Goodwill International’s new “Donate Movement” is a model of online efficiency for consumer engagement.”Waste not, want not.”

They don’t doddle around trying to explain their differentiation over other important “green” causes and sustainability programs that compete for your attention. The “D Movement” website involves you immediately by enabling you to donate and recycle NOW!

Goodwill’s new “D Movement” is a partnership with Levi Strauss to make donating a more conscious decision. Their plan is to make the “D” the universal symbol for donating, like the recycling logo is to recycling. Would you really expect anything less from America’s first real recycler?

You always hear about “Search optimized” websites. Goodwill has “People optimized” this site.

For starters, you can quickly see the impact your donations have with Goodwill’s Donation Impact Calculator prominently featured on its homepage. The three pair of jeans I just donated to Goodwill of Central Arizona will support 34 minutes of on-the-job training. The two jackets I’m not going to need in our 112 degree weather just bought 1.2 hours of training. What do you think one lamp is worth in training? See for yourself.

Goodwill’s Thrifty Social Media Strategy Includes:

• Goodwill makes it easy to “Like” the Donation Impact Calculator by locating the Facebook “thumbs up” button as part of the calculator’s interface.
• The site uses Google maps to help you quickly find your nearest Goodwill donation center.
• A live Twitter feed captures on-going chatter about the campaign.
• A real-time digital counter tells you the poundage of usable items being saved from landfills.
• You’re encouraged to show your support by adding the donate button to your Twitter and Facebook profile photos through the use of Twibbon. They pay you back with immediate gratification as you pop up as a “Recent supporter” on their site. Great engagement tool that compounds the reach of their campaign. Smart!
• Goodwill invites you to join their blogger network. They request a post about why you donate, and ask that you include their donate button on your site. I’m joining, are you?
• “Make a commitment to de-clutter… and donate your gently used clothing and household items to Goodwill a few times this year,” is their last call-to-action in the support section on the Donate Movement site.

Goodwill & Levi’s Nifty WOM Promotion

All great green marketers know that a sustainable word-of-mouth marketing strategy happens both online and off. That’s why I love what Levis is doing with the campaign right in their britches.

They’ve created a care label that tells you how to have the least impact on the planet with the washing of your jeans. The final tip is to donate your Levi jeans to Goodwill when no longer needed.

What the “D Movement” means by the numbers:

1. Goodwill diverts some two billions pound of useful product from landfills each year.
2. The revenue generating through the resale of donated items helped 1.9 million people in a variety of industries in 2009.

What do you think? After touring their site, does it push your donate and recycle buttons, or does it push you away?

She is going to share the story of her life with us by answering YOUR questions.

Janet Brooks, 104 on Oct. 15, 2010. Photo by Parker Howell

This has been a fun and interesting project already, given the insights we’ve gleaned from your questions for Janet. Here is our starter list. If you have more interests that aren’t represented here, please ask your question in the comments below, or on my Facebook page.

Looking Back

1. What’s your earliest memory?
2. What are your top 5 favorite memories that do NOT include family or close friends?
3. What is your most cherished memory?
4. What was the best day of your life?
5. What do you miss the most about the world as it was in your youth?
6. What’s the first car you drove?
7. What was your biggest joy in life and your biggest sorrow?
8. Do you remember the influenza of 1918-1919, and how did it affect you and your family?
9. What lessons from the Great Depression or the two World Wars would help us now?
10. How did the onset of the Great Depression alter your dreams for your life?
11. What have we lost from our history that we should remember?
12. What’s the most important invention you’ve seen?
13. What has been the invention that has most improved your life?
14. What did you think of a woman’s right to vote?
15. What do you think of all the changes that have happened in women’s clothing in the last 100 years?
16. What was your favorite fashion period?”
17. What were the forks in the road of your life, and why did you choose the directions you ultimately took?
18. Who were the top 5 people you have admired during your long life and what characteristics did they possess?
19. What random advice do you have for people in your favorite and least favorite 5-year age spans, and what were those ages?
20. What decade would you like to relive?
21. Looking back at your life, what do you wish you had known that you know now.
22. When did you feel comfortable in your own skin?
23. What’s your biggest regret that you had control of?
24. What’s your proudest accomplishment?

Recreation & Health

1. Besides swimming, what other activities do you do: read, garden, etc.?
2. How did you live your life – hobbies, health, food, exercise, work, play?
3. Do you drink, smoke or do other baaaaaad things?
4. Has what makes you happy changed as you have grown older?
5. What prescription medications do you take?
6. What supplements do you take?
7. What’s your secret for a healthy, long life?

Family & Relationships

1. What about your family? Were you married, children, etc.?
2. What is your relationship with the experience of loss, as I imagine you’ve experienced plenty of it?
3. Do you still think about sex or falling in love?

Arts & Culture

1. What are your thoughts about our current culture and please compare it to when you were younger?
2. Do you got to the movies, and if so, what kind do you like?
3. What’s your favorite movie?
4. Are you a reader? What kinds of books do you like to read?
5. Who is your favorite author and why?
6. What kind of art do you like?
7. What are your thoughts about womanhood and what our role is, especially since “equal rights” movement?
8. Has society as a whole progressed or regressed?
9. What are your impressions of how society has changed the rules in which we raise our children?

The Environment

1. What are your thoughts about our current environmental situation? I often say that if we lived for 500 years, then I’m sure we’d be living our lives very differently.
2. How does the BP oil spill compare to other environmental crises in America?
3. Do you believe in global warming?
4. Are we taking better or worse care of the environment now, than when you were a younger woman?

Current Affairs

1. Did your life progress anything like you thought it would?
2. Do you think you are a better person now or when you were younger?
3. Who is the oldest person you know?  Are they as much fun as you are?
4. What do you think of the conflicts, the accomplishments, the craziness of this world and has it really changed?
5. Do you think the women’s movement has positively or negatively affected the family dynamic? How so?
6. How do you compare the world as you knew it as a young adult with the world as you knew it as someone in middle age, and with things as they are now?
7. What has it been like for you to live through the events that you have experienced, and then to see how a later generation and society perceives/describes/interprets them?  Does the reality align with the perception?  Do you think that the popular opinion about something have firsthand knowledge of is way off from the truth?
8. What advice can you give to help us to stay as connected as it sounds like you are?
9. Personally, I’d like to know if you are more worried or hopeful about our society’s future?
10. Is there anyone you hope to meet in heaven (other than God, Jesus)?
11. Anything you regret not doing? Anything you wish you had not done?
12. What do you see us worrying about the most, when we really needn’t?
13. Would love to know what brand of wine Janet drinks so that I can stock up!

Do you have another question for Janet?

He told me about Envirosurfer, the company behind the Green Surf Shop, giving 5% of their July sales to the Nature Conservancy’s Fund for Gulf Coast Restoration to support their ocean clean-up initiative.

I knew nothing about this “online eco-friendly surf shop,” until he reached out. What I learned, I liked.

They opened in 2009 after realizing the need for the surf industry to reduce its reliance on petroleum based surf products.

“Envirosurfer was created to provide environmentally conscious surfers with eco friendly surf products that will not only support their surfing but help them have a positive impact on the planet too.”

Now we’re not talking a behemoth outdoor gear company like Patagonia, Columbia or Teva here. We’re talking about some surfer dudes from San Diego who have the chutzpa to fill a market need, and the eco-charisma to make a difference.

According to founder, Brandon Moyles,

“I examine the production process of the products we carry, making sure they’re manufactured in an earth friendly way. We don’t just promote products that claim to be eco-friendly, we actually go back to the production process to make sure that the claims that manufacturers make really are safe for the environment.”

Every month Envirosurfer donates 5% of their sales to an environmental cause, in their own way doing their own small part. I like that. I suppose it’s a bit like tossing a pebble into that immense oil slick. But even pebbles create ripples, and a growing ring of influence. When you think about it, it’s the the Envirosurfer’s of the world – the hundreds of thousands of small businesses – that are going to make the greatest impact on this planet.

So why not toss your pennies into Envirosurfer’s pool this month – or any small company with an ambition to change the world – and make your dollars count.

Now, as an aside, when it comes to surfing and music, I’m no Jack Johnson. But I did write a little ditty about the BP spill called, “If I Only Had a Drain.”

Surf’s up!

How to get your employees to eat, drink, think and sleep green. Photo: Pink Sherbet Photography

Captivating and engaging employees about your internal green initiatives and sustainability programs maybe your most difficult communications challenge to-date.

It’s not enough to have happy, smiling employees. To be successful in greening your organization to become more sustainable financially, culturally, and planet-wise, your staff needs to be truly engaged.

How can you insure the success and sustainability of your internal green campaign?

Personal Sustainability Projects

Companies like Wal-Mart, Frito-Lay, and Wells Fargo have adopted the practice of Personal Sustainability Projects to empower staff members to find sustainable behaviors unique to themselves and work on them each day for the greater good of the organization.

Who’s Your Internal Green Giant?

Big Four auditor, Deloitte, is greening its operations and its consulting, essentially spinning sustainability internally to create a new product offering, Green Sync, for its customers. Their best practices for going green start with finding an internal green champion, and then:

1. Like Personal Sustainability Projects, employees have to opt-in to green behaviors on their terms
2. Raise awareness, education and conversation around sustainable practices within the company
3. Empower staff at the local levels, while the national office provides support
4. Applaud small, continuous changes, because they make the biggest impact
5. Be transparent about the progress of your green sustainability program
6. Collaboration across all internal departments is key

Encourage Environmental Entrepreneurism from Within

Margartet Mead once wrote,

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

This maximum is beautifully reflected in a grassroots effort by passionate eBay employees that started in 2007 and has grown to more than 2,400 employees in over 23 countries in the eBay Green Team. The team has been responsible for internal green initiatives from removing styrofoam cups in break rooms, to encouraging corporate to add larger solar arrays in their San Jose, CA headquarters. eBay also prompts its buyers and sellers to join the Green Team, making it easy to expand their reach exponentially through its network.

Seven Corporate Social Responsibility Best Practices

Where the activities above are more about the human relationship in engaging green behaviors, The Green Economy post spells out a more operational approach, including goals, engagement, mapping, system management, lifecycle assessment, reporting and branding. These efforts top the list of the seven best practices when launching an internal sustainability initiative.

Tools for Micro-Eco Actions

The consistent theme in activating green behavior changes is that small is large. People are motivated to do the right thing if it’s easy to do, saves money, and helps the planet, in that order. Keeping it simple is the hardest part of the sustainability challenge.

One new online tool, GreenNurture.com, helps companies activate and reward micro-eco actions by its employees by simply amplifying the internal conversation about sustainability. Participants are rewarded for the involvement with points that can be used for discounts on all kinds of products at RecycleBank.com.

What works for you, making you and your organization feel all green and tingly inside?

In our work in green marketing and sustainability, we’re often defining what motivates people. When it comes to doing intrinsically good things, most Earthlings aren’t motivated by saving the planet, conserving water, reducing air pollution, or donating to Goodwill because it’s a great cause. Consumers are motivated by doing something that’s easy, and by saving money. Greening the planet or helping put people back to work is added value.

Motivation in the office is equally puzzling. Economic theorists point to money as a motivator. However, there are three other drivers that trump cash when it comes to driving brilliance in the market. These drivers are autonomy, mastery and purpose, according to this fascinating video by RSA.

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

I was recently introduced to RSA, the 250-year-old Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Ok, so maybe I’m a late comer to this English think and “do” tank. Perhaps you are, too?

RSA helps create social change through incredible storytelling. They take their free lectures by leading experts, like Dan Pink’s presentation on what motivates people, and create compelling stories online through the use of a cartoonist to make their points.

Their observations are often groundbreaking, and made even more powerful because they are told in the simplest of ways.

What motivates you in your work, especially following a long 4th of July weekend? Is your company driven by a “Transcendent purpose?” And how might these insights help you understand the motivation of your customers?

The truth may surprise you.

What Would You Like to Ask Janet?

Our friend Janet turns 104 on October 15, 2010. She clearly recalls the sinking of the Titanic when she was six. She remembers the smell of the picture house and the sound of the piano player next to the stage when she saw her first silent movie.

She compares herself to an aging baseball player who can’t run the bases so well any more. Although she admires Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she is suspect of his intentions regarding the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Janet says the best family time is long conversations over meals. The secret to longevity is swimming every day, which she still does, and a glass of red wine during lunch. Every lunch.

“You don’t sip wine. You drink it. Just like the Europeans.”

Janet is a treasure.

Our sons and I are making a film to explore Janet’s ideals on how to live a happy, healthy and sustainable life. To grow old gracefully. What would you like to ask Janet? Please send us your questions in the comment field below, or through the contact form in the upper nav. bar of my blog.

Or follow the conversation on Facebook.

You can ask Janet anything. Although her hearing is fading, and you need to get pretty close for her to recognize you, she is as sharp as if it were 1935.

We will film Janet’s replies and make sure you receive a copy of her answer to your question.

Until now.

I’m proud to bring you, now on the first tee, playing out of Seattle, Washington, CityGolfTour.com.

Today, we helped launch a revolution in fantasy sports. CityGolfTour.com provides ANY golfer the opportunity to compete in national tournaments that you can play from your favorite home course. All you need is a USGA handicap and a City Golf Tour membership in this new concept in tournament golf.

Play begins in their inaugural tournament on July 12, 2010.

CityGolfTour.com is the brainchild of husband and wife team, Jack Hutt and Wendy Anderson. They have been running a Seattle golf league for amateurs by the same name for around ten years, when they decided to expand their vision online.

Golfers at every skill level are invited to compete.

CityGolfTour.com uses a combination of the player’s USGA handicap, the slope rating of the course they’re playing, and some secret sauce algorithm to level the playing field for fair competition. This way a 15+ handicap hack like me can compete with the Eubank phenoms of the world.

A total of $500 in cash prizes are awarded to the top 20 players, while 10% of all tournament entry fees goes to charity. Really, though, I think it’s going to be more about bragging rights than bucks. There’s still that competitive streak in all of us, even if it’s just with ourselves.

The first question everyone asks is, “How are they going to keep people from cheating?” Here’s your answer.

So tee one up for charity and make CityGolfTour.com a part of your game.

In the words of Carl, “It’s a Cinderella story.”

Our kids, Caedon, Parker & Corbin, and son-in-law, KC

I was given a great gift for Father’s Day this morning that I wanted to share with my kids, and you. Actually, it came from a book my wife Michele gave me yesterday, “One Can Make a Difference,” How Simple Actions Can Change the World.

The book is sustainable storytelling at its best. It features a collection of essays written by both powerful celebrities and average Joe’s. One story by Sean Astin, actor and son of actress, Patty Duke, reminded me of the Rudyard Kipling poem, “If.”

It’s not just a poem, but a kind of user’s manual for life.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

Click here to see the creative behind Goodwill of Central Arizona's new outdoor campaign

When was the last time you found something shopping and mentally yelled, “Scooooooooore!”? You pictured yourself  knifing your arms above your head like a Super Bowl ref signaling a touchdown. You did a silly little, “Uh huh, that’s right, I’m bad” dance between your ears.

We all know the feeling.

It’s those emotional cues that prompted our new outdoor campaign for Goodwill of Central Arizona. We married one item with one word to conjure up a thousand rewarding pictures in the minds of those who donate and shop at Goodwill.

More importantly, it’s designed to create a snapshot of possibilities in the craniums of those who don’t.

The campaign not-so-subtly nudges you to take action. Donate. Shop. Go  hunting for one-of-a-kind treasures at Goodwill. It implores you to frequent Goodwill so that your items and cash can help with their mission of putting people back to work.

And it’s a sustainable story too, because…

• By taking ALL of your donated items, Goodwill keeps thousands of tons of discarded stuff out of landfills and give them news lives with people who can really use it
• If they don’t sell it, they’ll recycle it
• The sale of your stuff goes to sustaining the training and employment of thousands of people
• The community is sustained by the Good work of Goodwill

Think about the last time you were at a Goodwill either dropping off donations or shopping. What is the one word and the one item that best tells the story about your experience? For more ideas, you can tour the entire campaign here.

I have always liked Honda as a green/sustainable company. They have been leaders in this arena for a while, not just recent years. I was able to see this first hand when I worked on the Regional Honda dealer group account for over a year.

Obviously, they are in the car selling business. That means selling cars that use gas (depleting fossil fuels), cause pollution and just leave a major carbon footprint. So showing “green-ness” of the company would make logical sense in order to take some heat off one of their core businesses.

But Honda really goes beyond the standard environmental/green/sustainable route.  Starting with their core – automobiles – and the awards they have won over the past years for fuel efficiency and being the top “Greenest Vehicles”.

There is no denying that they have money for significant ad campaigns. But they do spend their money to promote both products and global issues in often fun and fascinating way.

Honda wins Commercial of the Decade, but not for the ad you think

They reach out in other ways beyond advertising too to spread the word of buying a Honda has some benefits beyond being cleaner, greener. And the end result is trying to sell cars, but then that revenue is still powering the engine that can save the world on a grand scale.

Honda Loves You Back

And they reach out to the community in big ways. “American Honda Supports Green Music Group Challenge.” Or check out the “2009 Honda EARTH ANGEL APPLICANT SUBMISSION.”

Honda’s philosophy has been making the world a better place for years. One of their primary goals is being “a company that society wants to exist.” I’d say that’s wanting to make the world a better place. I’ve always admired the way Honda stays focused, has kept sending out a great message for being environmentally sensitive and puts their money where their mouth is, before it really became stylish.