I am breaking up my usual “Top 5″ post for a couple of reasons: first, the two (not five) topics I picked were enough material to stand on their own; second, I wanted to monkey with the format to see if the posts turn out better if they are a little more focused.
Those who know me (or at least read this blog) know not only that I ride my bike for charity every summer in the Pan-Mass Challenge to raise money to fight cancer (please feel free to sponsor me at http://bit.ly/PMC2010– thanks!), but that I experiment with social media to raise funds, using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube/Vimeo and other channels.
The people behind another anti-cancer movement, Ban Asbestos Now!, have also been enthusiastic about using social media to get their message out. It was their idea to team with me- I would try to draw attention to their petition to get asbestos banned (I thought it already was, that’s how little I knew), while they would donate cancer-fighting dollars to sponsor my ride.
While I had blogged about this as the campaign was going on, I wanted to take the opportunity to embed these videos the BAN folks made after the fact. While they have more signatures to go, I feel that even raising awareness is helpful in the long run– the same way I feel that people don;t have to donate money to be actual contributors to the cause.