Disasters and Jigsaw Puzzles?

Have you ever helped a child complete a jigsaw puzzle?  

After your child’s favorite puzzle is chosen, the pieces are dumped out of a box on the floor, and little fingers sift through the pile of pieces finding the “easy” ones. To a five year old the “easy” pieces are the ones with one straight edge and if you are real lucky you will quickly find four pieces with two straight edges.   

With these straight pieces, the puzzle starts to take shape when all four sides are connected and complete. Next, the picture starts to come to life as the middle pieces complete the image on the box by working from the edges to fill in the center.  

As with most of the puzzles in my 5 year olds collection, as we get closer to finishing the puzzle sometimes we are a few pieces short. This is very disappointing and we are left with two options. Either give up and put the puzzle away or look everywhere for the missing pieces to make the puzzle whole.

I see a community, after a natural disaster, as similar to a five year old’s jigsaw puzzle – Do you see it?

Whether it is flood waters, tornado type winds or rushing wildfires, natural disasters can leave communities in pieces with its members trying to piece their lives back together. Like the sides of a puzzle, the community leaders, relief organizations and volunteers start to organize and determine how to help clean-up, collect and distribute basic necessities to help rebuild the community. At this point there are a lot of outsiders, the edges of the puzzle, making decisions trying to bring the community together again. The new community (volunteers, citizens impacted and relief workers) comes together to create a community – post disaster.  

Just like when my son finds a missing puzzle piece under the sofa, broken because the dog used it as a chew toy, a little glue and tape can repair the puzzle piece stronger and slightly different but it still fits. The new community, similar to the completed puzzle, will never be the same but will become stronger, have new friends and will share stories of their experience.

Please share the Natural Disaster Relief Organizations you like to support on the One Donation Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts. Be sure to include hyperlinks to all of the sites listed

If you have any comments about the blog or questions for the One Donation team please send a message to founders(at)onedonation.org.

Looking for a list of nonprofits seeking your help in 2017?

Use the link below, answer a short survey and our team will send you 3 nonprofits tailored to your responses.

http://bit.ly/2isnhvV

We can help you make it easy for your company and your employees achieve your community support goals. Click here to request more information. 

http://bit.ly/2iohxkg           

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Is it Ever Late to make a New Year’s Resolution?

It seems like just yesterday it was 2016 – and here I am looking at my calendar and it is already the 22nd of January! Even though January is cruising by, it is never late to evaluate and make resolutions for the year to come and to share your resolutions with coworkers, friends and family.  

Will it be to get more sleep (overrated unless you have kids), lose weight (the summer is around the corner), work harder (maybe get that promotion) or is it to get out of debt (Freedom Baby – just ask Dave Ramsey)?

Will you be successful in the resolution you choose? Or will you not?

Did you decide on a resolution, if so how did you do it?  Did you ask Siri? Please tell us your resolution on either Facebook or Twitter.  

Personally, I am usually unable to keep at least one of my resolutions for the entire year, much less until Tax Day.  

For the first time in 37 years, I was able to keep my 2016 New Year’s Resolution. I always wanted to complete a half marathon. If you know me, you would probably laugh and say ‘man you cannot run to the mailbox much less half a marathon.’  Well I talked to my personal trainer, her name is Siri, and we found a training plan on google and I committed to training for 10 weeks. On December 17, I finished the Rockin’ Santa Half Marathon in Knoxville, TN in a time of 2 hours 5 minutes and 18 seconds.  (My goal on the next one is to break the 2 hour mark, I will let you know how that goes).

Having completed one successful resolution, I can only move forward in 2017 and not look back.

My 2017 New Year’s resolution is to increase, from last year, the the number of donations made to charities. I plan to research and find charitable organizations that are making a difference in their communities. I have my 2016 baseline saved in the history section of the Pass the Plate app (brought to you by One Donation), on my mobile device. On January 1, 2017 I made my first donation to the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra, which was immediately added to my 2017 donation history in the app. I also added them to my list of favorite charities so future donations to them will be even easier.

Just like my 10 week training plan for the half marathon, I will continue to track my progress through the Pass the Plate app. In addition to tracking and keeping a convenient record of my donations made through the app,  I can also add any donations I might make outside of the app.   

As a wise man once told me ‘you can change the world one donation at a time.’  I hope you too will make and be successful keeping, an enjoyable resolution in 2017.

If you have any comments about the blog or questions for the One Donation team please send a message to founders(at)onedonation.org.

Do you want assistance in selecting a nonprofit to donate to in 2017?

Use the link below and answer a short survey.  Based on your answers, our team will send you 3 nonprofits that may fit with what you are looking for.

http://bit.ly/2isnhvV

Would you like for your company to take payroll deductions for your favorite nonprofit?  Please answer a short survey to determine if our platform is available at your company.

http://bit.ly/2iohxkg    

     

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Goodbye 2016. Hello 2017!

Over the past few weeks I have done a lot of reflection on this past year. As a One Donation Co-Founder and Project Manager, I have reflected on items both personal and related to One Donation. Many important lessons have been learned over the past year but I want to take a moment to highlight a few of the bigger accomplishments of 2016.

These accomplishments include::

– Added additional advisors to our team:
Joe Brittain – 19 years of experience consulting and implementing Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS).
Peter Marsh – founding Member of Flywheel Co-working and New Ventures Club, a membership based investment organization in North Carolina.
Robert Schmidt – 38 years of experience in business development and operating companies including First Pay TV service in former USSR, First U.S. Teleport, and Co-Founder of C-SPAN.
James Treakle – a Vietnam Veteran, General Practice attorney and a successful real estate investor.
John Usedom – 25 years developing and growing B2B organizations and teams and designing customer loyalty systems .

– Began the migration from an app to a platform that can accept donations via payroll deduction.
– Initiated name change from Pass the Plate to One Donation.

Reflecting on the previous year is a great exercise, and energized us for setting goals for the next year. In 2017 we have set our eyes on some big goals and look forward to sharing our progress with you in the weeks and months to come.

In the year to come:

– We will be releasing the newly updated and rebranded One Donation app in both iTunes and Google Play store in Q1.
– We will begin testing our payroll deduction donation system with a variety of small businesses in Q1.
– We are building a custom integration into a major payroll provider and will offer the integration to the provider as an added benefit for their thousands of businesses.

I hope you will follow One Donation over the next few months to watch our progress. We will continue to provide you with updates and other exciting announcements via our website and social media accounts.

Website: http://OneDonation.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1Donation/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/One_Donation

Have questions, please email our founders at founders(at)onedonation.org

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