Lights, Camera, Action Groups!

December 14, 2009

Are you a member of an Action Group?  If so you are part of a long-standing grassroots movement in America.

Action Groups are one of the best ways to get involved in your community and your government.  Action Groups can make amazing things happen.  They are like the small businesses of the Non-Profit world.

There are several different kinds of action groups.  Here are a few:

  • Political Action Groups
  • Community Action Groups
  • Consumer Action Groups
  • Education Action Groups
  • Social Action Groups
  • Environmental Action Groups

Wikipedia says action groups are “a group of people joined temporarily to accomplish some task or take part in some organized collective action.”  They are generally formed because a couple of people were talking about an issue, and somebody said “We oughtta do someting about this!”

All it takes to start one of these groups is an idea and some passion.  Give it a good dose of leadership and coordination, and soon enough it turns into a cause.  Action groups have even been known to make such big changes happen that it evolved into a “social movement.”  The point… action groups can be amazing organizations, created by ordinary people.

In many cases the action group is only together long enough to accomplish a specific goal and then it disbands.  Some examples of these short term goals are…

  • Clean up a neighborhood.
  • Elect a candidate into office.
  • Raise money for a sick child’s medical bills.
  • Plan an eco-adventure trip for a large group.
  • Encourage a local politician to draft a new policy.
  • Establish a non-profit organization.

People who join these groups do so because they care deeply about the cause and desire change strongly enough to do something about it.  They do not get paid for their participation, but they do get the satisfaction of being part of a cause for change.  As humans, we find this far more rewarding than money.

One of the most well known Action Groups is Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).  Candy Lightner founded MADD almost thirty years ago, when her daughter was killed by a drunk driver who was out on bail.  MADD is a huge success story in the non-profit sector, and has a long list of major accomplishments.

Some other well-known action groups are Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), and American Association of Retired People (AARP).

Not all action groups get as big as these.  In fact, most action groups are just small groups of local people who want to get something specific done.  For example an action group can be created to clean up your local park or even get a traffic light installed at a nearby dangerous intersection.  Pick up any local newspaper and you’re likely to find one or more examples of groups of people coming together to accomplish some goal.  In fact, check out the Grouvia twitter feed for almost daily examples of the numerous accomplishments of local groups across the country.

Becoming part of an Action Group couldn’t be simpler.  If you know of one that has a cause you care about, simply email the organizer and tell them you want to help.  If you’re really passionate about something and you can’t find a local group about it, start your own Action Group.  It only takes a few people to create a catalyst to make major changes in your environment.  You’ll be amazed at how much you can do, and so glad you took that first step.

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia

The Successful Club Part 3 – Dealing With Failure

September 8, 2009

This week I want to get back to my Successful Club series.

When I wrote Part 2 of the series a few weeks ago, we were pursuing a vegetable exchange club idea.

My analysis?

Basically the idea didn’t work.  I got no responses from the Craigslist ad I posted on that Tuesday.  Not one.

So being the impatient person I am, I deleted it after a few days and put up a different one.  This time, instead of putting it in the Farm and Garden section I put it in the Free Stuff section.

I also changed the message slightly.  Sometimes more information is not better, so I removed some details, toned it down, made it sound more casual. I also added a picture of vegetables.

Still nothing.

I went to my Freecycle groups and asked them if I could post my ad there and they both said No.  Freecycle doesn’t allow trading, it has to be completely free.  Ok, I respect that.  One of the moderators pointed me to another local Yahoo! group that does allow these types of ads, so I joined that group and posted the ad.

I got two responses: one was from a lady who didn’t have vegetables but had lots of flower seeds, and another was from a lady who wanted to know if I got any responses.

It seemed to me that it would be better to cut my losses and move on.  So that’s what I did.  Here are a few possible reasons this effort failed:

  1. What I was offering was not interesting or compelling (badly written ad copy).
  2. I was not reaching the right people (poor choice of media outlets).
  3. Because of the economy everybody is hording their vegetables (bad timing).
  4. The club doesn’t have enough perceived value for people (bad idea).

If you can think of any others, definitely let me know.  In the meantime I have 20 tomatoes sitting on my kitchen table, a dozen more ripening in the backyard, and a recipe for freezable tomato soup I found online.

I think the big lesson learned from this exercise is that not every idea is a good idea, and it’s better to test your idea first than to go whole hog into something just to find out you’ve wasted your time.

It took me more time to write these articles about the experience than it did to come up with the idea and test the market.  I did get something very valuable out of it, I hope you did too.

On a brief side note… I recently joined a couple of local networking clubs.  One of them is every Wednesday at a local chain restaurant and I attend that regularly.  Some of the folks there have expressed an interest in Grouvia, both for the networking group itself as well as other groups they belong to.  So I think if I had something like Grouvia to promote my vegetable sharing club I might have had a slightly better chance at getting folks to join.

I think next week I’ll tell you a little more about these networking clubs, how they work and why I attend them.

Lisa

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia

What the Heck is a Grouvia Group?

August 26, 2009

I’m taking a short hiatus from the “Successful Club” series, but will get back to that in a future post.

In the meantime, I want to talk about groups.  Whenever I talk with someone about Grouvia I will invariably ask them what groups they belong to.  Many times I get kind of a puzzled look, and I have to explain.

What is a group?

Merriam-Webster defines a group as “a number of individuals assembled together or having some unifying relationship”. I would take this a little further and state: “a group is two or more people who share a particular interest and get together to discuss or take part in activities related to that interest.”

So… What is a Grouvia Group?

A “Grouvia Group” is a group (as defined above) who uses Grouvia.com to engage members, promote the group’s goals, and communicate with members and the public about the activities and events the group is taking part in.

Essentially, the general term “group” focuses on the gathering aspect, whereas a Grouvia Group focuses on communication and promotion of the group as a collection of diverse people with a common set of goals.

Examples of Groups

Everybody belongs to a number of groups.  Your family is a group, your team at work is a group, your church is a group, and your neighborhood is a group.  There are also PTAs and HOAs and the ASPCA.  You might also belong to a cycling group or a running group or a hiking group.  Maybe you’re interested in politics and you belong to a political action group or a local community action group.  Some of these groups are forever, some of them are short term.  In essence, any number of people who “gather”, either physically or online, to participate in activities surrounding a particular interest, hobby, or goal, form a group.  All of these groups are supported and helped by Grouvia.

Come visit us at Grouvia.com and see what all the fuss is about. In the meantime, I would love to hear your comments and feedback!

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia

The Successful Club Part 2 – Testing the Idea

August 11, 2009

Last week I wrote about where to find people who have the same interests as you in your community. The premise is that even a small handful of people, once you find them, can form an informal club to discuss topics you are all passionate about, or do activities you all like to do.

Last week we used a “pretend-person” as an example — Janet the busy Mom who loves to cook. This week we’re going to find an actual group of people who have something in common and see if we can get them together. Since I have some monster tomato plants in my backyard that have more tomatoes than I could possibly eat or give away, I think I’d like to get some people together to swap backyard-grown vegetables. I’d like to add a charitable component to this to make it more appealing to people to be a part of this.  So we will expect every participant to donate some portion of their inventory to a local soup kitchen. Honestly, I just came up with this off the top of my head. It helps our group and it helps the local community. Can’t get any better than that. So let’s be brave and give it a go, shall we?

First I go to Craigslist and search on “vegetables” under the general “for sale” category. There I see a handful of ads from people selling fresh local vegetables under the “farm and garden” category. So that’s the specific category where I’ll post my ad. I want to catch people’s eye so I’ll put the word “FREE” in the title, something like “FREE local vegetables – Local Backyard Gardener Swap.” The ad will state the following:

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Do you have a surplus of vegetables in your backyard garden? So do I! Let’s get together and swap vegetables during this upcoming harvest season, and we’ll each get something we want but don’t have.

Limit 10 people.

We will meet at a public place (like a school parking lot) -  TBD but probably somewhere in DT Fred.

Once per week, at a time convenient for everyone (or as many of us as possible).

“Equal” trades are informally agreed to with each swapper you deal with.

What it costs – you will donate some small portion of your vegetables to a community organization such as a local soup kitchen or church. I will take all of the collected donations to the charity and get a receipt to display at the following week’s swap.

NO SELLING ALLOWED! This is for swapping only. If you don’t have vegetables you can bring any other outdoor produce such as herbs or fresh cut flowers.

One other caveat… if you have sprayed your produce with a pesticide, you MUST be willing to divulge this information to anyone who shows an interest in your produce.

Reply to me via the Reply link on this post if you’re interested.  I’ll respond to every inquiry.

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I also belong to the local Freecycle group, but I know some chapters don’t allow swapping, only giveaways. So I’ll have to check the rules of my local chapter before I can post there. I could also print a simple flyer and tack it up at some of the local community bulletin boards in grocery stores and churches, if I really wanted to go that far. But let’s see what the Craigslist ad brings first.  If I don’t get much interest I could explore other avenues, or even try something different.

Next week, Part 3.  Stay tuned!

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia