Interview with Laura Domineau Boyle about Saving Angels

Today’s spotlight is on SAVING ANGELS charitable organization. We interviewed it’s founder and president, Laura Domineau Boyle about her work. Laura Boyle is a Massachusetts resident and college student who single handedly started an organization to help orphanages hurt by the earthquake.

Charitable Portal (CP) – Laura Boyle (LB)

Charitable Portal: Can you tell us about Saving Angels and how it started?

Laura Boyle: Saving Angels is a non-profit organization that started in wake of the Haiti Earthquake. We provide tangible items to orphanages in Haiti that have been affected by the disaster.

CP: When did you start your charity and what made you create it?

LB: I started it in January 2010. I was completely taken aback by the news reports of the earthquake. The damage and turmoil it caused was unbelievable. I was especially affected by a news report of an orphanage being horribly damaged and seeing photos and video of the staff and children forced to sleep outside. I immediately knew I had to do something to help. At the time, no major organizations were accepting clothing, food, or supply donations, just money. I wanted to find a way to directly help the children involved in the quake. I contacted several orphanages in Haiti directly, and they were all desperate for supplies. Due to the earthquake, many stores in Haiti where orphanages would buy items from were destroyed. The organizations sent me lists of products they needed the most. I knew I had to find a way to help, and started a local campaign to assist them.

CP: How did you get the word out?

LB: It actually started through Facebook. I sent out a mass email to everyone on my friend’s list asking for assistance. I posted the list of supplies that I was gathering: non-perishable food, diapers, formula, baby and children’s clothing, liquid vitamins, etc. People were very eager to donate. I also posted to local FreeCycle groups. FreeCycle is a nationwide organization that encourages people to “recycle” items they no longer want. Instead of throwing out, say, clothing or a TV, you can post a message on FreeCycle’s message board seeing if anyone in your community would like to take it off your hands. I asked if anyone had baby and children’s items they would like to donate to survivors of the earthquake and the response there was overwhelming. I was driving throughout the Boston area picking up children’s clothing, shoes, non-perishable food items, diapers, bottles and lots of other items that people wanted to donate.

CP: How did you get the items to Haiti?

LB: After sorting and packing the items for the appropriate organization, I send them to the orphanage’s headquarters. The main three orphanages I have been assisting have main offices in the US. It’s pretty tricky to ship to Haiti, and the custom fees are very, very high. A couple of these orphanages have been assisted by companies who donate the use of small private planes to get shipments over there. They also send donations over in bulk, in crates.

CP: What has been the response from the orphanages?

LB: They are so, so grateful. I’ve gotten the nicest thank you letters, telling me how much this has helped them. They keep me updated on everything they need, which I in turn post to our website www.MySavingAngels.org .

CP: How do you pay for shipping costs? Do you accept financial donations?

LB: All shipping costs I pay myself, out of pocket. No, I don’t accept financial donations. As of right now my main goal is to focus strictly on collecting supplies. In the future I plan on doing fundraisers, but I’m waiting to be approved through the IRS as a recognized non profit. I have approval from Massachusetts and Saving Angels is a registered entity.

CP: It’s very expensive to start a charity.

LB: Yes, it is, and going in that was a huge shock. But as I’m sure you know there are reasons for the high start up and registration costs, and it really helps weed out potential fraud.

CP: What is Saving Angel’s long term goal?

LB: To continue doing exactly what we are doing, but on a larger level. I plan on expanding and assisting orphanages in other third world countries. Starting this organization has opened my eyes so much. There are thousands of orphanages in need, especially in third world countries. Many receive little or no financial support from the government, and rely on private donations. Children are the most vulnerable members of society, and I want to do everything in my power to assist those in need any way I possibly can.

CP: What type of items do most of the orphanages request, or is it different for each organization?

LB: While there may be slight differences, the Haitian Orphanages are always in need of diapers, formula, infant and children’s medicine such as Tylenol, and liquid vitamins. Vitamins are crucial. Haiti is extremely poverty stricken and a great number of babies and children suffer from malnutrition. Liquid vitamins can really help a child’s health, and are one of the harder, more expensive items to collect. There is a full list I have compiled and combined on our website.

CP: Do you have a career outside of running Saving Angels?

LB: I’m actually a straight ‘A’ college student, studying Broadcast Journalism with plans to work as a news anchor or reporter. I also do promotional modeling part time.

CP: How can people find more information about Saving Angels and how can they help?

LB: You can visit our website www.MySavingAngels.org or email me at MySavingAngels@gmail.com . As I mentioned, there is a list on our website of items they orphanages need, and I can provide you information on how to send them directly to the organization.

CP: Do you have any closing comments?

LB: I’d just like to remind people that as time passes, and the news stops covering the Haiti Earthquake, not to forget about it. It’s been almost five months but rebuilding has just begun and the devastation is still unimaginable. While it is no longer a front page story, do not let it go to the back of your mind. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, and they need all the help and support they can get. Orphanages are taking in thousands of babies and children who lost their families in the quake. There are so many ways to help. They need us.

For more information on Saving Angels please visit www.mysavingangels.org or email Laura at mysavingangels@gmail.com .

Thank you, Laura Boyle and keep up the amazing and inspiring work

Charity Search Engines

Everyone who’s on the internet uses search engines to find the information that they needed. The massive amount of search engine users makes it a natural vessel for businesses and individuals who want to promote their website through advertisements.

Over the past few years, several social-minded search engines have taken to donating a share of their ad revenues to various charitable organizations.

The search engine charity movement has resulted in various search engines targeted at different charities and geographic locations. This article is the largest online collection of all the charity-based search engines currently available on the internet.

How should I use a charity search engine and how does it work?

You should use a charity search engine as you would normally use other search engines like Google or Yahoo. These search engines make money by displaying advertisements alongside your search results.

The more you search, the more the search engines earn and the end result is that more money goes to a designated charity. All of the charity search engines listed here offer a minimum of 30% of their ad revenues with some of them offering 70 to 100% of whatever they earn from advertising.

A rough monetary estimate: Most charity search engines will donate approximately $0.01 cents per search to charity.

How does a charity search engine help me make money online?

They don’t. But a charity search engine helps other people and organizations in need and is a great way to send some money out by doing what you already do everyday.

Besides, practicing generosity leads to general good karma, which will help you to be rich and financially successful in the future. OK, you don’t have to believe in that. =)

Dosh Dosh’s list of 15 Search Engines that help you donate to Charity

I came across charity search engines by accident after discovering that some visitors came to Dosh Dosh from GoodSearch, one of the search engines listed below. My interest was piqued and I’ve spent some time scouring the internet for information on charity search engines.

To the best of my knowledge, there are only 14 search engines which have openly declared that they will be donating proceeds to charity. If you know of other charity search engines, please leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list.

During my research, I’ve discovered that no one has ever made a full record of all the various charity search engines around. I think its about time that somebody put up a list because its really an excellent cause one should support.

Please feel free to spread the word so everyone can learn more about the various charity search engines available online.

Edward Norton launches a charity website Crowdrise + interview

So, how does this work? It all starts with the profile. Then you start campaigning by setting up a fundraiser or volunteer project. Choose from more than one million charities on the site or by creating your own project. Then post your projects on your profile and start to collect sponsors or volunteers by what else ... going viral. Ask all your friends from other sites to join you in your crusade to make a difference. If you've ever participated in a fundraising walk, it's a similar process.

Feature photos, videos and testimonies on your page to create interest. Even if you don't have a cause of your own, you can still help pull in money to support your favorite organizations by putting a Crowdrise promotionon your page.

With all this giving back, maybe you want a little something for yourself? Crowdrise uses a point system to reward top earners and doers. For each vote from a community member, you get 100 points, 10 points per dollar raised through donations and 10 points per dollar donated by you. Top earners win prizes like MacBooks and gift cards. Instilling a little competition never hurt anyone especially not when the goal is to help.

Celebrities have already been joining in on the fun. Will Ferrell is offering up his Sexy Hot Tan sunscreen to help fund college scholarships for cancer survivors, Seth Rogan is Kicking Alzheimer's in the Ass, fighting malaria and supporting a theater company, while Kristen Bell is helping out Invisible Children, Dress for Success and more.


Talking Charity and Sunscreen With Edward Norton

Edward Norton is best known for hard-hitting turns in cult-classic films like Fight Club and American History X, but he recently took a brief break from butt-kicking to launch Crowdrise.com, a social networking site that helps users raise money for the causes they care about. (Think of it as a super socially-conscious version of Facebook.) Crowdrise is shaping up to be as star-studded as Twitter, with Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and Elizabeth Banks all creating pages to raise money for their favorite charities. PopEater caught up with Norton to talk about his new venture, his charitable life and why he may help Will Ferrell's cause, but he won't use his patented "sexy" sunscreen.

Congratulations on your new site! What inspired you to create Crowdrise?
It was a couple of things. One was that I had been looking for an easier way to be able to quickly share with a lot of people something that I was making a fund-raising pitch on. I'm involved with a lot of organizations and causes, and I would find that I would want to let a lot of people know about something in a way that was better than just an e-mail blast and there wasn't a really easy and good tool for doing that. We realized we could just build this ourselves and put it out there for people to use.

It's really cool to see a social networking site used for great causes instead of just procrastinating at work. How does Crowdrise work exactly?
Crowdrise works in a way that will be very familiar to anyone who uses Facebook or Twitter or MySpace. It's very interactive. It's very flexible and it's very user-friendly. Individuals and groups and even big organizations can set up pages on Crowdrise to let other people on the Web know about their causes and they can link their efforts together and ask for donations. It's the kind of thing where you can design your own presence on it within like 15 minutes. Most social networking, just like you said, it's a way for people to say, "Here's what I am. Here's what I'm doing." All we wanted to add to that was, "Here's what I care about and here's what I'm trying to contribute to." We wanted to make it really, really easy for individuals to support organizations and causes that they care about, and we wanted to make it really easy for organizations to get their existing base of supporters to become fundraisers for them. If you're an organization that was raising $100,000 a year and you get everyone who was donating $100 to raise $1,000, suddenly you're getting a million dollars a year. It's an incredible multiplying effect.

As one of your celebrity supporters, Jonah Hill, put it: "Crowdrise uses an incredibly non-abrasive technique to get lazy people to do something good while putting out very minimal effort."
I 100 percent agree. I would say that two of my ultimate test cases on whether this site was easy enough for the average dude who doesn't do very much fund-raising to use were Jonah and Seth Rogen. I ran into Seth last night and he was like, "That was ridiculously easy." He goes, "It took me, like, 7.2 minutes," and he set up this really funny page for something he really cares a lot about, which is the effort to battle Alzheimer's. If Seth Rogen can set his page up in 15 minutes and come back to me and say, "It's awesome and it's easy and I'm raising money," then I think we've done it.

You have a lot of really funny celebrities up and running at Crowdrise, including Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd and, of course, Will Ferrell, who is selling his patented sunscreen to benefit Cancer For College, which gives scholarships to cancer survivors.
It's great to have them on the site. On our main page, under our heading, it says, "If you don't give back, no one will like you." You can see that we're all doing this with a smile. Will's page -- that's a good one.

Have you used his sunscreen, "Sexy Hot Tan"?
No, I have not. I'm afraid it would make me pale and hairy like Will. If you're already pale and hairy, then I wouldn't worry. But if you're not, it might be problematic.

Crowdrise gives users "points" when they participate or donate or "vote" for each other. Last we checked, you were the top points-getter with over 130,000 points!
Really? I would have thought Glen Hansard would have been way up there. Glen Hansard raised like $43,000 on his page.

You and Glen (the singer and Oscar-winning star of the movie Once) are doing a really cool thing, raising money to get the Maasai people of Kenya a truck.
Glen had come out to Kenya with me and seen this area where we're doing this work with the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust and he was really inspired by it, and he heard that they needed a truck and he generally loves Land Rovers and he said, "Oh, I'll buy the truck," and I said, "Oh that's so nice. But you can't afford to just throw down for a truck -- you're a folk singer!" And he was like, "Oh, right." So I said, "Why don't we do some concerts to benefit it and set this up on Crowdrise and put this out to your fans and stuff." He's done this very dynamic thing and raised $43,000 and he's on his way to the $70,000 they need for the truck.

Will your acting ever take a backseat to your charitable work?
I guess it ebbs and flows. This year, I've been really busy with this kind of stuff, but one of the nice things about my day job is that it's not a 9 to 5 job and it's sort of fluid and lets me work on a project like Crowdrise and engage with it for a few months.

You've created a social networking site and you're on Twitter, but we read on your Twitter feed that you spent a month in Indonesia without your cell and computer. Do you have a love-hate relationship with technology?
I do, at times, feel a little bit shackled to it and that's my own fault. I would love my computer more if I worked on it less and watched movies on it more, you know what I mean? I think my problems are not the technology -- they're my own "workaholism." That said, the only way I can go right now in my life to Indonesia for a month and have a pretty good time is that I have a BlackBerry with me so that I can sort of manage some situations from afar. So even though I do feel shackled to it, sometimes it does give me a little bit more freedom to be able to go away.

What's the best part of giving back and being able to create a site like Crowdrise?
It's a great feeling to achieve something that's not about yourself, either you've done something that's a benefit to your community or helped figure out some of the solutions to an issue, like environmental sustainability or whatever -- that's all great. For me, selfishly, it pulls me out of the narrow scope of my own world and gets me involved in things where I am just learning a lot. I think the times you feel most alive are when you're learning something new. I've never wanted to do the same thing all the time -- I find it dull. The things I engage in kind of open up my life into totally interesting chapters and people and places I really would not have ever expected I would end up walking around in. It just makes life more interesting.