“Love is the bridge between you and everything.”
(Rumi)
I have a charitably-minded experiment I’ve been thinking about lately, and like most innovative ideas I’ve had in my life, it’s a mash-up.[1] In this case, I’m interested in seeing how much money we can raise for two awesome charities by mashing-up the powers of:
- A network of like-minded people
- Personal communication tools with global reach
- The ask
- A worldwide distribution system that can deliver to virtually anywhere on Earth in a few days
- Near-zero marginal cost[2] products, like books
- The most powerful force of all, love!
Sound interesting? I’d love for you to join me.
In the simplest terms, my plan is to donate the profits of all Happy Living books sold worldwide (from now through April 30, 2018) with 100% of the profits going toward two specific charities.
The charities I have in mind are being featured at the Paleo f(x) conference taking place in Austin, TX, from April 27–29, 2018. One is called Cheyanna’s Champions 4 Children (CC4C), and it supports the community of families and children with rare or undiagnosed conditions. The other is the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (Farm-to-Consumer), which protects the rights of farmers and consumers to engage in direct commerce. Both are wonderful and important causes!
In addition to the Happy Living community, the network of like-minded people we’ll call on for support is the international tribe of Paleo f(x): a community with more than 70K Facebook followers and another 23K on Twitter, and an expected 8,000 people from the world over in attendance at this year’s conference—a three-day, life-changing experience of information and inspiration, connection and friendship.[3] This’ll be my fourth straight year in attendance, and I highly recommend it!
The personal communication tools we’ll employ are found on the cellphones and computers of virtually every member of the Paleo f(x) tribe, every supporter of CC4C and Farm-to-Consumer, plus everyone in our Happy Living community, and anyone else who happens to read this post or posts on social media about this post. With Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and others—we, the powerful combination of Paleo f(x) + CC4C + Farm-to-Consumer + Happy Living + the networks of our communities—have the capacity to reach millions and millions of people in every region of the world, almost instantly.
And this is where we wield the power of the “Ask.”[4] We can ask the millions of people in our collective networks to do two small things in support of our charitably-minded experiment:
- Buy a book from Happy Living[5] with all proceeds benefitting the two charities mentioned above,
- and share this post in their own networks, making the same charitable “ask.”
Following “the ask,” our worldwide distribution system kicks in. All five Happy Living books are available in ebook and paperback formats, and all are available in all thirteen Amazon marketplaces around the world—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy the Netherlands, Japan, India, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Australia. We have the distribution power to deliver our ebooks instantly and the paperbacks in just a matter of days to anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time.
With Amazon, we can deliver one book, one hundred books, or one hundred thousand books with the same effort—it’s truly amazing. That’s the power of near-zero marginal costs and that’s what gives our little fundraising experiment financial heft. Happy Living has already paid all the costs associated with publishing our books and setting up the global distribution capability within Amazon, which means we can donate every single penny of profit to Paleo f(x) so they, in turn, can give it to the CC4C and Farm-to-Consumer organizations. Yes, 100% of the profits from all our books sold between now and April 30, 2018 will go to the charities.
The final part of this mash-up is far-and-away the most important part. If we get just a little love from our powerful network of like-minded folks, we’ll likely sell a few books and raise a few bucks. But just imagine if a whole bunch of love is poured throughout our network and thousands of people within the tribe buy books, then go on and share the love within their own networks…asking their friends and family to buy books and to share the love again throughout their networks. Imagine that reach. Imagine that power! If we could sell one thousand books and raise $5,000 or ten thousand books and raise $50,000—well, that certainly would demonstrate a whole lot of love!
Happy Living loves Paleo f(x), Cheyanna’s Champions 4 Children, and the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, and we love you too. Please join our charitably-minded experiment and help us make it a great success!
[1] You know mash-ups, right? They’re the creative little accidents of fate that happen when elements from two or more sources are combined. Read more…
[2] Near-zero marginal cost revenue. This means creating a product or a service once, and selling it over and over again. Read more…
[3]#PFX18 is gonna rock—get your tickets now
[4] The Power of Your Network is the “Ask”, by Deborah Mills-Scofield, Harvard Business Review
[5] https://happyliving.com/books/
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