Wednesday, December 8, 2010

UP (The Uncultured Project)

Every year the company I work for chooses a charity to give to at Christmas. It's different every year and it's not the company that gives perse, but each and every one of the employees. This year, we gave money and aide to a local family that had just lost everything in a devastating house fire.

This got me and a co-worked talking about charity and charities. She used to donate often to several charities, but she recently stopped. She had heard far too much about how more money lined the pockets of people than the actually went to help those who needed it.

According to Charity Navigator "of the 3,005 charities included in the study, 14 paid their top executive more than $1 million. Those charities range in total expenses from $13.5 million to $3.5 billion....The study also revealed that 106 charities paid their CEOs between $500,000 and $1 million. Total expenses among these organizations ranges from $3.8 million to $3.6 billion."


Honestly, a seven figure salary for the CEO of a charitable organization? Is that really reasonable? After reading that I could totally understand why she doesn't want to give money to big charities anymore. Of course, I had my own reasons for believing this well before I read any of that.

You see, I follow the Uncultured Project (UP) and Shawn Ahmed. on both You Tube and on Twitter. So I told her about it as best I could. (click the links to see his youtube, twitter or website)

What first caught my attention about Shawn and UP was that he was Canadian. Yes, I am rather proud of my country and I love to take notice when someone is doing something special...and he was certainly doing something special. It started on You Tube where I first learned about him. It went on from there.

The more I've watched and listened to what this single person has done, the more amazed I am. To me, his is a cause that is really worth giving to. He is a story of inspiration for me. I wanted to share that story and his cause with you. I'm pretty sure you won't regret it.

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