Green Options » NGO

African Diamond Miners Choosing Carrots Over Carats

Bryan Nelson — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:13:39 +0000

Finally, some good news to come out of the global recession! As the price of rough diamonds plummets in Africa, miners throughout the continent are instead turning toward a future in agriculture.

Diamond mining has nearly destroyed many African nations. In Sierra Leone, for instance, diamonds are what fueled an 11-year civil war, which killed or injured nearly 100,000 people and displaced millions. The conflict was popularized in the Oscar-nominated blockbuster film, Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCapprio.

The Value Of Brand In Emerging Markets

Kelli Peterson — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:06:29 +0000

Engineers will tell you that marketing is not necessary. They will say that it doesn’t matter what you call it - functional products that fill a need will sell themselves. In fact Microsoft takes that concept to a whole new level by professing smart technology - via virtue of its functionality - will sell itself (and in Microsoft’s case, despite the marketing!)

In the western world of chaotic consumerism, we know for fact that this notion of ‘build it and they will come’ does not work without a hefty marketing budget. There is simply no way we would have had a clue what a Google or a Tivo or a Yahoo was without their marketing dollars.

But what about in an emerging market where farmers just need new drip irrigation systems or pumps? Or perhaps access to life support medication? Though these products may be new (just like Google was to us), it is arguable that what could be used for marketing dollars should perhaps be used to provide access, education or financial consultation for these mission critical life enhancing products. One could argue that building a brand here seems unnecessary or worse, imprudent.

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Resume Tips for an Entry-Level NGO Green Job Applicant

Michael A. Weber — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:01:04 +0000

Hello, again! This job search post will be formatted slightly differently than usual. Instead of detailing my job search experience over the last few weeks, I will provide an extensive comparison between my old resume and my completed resume in order to point out where I was falling short and how I have corrected my mistakes.

This is the resume I was using about two months ago:

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Italy and “La Ruta Del Café” Eco-Tourism Project in the Dominican Republic

Eva Pratesi — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:19:20 +0000

Travelling from Italy to Central America takes a long time: an intermediate stop in France or Spain and many hours flying over the ocean. But when you arrive on one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean you forget to be tired.

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In Tough Times Cobranding May Be Best Bet For Non-Profits

John Simonetta — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:42:04 +0000

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Well, I am certainly not a doomsayer. However it does look like the economy is going to slow down over the next few months if not longer.

Often it is marketing and giving that get hit first as companies focus on their core costs.

This especially hits those types of organization hardest that really need the support of their local communities and businesses, folks like the North Texas Food Bank, The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald Tennessee or other civil and charitable institutions.

So Proforma Green is offering a challenge to other Ecopreneurists that read our column.

Starting now Proforma Green is offering a 20%-30% discount from End Quantity Pricing (EQP) on promotional items to 501(c)3, NGOs, charities, schools and other civic organizations, if they allow us to co-brand the products with our web address www.proformagreen.com in some small way. Not all items in our catalog are available with this discount, but most are, likely 85%.

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