John Mayer’s Back To You Fund has donated $15,000 to Family Centers’ Stamford CARES program. The organization provides support for HIV and AIDs patients.
“With fewer and fewer state and federal dollars being allocated to HIV/AIDS education and support, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to provide our clients the service they desperately need,” Bob Arnold, president of Family Centers, said in a release.
The Back To You Fund receives a percentage of money John earns from his live shows.
Simon Cowell may have crushed more spirits than he can count, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a heart. Cowell has donated $80,000 to help U.K. riot victims.
Britain’s Express Newspapers group has set up a fund to help riot victims. The fund has gained the support of Cowell, and other celebrities.
“A lot of families and businesses desperately need some help right now and I back any campaign which achieves this,” said Cowell.
See, Cowell isn’t completely evil.
Charlie Sheen’s upcoming mini-tour to Chicago and Detroit has sold out in under 18 minutes, says TMZ.
The show, called “My Violent Torpedo of Truth,” set a Ticketmaster record this weekend as tickets were snapped up like hotter-than-hotcakes. Sheen’s camp is looking into adding more dates to the tour, as well as some additional stops in new cities.
Sheen’s website also claims that $1 from every ticket sold will be donated to the Red Cross to help victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
$1?! That’s a little skimpy considering some tickets are going for nearly 100 times that price!
This can’t be doing anything good for Sheen’s delusional huge ego… In fact, we’re sick of him already.
If Charlie Sheen comes to your city, will you be going to see him?
During Flood Relief With Vince Gill and Friends, a telethon held Thursday night to raise money for flood relief organizations, Taylor Swift made an appearance to show her support, repots E! Online.
On Wednesday she expressed how sad she was to see the state that Nashville is in. Swift tweeted, “Please keep Nashville in your heart. Seeing a picture of the Grande Ole Opry halfway underwater was a kind of heartbreak I can’t describe.”
E! Online has confirmed that the country music star’s contribution stretches beyond words of concern, Swift has reportedly donated $500,000 to flood relief organizations.
However, Swift’s donation is just a margin of what recovery efforts will cost. Reports say that estimated clean-up costs for the areas affected by the flooding could reach upward of $1 billion.
Hollywood is really coming through for Haiti relief – it’s actually quite humbling and impressive. The “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief” hosted by Wyclef and George Clooney has an awesome line up of actors, celebrities and musicians, and it will be carried by major TV networks across the globe.
Besides their time and celebrity, many people are also opening their wallets (arguably the most effective way to help Haiti). An example of this is Leonardo DiCaprio who has donated $1 Million to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund through his charity, the Leonardo DiCaprio Fund, reports People.
After the tragic earthquake that struck Haiti yesterday, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have announced that they have donated $1 million towards relief in Haiti.
According to MuchMusic.com, The Jolie-Pitt Foundation, as the couple identifies themselves, made the donation towards Doctors Without Borders, an organization that saw each of it’s Haitian hospitals destroyed.
“It is incredibly horrible to see a catastrophe of this size hit a people who have been suffering from extreme poverty, violence and unrest for so many decades,” said Jolie.
No this is not a regular andPOP story, however it’s an important cause and a really cool approach to use Twitter as a charitable tool. A new and unique Twitter movement launched today with the goal of revolutionizing the way social causes connect with online communities. The movement, called “A Million Tweets to Remember,” (1Mtweets) seeks to digitally memorialize one million people who have lived with Alzheimer’s disease (past or present) by having their loved ones tweet about them at http://1mtweets.com/. The campaign coincides with the launch of World Alzheimer’s Day, a global initiative to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s.
The campaign is the brainchild of Jordan Banks, a committed philanthropist whose personal connection to the disease includes four grandparents who have all lived with Alzheimer’s. More than six million people across North America are currently affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
“I have seen four of my grandparents battle Alzheimer’s and, in their honour, I wanted to do something monumental,” says Jordan Banks. ”Over the past ten years I have dedicated a significant amount of time raising money and awareness for Alzheimer’s research and care, but this time around I really wanted to leverage technology in garnering substantial support around the world.”
Paris Hilton really is making steps to become a better person.
Childrens Hospital Los Angeles announced yesterday that the famous socialite made an “extremely generous” donation to the construction of a new 460,000-square-foot medical tower.
Hospital officials didn’t specify just how “generous” she was, but the money will be used to deck out a double-patient room in the new Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases–turning the hospital room into a Hilton.
“The fabulous new hospital facilities at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles will provide a caring, healing environment for children and their families for many years to come,” said Hilton in a statement.
“I am proud to make a donation and lend my name to the fundraising effort to help children who are facing terribly serious illnesses.”
The 27-year-old socialite also said the children she met through her involvement with the hospital “truly touched” her heart.
Hilton first started her volunteer work with the Childrens Hospital after her 23-day stint in the slammer last year. She was sent behind bars for violating probation on charges of DUI and driving with a suspended license.
The Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases is slated to open in 2010.
My roommate has a subscription to The Atlantic, a political issues magazine that covers everything from the American election to China’s environmental policies. In that magazine, I found a fantastic article about Barack Obama’s fund raising campaign, entitled ‘The Amazing Money Machine’.
Basically, according to the article, a couple of Silicon Valley executives loved Obama and what he stood for. They decided to pull their skills and resources together to create an innovative and effective fund raising model for Obama’s campaign. Traditionally, presidential nominees get the majority of their funds from key, and very large, single donations from individuals. The heads of the Obama campaign, however, decided to instead tap into the social networking phenomenon that has taken over the Internet.
My.Barack.Obama.com is essentially a social networking site that revolves entirely around the candidate. It gives you about a million options on how you can participate in his campaign, from registering to vote online to downloading an Obama news widget to ring tones. There is also a ‘Make Calls’ button that provides you with a list of phone numbers to which you can spread the good Obama news to from your home.
But here’s what got me, and what has clearly been the most successful part of this website – there is an application that is dedicated entirely to personal fund raising. You can simply make a donation by clicking a button, and there is a subscription model you can sign up for that lets you donate a little every month. You can even set up your own fundraising homepage, pick a target amount, email your friends with request for donations, and watch the status of your own personal ‘fund thermometer’.
What astounds me – as a journalism student with a politics minor and as a tech enthusiast – is just how well it works. In March alone, Obama had 1,276,000 donors, according to the article in The Alantic. And while they weren’t all giving massive amounts, everything added up. In February, Obama had raised $55 million through the website – meaning that nearly $2 million a day was being donated online.
Even if you can’t stand all the hype around Barack Obama, I think you really need to appreciate how he is not afraid to embrace technology and current trends. I think the United States has the potential to elect someone who isn’t afraid of change, and is, in fact, championing for it in more ways than one.
