John was the sole survivor in a tornado touchdown that ripped his wife and three-month old daughter, Olivia, from his hands. John was actually carried up and through the roof of what remained of his home.

Chris decided to set up a fund to collect donations for John to cover his medical costs and memorial services for his family.

The experiment portion of this was simple. I decided to tweet it out to some of my most popular friends on Twitter. I also publicly appealed to friends on Twitter to please retweet the tweet. The idea was to generated as much awareness of this as possible. So when John awoke from his critical condition, he would see that his community, our community, was here. We were.

In just over two weeks we have collectivley recieved more than $15,000! That is what true social media is all about. This is how we can use this for good.

Let’s tweet a little less about Ashston and Oprah, and a little more about causes we should be particiapting in.

Have you seen a good example of micro-philanthorpy lately? Tell us about it please.

Here’s a closer look at the presentation slides. Cheers.

BarCamp Nashville

It was incredible to reconnect with so many awesome people, and it was equally great to meet loads of new folks. BarCamp continues to draw people together from every walk of life, all with technology in their hearts and heads.

The talented speakers really ran the gamut, I wish I could have attended more sessions. Instead, I kept finding myself caught up in deep conversations in the halls over coffee and drinks (thanks Sitening).

Speaking of drinks, it was fantastic to hang out with so many friends afterward at Mulligan’s, Hard Rock Cafe, Robert’s and Layla’s. I don’t get out much at night, so it was a blast catching up over beverages other than coffee and juice.

My presentation (which I will post here soon) included a mission to ask our friends at BarCamp and beyond to help a school teacher pay $411 for alphabet literacy packs for her high poverty Pre-K2 class. I am thrilled to announce that together we met our goal. I sincerely want to thank everyone who contributed:

Kathleen Kirby
Rex Hammock
The UTP Corporation
Timothy Choate
Cyber Star
Allen Fuller
Gavin Richardson
SEO by the Sea
Beth Kanter
Scott Monty
Scot Justice
Kevin Mason
Cyclonic Consulting
Jeffrey Sass
Lizzie Keiper
Michael Bertoldi
Bill Seaver
Tanglewood Ventures
Robert Henley
Christian Grantham
Connie Crosby
Dana Franks
Shanna Zannini
Joshua Smith
L. Enterprises, LLC
30 Days to Business
Holly Morgan
Cian O’Donovan
Stephen Horton
Meredith Bennett
James Webster
Caleb Garner
C.C. Chapman
20-Something Marketing Forum
David Barger

Together we proved that micro-philanthropy is possible. I hope we all learned how we can use microblogs like Twitter for the greater good. Special thanks to the folks who were kind enough to retweet my (and other’s) requests to help make my mission a success.

The total amount needed was $411.00 and I received $466.00, we exceeded our target by 12%. Unfortunately, PayPal charged $23.76 in service fees. I’d love to hear suggestions on how to bypass service fees for philanthropic missions like this in the future.

The first transaction was last night for $261.00 to Donors Choose, the second today was for $129.59 (someone else had contributed directly) and it completed her request for the alphabet literacy packs.

I had $75.41 remaining and chose another high poverty class in Tennessee to contribute to. The remaining money went to Mrs. M’s Let’s Become 2nd grade Authors program. She’s still seeking $199.00, if you would like to contribute please click the link above and donate directly.

Thank you all for making BarCamp Nashville such an amazing experience. I hope to catch up with you guys over breakfast this Thursday if you’re in the neighborhood. Cheers.