Help Brendan Study Social Entepreneurship at Oxford for THREE BUCKS!

The quick update: It appears as though both MSF and EWB have taken their donations (about $5500 each) out of my account, which is good. I’m just waiting for confirmation/receipts that I can pass on to Wayne Robertson, so he can confirm to you all that what I said was going to happen, actually happened.

The news is that for the 10 months of so before starting an MBA (sSptember 2009 now), I’ve taken a role in Ethiopia with Practica Foundation (www.practicafoundation.nl). Basically they develop and disseminate appropriate technology in developing countries. I’ve worked with them before in another capacity, and they do quality work. I’ll be their Ethiopian Country Director, setting up their first African office and technology development centre. I’m very excited. More on this later. As for the MBAs, I’ve widened it up a little to include a few other schools with solid social entrepreneurship credentials. Apps are going in right now. Time will tell. And for anybody wondering, Oxford’s still definitely on that list.

Cheers,

Brendan

I finally got to drop two cheques in the mail today (EWB: $5500 and MSF: $5158.72). These were an approximate split of all donations, less expenses (most were paypal fees, plus some smaller web costs). It took awhile, I know. I was waiting for Wayne to look at the finances and give me an OK (who was quick), and I had to fight paypal a bit to get the money. They take the weekly prize for failing to understand online and phone customer service.

I have a financial summary of the campaign, to come shortly. I just wanted to let everyone know that the cheques are in the mail. Now, I can’t think of a time I’ve ever used that expression. Course, I can think of few times where I’ve used cheques.

B

Apologies for what was a very long delay.  The daily excuses: For a few weeks I had to work to not fail my course (which meant rapidly catching up for many weeks lost to running the campaign!) and then I ventured into the Pacific Northwest forest for a brief surf trip.  But I’m back.

There’s some pretty solid coverage of the campaign and how it fits in the broader MBA-for-social-aims movement in the recent issue of McLean’s, a prominent Canadian news magazine.

Check it out here.

On thing the author got right: the money is going to EWB and MSF.  I just have to make sure I’ve double checked all the amounts and then fire off the donations.  I’m happy to share that Wayne Robertson, Executive Director of the Law Foundation of British Columbia, has agreed to review the process and report on it.  I’m hoping that Wayne’s involvement, which brings a great deal of expertise and credibility in legal and non-profit affairs, will satisfy people that the campaign is being resolved in a forthright, honest and transparent way.

I’ll post more on this in the next few days, as well as on some next steps and cool opportunities.

B

I’m excited that I got a chance to blog about the project on The Huffington Post.  You may or may not know about HP, but it’s big.  Very big.  Among my fellow bloggers in the last week?  Hillary Clinton.

100% pure awesome.

Also: Vancouverites, check out a copy of Metro tomorrow morning for an interview.

The attention is starting to pick up!

B

I’ve just thought of a pretty cool idea. If I manage to raise enough money to get to Oxford, not all of the donations will be needed for tuition right away. So I can invest in entrepreneurs overseas through Kiva.org until I need it for tuition. Longer if I can convince the folks at Oxford to let me pay tuition late. That would mean that potentially tens of thousands of dollars in small loans could be used to help people work their way out of poverty. And that, I think, is pretty cool.

Still haven’t checked out Kiva.org? Please do. I remember how hard some of my friends worked in Senegal to make their businesses succeed, for themselves and their families. With a loan, you can help people like them.

B

A couple people have suggested a stupid idea. A wonderful, crazy, stupid idea. To share the degree with everybody who has helped me get to Oxford.

I love it. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. But here is is:

To those who have helped me get to Oxford, I will send a piece of my degree afterward. Yes, an actual piece of the actual degree. I’ve calculated that I can cut an Oxford degree up into about 7000 3mm by 3mm pieces. Maybe more if I can use a particularly sharp blade to get smaller pieces (…I can just picture the nice people at Oxford thinking: he’s going to do what with our degree!?!). And I’ll send this out, with a letter of thanks, to people who have helped me get there.  I suspect popular bits might be parts of the Oxford logo, or course name.  Georges has already laid claim to part of the ‘B’ (and he gets to choose, because he’s helping me edit the next video right now).

The idea:

Step 1: Get degree (**This is obviously a fake I made.  I actually have no idea what a real degree from Oxford looks like.  And I couldn’t find one on google, which to be honest is a good thing.  There’s probably a lot more latin stuff on a real one)

Step2a: Cut degree.  For full satisfaction, I think I’ll start with the name.

Step 2b: Continue cutting.  I don’t think I’ll use my $1 ‘niceday’ scissors though.  I’ll need a laser-sharp cutter to get enough pieces.

Step 2c: End up with little tiny pieces.  The real pieces will be smaller than this.  Smaller and more authentic.

Step 3: Post the pieces off.  Yes, in England the post boxes look like funny little red mushrooms.

Why do I love this idea?  Getting to Oxford in September will be a result of thousands of people having the faith in me to help me get there.  There are some great ways to pay that back: keep the blog going full tilt during my studies so that people can experience some of the year with me, get feeedback on what courses to take, and what kinds of thesis topics are interesting.  But the most symbolic might be to send a piece of the actual degree to everybody.  I’ve even had a friend promise to frame her piece with toothpicks!

I’ve been humbled by a few pretty significant donations.  I’d like to encourage this type of behavior.  So a second offer: any company or generous individual who donates $500 or more will have their name or logo on the cover of my thesis.  Yep, I’m selling sponsorship of my thesis. There’s already two names on there: Paul Nielson and Tuitionbids.com.  But there’s room for a few more.

There you have it folks.  A massive thanks to the many so far, and two kinda stupid ideas.  What could be better?

Brendan

Want a piece of an Oxford degree? Just click on the shiny button below:

(if Paypal isn’t working for you, please let me know, or try another method)

(as has always been the case, if I don’t get there, all donations will be given to Engineers Without Borders and Medecins Sans Frontieres)

Sorry about the silence.  It doesn’t mean I don’t care!

There’s been some interesting news though.  Word of the campaign is spreading in odd ways.  It has spread back to Oxford, which has certainly helped (if anyone feels like bugging Oxford’s Said Business School about the project, pelase do!).  Another example: friends of mine got into a dinner conversation the other night: ‘did you hear about the guy raising MBA tuition from 30,000 people?’ somebody said.  My friends: ‘uhhh, yep, we know him!’

All of this is really quite encouraging.  Particularly when people and organizations just up and decided to get behind me.  Such is the case with tuitionbids.com.  They are a new website that seeks to fill a particular need of students by finding them the best student loans out there.  They’ve decided that, well, they understand how hard it can be to fund tuition and they like my unconventional approach.  So they’ve highlighted the campaign on their site, and offered to match the next $300 in donations!

While the path I have taken and the one tuitionbids.com facilitates with students are slightly different, I feel the underlying aims are the same.  It’s all about getting funding to the right people, as they seek the education to launch careers.  If my goal to get to $90K works, I won’t need help like that offered by tuitionbids.com.  But it would have been nice to have an them around about 7 years ago in Canada when I first dipped into student loans!  Whether spreading the word to thousands to ask for $3 or linking up students with the best rates on loans, life is getting slightly easier for students who seek to get the education to fulfill their dreams.

Brendan

Evening Folks,

Life has become very busy, all of the sudden.  Some exciting things are happening with the project, but nothing I can share just yet.  But I did want to share a couple of interesting finds:

Are you being as green as possible with your toilet paper?  Thankfully, I have.  I’m happy to report that brilliant minds have studied the issue of roll placement to best reduce paper waste.  I see a Nobel Prize coming…

Perhaps more seriously, Michael Valpy had a great series on Canada’s role on the world stage, in last weeks Globe and Mail.  His thoughts certainly echo some of mine.  Canada has some work to do.  Have a read.

I’ll be back soon with more, promise!

Cheers,
Brendan

I’m getting more than a few emails these days. Every time someone donates by Paypal I get an email notification. This is great, because it lets me reply and thank the donor (I’m a couple days behind, so if you’ve donated recently - have patience!).

My inbox is flooded even more because many people reply to that thank you, or send a note along with their donation. This is a good thing, please don’t stop! Such was the case with Martha Cass a few days ago:

” Hi Brendan - Thanks for the note. I wanted to let you know that $3 of our donation was from my six-year old son Ben. We saw the story in the National Post and he asked me what you were doing with the children in the picture. When I read him the story, he decided he wanted to dig into his piggy bank to send you the money. His father and I agreed to match his donation.

You talk a bit about how your generation can make a difference in the world. Remember that a big part of that is setting an example for the generation that follows yours. Thank you for setting a good example for our son.”

After getting a message like this, it’s hard to know what to say, or how to respond. So I took the easy route - explaining what was in the photo:

“We were working on promoting water pumps for irrigation and drinking water in Senegal. To do this, we’d install a pump in a village, show everyone how to use it, and then leave it for a month for them to try out. The idea was, if people perceived there to be a benefit, then they’d buy one from their neighbours, who we had trained to build the pumps. The pumps weren’t too expensive, and the overall philosophy was that if everyone along the chain sees a benefit, they will keep making, selling and using the pumps after the project ends.

When we set up pumps in a village, and the first water comes out, kids explode in excitement over to where the water is emerging from the pipes. Sometimes it’s hard not to join them, so that’s what I was doing.”

But a proper answer to Martha’s note would have continued:

I remember being a couple years older than Ben’s age, and seeing my mother walk into my school class with a milk carton around her leg and egg carton on her head. She had volunteered to do a session on recycling, part of a larger program to teach schoolkids to recycle. I remember being 90% mortified that my mom was wearing garbage on her head in front of my friends. But I was also 10% proud that my mom was, well, wearing garbage on her head in front of my friends.

Fast forward about twenty years. Local recycling participation rates hover around 90% in Vancouver. The programs that taught us recycling as kids are now seen as a success. What am I getting at? It’s not about the recycling. It’s about generational change. It’s about recognising the fact that systematic change takes time, and we need to anticipate this. It was nice for Ben to remind me that as hard as my generation works to fix some of our problems, it’s his generation that’s probably going to have to finish the job.

Brendan

I took a break from fundraising and thesis writing yesterday to head down to London for Canada Day. It was time to check back in with a large group of Canadians, have a Moosehead beer, and see a few hundred Canadian Flags. But perhaps more importantly, it was time to compete in their annual Trafalgar Cup road hockey tournament. It turned out to be more intense than I expected (and I have the bruises to show for it!). Or maybe I’m just worse at street hockey than I thought.  My excuse: I grew up in North Vancouver, at the top of a very long hill (if one of us missed the ball, they’d be chasing is a long ways!).  So all my street hockey skills were fostered on a 5 degree pitch.  Trafalgar Square is flat. Yep, that’s my excuse…

In the end, our team lost (and yes, lost badly!) in the finals to a team from London. Of course, all the players from all teams were Canadian, fueled by the nearby Tim Horton’s.  The only thing missing was a car to travel through the game every 10 minutes, requiring us to move the nets.  There’s a good writeup of the day, including documentation of my team’s trouncing in the Globe and Mail.

As alluded to on the front page, the 3bucksforbrendan campaign got some good coverage today, with an article in the National Post. I felt bad: the reporter, a nice woman called Katie Rook, had to try to finish our interview yesterday over the noise of a Canada Day celebration in the background, as I tried to find a quiet spot to talk. I guess this is fitting: if my plan to raise $90,000 works (and it seems it will), it’ll be because more than a few Canadians are behind me.

It looks like more media attention is on the way.  Thanks for the support, and stay tuned!

Brendan ‘third string street hockey player’ Baker