hi guys thanks so much for tuning in and watching my video hopefully it won't be too long i'm going to share with you a couple of things in my trash a couple of things that i've bought and things that i've really been loving so first of all if you've already i was gonna say if you've already seen my get ready with me with my eye look that i've got on today but i don't know if that's gonna go public or not if you have if it hasn't been posted then you know i totally lost my nerve on it which is my first get ready with me and it was um you know kind of like not a great experience because i'm still learning but anyways so a couple of things that i really wanted to share with you that i have really really liked and bought over and over again so first of all i sometimes throw my empties out and i just don't even think about it but i ran out of my ordinary glycolic acid seven percent this is their atoning solution and i got a new one so i got a replacement on this this is i've used this for a long time the ordinary products are very very affordable and i know there's all sorts of hype about medical grade skincare you know over the counter skincare all of that my take on that is do what you can afford you know if you can afford all medical grade awesome go for it do what you can afford you know your skin better than anyone else and if you have a question about your skin it's a dermatologist you should be talking to not a youtuber because you know when i get the question should i should i do this should i do that should i should i i always feel like i'm not the person to ask because i'm on this journey learning and playing catch up because i was so late to the skincare game but i do like this so i use this maybe four times a week it all really depends on my skin so i listen to my skin if my skin seems to be you know really really dry dry i'm very very careful on how much and what products i put on but this is something i usually do in the morning after i've washed my face depends if i've used my studio 35 everything is in moderation i don't pile up a lot of skincare items on top of each other at least not this type of stuff i'm not talking my serums so about that i replace that i really like it i also use more often than not and i have tried a couple of different products that were sent to me that i've talked about on the channel from the octaly network but more often than not i still go back to my hot sets 22 from redkin i've been using this for a long time i buy this from my hairdresser last time i was there i told her that i had very little left in the bottle and i needed more so she gives me the big replacement bottle and i then just pour it in and i'm all set so i have this i'm really super excited about that because i really like that a lot what i do with that is when i'm going to use my hot rollers or if i'm going to use my curling iron or anything like that i usually will spray that on my hair and then i might roll the hot roller in or i might use the curling iron that's how i typically use it i really like it the other thing that i have replaced and replaced and this is still a go-to out of all of the texturizing products that i've tried all of that i still end up going back to my big sexy hair powder play and i have bought this from my hairdresser and i've also bought this at tjmax marshals you can get it at sally's you can get it at anywhere obviously but i usually usually get it from a hairdresser or tjmax or marshals i like this because like if you're out say you're out riding your bike and you have a helmet on or a hat on and you take it off and you have flat hat here you can push this on you know shake this on and then just you know put it through your hands and you'll get some fluff back you're not going to get a perfectly styled look but you're going to get some fluff back and i really like that so my boots number seven lift and illuminate a lot of people have asked me am i still using it i absolutely am still using the boots number seven lift and illuminate i am also trying to work my way through my it cosmetic cc creams that i have i have three tubes of that so i have been really trying this summer i use the darker shade i love the cc cream because it has the 50 spf but it does not play nice with my skin all the time i have learned to tap it in rather than try to rub it in and i have learned to apply it a little bit better but still more often than not i go through and i pull the number seven lift and illuminate foundation in the color wheat now some of you will say that my skin looks too shiny or whatnot i do think that the light makes it look shinier than it is in real life but i would rather have a little bit more of a shinier look than the dry patchy flaky look if at all possible so more often than not i reach for this this one is almost all gone i really have my replacement so that's how much i really love this i use the lift and illuminate especially i think going into winter i will use it a lot because my skin will be drier in the winter i may be able to be totally comfortable with a little bit of a sunblock and then that on it because it has 15 spf i may not need to have as much sunblock on as i do the rest of the time some of you know that i have been using the ole eyes pro retinol eye treatment since my birthday february 14th and i'm still using it so i have the us version and i have the uk version i've talked about this in my in my previous videos i'm nearly all done the uk version i use that mostly all the time this one is almost empty but i'm still trying to squish out the last amount when i think i'm there i will cut the tube and i'll dig it out that way stick it in a baggie i'd like to really finish my products but i also have my replacement for this so i am going to continue to use this and i like it a lot i am getting ready to order some more retinol i order my retinol overseas in a pharmacy in india the ordering process requires an e-check and sometimes the e-check can be scary to people so what i've done is i've set up a separate checking account now i get a free checking account if you have to pay maybe it doesn't make sense but i set up a separate checking account and in that checking account i've just deposited like 100 bucks most of time i have 50 bucks in there and i use that checking account so that when i'm ordering things like my eyelash serum like my retinol from a pharmacy overseas i can use that to pay by e-check or give them a routing number or whatever that's my comfort zone so i will use that now when i set up that checking account they asked me what number do you want to start at i didn't want to start at zero zero one i didn't want it to look like a new checking account so i started at like i think number 400 or 450 or something like that so you can do that so it looks like an existing checking account it may or may not matter but that's how i do it so speaking of eyelash serums i have completely and i tossed it emptied out one of my blink eyelash serums that i use i thought i had another one in here but i haven't in the cabinet the little blink eyelash serum that i have been using and trying so i tossed that out i have my replacement i'm also going to do a giveaway at the end of this video so if you're interested and you've watched this far and you want to win two bottles of blink make sure you comment like and let me know that you want to try the blink and i'm going to do a random picker and select this i'll probably leave it up for about a week i'll put all the information in the description box below the other thing that i've reordered is my niacinamide my ordinary the cars the ordinary niacinamide i have reordered that so i have that in already in the other room i because these little bottles look the same to me a lot i usually just put a big initial so that i don't have to have my glasses on i can see the end clearly i know this is niacinamide and i'm not going to mix it up with any other of my ordinary bottles or even my timeless bottles i also just finished up a timeless vitamin c but i already have my replacement i ordered it when it had timeless has a 50 off sale a couple of times a year so i ordered it then i wrapped it up super super tight i put it in my freezer to preserve it i'm all set to go on my eyes is my emily palette i i know you've seen all about the emily palette so to me this palette this is the emily needs palette and this is a great palette for more of an everyday look for me and that's actually what i've done today with the exception i really like my rimmel scandalized little glitter thing that i put in the middle so that is about the only thing on my eyes other than my eyeliner in mascara that isn't from the emily palette so i really do i know on my my cheeks i have her blush so i really like that and i got a new lipstick so this lipstick is 560 spicy mauve and this is l'oreal and i do kind of like this so i have it on my lips i don't know i like the color i am trying to deepen up my color slightly on my lips but not a whole lot because i just i just can't get used to darker colors oh diet yeah so i talked about being on the isagenics you know combination low carb and isagenics and i emptied out each of these containers is 14 meals and they they roughly just because some of you are going to ask cost they're about 39 dollars one so for 39 dollars i'm getting 14 complete complete meal replacements in other words this is just not a protein supplement this is a complete balanced male replacement i usually currently because i'm trying to lose use and replace two meals a day with one of these this is my favorite flavor this is peach mango i absolutely love this there's sometimes if i have a fresh peach i will cut it and into quarters and i will stick some of it in the blender along with this in water and ice and i will make myself an awesome smoothie i sometimes will add my collagen powder to it is this my hydrosyte collagen powder we buy it in the eight pound bag and we buy it from great lakes gelatin this is the unflavored one this is really good this is one of my holy grail items i really believe that a collagen supplement taking from the inside out over the course of time will make a huge difference and i mean over the course of time it isn't going to be something that's going to be like boom there it is now and it's done you know you're you're great you've got to continue to use this it builds and builds and builds when i started using this it took two months roughly for me to notice and the first thing i noticed was the dry cakey elbows my elbows would get so dry and so cakey that they would catch on sleeves and sometimes they would start to bleed so you know anyways that to me is like a holy grail item we repeatedly purchased it and will continue to purchase it both jay and i are using it but the isogenic male replacement actually does hold my appetite it really does sometimes i'll throw some frozen strawberries in this is the strawberry one that's empty but i have vanilla i have a mocha flavor and i have a pina colada flavor and peach is my all-time favorite flavor i really really love the peach flavor i will list the uh i'll i'll take a screenshot of the ingredients and the calorie count while it is much higher in carbohydrates than say if you were on a pure keto program this is a good amount of fiber in here and it's just a good balance it's so it works for me it works really good for me the other thing before i finish this video i know it's going to be long is i've been trying a couple of different primers this week i ended up buying the nyx primer hydra touch i used this a long time ago and i think you know i remember liking it so i picked up another tube of it to try this week as well as the elf i showed this in my get ready with me i'm not to show up that video it's gonna go live but as well as that so i've been doing i've been trying that a lot and we have a big wedding coming up this coming weekend i'm thinking this video will be live before the wedding and so because of the wedding coming up i've been playing around with face primers because once i put my face on that morning i really don't want to have to dittle around with it at all the cute saturday skin so one of the things that i did request and get from the octaly network from saturday skin this was a gift to me in exchange for my honest review was this peeling cream it's called rubber dub dub refining peel gel so what you do after you wash your face you sort of pat dry your face you take some of this on and it smells really nice i really like it it's like a very like a fresh smell anyways you put it on in circular motions on your face and you let it sit for just a little bit i think maybe five minutes or so and then you take it off and it really leaves your skin feeling super super nice so i just received this i've only used it a couple of times but i really like it so far a lot and one of the other things that i am like massively massively liking is my nip and fab exfoliate i think i might have talked about this is a glycolic scrub that one of my subscribers recommended i get and i'm so thankful i did i ordered this off of amazon so far i i've used this on alternate mornings because i do believe you can over over exfoliate you can over treat you can over do yes you can over do with skincare i think that's a real real thing for a lot of people i'm like thinking dial it back rather than dial it fast forward i'm very very cautious about the layering effect of all the different products i use so all i can say is just be really very careful make sure that you carefully analyze and study your skin especially if you're using retin A so that's everything i'm going to end this video it's getting super long i won't respond to any of your comments so if you do have a question leave it on a previous video try to get back to you i am going to do the giveaway for two bottles of blink at the end of this video so make sure you like make sure you leave me a comment telling me you want to try the blink and i will send that out the contest is going to run for a week i will put the dates in the description box below and also make sure that you follow the the instructions about commenting and liking the video to enter and to say that you want to try the blink other than that i could have shared with you my stuff for the wedding but that'll be too long so that's it guys thanks so much for watching leave me a comment let me know how you like the video if you have any suggestions for any future videos put them down in the comments i will read all your comments i will heart all your comments i just won't answer because of the contest thanks so much guys have a great week and i will catch you later


FNN headline news update. Welcome folks, we're at the Dow Industrial's, finish up 178, Nasdaq up 156, S&P's up 36, go contract up $4.50 trading at 1868 an ounce. We had silver up 9 cents, $25.44 an ounce, light sweet crude down 81 cents, $80.79 a barrel, notes and bonds at the 10 year note trade up 8 ticks, $130.19 the 30 year down 8 at 161 to 17 and King dollar. King dollar down 86 trade 9509, the yen is at 113.88, British pound, excuse me folks at 134 and the euro is at 114 to one US dollar. We get over, let me take a look at the spy folks that you have with the spy out here, bottom line, you go higher, 47 million shares, that's not bad man, you're going after the highs again. I suspect as we come up to thanks given, we're going after these highs folks, they're going to go right back up to the high, more than likely next week. And the X100, same type of setup inside the NDX, you had some real buying committed at the end of this market too by the way. The Hughes are up $4, you're trading at 394, this thing's going to go after its high again, which is $400.99, gold contract, gold, nice week out here with gold, no doubt, you're at 1868, the top of the range now is 1922. It looks to me like you very well may get this 2500 on this run, which that seems like a lot, but over the course of two or three months, that's what I'm talking about, that's not a lot. It's not a lot in the context of how much prices have actually gone up for everything. That's where my head is going here. Good old King dollar, what do you have with King dollar? Well, King dollar broke out this week, bottom line, you're at 95 and 97's game, 9509, that's where you're at, it was down 85, I eat ticks today, nothing, bottom line, no big deal out there. Some of the, oh, the pot stocks, the pot stocks start moving, I can see why they stop moving now, as one of the tigers was telling me that you got a couple bills, you do have a couple bills in Congress and it looks like you have the Democrats and the Republicans together on this because Schumer's puttin' a bill in, he got another Republican that's puttin' a bill in, so the bottom line is that they will finally maybe get pot off the schedule, whatever, schedule one that's been on, it's like the same as heroin, which is freaking insane. Have a great weekend, folks, have a safe weekend, come back and visit us Monday morning, Tommy kicks us off nine o'clock in the morning. Have a great one, folks.


Hi everyone. Before we get started, I see people are filtering in. I just wanted to make sure that everybody can hear me and see my screen. You should see the title slide with an apple and some books. So if you can see me and hear me, it'd be a great help if you could just type that into the questions box on your go-to webinar panel just so I know that I'm actually speaking to you and you can see the slides I'm talking about. Awesome. Thank you. All right. So it's just about two o'clock, so we'll go ahead and get started. Hi everyone and welcome to our webinar today. Back to school tips, education fundraising tips. My name is Linda Gerhardt and I'm a community engagement specialist here at Mighty Cause. I've been with Mighty Cause for a little over two years and since I started, my job has been helping nonprofits fundraise better. I run our blog which is called Mighty Blog and produce a lot of the nonprofit oriented content that we have available. Before coming to Mighty Cause, I spent the majority of my career in the nonprofit sector and I'm just really excited to be able to share some tips with you based on what I've seen work for education nonprofits on Mighty Cause. Here's a look at our agenda for today. Just as a bit of housekeeping before we dive in, I'm going to take questions at the end of the presentation. So if you think of something you want to ask during the presentation, just type it into the questions box on your go-to webinar panel and I'll make sure we get to your question during the Q&A session that's scheduled at the end of the webinar. And before we get into the meat of this webinar, I just wanted to take a minute to introduce you to Mighty Cause in case you're new to our platform or you haven't really checked in with us since we were Razoo. Mighty Cause has been in the crowdfunding and nonprofits fundraising business since 2006 when we were founded as Razoo with the intent of helping small nonprofits build their capacity. We've helped nonprofits raise over $600 million since we were founded. In April, we changed our name to Mighty Cause to reflect our mission of helping Mighty Cause raise money and awareness. We're the industry leader and innovator in giving events and we've expanded our offerings to include a full nonprofit fundraising suite and recently we were rated top nonprofit software by Gartner Research, which is really cool. Alright, so now that we've got all that housekeeping out of the way, let's just dive right into the main content of this webinar. I wanted to start off today with a discussion of some of the most popular fundraising methods in education and talk about how they stack up against each other. So there's basically four categories of education fundraising that rule the scene. First, there's sales-based fundraising, then collecting box tops or proofs of purchase, then events, and then online fundraising. In the next few slides, we'll talk about each of these methods in detail, but one thing I wanted to go into before we do that is the criteria schools need to look at when they're choosing a fundraising method. The first and most important consideration is how much money is actually coming back to your school. Obviously, if you're going to go and invest time and effort in fundraising, you want to make sure that your efforts are well spent and that the vast majority of the money you raise comes back to your school. You also want to take a look at how much time and effort is involved. Is something going to take up a ton of staff time and time managing students and require a huge administrative effort or is a particular method a little bit easier to manage requiring less internal coordination, staff time, time is money, and when you're in a field like education where teachers and school administrators are already working overtime and at home and outside of school hours, you just want to make sure that everybody's time is well used when you're choosing a fundraising method. Another thing that is important is how engaging the fundraising method is. Is it something that feels like a chore to everybody involved or will it get your students, your parents, your donors, everyone involved with the school pumped about what you're doing and education? And then does it actually advance your school's mission? Does it get everyone engaged in the issue of education? Does it reinforce the importance of what your school does on a daily basis? And finally, is everyone involved going to get something out of the fundraiser? Does it teach students important lessons? Will it be a worthwhile experience for the parents and teachers involved in it? So that's a lot of criteria and we'll talk about how these particular popular fundraising methods fit into this criteria in the next few slides. So first up is sales and some examples of sales-based fundraisers that exist today are old standbys like wrapping paper and pizza kits and candy and cookies and some other companies like Yankee Candle have gotten in on the school fundraising game as well. I don't know about you, but I definitely remember selling pizza kits, wrapping paper, popcorn and cookies and candy bars for my school. And in fact, many of these sales-based fundraisers simply feel like part of the school experience for a lot of people. The biggest issue with these sales-based fundraisers is the return that your school sees. Generally speaking, it's pretty low. The school only sees a small percentage of the money that comes in through a sales-based fundraiser and unsurprisingly the vast majority of the money goes to the company that makes and distributes the products your students are selling. So to get a real-world sense of how this breaks down, I took a look at Joe Corby's which is a company that has schools selling pizza kits in the Mid-Atlantic which is where I live. They were and still are a stable of elementary and middle schools in the area where I grew up in Maryland and my mom and I sold pizza kits pretty much every year. So I did some research on their website. Joe Corby's requires that you sell a minimum of 100 kits before your school even starts to see a percentage of the profits. And the kits range from 20 to 25 bucks, so that means before your school gets anything from the sales you're conducting, the company makes around two grand thanks to the hard work of your students and teachers and parents who are purchasing the pizza kits. After that your school gets $5 for every pizza kit sold which means that for a $20 kit the company sees three quarters of the money parents and families dole out to pay for the kits thinking that they're helping their kids school. And unfortunately this isn't really unusual for these types of fundraisers. At the end of the day these fundraisers are totally product focused and turn your school into kind of a mini distribution center for these companies which takes focus away from the cause of education which should always be at the center of any fundraising efforts for a school or education environment. Another issue is that when purchasing a product is done to help your school the donations are not tax-deductible because the money isn't going to your school it's going to a for-profit company and the company is the primary beneficiary of the tax benefits for this fundraiser. One thing that's also a little hard to quantify about sales-based fundraisers but is definitely something most people have experienced is the awkward situations that can arise out of these sales-based fundraisers. Like when you've got a friend who's selling Amway or Sensey or a family member that's trying to make a living selling cut-go knives. The student's parents, work colleagues, family members and friends can feel pressured to purchase products they don't really need or want just to help the school and help the student they know do well in the fundraiser. The other side to that coin is the fact that students who fare best in these fundraisers are typically kids who come from wealthier backgrounds which can create an issue with fairness when there are prizes and other incentives for selling the most pizza, kids wrapping paper, candy, whatever in the fundraiser. So moving on to a slightly different type of fundraising we'll chat for a minute about box tops. Box tops for education is one of the most popular and widely used fundraising methods in schools across the country but like sales-based fundraisers it's got some issues. Number one is the low return on each box top. Your school gets 10 cents for each box top so let's say you get a box top for a box of Cheetos from Wal-Mart. So one box of Cheerios on the Wal-Mart website costs $3.64. When someone buys that box of Cheerios cuts off the box top and sends it to school with their child for box tops for education the school gets 10 cents so that's .02 of the purchase price of that box of cereal that actually goes back to your school. Now usually the argument for something like box tops for education is that it's a passive fundraiser. The argument goes that these are products the parents would be buying anyway so it's not a huge deal for them to clip off the box top and send it to school with a student but if you've ever dealt with this sort of fundraiser either as a parent or a teacher you know that it does require a lot more effort than that. It means that a parent has to spend time clipping off box tops making sure not to damage the box top because they might not accept it if it's damaged. Storing them, sticking them in their child's backpack making sure that they get to school with the child which is always a struggle and then you have a collection box or other point where they are dropped off which someone has to create and manage and empty out periodically. Box tops for education requires that someone be appointed the school coordinator then the school coordinator needs to take all the box tops count them fill out a form package them up and submit them to box tops for education. So when you break down the steps that are involved in this passive fundraiser it's actually a pretty time consuming effort for parents and requires lots of time and effort from your staff. So that's all that for just 10 cents per box top and the other assumption that parents are buying these products anyway is really only a partial truth. The main point of box tops for education is marketing and it's a really good marketing tool because if a parent is in a store and trying to decide between a brand name serial and a cheap restore brand serial the fact that the brand name provides a box top for his or her child's school and the store brand does not could be the tipping point in which serial they choose to buy. Parents and grandparents have even been known to prepare their shopping lists and back to school lists based on what they can get a box top for so while the school gets some benefit the main beneficiary of the box top for education program is General Mills and the company whose companies whose products offer box tops. The main point of the program is to entice people to purchase their products with the promise of being able to help out with education at your child's school which really brings us to the last concern about these types of fundraisers which is that the products they're pushing really aren't always the healthiest while they have diversified the products eligible for box tops for education and have tried to work with brands that are labeled organic that's mostly been in response to concern from health experts the list still includes sugary cereals like lucky charms granola bars cookie dough pizza rolls cinnamon rolls and other food like that which are certainly delicious and can totally be part of the healthy diet but the program exists to lure parents to purchase these products for their child there's only two green giant green giant products that will allow parents to collect box tops with vegetables so these programs can contradict a lot of what parents in schools try to reinforce with their students about healthy food choices okay so moving on we've got a pretty broad category of fundraising which is events and an event can include anything from an ice cream social to a posh gala at a university to car washes so this covers quite a few different kinds of fundraisers and while the pros and cons can vary from event to event this slide breaks down the pros and cons of event fundraising just in general in the pro corner we've got that they're versatile which is a huge benefit an event fundraiser can be anything where you gather people and have them come out to support your cause so you're really only limited by your own creativity and of course budget and manpower but mostly you're just limited by what you can think of there are also easy ways to get people engaged because you're offering something in return for their support whether it's a car wash or a family fun run or a movie night and you're taking fundraising and making it social reinforcing that person-to-person connection that's at the heart of good fundraising and planning and getting involved in an event can be super fun for students much more so than selling wrapping paper and trying to meet certain expectations in terms of how much they're able to sell under cause cons we've got coordination and planning at the top if you check these types of lists like I do event planning is one of the most stressful jobs in the United States and fundraising event planning can require a whole lot of mental energy and time from the people who are tasked with pulling the event off you can also run into some logistical issues like meeting permits from your city or county for a fun run or how to coordinate a bunch of students and parents after school since you know as you all probably know that's like herding cats on a good day and lastly we've got online fundraising which can encompass everything from your mighty cause page to Facebook fundraisers to just having a donate button on your website or an actual organized fundraising campaign and like all of our fundraising methods just so you know we're not biased there are some pros and cons to think about for education organizations on the plus side online fundraising makes donating easy and doesn't require buying products or filling out order forms or anything like that to help your school it's a very simple transaction people decide how much they are willing and able to give they make the donation and they're done it's also a year round option so you can build sustaining support for your school and online fundraising is also versatile you can work in online fundraising component into most events and other campaigns and like events you have a lot of flexibility in the type of fundraising you do online and what kind of campaign you run one thing that can trip up schools when it comes to online fundraising is the sheer number of platform options settling on a platform can often be the hardest part a lot of schools are also concerned about the cost of online online fundraising although as we've discussed a lot of the popular fundraising options like selling candy bars are much more expensive and have a much lower yield for your school and another thing to think about is internet access most people have access to the internet at school or a library or with a smartphone but there are a lot of americans that don't have consistent internet access and if you have a school that has families who have this issue internet fundraising can be tricky and make it make it a little bit awkward for people and like all the fundraisers we've talked about online fundraisers need someone to manage them on mighty cause that would be your nonprofit admin who has access to the back end of the page and donations and can make edits and create fundraisers so I like when I said I wasn't biased I am a little bit biased in favor of mighty cause obviously so I just want to go over a few of the benefits of using mighty cause as your school's fundraising solution we've got flexible pricing plans that can suit schools of all sizes and budgets you have lots of options on mighty cause and you can choose what works best for your organization our default pricing is no upfront costs with a four percent platform fee which donors can opt to cover but you can also turn off platform fees all together and allow us to ask donors to leave an optional tip to support the platform again at no upfront cost and it's totally dependent on what you'd like your donors to see and experience we've also introduced subscription plans which we'll talk about a little bit more later but they offer even more options for your school and one of the biggest benefits is the versatility of the mighty cause platform you can create peer-to-peer fundraisers team fundraisers project pages and you can use your organization profile and the widget that you can get through your mighty cross page at no cost to fundraise 365 days a year we provide detailed donation reporting so you've got all the info you need just to download away and you can customize your pages to really reflect your school so mighty cause is truly a powerful fundraising tool for schools that can help you take your fundraising efforts to the next level all right so now we're going to move into some common pitfalls pitfalls of school fundraising and learn what you can do to avoid them the biggest fundraising pitfall and one that's particularly easy for schools to fall into is because there's so many people involved is losing sight of your admission really this all comes down to a failure to communicate well it's mostly about focusing on the what instead of the why or taking the stance that everybody already knows what you're trying to do and why it's so important so when you're dealing with parents and others you can assume that they're in the know and you can easily lose sight of some fundraising fundamentals about communicating the why of what you're doing so to avoid the miscommunication the biggest thing I can recommend is pinpointing some key messages when you're starting a campaign which are two to three core talking points about your campaign they explain your why why you're doing what you're doing why it's important why people should care and outlining these key messages before you get started will help you keep your messaging focused accessible and help you leave it into every aspect of your campaign and on this point I do recommend writing a communications plan for your campaign which will outline who you're contacting how you're contacting and how you're speaking to them this will help your campaign be more effective and help prevent miscommunication about your goal your mission and what your fundraiser is all about it can also be a huge help to distribute some talking points about your campaign to anybody who will be helping with it so that everybody's on the same page they know what's up they know what to say they know how to answer questions and finally it's important to keep education at the center of all your fundraising efforts which seems really obvious but it's so easy for schools to forget because they have so much going on so even if you've got a complex dance of fun that has a really intense structure and the dancing and the campaign itself need to come after the point that this is for education and education is so important so you need to make sure that your work and the core of what you do which is teaching children is at the center of all of your communications another pitfall I've seen a lot of school fundraisers fall into is making things way over complicated I'm talking about dozens of team pages one person trying to log in and log out and manage pages for 20 other people wanting to have five different leader boards on team pages and really just going over the top with the amount of complexity and sometimes that can be successful I've seen it be successful but often it really just distracts from the point of the fundraiser and makes the person managing it want to tear their hair out so this can happen when schools over plan making sure there's something in place to cover every single edge case anyone can think of or trying to incorporate the wants and needs of every class every grade every student teacher and so on sometimes it's really just a matter of having too many cooks in the kitchen trying to put their stamp on the fundraiser or make sure that their idea is incorporated so however it happens sometimes school fundraisers in particular can get a little bit messy because of over complication so here's how to avoid it first and foremost aim for simplicity a fundraiser really and truly doesn't need to be super complex to be successful and in fact some of the most successful fundraisers in the history of nonprofit fundraising were incredibly simple having a concept of price structure and process that's easy for people to wrap their heads around is important to actually be successful so you can spend your time talking about your mission why it's important and trying to get people to donate instead of explaining the rules and the structure of your fundraiser over and over again secondly assign a point person this person is the final decision maker and all questions about the fundraiser and is in charge of making sure the project stays on course that sometimes means vetoing ideas saying no to requests and doing whatever it takes to keep everything on track and keep it from becoming overblown and over complicated you'll also want to keep an open mind when planning you can only plan for really so many things there might be edge cases that pop up that you need to address in the course of a fundraiser that's totally normal but over planning and over complicating won't prevent that in fact it'll make it more likely to happen so plan to the extent that you can and try to have a solid plan but also learn to adapt as you go and allow for the possibility that you can't think of everything upfront and that over planning makes it more likely that things will go wrong because as we said you're just adding those layers and layers of complexity each time you do that all right so now we're going to move on to how schools can use the mighty cause tools that you have available to fundraise smarter you may have gotten some emails from us recently about some cool new tools we have available we've done a lot to upgrade what we offer make our platform easier and more intuitive to navigate and add its own tools nonprofits have told us they wanted so we listen to you when you reach out and you ask us if we can add a particular tool or add something to an existing tool and you'll see a lot of those things incorporated in some of our new releases so first we're going to dive into the newest tools available that you can use right now first up is your mighty cause manager which is a fancy name we came up with for your dashboard now everything you need is accessible from an easy to navigate menu we upgraded your dashboard to make it easier for you to find the tools you need and the info you need in your daily work and to be able to find those things intuitively so you can just go to something that's very obvious pull the information you need or activate the tool you need to use and be done with it we've also added one tool admins have been asking for for a long time which is the ability to view all campaigns connected to your school or nonprofit so now when you log in on the campaign screen on your dashboard you can view and manage all project pages and campaigns started by your organization as well as any peer to peer or team campaigns that were created by others so that's something that's been a long time coming you guys told us that you wanted it and we've listened to you another huge upgrade is in the new donor experience tool which you can find on this under the donation section of your dashboard and you can use this tool to design and customize the donation process for your donors one of my favorite things about donor experiences that you can now add dedications and designations into the donation process which is something a lot of you have been asking for you can also preview your donation flow in full without having to make a test donation opt to collect additional information from donors like phone numbers preview your receipt and we've added a custom thank you page after a donation is completed so on that page you can add a video write a message and you can also add a cta button a call to action button to the page that will let you basically tell your donors where you'd like them to go next whether it's back to your main mighty cause page somewhere on your website to take a survey or to learn more about your work or really anywhere you choose it does not have to be on the mighty cause platform excuse me so what this tool does the donor experience tool is give you an an unprecedented amount of control over the user experience for donors you can craft the perfect checkout process for them and make sure that your school gets all of the information you want we've also rolled out mighty cause premium which is a subscription to mighty cause that gives you access to additional tools and frees you from platform fees there are three plans available so there's one to suit every budget and they start at $99 per month you can take mighty cause premium for a test drive to try out the tools like analytics data integration donor and supporter records volunteer management custom donation pages and increased branding control so if you're interested in getting a 30 day trial you can just email me after the webinar at linda at mightycause.com and we also have a group demo tomorrow at noon eastern time but you can attend if you'd like to learn more about premium and actually see some of these tools in action all right so before we wrap things up I wanted to go through some creative ideas for school fundraising that will hopefully help get you in the spirit spirit for the new school year when you're trying to put together a fundraiser it helps to know what has been successful for others and on mighty cause there are a few fundraising techniques that we've seen raise lots of money time and time again the first is really the whole a thon sweet fundraisers which includes walk-a-thons write-a-thons art-a-thons dance-a-thons read-a-thons and so on our fundraising our team fundraising tool is the most common way schools run these types of fundraisers and one of the reasons they're so successful is that they're competitive they add gamification and it's a familiar setup for people most people know what a read-a-thon is what a walk-a-thon is etc so it's not hard for them to wrap their minds around and it gives parents family friends and so on a way to support a child's individual efforts their creativity and it gets the students really invested too read-a-thons are my favorite not only because I'm a little bit of a bookworm but because they're so easy to connect back to the core cause of education and art-a-thons are also a really cool fundraising idea that I've seen raise lots of money for art education battle of the classes is another time tested favorite and it really works best with kids in the middle and high school age range because that's when they're best able to engage in a little friendly competition with other grades a private school that uses mighty cause called forest ridge academy raised almost fifteen thousand dollars in a single day with a campaign that pitted two of their classes against one another and these were large classes these were not like you know homework classes these were entire groups of students and the friendly competition just really helped motivate the students to fundraise hard and get people behind their cause the friendly competition really helps motivate students in general and it at that particular age middle and high school they are really motivated to show that their classes number one and their classes the best and the other guys are not the best so that can be a really fun way to get your students involved to get them pumped about your fundraiser and finally one that kids always love one thing kids always love is the chance to get revenge on an authority figure like a principal so if you have a popular teacher principal or other school official that is on board that's important they need to be 100% on board to look a little bit silly in front of students you can draw up a lot of enthusiasm with like a stunt campaign the idea behind it is that the fundraising goal when it's reached they the chosen authority figure will do something that's kind of embarrassing like shaving their head dyeing their hair a crazy color wearing a ridiculous outfit at a school assembly or being the school mascot for a basketball game or something of that nature something that's sort of out of the ordinary with what students are used to seeing with these authority figures and the magic here is that it really gets students excited and involved and can really turn into a fun engaging way for them to help raise money for the school another great way to raise money and awareness is to involve the community you may think that your support stops with parents and family members that many more people in the community are likely to want to get involved in your cause because you're educating children in their community one way you can get people involved is to partner up with a local restaurant for a benefit night it's a win-win in that they get business in their door and your school takes home a slice of the proceeds these are usually really fun low-key events you can set up a donation kiosk where donors can make donations right there at a table and have a sign-up sheet for email addresses so you can stay in touch with new supporters you meet and make sure that they get your emails matching grants are always a huge donation booster so work with community partners and businesses to provide a matching grant for your next fundraising campaign basically a matching grant if you've never used one before you're not familiar with them it's a large donation that you leverage to bring in other donations by offering donors the ability to have their donation matched it's basically like charity bogey we've seen successful campaigns where the entire hook of the campaign is that they have a matching grant so matching grants are not only a great way to boost donations but they're an awesome way to get community partners and business partners involved in your fundraising efforts birthday and holiday fundraisers are also typically very successful though of course if a student is doing a birthday fundraiser and they're under 13 on mighty cause they will need to have their parents help these are peer-to-peer fundraisers where instead of getting gifts or money for an upcoming birthday or holiday they ask for donations to a cause they care about in this case their school this is an awesome way to engage alumni as well we have a guy on the platform named Terrence who comes back every year to raise money for his alma mater and groups that support education in his community and he's raised several hundred thousand dollars over the course of several years he's no joke he's done an amazing job getting people excited about these causes and his campaigns his friends and family are always just waiting for his birthday campaign his last campaign raised over six grand in about a month which is super incredible and he's not a professional fundraiser or an employee of the organization or the university he's fundraising for he's just a regular guy who cares about education and wants to give back so giving people a vehicle to do this through mighty cause is a great way to encourage these types of fundraisers whether someone calls you or emails you asking how they can help or if you just want to put a link up on your website encouraging people that if they'd like to do some peer to peer fundraising they can do so on mighty cause is a way to get this started and encourage these kinds of fundraisers okay and finally we recommend that schools participate in giving Tuesday this year giving Tuesdays on November 27th which is the Tuesday right after Black Friday and Cyber Monday that's when giving Tuesday always is although the actual calendar date changes from year to year registration is open now at givingTuesday.mightycause.com and the main benefits to participating in giving Tuesday is that you can compete to win prizes and you get a free trial of mighty cause premium just for registering it's the biggest fundraising day of the year and it's smack dab in the middle of a lull in school right after Thanksgiving break and right before your holiday break so it's a great time to run a fundraiser and again you can register at givingTuesday.mightycause.com registration this year is easier than ever there's no fee it's basically just give us a little bit of information and we'll sign you up for the event and then you can fundraise on November 27th all right so that's just about it for today but I did want to take some time to look at some questions and take a look and see if there's anything that you guys are curious about so if you have a question just type it into the questions box on your go-to webinar panel and we will go over it so go ahead and type that in if you have a question okay here's the question what should you do if your school administrators insist on running a product fundraiser each year but you'd like to try something different that's a really awesome question because obviously for each individual they don't necessarily have the decision-making power but basically really getting into the nitty gritty of the cost and time and effort put into these types of fundraisers versus what you're actually bringing in is the key here being data focus is the best strategy because honestly the data does not look good for these fundraisers in most cases and what the school brings back is pretty small compared to the amount of effort and time they put in so do the math put some spreadsheets together and plead your case obviously no one can guarantee that they'll listen but perhaps they can add in a different type of fundraiser and see how it goes what the return is for your school and it'll give you even more ammunition in the future if you're able to show that this fundraiser is more cost-effective and more time efficient because that's something that decision-makers always like to hear and are usually open to hearing. All right so there's a question about Giving Tuesday are there fees for Giving Tuesday this year so just like last year we're waiving our platform fee for Giving Tuesday so the only fee you'll see is the credit card processing fee which is 2.9 plus 30 cents but you won't see that 4% platform fee added okay and then one more question will you send out a recording and slides for this webinar yes definitely you guys will have a recording of the webinar and slides by tomorrow at the latest so I will take care of sending that out to you so you can share the slides and recording with any of your co-workers or anybody else you'd like to have access to the webinar. All right last call for any questions all right so I think that's it thank you guys so much for spending your afternoon with me and attending this webinar if you have any questions or would like to talk strategy you can always get in touch with me at linda at mightycause.com I love talking about fundraising strategy so I'd be happy to hear from you um so enjoy the rest of your day and I wish you guys the best of luck with the upcoming school year


How do you build Ukraine back from rubble? Okay, and we have a professional engineer and I guess a builder, a builder of better spaces and places for humanity. Manfred Zapka, he'd been at the university for many, many years with Phyllis Horner and they have a company called What Is It Better Places and Spaces? And we'll show the website name shortly. And I don't have to show you the graphics because I was thinking, gee, let's show some graphics of the rubble. But everybody's seen all the rubble. We don't have to show you that. It's been embossed on your mind and memory forever and ever. If you think of nothing from this point forward, think of Ukraine in rubble and death and destruction of every kind of infrastructure, every kind of building, every kind of residence, every kind of road, bridge, what have you. Mr. Putin is destroying the country right down to Brownfield and it's the most tragic outrageous thing we have seen. We thought we saw outrageous things during the Trump era. This is far, far more outrageous. It's hard to describe how outrageous it is. It's an insult to humanity, to the species. So Manfred joins us to talk about what you do at the end game. And I want to quote a sign that I saw floating around the internet, Manfred. This is an Ukrainian woman. It's got a big sign, bigger than she is. And it says, if Putin stops the war, there'll be no more war. If Ukraine stops the war, there'll be no more Ukraine. And so it's really interesting to think about that. But the likelihood is just looking forward is that there's so much devastation already that we have a major project in our hands which will probably get worse in terms of Ukraine. Ukraine, a country that was a 44 million people, second largest country in Europe. Ukraine, which has independent democracy. Ukraine with kindly people. And Ukraine, which has been essentially destroyed. So Manfred, I give you the job. I make you the chief engineer of Ukraine, such as it will be soon. Where do you start to rebuild Ukraine? And how far can you get? And what can you give us as a finished product? Well, thank you so much first of having me, Jay. It's really, you called me up a couple of days ago and everybody's under their impression right now. This is something which is beyond. We didn't think that actually this would be possible. And how can you explain people like being shorted when you try to flee and all kinds of stuff? So it's really depressing. The end game actually, so what do we have? Actually, if Putin or Russia wins or whatever they take over the whole country or then actually they have to decide what's going on there. But it will not be over very soon, I think. This will be a long problem. And I think Mr. Putin was taking a bite, probably which was too big. It cannot be done in a couple of days. This might be 10, 20 years actually down the road. We'll see actually the consequences of that. So let's be actually hopeful and let's be hopeful and say what can we do with that mess? And first of all, so that actually means somewhere the Ukrainians, they will actually still have a country. They can decide for themselves. Because otherwise, what Russia does is very hard to tell what they can, they also have a lot of problems and at their hand. And I think the reason why they got in there, it's not like a spur of the moment it has been brewing for a long time. So again, let's step back a little bit and be hopeful and give also people hope in Ukraine. Because if you look back and if you look what Ukraine is, Ukraine is pretty darn poor. If you, for instance, compare the GDP of let's say United States, what we take for granted and we always say, hey, everything is so expensive. And then we say Ukraine and we actually our GDP is about $20 trillion. $20 trillion. And guess what Ukraine is, $115 billion. So their cross domestic product is about like 1% of what we have. Like what you said, Jay actually used like their population is about 10th of what we have. So they are really doing not well and they had a lot of problems and the problems reach back. And again, like I'm not a geopolitical expert or whatever although I'm very opinionated. But on the other side, actually, what can we do is from engineering or engineering technology standpoint to help. The first thing of course is like, what are the problems? And one of the biggest problems the Ukrainians have is energy. That's not a big surprise, right? The problem is that the country is very energy inefficient. If you, for instance, speak about energy efficiency this means energy service relative to energy you have to invest. And energy doesn't mean like very complicated. If you want to achieve something with energy just make a product or a heater house or whatever the energy efficiency is about three times worse than in Poland, which is the neighbor or 10 times worse than in Germany. So they have a big problem in their hand. If they had more energy that would only be part of the problem because they have to learn how to use it more efficiently. Yeah, and to add it's cold. It gets cold in Ukraine. You need energy to stay warm and productive. That's true. And again, like when you look actually at their primary and a primary energy or let's say the energy which is used for creating electricity over 50% of the energy right now is from nuclear, over 50%. Then we have about 40% of coal, some renewables and only 3% of natural gas. Natural gas is usually used mostly for heating the houses what you said, exactly a J. And their houses are very, very inefficient. There have been some efforts actually to bring in more energy efficiency because the European community actually has sponsored but also some Chinese guys and so on. The private investors also they try in and help them but they really have to do some major overhaul. So when we look, what can we do to get out of that rubble is we have to help them to rebuild and they should rebuild by doing it correctly. You know, they actually, they see already that the government of Ukraine actually has signed the Paris agreement. They also want to cut down on global carbon emissions. So they are in a good way, but they need help. Well, you suggest, I'm just thinking of what you were saying that they need to build modern. They need to take the most current advice on how to deal with energy and efficiency and so forth. Rather, and their buildings up to this point have not been efficient. So it sounds like an opportunity actually. It also sounds from what you say, man Fred, is that there'll be other countries that will want to help them. That is the geopolitical issue, but I think it's true. And in fact, other countries will give them money and loans, other countries will give them expertise. Who knows, man, maybe they'll call upon you to go there. Well, that's actually, you know, that's a good point.  And that's in Germany, it's the Ruhr Valley. The Ruhr Valley was very much coal dependent, you know, that a lot of coal mines and all kinds of stuff, you know, and, you know, downstream like the steel factories. So coal was the sole of our region there. And it's the same right now in Ukraine. They have a lot of coal mines, you know, that's actually, which provides a lot of employment. And most of these coal mines actually are really very inefficient. They should be shut down. And that's actually what the Ukraine, you know, government wanted to do. But it's not that easy, of course, because you need coal in order to heat your houses, right? So I actually looked at, you know, what our area, you know, the Ruhr Valley needed 40 years to get out of coal, 40 years. And, you know, it will be similar to Ukraine, but we don't have that kind of time. And how it actually worked in the region I came from, you know, the Ruhr Valley is all of a sudden right now, it's totally, you know, transformed. There's high technology, there's renewable energies. I can tell you afterwards, if you have time for a project actually, which might be a blueprint of what they're doing there. So that actually is, it's not necessarily how to throw a new technology. It's really societal transformation there. And I hope actually, you know, and like you said, although as diet it is, maybe actually something good can come get out of it. And, you know, we can actually help these, you know, the poor people there. So what about those buildings, you know? I mean, the pictures before the bombing started showed us charming streets, charming architecture, charming cities in general, lots of greenery, lots of, you know, socially acceptable public spaces. And how do you recreate that? How do you create the buildings again? You know, there's what, 17th, 18th, 19th century buildings. They have a charm. Do you forget that and build something new? I imagine in the Ruhr Valley as through most of Germany is some very modern architecture. I don't know if you know Martin de Spang, he's one of our hosts. And he's into avant-garde architecture. And I suggest that a lot of Europe is into avant-garde architecture. So what do you do to recreate, if you want to recreate those buildings, to resurrect the old and charming buildings that were in Ukraine? Well, I think right now this is very good point, Jay. And I'm happy that you brought it up. And but right now we actually have to look also at the situation for maybe for the next 10 years. You know, the biggest population concentration was in the East, which right now is overrun. And it actually, it might be that, you know, it stays the Donets area in the East, which actually also has, it's the heart of the coal. They have the biggest, you know, deposits of hard coal there. It's a little bit in the West, in the Middle, it's all like brown coal. You can use it, but it's not that nice. Anyway, so I think there, and you see right now two million people have fled. You know, they actually were in, are they going back? Are they coming more? So it's also in Europe's interest, Europe's interest just to, you know, make the people comfortable so that they can actually stay in their country and build it up again. So how do you do this at the beginning, right? Because you have to provide housing, you know, over there. So can you do it in the same way actually it used to be? Or, you know, because it takes a lot of time and effort, and I don't know if you can actually afford just to build it the same as it was. Or because, you know, in terms of smart cities, the, you know, if you have a concentrated and more high rise architecture, it's more sustainable because it's more energy efficient rather than just making this urban sprawl which we can see here in the United States. That actually is not very sustainable. So they have to use the best planning. They can possibly have. But one drill down question I want to ask you and I've been thinking about it in anticipation of our discussion is, you know, what do you do first? I mean, for example, okay, energy is important. So you have to plan the energy out. Maybe you have to build a solar farms. You have to find a way to distribute the energy. It's a complicated plant. We know that from Hawaii, from everything that we see in energy in Hawaii, you can't do it overnight. Furthermore, you have to, you know, get the electrical grid to reach to wherever there may be housing, high rise of sprawl. We have to have the power there. We have to have the water there. We have to have the sewerage systems there. What did I miss? Telecommunications, broadband, wireless. In order to have a reasonable middle class life, all these things have to be put in. And the question I put to you is what is the sequence? Do you build it all in anticipation of the development or the redevelopment of the buildings? Or do you work at one step at a time? Can you work this one step at a time? Or is it necessary to do large infrastructure projects before you ever start rebuilding buildings? Well, that's a good question, actually. And again, like, you know, it might take a couple of minutes to answer it, right? First of all, you need, of course, infrastructure. You need transportation because you have to, you know, put things around. You know, is that actually, you know, possible there? I mean, the railway system in Ukraine in a sense is better than ours. And, you know, public transportation is also, has a very, you know, big tradition over there. So they actually can teach us more than, you know, we can teach them in, by the, in Ukraine, it's more an urban, you know, population. So not so much. So they're actually used to live in cities. But what I think right now, and that's an excellent point, how do we actually, how do we, you know, approach it? Can we do a piecemeal or just, you know, just actually do we start? And, you know, what do we do have right now in the United States and in the Western or in the, you know, actually worldwide right now are really some good tools.  So a digital twin, for instance, lays out, you know, this is a digital representation of the physical object. And it started about 20 years back when they know digital twins were built mostly for aerospace. So for instance, usually you have to have, when you do a prototype of an airplane or so you have to make models, physical models, all kinds of stuff. And it took about 10 years to make a new, like a fighter or whatever. Right now they have, you know, cut this down to a year because of digital twins. And the digital twin afterwards right now is already branching out into something else. And for instance, into construction, then you can actually, you know, you can greatly increase the speed of construction. You can lower the cost, you can make things more green. And there's a digital twin also right now for entire country, you know, Singapore right now came out and they developed a digital twin for the entire country. The nice thing actually in this one is that, you know, a digital twin, think about like, I don't know if the people will be familiar with the building information system that's actually, it assembles all the different information of a building, right?  But a digital twin is a little bit different because the digital twin is actually taking signals. So from sensors, from information which come in and it can play out scenarios. It says actually what is best, what should be do in order, you know, to for instance, you know, increase energy efficiency, increase water efficiency and actually like, what is actually the supply line for that? So what we actually can do, which, you know, is within our realm, that the beginning is just help them just to lay out what they have to do. I mean, some things have to be done. They have to build bridges in order to drive, you know, so as soon as they have to house people with dignity, but in order to build it up afterwards because they also deserve a chance. I think that's actually also, you know, we should not give them only like stinger missiles we can also, you know, hope and give them the tools that they can just, you know, have a good life in the future. So we could do actually this, we can support them in this way. And we can make a model for all of Europe because you start with, I want to call it a brownfield. It isn't really a greenfield, it's a brownfield. Anyway, you know, one thought strikes me though, Manfred, is actually this is being done in, well, it's been done in various places, but including Russia, and that is printing houses, printing houses. You've seen the devices, the equipment, and you know that you can print one family house, you know, in less than 24 hours, all done. Well, maybe 48 hours, whatever. Can you talk about that? Yeah, it's actually right now, communication with a German company and they just printed the first Multan family house. And what it actually, the nice thing actually is that you can have, for instance, have a digital twin of a house.   And actually, you know, from experience, you have 80 to 90% of reduction in energy because you don't heat and you don't cool. You don't have so, these are possibilities. And then the printing actually is a very good, one great thing because it also lays what they call a digital thread. This is the basic for a digital model. And it comes like, you know, from a digital, from a 3D model of a house. So what you do is you design your house in a 3D. You know, actually, this one is an analytic theme. You know where all the different utility designs on. And so you can actually have this in your model and then you print it. The nice thing with printing, actually, and they have different technologies. But you know, when you see it's almost like putting door and on a curved thing or whatever. So in this thing actually took about, not 24 hours delivered fast, but about one a week actually to build the walls and so on. Nice thing actually in this one is again, like you can have, you don't have to chop up the wall or whatever, it's already in. And also one of the biggest thing is that you actually cut down on waste. They say, you know, they can cut down 90% of the waste which comes down and they can use indigenous or material from the region, which is pretty cool. So yes, it is actually done. And I don't know right now, they might have problem with the high rise also, but it's a multi-family, multi-story house they did. And they passed it through permitting and it's already commissioned and people right now will be moving in. So yes, it is actually something which is very important. And this one is because happy, you know, this kind of really would also help just to do things fast because you don't in Ukraine, for instance, because the basic thing they have to have shelter. They have to have a dignified way of just, you know, when they live mostly in the West or whatever, they have to, you know, get these things. So this is excellent technology, thank you. Yeah, well, and then of course you have bigger buildings. As you said, there are issues about doing printing for a high rise. So maybe you don't, maybe you'd make it, you know, just a few stories and instead of a really high, high rise.  So what would that technology work or would there be other methodologies that you would want to use for larger institutional public buildings? Yeah, actually right now, this is good money. It is not built here in Hawaii. Because we just, from historical perspective, we build houses differently here. But again, like one of the things is also what, I think you already went into that, Jay, it's really a big shift right now in the construction industry. If you look at the last decades of like, you know, industrial output or whatever, you know, the percentage of productivity was way, way, you know, it was increasing. And let's say, you know, there are certain industries like 200% more productivity in let's say two, 20 years, which is pretty big. The construction industry has always been behind.  And it was at a conference, it was Boomer International. And once somebody said, hey, Manfred, that's pretty good, all the technology, the last big innovation in real estate was the elevator. So... Sounds right to me.  And the young generation, they will embrace new technologies. And it will absolutely, you know, people right now, which I actually had the privilege of teaching at the University of Hawaii at the School of Architecture, they know how to design 3D. If you have a 3D model, for instance, they are also what I really like. It's called Yutong. I don't know, it's a German word, but it's a rated concrete. Rated concrete is like nice for thermal insulation or whatever. And what you do is you almost have an erector set and they're numbered, you know, pieces so they can be put together fairly, you know, fast.  So maybe just like two and a half by four feet of blocks. They feed all in each other, they build. This is another technology, which is actually very popular. And another technology, which is also very popular in Germany and Europe is prefabricated houses. Because, you know, you can, for instance, under very good technology, very good conditions, you can prefabricate all kinds of sections. You know, you can tile better. You have electricity, you do it in house, you're not hampered by the elements and so on. And then you just has to be transported to site and erect. So sometimes like these houses come up in a week, you know, which usually would take like half a year or nine months. Was it practical to make it, say, in a factory outside of Ukraine and truck it in? Or should it be done locally with local materials? I mean, I imagine you need a lot of concrete for all these things and query whether Ukraine has that or whether Ukraine needs to import it. Well, of course, right now, it's almost, that might be more effective, you know, that you just, you know, ship concrete or just raw materials over there. I mean, people also have to work there. You know, they also have to work a limit. And you know, if you look at the educational system over there, it's pretty cool and impressive. I mean, similar to Europe, there is actually something which is called, you know, vocational training. So they are very good crafts people and that kind of stuff and they can build their own stuff. We just have to help them to get, you know, get started. You know, I can see this becoming a kind of center of building technology where people, including people from Hawaii would go there and try to contribute, participate, learn, teach, you know, have a kind of big collaboration with the Ukrainians and it'll be from the heart. It'll be altruistic, completely altruistic to help them rebuild the country at record speed in a better way. But let me ask you about roads. Let me ask you about, you know, wireless and telephone infrastructure, you know, wiring along the highways and all this. I mean, a lot of that has been destroyed. Are there modern techniques for doing roads? Are there modern techniques for building telephone poles and the like? Are there new technologies we should consider or they should consider in recreating their country? Well, I'm pretty sure, you know, what was really excellent in the United States that's efficient building.  I mean, they probably make it 10 times as fast as in Hawaii, you know, although Hawaii has the problem with the space. Well, there is, again, like there is a lot of things which we can offer them and they can do their own.   And but it's, you know, if you look at it, Jade will not be an easy effort and it might take a while. Just take the example of German reunification, you know, right now it costs $2.2 trillion in the last 20 years has been just transferred from the West to the East because they were similar.  And it takes a lot of time. So it's like when Europe actually right now tries, hey, you know, Ukraine coming into our house or whatever, they also have a big responsibility to help them. You know, and but again, like technology is there, you know, finances is there, our obligation to help, you know, our neighbors there is there and let's move ahead. I'm having an emotional reaction here. This can be done. And hopefully not what it will be done. And it'll be at least a European effort if not a global effort. And it will be the best that we can do when we collaborate both on the work side, on the financing side and on the actual construction side. So it's a very impressive possibility. Does it make you wanna go there? Does it make you wanna tell people they should go there? I'm not sure when, because right now may not be the best time, but, you know, as and when it settles down, seems to me that a student of architecture or engineering, planning, what have you, spaces, you know, private and public spaces would have no other better laboratory to try his or her skills and to learn from others who are there with him or... Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I mean, this is a beautiful country. East Germany is like, you know, East Europe, they have very, very beautiful and usually people are, you know, they are very friendly and open and they are not very, they're not rich.  So it's not like what we have, you know? So it's totally different, but they have also beautiful landscapes and so on. And I think that's a very good, very great idea what you have. Like what we can do right now is we have technology, we have experience, we have talent, and we should also have a heart. And that's actually to reach out, not only, again, like, you know, you're giving them weapons, but right now they have to defend themselves, but afterwards they have to come back. And again, like it's always nice if you help your neighbor. Yeah, I hope it works that way, knock wood, you know, because we make this assumption in our discussion here that the Ukrainians will ultimately have their country back. And, you know, it's a whole different issue if the Russians get the country. You know, it goes back to Stalin in 1933 where he intentionally starved the people in Ukraine. And then shortly thereafter, he brought in Russians to resettle it and many of the people in Ukraine are, you know, are descendant of those same Russians. But in the process, of course, he changed everything in Ukraine and Ukraine has been through a lot and therefore they are strong. And this is part of their strength, I think. So the question I put to you, and this is a hard one, my last question, if you don't mind, Manfred. Suppose Putin takes over. Suppose he reduces it to rubble. Well, he's doing that now as we speak. As we speak, he's doing that. So I think they're to send the Polish jets in right now immediately, today, you know, 20 minutes from now, they'll be flying. Anyway, suppose Putin wins and Putin has control, physical control of this huge country. I would pity the people who are there, but query, what does he do? What can he do? What do you think he will do in terms of, you know, addressing the same issues that you and I have been talking about? Well, I think Russia actually by and if you, their GDP is not that bad as Ukraine, but their economy is mostly of just selling stuff they have in terms of like resources like oil, like gas and corn and so on. I mean, the thing is that it's a backward country still. They should really develop it also to come forward. And we also have to see that, you know, they can also be like part of the global population. I think what is really bad right now, what happens also, and there's a lot of people who are having good hard and so on also in Russia, that actually they will feel outcast, you know? So what can you do? I mean, this must be a terrible, terrible feeling. What Putin does in terms of like what is over, is like, you know, they usually also have a very, you know, backward energy efficiency in Russia because gas is abundant, you know, right now in the West, actually we might we know ourselves more from his. So what does he do with his gas, you know? So he probably would go and also the Donets where the Russian separatists actually have been taking over, that's also home of the coal. So I don't think that they will be investing a lot into the country because actually it was running right now in the East, there was the population centers, there was the center of heavy industry and so some technology. So you would be happy to have that. And just to say, hey, you know, what happens to the West of Ukraine? It's not our deal. So it wouldn't be a good outcome.  And, you know, we should also not forget that the best is actually to, there are also a lot of good people in Russia, I think. I don't know anybody, but I hope actually for the world that it's like that. Mark Wood, one variation on that question, on that theme, I think I need to ask you, and that's this.  And that despite our vision, you and me, of how things could be redeveloped in Ukraine, which has been reduced to rubble, nothing happens. It just doesn't happen. Either by the Ukrainians who in that case, in their case would win or the Russians, nobody does anything. What happens? And I know you studied this because you're studying how architecture and engineering supports the human experience, life in a place, in a city, urban setting, and the like. Suppose nobody does anything, there are still 40 million people there. What happens to them? Can they live in rubble? That has not been redeveloped. What happens to the population? Again, like I'm not a politician or so. I'm an engineer, I'm happy to be an engineer. It's always easier because you can count things. It has to be not 19, it has to be 19.256 or whatever. So that's the engineers. But from our experience, there will be a lot of refugees, I think. Because people do not want to live in the east of Ukraine, but the first thing actually, he's taking over, he took over. And again, like 80% of the people in Ukraine, they consider themselves Ukrainians. And 20% they consider themselves Russian because they are only speaking Russian. And by history, the links were very close. But what happens to the other one? They also want to have a life. So we see two million already came to Europe. And there might be up to 10 million, I don't know, just the number, they have to be absorbed. And what happens, for instance, what we saw also for reunification of Germany, a lot of million people came over to the west and because they wanted to have a better life. So this will be a big strain also in Europe. And what happens then? Like if there's no financial help for the people in Europe, in Ukraine, then this will be a very meagre life, I think.  People help an economy. Maybe migrants don't help an economy immediately. The economy has to support them, but ultimately they are an asset, assuming they're properly integrated into the economy and the society. So maybe there's a benefit. On the other hand, what I hear you saying is that if there's no effort, no immediate effort to rebuild Ukraine, people will want to leave. You can't live in rubble. You can't live without these basic, building elements of urban life. You can't live there. And so they will leave. And that will leave a shadow population that severely, maybe more than 10 million would leave. There's nothing there for them at all to live. And that means Ukraine will become something out of 1933. Yeah. What actually was interesting, and I was reading also while we are in preparation here, and they actually, the Ukrainians have done a lot in the last couple of years. And they came with very limited resources. And one of the things I found very interesting was in innovation centers. Innovation centers actually where they are located. And if you look at the map, most of the innovation centers are located in the west of Ukraine. So maybe that's something like, we can think that if it comes to, maybe Russia is not taking over the whole Ukraine if they win, hopefully it stops somehow. And it comes back to, that people are really like to a real life, a real civil discourse. But it might be that actually they say, all right, that's going half of the country, this will be enough, then what happens to the west? Because that's almost like, we shouldn't forget like the Ukraine is very rich in terms of agriculture, just weed and all kinds of stuff. It used to be more in the west, not in the east. So, but again, like, when we are looking at the industry of the future, it's not heavy industry, which is in the Donets, which is in Russian control right now. There's something which different, this high technology, it's like, so there are indication that actually they, there might be also a silver lining that, just at least certain population in the worst case scenario, will actually have some support and they will go making a future. Yeah, and it could be that modern technology, agricultural technology would be useful to redevelop all that agriculture with the black soil of the Ukraine. And they will have a prosperity in agriculture as a possibility. Right, absolutely. Well, thank you, Manfred. Manfred Zapka, a planner and engineer who's been making better places for people to live for a long time here in Hawaii. Thank you so much for coming down and thank you for thinking about this and helping us understand the possibilities. Well, thank you so much, Jay. It's been really, it's always an inspiration when I tune into ThinkTech. You know, you've done a really fantastic job in 20 years right now. It's amazing. So, this is a real service for Hawaii and I really thank you for your service there. Thank you, Manfred. We'll circle back, we'll do some more of this because it's obviously completely dynamic subject. Thank you, Manfred Zapka. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching ThinkTech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.