Influx Insights Tag Feed: planningforgood

planning for good- 1,500 members+

Influx Insights — 2008-02-14T03:11:03Z

Planning for Good (join here) is a global social network of planners dedicated to doing good.

Founded in August 2007, the group has already completed projects for the Idea Village, UNICEF and Live Earth.

A new global brief will be ready for the group in March.

This week the group achieved something of a milestone, passing over the 1,500 member mark on Facebook.

Thanks to everyone for participating and we are looking forward to doing some serious good in 08.

Posted by Ed Cotton

your resolution to do good in 2008

Influx Insights — 2008-01-01T04:05:44Z

Most of your have made or are currently making your resolutions for 2008.

So here's a commercial, if one of your resolutions includes doing more good- please join Planning for Good.

To remind those that don't already know. Planning for Good is a group of 1400+ media, advertising, design strategists, their friends and a growing band of creatives who give their time and thinking to non-profits. A new brief is sent out to the network roughly every six weeks, brainstorm sessions are hosted, ideas developed and these are all collected for a presentation to the decision makers at the non-profit.

There are currently PFG groups in 40 cities around the world

Here are 7 reasons to join us...

1. You are joining a group of likeminds

2. It challenges your mind

3. Your ideas are likely to inspire a non-profit that needs you ideas

4. You will meet new people

5. You will get thoughts and ideas to bring back into your place of work

6. You will feel good about doing it because you are doing good

7. It will allow you to tick a box on your list of resolutions

If you are on Facebook, you can find the main group here.

If you are or aren't on Facebook and need contact information for our city leaders, please email me at ecotton@bssp.com and I will direct you to the right people.

If you work for a non-profit and could use some help, please email me as well.

Of course, we also have a blog.

Our plan for early 2008 is to have two months where the network is free to work on local projects and take a break from the centrally driven briefs.

Since our foundation in August, we've worked with fantastic people; Alisa Aydin at UNICEF, Lauren Baum and Tim Wilkinson at the Idea Village in New Orleans and Nikki Streifler at Live Earth.

None of these projects would have been possible without the help and introductions from Robbie Vitano and Michael Karnjanaprakorn at Trumpet in New Orleans (who also gave us a pulpit to speak from at their conference), Frank Streifler at MAL and Brian Reich at Cone in Boston.

Thanks are owed to many for what's been achieved this year to- the folks at BSSP- especially Greg Stern, John Butler and Mike Shine, Gareth Kay and the gang at Modernista for design help and support etc. Mark Earls for his bursts of brilliant thinking and his massive efforts in building PFG in London and to Jason Oke and Aki Spicer for their support and for building our bases in Toronto and Minneapolis.

To our fantastic group of city leaders around the world who are the true pioneers and frontline workers, to everyone who attended a brainstorm or contributed an idea and supported us in some way.

A last shout out to Max Schorr at Good Magazine for getting behind the idea and for Domenico Vitale at Lowe for his support and picking up the tab for our NYC pizza party.

Posted by Ed Cotton

planning for good and good magazine-invitation-december 10th

Influx Insights — 2007-12-08T06:53:13Z

Good Magazine has built a brand in a very short period of time that's perfectly in-tune with the zeitgeist.

They a bringing their brand to life with a "Pop-Up" experience at the Openhouse in Mulberry Street, NYC December 6th-December 23rd.

Their launch party was last night.

They've kindly invited to host an event for Planning for Good (a global network of 1,100+ planners and their friends who donate time and brains to non-profits) this Monday night, if you are NYC-based planner or anyone interested in joining and learning more about Planning for Good, we'd like to see you there.

Please RSVP here, because space is going to be limited.

Posted by Ed Cotton

planning for good's presentation to unicef

Influx Insights — 2007-12-05T17:11:06Z

Here's the deck we presented to UNICEF.

| View | Upload your own

There are 3 ideas UNICEF want to action ASAP.

Unwanted Presents- PFG London and Denver

Coin Jar- PFG Los Angeles

Snowflake- PFG Sydney

If anyone has access to some digital resources that could help us execute, please let me know.

Posted by Ed Cotton

planning for good and good magazine- evening event in nyc december 10th

Influx Insights — 2007-12-03T17:13:00Z

Next Monday (7-9pm) December 10th, Good Magazine will be hosting an evening for Planning for Good at its pop-up store in Nolita.

There will be music by James ^&%$$ Friedman, short bursts of inspirational speaking from Graham Hill of Treehugger, Matisse Bustos Hawkes of Witness, Alisa Aydin of UNICEF, Andrew Friedman of Make the Road by Walking and Gareth Kay/Ed Cotton from Planning for Good.

There will also be drinking and socializing.

If you are a New York based account planner or interested in lending your time and brain to benefit good causes, this is a good opportunity for you to join both Planning for Good and Planning for Good New York.

These are Facebook groups, so you need to join Facebook to participate.

Space will be limited, so priority will be given to those who are already part of the network.

Invitations will be send out to all network members shortly.

Posted by Ed Cotton

planning for good latest news

Influx Insights — 2007-11-27T16:36:21Z

The Planning for Good network (strategists donating brain power to good causes) has just completed its second assignment; this time it was a holiday program for UNICEF.

We are now close to 1,100 members on the Facebook group and have just released our latest brief, this time it's for Live Earth.

Some important links:

The Facebook group

The Live Earth Brief

Details of Local PFG City groups and leaders

Please join PFG, sign-up for a local group and do some good.

Posted by Ed Cotton

planning for good completes its first assignment

Influx Insights — 2007-10-16T03:03:54Z

I am delighted the Planning for Good initiative is off to a great start having completed its first assignment and presented its ideas to the client.

The assignment was to develop thinking for the Idea Village in New Orleans, a non-profit set-up to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurs in the city.

This was the first assignment out of the gate when the group was around 200 strong, compared to the 700+ that now inhabit the Facebook group.

The presentation can be seen below.

| View | Upload your own

I intend to follow up with more feedback on what happens to these ideas.

Needless to say the Idea Village liked alot of thinking and are keen to move forward with many of the initiatives that were presented.

If you are interested in helping, there are three things we need.

1. Some technology wizard or a company that can create a virtual workspace for the group.

2. A great brief from a non-profit that would appreciate thinking from 700 strategists.

3. Simply, join the group and participate in the next brief.

Posted by Ed Cotton

got ideas for new orleans?

Influx Insights — 2007-09-15T04:23:37Z

New Orleans is on a search for new ideas and the non-profit, the Idea Village is helping make them a reality.

A newly established network of 500+ planners, strategists and their friends at Planning for Good are working on brief to help the Idea Village retain, motivate and build a community of young talent in New Orleans.

If you would like to help, please take the following steps.

1. Join Facebook

2. Sign up for the Planning for Good group

3. Read the Brief

4. Download the entry form here

5. Ideate

6. Send in your entry to the committee@planningforgood.org

Entries due by September 20th

Posted by Ed Cotton

planning for good- day 1

Influx Insights — 2007-08-13T00:57:31Z

The Planning for Good group on Facebook was created less than 12 hours ago and already 45 people have signed up.

We've had a great responses from planners in the US and UK.

We need more people to join us, but we also need help in the following areas:

1. Suggestions for good people to add to the advisory board- ideally people working for non-profits.

2. We need problems to solve- non-profits who could use 45 brains on a problem.

Any suggestions and ideas please add to the group page.

Thanks to all of you who have already stepped forward, amazing stuff.

Posted by Ed Cotton