New way to get charity funding

Found this article while doing some dissertation research and thought this was a very interesting way to use the new media of twitter, so sharing the article with you all, as I have not seen it publicized anywhere else other then in the charity industry newsletters.

Twestival opens to all charities

By Kaye Wiggins, Third Sector Online, 20 August 2009

Twitter fundraising events will allow site's users to vote for their choice of charity

A campaign that uses social networking site Twitterto organise fundraising events will be open to all charities for the first time. 

The campaign, called Twestival, encourages Twitter users to set up fundraising events in their area and promote them through ‘tweets', or short message updates. 

Previous events, which have included picnics, raffles, fetes and DJ nights, have raised money for US-based clean water charity charity:water.

A Twestival spokeswoman said that for the next one, to be held from 10 to 13 September, local communities would be able to vote online for the charity they would like to receive the funds they raise.

Twestival events will take place in 14 UK towns and cities including London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Cardiff.

Local, national and international charities would all be eligible to receive the funds raised, the spokeswoman said.

More than 1,000 people attended the London event of the latest Twestival, held in February this year, which raised £180,000 globally.

Age concern photographs

While doing some more dissertation research today, i found this. 

Photographer Christian Sinibaldi has taken photos of the older generation and posed the question what is glamour in the aging. The photos are simple portraits of people above 60, but because of there simple quality i think they are stunning photos. He has named his exhibition of these photos 'I can see into your eyes' and he is exhibiting it at 'the Guardian's King's Cross headquarters until 4 September.' because Age Concern Camden is a charity which the guardian truly believes in and supports. The exhibition is going to be up until 4th sept. If i lived in london i would defiantly be down there to check out the photos in person. Instead i have had to just admire them from the Guardian website.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/audioslideshow/2009/aug/18/christian-sinibaldi-age-concern-exhibition check it out if you have time the photos are so inspiring and makes you remember that when we grow old we dont have to be the stereotypical, old, boring, sad, people that everyone thinks the aging are. 

Barnardos complaints

New Barnardos TV advert- can be seen at this website address http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/dec/10/asa-advertising

(I haven't figured out how to put videos up on this yet, if someone can tell me that would be great as there are loads i would love to share)

For my dissertation i am hoping to do something along the lines of how adverting/branding is used in the charity industry or NGO, as i want to work for an NGO in the future. While doing some initial research for this i found this advert by barnardos, i think its very effective and is very clear with its aim and point and i feel it really works and is very thought provoking and the images stick with you. But because of its harsh realistic content it has been banded from tv. I did some research on barnardos and its advertising campaigns and found that many of barnardos tv ads have been band because of there realistic, preserve, in some cases gross imagery. i am wondering know if they are doing these adverts to get banded on purpose to give themselves more publicity, free publicity at that or they are doing them to be shown and be so thought provoking to the audience that they make them do something with the charity and the banding is just a unforeseen thing. 

Art movement in Berlin hotel

A friend told me yesterday that they had read about a hotel in Berlin where they invite artists, painters, sculptures and even conceptual artists to stay and the way they pay is to donate there work to the hotel, making the hotel ever changing as it gets new peaces of art. I thought that this was a fascinating idea, having somewhere, which is always changing as art moments change and adapt, instead of the place staying in the same time fashion for many years until the owners decide to refurbish. The most recent artist to stay there is Anna Jandt who created this room with a horses head she said that doing this peace of work ''was both really strange and inspiring to live in the hotel at the same time as redesigning the interior," she also says ''The horse's head gives the room quite a sterile atmosphere and the room is overly replete with patterns – it's a … comment on the anonymity and overpowering nature of posh hotel rooms."

It is such a different and unique way for artists to show of there work that the hotel has a huge waiting list of artists to come and do work for them, artist to have already visited this hotel (Hotel Marienbad in Auguststrasse) include Turner Prize winner Douglas Gordon, Helga and Hartmut Rausch, Wolfgang Breuer, Mark van Schlegell. The next artists is to be ''Sarah Ortmeyer, due to check in this month, plans to remove the horse's head and transform her room into an "area of comfort and contemplation" in a tribute to the Eiffel Tower.''

Book cover race row

In one of my other book blogs I commented on the fact that I didnt believe the cover represented the books story well at all. The other day while on the 'GUARDIAN' website I saw an article commenting on this idea. But instead of the cover not representing the story the cover purposely showed a totally different person then that described in the book.                                                                                                      

The book ‘Lier’ by Justine Larbalestier, not yet published in the UK, is about a black woman with short hair and on the cover of the original book was a picture of a white women with long hair, the publicist told the author that this had to be because books with black people on the cover don’t sell well, this is both false adverting of the book and morally wrong and raciest I personally cant believe this happens. Thankfully so many people complained about this as well as the author her self that the publicities Bloomsbury decided to change the book cover to a black women not one that the author had imaged the women to be but nether the less better than the first cover, so if the book ever comes to England we shall not be horrified by the deliberate and obvious racistum.

Thinking about this more however I have noticed that books about black people don’t have them on the cover. At the moment I am reading the book, 'the other hand' by Chris Cleave that is about Jamaican and Nigerian asylum seekers and on the front cover is only a silhouette of a small child either back or white. I am so shacked by this concept, and strangely agree with Larbalestier comment ''If black kids, Hispanics, Indians both Eastern and Western, don't buy fantasy – which they mostly don't – could it be because they never see themselves on the cover?"

OXO Cube

I heard about oxo plans a few weeks ago, but thought it was a prank just to get more interest into the brand and so more customers but apparently its all true. Oxo are changing the shape of there cubes to an 'x' shape, they say so that they are easier to crumble, but I dont think this is true, I believe they are doing it purely for publicity and to increase the creativity of there advertising and promotional strategy, as I have never had a problem crumbling an oxo cube. Yes having it in an 'x' shape I can see how it would be easier to crumble but they are changing the shape of an old iconic product of england, they cant be doing this purely on easier crumbling as its a lot of time and money on there part. I believe they have done it to increase there customer base and think of all the publicity they could have, they could sponsor the 'x' factor next series, they could promote them selves as the 'x' factor in cooking, and its an excuse to advertise themselves more and a sort of rebranding of the product. However I my self will be a little sad to see the cube disappear and for this 'x' to replace it in october.