It’s only been a few days since the big Pilot Program Announcement, and the support and encouragement has been coming in from all directions!

Chris Brogan and Derrick Kwa both gave us great writeups on their blogs, and our new Facebook group already has 19 members!

Still only 3 people in the forum, but I expect that will probably take a little longer to build up - if you be a part of our plotting and scheming, stop on by and say hi!

Finally, I’ve gotten emails of encouragement and offers of help from at least half a dozen other people who hadn’t even heard of the Drama Farm before two days ago. It’s great to know that we’ve got so much support already - and we really appreciate the help. Keep the emails coming - we want to hear what you think!

My Drama Farm Moo Cards arrived last week - a little too late to take them to Boot Camp, but exciting nonetheless!

Check them out:

You can see the rest of the photos, taken by the fabulous Ben Peoples, on my flickr page.

What do you think?

As promised, some more of my random ramblings as I sort through the whirling Boot Camp-induced tornado that is my brain.

When we last left our free-range dreamers, they were pondering this topic:

Find ways that doing what you do can help other people

Everyone always says that the best way to improve your own situation is to help others improve theirs - it’s sort of like networking karma.

Boot Camp was no different - in the welcome speech and the morning keynote, Darian Rodriguez Heyman and Ami Dar both talked about how using your resources to help the people around you will foster an attitude of cooperation and inspire others to help you with your own work. Darien even challenged everyone at Boot Camp to find two people they could help in some way over the course of the day - either by making connections, suggesting resources, or just sharing ideas. (I found my two!)

The thing that struck me the most about helping others, though, was in the Social Entrepreneurship workshop I went to. Rather than just helping other organizations in hopes of good karma bringing something back to them, Room to Read and GOOD Magazine have actually found a way to use what they’re already doing to help both their own organizations and each other’s.

When GOOD was ready to launch their magazine, they didn’t have the resources (or the desire) to conduct a $12 million direct mail campaign to find subscribers. Instead, they found some organizations with worthwhile causes - like Room to Read - and made a deal with them: Subscribers to the magazine would be given a choice of which of GOOD’s 12 nonprofit partners their subscription fee would be donated to in its entirety; in return for these donations, Room to Read (and the other nonprofit partners) would spread the word about the magazine to their existing base of supporters, encouraging them to subscribe to GOOD - in effect, getting a magazine subscription and giving a donation to Room to Read at the same time.

It’s a win-win situation: GOOD boosts their subscription base, thereby increasing their ad revenue (which is where they make their money), without spending $12 million to do it. At the same time, Room to Read gets even more donations, because their contributors are getting something tangible - a magazine subscription - rather than just a thank-you from the organization. By thinking about how what they were already doing could benefit other organizations, Room to Read and GOOD Magazine were able to join forces and make the most out of their combined resources.

So now I’m thinking, how could we do that with the Drama Farm? What would we be providing that might be of use to someone else? I’m still mulling over the possibilities - if you’ve got any thoughts on the matter, leave a comment - I’d love to hear your ideas!

So, I got back from Nonprofit Boot Camp at 8:00 last night, and my head is still spinning! It was almost 12 hours of fabulous workshops, keynotes, and chatting with other nonprofiteers, and now that it’s over I’m sorting through all of the new ideas and perspectives I’ve found. Here’s just a few of the big things I took away from it - I’m sure there will be more to come in the next few weeks, as I continue to ponder…

Make sure the nonprofit world is right for you

I went to three great workshops, all led by panels of amazing people, but the one that made the biggest impact on my fundamental plans for the Drama Farm was the Reality of Starting a Nonprofit workshop. Ninive Calegari of 826 Valencia (home of the fabulous Pirate Store, as well as many excellent writing and tutoring resources) strongly cautioned against rushing into becoming a nonprofit before exploring the many other options available to small organizations.

If all you’re looking for is the ability to receive tax-deductible donations, you should look into organizations that provide fiscal sponsorship. Basically, they extend the umbrella of their 501(c)(3) status to the organizations they sponsor, accepting tax-deductible donations on their behalf, and then passing the funds on to the supported organization. If you’re in San Francisco, take a look at Intersection for the Arts - they serve as fiscal sponsors of over 100 organizations in the Bay Area.

Another option is to have a fund set up somewhere like the San Francisco Foundation. People can donate money to the Foundation, earmarked for your organization. The money goes straight into your fund, and the Foundation then gives your organization grants out of that fund.

Ninive and the other panelists stressed how complicated the life of an organization can become once it incorporates as a nonprofit, and pointed out that many organizations may never need to. Other than tax-deductible donations for our contributors, the other major benefit the Drama Farm would get from becoming a nonprofit is that we wouldn’t have to pay income taxes - but until we actually have some income, maybe it’s not worth the hassle. So I’m pondering…

Use your Network!

Another thing that everyone stressed, in every workshop I attended, was using the power of your network. Here’s just a few of the key points:

• Ben Rattray of Change.org talked about empowering your network - making it easy and fun for your peers, friends and supporters to contribute to your organization - either by contributing money, getting involved, or just spreading the word to their own networks. Make them feel like part of the whole, and they’ll be more inclined to work for the betterment of the whole.
• John Killacky of the San Francisco Foundation talked about activating your network and cultivating relationships. Once you’ve got your idea nailed down, tell everyone you know. The more people who know what you’re doing, the more likely you are to find the people who are inspired about your plans and passionate about getting involved. Once you’ve found those people, keep in touch with them. Don’t just call on them when you need them - send them updates and progress reports; show them that their opinions and support are important to you, even when you don’t need something tangible from them.
• Jayson Morris of Room to Read talked about one way to activate your network - by creating a buzz list: ask your supporters to sign up, and when you’ve got something really important to spread the word about (the kickoff of a new fundraising campaign, an exciting new programming offer), send them an email. Even if there’s only 20 people on your buzz list at first, if every person on that list passes the word along to 10 of their friends, you’ve just increased awareness of your organization by 200 people! Just make sure not to abuse the list, or you might find yourself in their spam filters!

Find ways that doing what you do can help other people

I have a whole lot more to write about on this topic, but this post is already getting insanely long (there really is a lot of stuff whirling around in my head!) So, I’ll save this one for tomorrow - just to keep you in suspense! =)

I just ordered a box of Moo cards for the Drama Farm. If you haven’t been to moo.com yet, you must have a look - you can get a box of 100 mini-cards with up to 100 different images on the front! For now, we’ve got a collection of six theatrically-inclined chickens (all drawn by yours truly!), but I’m working on expanding the set for the next batch of cards we print. Hopefully these guys will arrive before Saturday, so I can take them to Nonprofit Boot Camp with me!

We’ll be setting up a CafePress store soon with lots of chicken gear for you to make your own - but in the meantime, check out the rest of the chickens on my flickr page, and let me know what you think. All input is greatly appreciated!

Chris Brogan recently started a group called the Grasshoppers Network, and I jumped on board immediately - the purpose of the group is “to connect a network of people who seek to help others, in lots of ways: help people find jobs, contribute to social causes, share resources. You decide.” It’s a pretty amazing thing - it’s only been a few weeks, and at last count the group had 364 members; in the 3 weeks since I joined, I’ve helped a musician find retail outlets for his children’s safety songs CDs, learned about easy ways to donate a little money and make a big difference, and gotten a great business plan template from a pretty cool blogging mom.

Chris’ suggestion on how to be helpful this week:

“This week, at least twice, spend a moment of your time promoting someone else. Do your best to tell someone else about a friend or colleague of yours that you admire, and that you feel deserves more attention. Use your blog or podcast or email or LinkedIN or whatever to get the message out there.”

Chris is great about promoting others. If he thinks you’ve got something good - be it a business, a talent, or an idea - he spreads the word to everyone he knows, and makes a special effort to connect you to people who might be interested. Derrick Kwa took his suggestion to heart, and was kind enough to promote the Drama Farm on his blog today. I’ve mentioned him before in passing, but I want to take a minute to single Derrick out, because I’ve been just as inspired by him as he says he is by me.

Derrick is 17 years old and has chosen to leave the formal education system and embark on his own journey through other forms of learning. Far from being the “quitter” that he says many people see him as in Singapore, he’s more interested in learning what he wants and needs to learn for himself than he is in completing the courses and exams he’s “supposed” to take. He has some great thoughts on formal vs. informal education, and on finding your own path through life - if you’re interested in making your own decisions and choosing the path that’s right for you, I’d definitely encourage you to check out his blog.

The goal is to promote at least two people this week, so I’ll write another post in a few days introducing you to another amazing person (all those people up there at the top of the post you get as freebies!). In the meantime, think about the amazing people you know, and tell someone else about them - it’ll give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. And consider joining the Grasshoppers - the more talented people we have looking to help, the more good we can do!

I just signed up for Nonprofit Boot Camp - it’s a one-day conference organized by the Craigslist Foundation, with exhibits, seminars and workshops about starting and running a non-profit organization. Boot Camp SF is in Berkeley on Saturday, August 18th, but there’s also one in New York in September, and I think they’re working on holding them in several other cities in the next year or so. If you’re interested in going, you can check out the event and workshop schedules, and you can register for it here.

While you’re at it, check out the Craigslist Foundation’s nonprofit resources page - they’ve got tons of great information and networking tools to get you started in the world of nonprofiteering!

If you do decide to go to Boot Camp SF, drop me a line and maybe we can meet up in between workshops!

Oh, and a big thanks to Katy and slowe for pointing me towards all this cool stuff!

I just spent a great weekend in Mendocino with a bunch of friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in almost a year. As we chatted and caught up on each other’s lives, I got a lot of questions about what I’ve been working on lately - and I found I didn’t really know how to tell them. The Drama Farm is such a unique, out-there idea - how do you explain it in terms better than “this crazy theatre internship idea I have”, without taking over the conversation for 10 minutes?

There are a lot of great resources out there to help you write an elevator pitch (also known as a 15-second pitch) - basically, the idea is to have a brief overview of your venture that hits all the key points, but is short enough to tell someone about in the space of an elevator ride - ideally, 15-30 seconds. I’ve read through a lot of them, and I’ve been tossing ideas around in my head for a while, but I hadn’t really come up with the right words yet - which left me sort of sputtering and sounding clueless anytime anyone asked about what I was doing.

So, I spent some time this weekend trying to figure out how to explain the basic idea of this project to someone who knows nothing about it, without telling them everything about it. My problem is that all the concepts I want to use to explain the Drama Farm end up needing explanations of their own: it’s a theatre internship based on informal learning, but no one knows what informal learning is; it’s a professional-level theatre production with the safety net of an educational environment, but how is that different from a college theatre production?

After giving it some serious thought, here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

“It’s a semester-long theatre internship program. We’d take two dozen students, give them a professional director, a script, a budget, and all the resources they need, and let them at it. They’d make all the decisions and do all the planning, but with a staff of advisors there to guide them when they needed it.”

It’s definitely a work in progress, but what do you think so far? Does it make sense? If you knew nothing about the project - or even really about theatre education - would you get the idea? Better yet, would you be excited by it? Tell me what you think!

As I work on this project more and more, it’s really starting to hit me how many different skills it takes to start something like this. I know a lot about the theatre production end of things, and a good bit about teaching and mentoring, but I could really use someone to talk to who knows about promotion. And fundraising. And nonprofit law. I’m not ready to actually move forward on any of these things yet, but oh for someone to discuss them with…

That got me thinking about Chris Brogan, who I met last year when he wrote a post (which I can’t seem to find now) on his blog, putting out a call for superheroes to join his ever-expanding network of Go-To Guys. What stuck with me from Chris’ post was that everyone has a super power of some sort - something they’re really really good at, often without anyone even knowing it. You may not be the superhero who’s going to save the world, but even Jimmy Olsen had a few super powers of his own.

I know most of you out there reading are theatre folk, but I also know that you’ve all got other super powers too - some that you use in your theatre work, and some that no one would ever know about unless they asked. So, I’m asking - what’s your super power? Mine’s organizing stuff. Lots of stuff. With spreadsheets and timetables and 47 people who need to be doing 93 different things in the next 24 minutes. Might you have need of my powers someday? Maybe we can trade!

Even if you don’t think your powers would be useful here, leave a comment and tell me what they are, or email me if you’d rather - I want to hear from you! I’m thinking of starting a Little Black Book of Superheroes for myself - first five people in it get a cookie!