://www.recognizegood.org or the volunteer coordinator at: george@skyhawkstrategies.com.