As a nonprofit professional, I spend a fair amount of my time at the office asking people and organizations for support. One of the great things about this is that a big part of my job is explaining why Barrel of Monkeys is such a worthwhile organization. I get to talk about our mission, the kids we work with, and the art we create. Increasingly, I do a lot of this over the internet as fundraising tools and mechanisms become more readily available online and people choose online interactions above more traditional communications.
One of the most interesting, in my opinion, developments (hee) in online fundraising is the many ways to raise money passively. Tools like igive and goodshop give a percentage of online shopping or search revenue to the charity you designate. Obviously we encourage you all to sign up with BOM as your charity of choice, but my larger point is that the internet has made it easier for people to support their favorite organizations even when they can not make a direct contribution. Instead a portion of the ad revenue or corporate profit goes to charity instead of to (for example) the search engines. Some of the ways you can support BOM passively are listed on the support page.
Today, for example, I ran across a new site called Everywun. You can choose from one of 46 charities (mostly national in scope) and display a badge on your facebook page or blog demonstrating your support of a specific charity or type of organization. My badge, not surprisingly in support of arts education, is after the jump. The principle of the site is that it can cost nothing to make the world a better place, and the site has a forum that anyone can participate in to discuss causes and ways to support them. The site just launched a few days ago, so it’s hard to tell yet if it will be successful, but I’m optimistic.
Of course, none of this can supplant or replace cash contributions entirely, but every little bit helps. Barrel of Monkeys, for example, has raised a couple hundred dollars from people using goodsearch.com instead of other popular search engines. While this doesn’t change our annual fundraising goals particularly dramatically, all the contributions add up over time. Ultimately I look forward to seeing how online initiatives like these grow and develop in the next few years.
In the meantime, if you are in a position to make a year-end donation to Barrel of Monkeys you may do so online. Every little bit helps, and we are continually grateful for the support of our community and fans.
On behalf of Barrel of Monkeys, the core group of sports fans IN Barrel of Monkeys, and pretty much anyone who enjoys encouraging anyone anywhere, I want to send out a huge shoutout to 16-year-old Eri Yoshida. That girl just became the first female professional baseball player ever. And I think that is totally rad.
Speaking of rad and baseball, there’s a pretty rad baseball story in That’s Weird, Grandma right now (see how I tied those together? That’s a college degree at work there, friends) about a kid going to see a White Sox game and meeting the players. We’re always in a sticky situation when we have to present actual well-known celebrities on stage, but I think we did a pretty good job with this one.
For instance, the kid met Jermaine Dye (played by Donnell):
He met Bobby Jenks (played by Curtis):
and he also met Frank Thomas (naturally, played by Tai):
Hey, Monkeys? Next year, when all the kids are writing about her, I’m calling all the Eri Yoshida parts RIGHT NOW.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of good cheer!
It’s December now, which means TWG is getting into full holiday mode. We’ve added two stories this week, both holiday favorites. First, of course, the song “The Time I At a Christmas Ball” which we trust is more dramatic than any of your holidays. We’ve also put in “A House”—you’ll want to keep track of all those elves!!
. . . I posted about the Cleveland Show since this afternoon, I’ll be performing in the third Monkey show of the school year, at our own Loyola Park after-school program. More on that later.
In the early days of November, Chicago was caught up in election fever. That whole week was kind of a blur, as are most of the photos from Cleveland. Rest assured, blurry times did not keep us from rocking the show.
This school has always given us a warm welcome . . .
It’s one of the schools featured in Collin Souter’sMeet the Monkeys documentary. At the end of this clip, former Principal Rockland says his famous words, “Is it wrong for a man . . . to love . . . a monkey?”
We even rehearsed at this school once upon a time, so we have a long tradition there.
The fall session of our after school program at Loyola Park is coming to a close. We’ve done things a little differently this year and are very happy with the results. We have 3 classes taught by two teachers for each class. 7-8 year-olds are schooled by Rachel and Joe with a lot of help from Caleb. Molly and Ricky are imparting all their knowledge on the 9-10 year-olds with Dixie’s super help. And the 11-13 year-olds get their learnin’ from Elizabeth and myself with tons of help from Sarah.
Obviously, the goals and the experience level of the kids change between each age group, but one thing that hasn’t changed is each child’s enthusiasm to write and perform. Every challenge they face is met with determination, positive energy and sometimes chaos!
Another big change this year: In the spring the oldest group will write and perform in their own show with a cast of professional Barrel Of Monkey actors and director. The bar is set pretty high for them, and they rise to the occasion every time.
To celebrate all the writing these mini-monkeys have done in the past 8 weeks, the Barrel of Monkeys are putting on a show. Come and check out these amazing authors today at 4pm at Loyola Park (1230 W Greenleaf). The kids will get some pizza and juice. You will get your minds blown by what these kids have written!
Does that sound a little too much like a challenge?
