Responsible Fundraising

Consider yourself an avid reader? Have you considered going digital? There are some out there that may never be able to read a book on a computer or screen, but more and more people are taking up e-readers or getting their news from the web.

There is a class of products called e-readers that is driving the switch to digital media.  Most notable in this category is the Amazon Kindle. Equipped with an e-ink display, enough storage for 200 titles, wireless delivery of content over the Sprint wireless network, the ability to receive documents in various formats via email, and access to hundreds of thousands of titles, it is the front-runner in the e-reader market.

Buying a device to consume digital media does raise the question of if you are generating unneeded e-waste, and the Amazon product page for the Kindle does not list any environmental data related to the manufacture of the device. You can lessen the impact of this purchase buy buying used. That way you aren’t creating demand for new electronics and could conceivably be preventing it from eventually (years from now) ending up in a landfill.

The runner up in this arena would most likely be the Sony Reader Digital Book. It also utilizes an e-ink display and is able to read Google ebooks, which are a collection of over 500,000 public domain books.

Read a lot of magazines? You can use the Read Green Initiative to read your magazines online. Their magazines include
Popular Science, Car and Driver, and Elle, among many others. They even have an introductory offer of a free one year subscription a magazine of your choice.

http://goreadgreen.com/new-home/

It is officially HOT in Dallas! Most days this week have a high in the 100’s and unfortunately, it isn’t going to cool down any time soon.

Step outside most anywhere and you will hear the hum of air conditioning units chugging away. Most of these units are running less than efficiently because of either being outdated or they are working to cool a house that is poorly insulated, air is being blown through leaky ducts, or other parts of the house or building are harboring heat. In our previous post entitled “Passive Solar,” we covered ways to reduce your energy usage and increase your energy efficiency in your home. There are also other ways to help cut your energy bills and reduce your energy consumption. Some of these involve insulating your house better, removing heat from your attic, and making sure A/C is making it through your ducts.

Improving your insulation is a no-brainer, especially in older homes that may not have had much in the first place. An important thing to look for and consider is the R-Value. The higher this value, the better a material insulates.

Also, as much as 20 percent of air that is pumped through ducts is lost through leaks. DIY duct sealing is possible with mastic or metal tape. Contractors can also easily handle the job for you.

And to keep your system from working harder than it needs to, work on dropping the temperature in your attic. Removing a large pocket of sometimes greater than 120 degree air will allow your insulation and a/c to do their jobs better. Installing more soffit vents, making sure the ones you have are clear of debris, installing solar attic vent fans, radiant barriers and ridge vents can all make a huge difference.

We received a great letter today from The Modernettes baton twirling troop. They dropped a letter in with their shipment to let us know that they won gold in the World Championship in Belgium! They wrote, “We took gold in Belgium for baton twirling (1st place) and took 2nd place (for the first time competing) for Pompoms. This is our 6th World Championship.”

Congratulations Modernettes! We are proud to be a part of your success! For more information on The Modernettes, visit their website at http://www.modernettes.org/

If you have rechargable batteries to recycle, and don’t happen to be sending us a shipment, check out Earth911 for battery recycling drop-off locations. Visit this site for more info on battery types and their effects on the environment.

Great video from the Village Bike Project:

Here at Phoneraiser, we like to think of what we do as “social entrepreneurism.” The general idea behind that term is starting a company that is entrepreneurial but also serves the greater good. We take in e-waste that would otherwise be thrown in landfills and then write a check to the organizations that spent the time collecting these items. Another example is our partnership with The Chiapas Project called Recycle to Eradicate Poverty. If you would like to recycle your phone and don’t care to get any money back from it, you can donate it and fund microfinance loans in Latin America. Generally, social entrepreneurism applies to for-profit companies, but since there is no hard and fast definition, it can be used for organizations like the Village Bike Project. It is an innovative way to give people transportation and access to markets, healthcare, etc. and per the video they even have a for-profit venture in Ghana to pay for the shipping of the bikes.