#plugintodevin - Your Mark on the World with Devin Thorpe

Dr. Jonathan Foley, 50, executive director for Project Drawdown, joined me for a discussion about climate change (watch in the video player above). His statement, “This may be the single biggest business opportunity in human history,” sounds like hyperbole but there may be no one better qualified to make that statement correctly.

With a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of Wisconsin and having spent three decades doing and managing research into climate change, he is certainly qualified on the science. His case that the business opportunity is there hinges on this key premise:

We literally have to reinvent our energy systems, our food systems, our manufacturing, our cities. Everything! You can look at that is like, ‘Crap, that's a really big problem.’

I think we have to look at as “Wow, what a great opportunity!” especially if we do it right. We can improve lives. We can reduce inequity. We could solve some of our other social ills if we do it wisely. And we could build a better world for future generations and for ourselves.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2yKm35v.

Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.

Candice Whitely joined Sewing New Futures four years ago when she visited New Delhi and saw the work the nonprofit was doing there to help women make a transition from prostitute to seamstress.

In the community of Najafgarh in the suburbs of Delhi, the residue of India’s infamous caste system condemns women to marry young and into sex work to feed their families and pay their own bride price.

Sewing New Futures helps women develop an alternative career path, not only for themeselves but for their daughters as well, saving them from a tragic fate most cannot even imagine.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

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Michael Dash is taking a step back from the hard-charging life he led for so long to re-center. In the process, he’s dealt with his own addictions and gained some powerful perspectives. He shares his insights in he book Chasing the High.

He also shares some powerful insights in our conversation, which you can watch above.

Interview with Michael Dash, the CEO of FATE - From Addict To Entrepreneur .

The following is the pre-interview with Michael Dash. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.

Expert Tips:

Tip 1: Do not make emotional decisions in business or your personal life. Emotional reactions cause frustration for both parties involved and usually involve an outpouring of negative energy. This usually leads to an uncomfortable conversation that needs to take place after the fact to heal any hurt feelings and ends up being a complete drain of time.

Tip 2: Change is actually easy. Too often people equate change to the result they are expecting from change but these two ideas actually have no correlation. Anyone who wants to change any behavior can easily do it today. If they tie themselves to the result of the change they may hold themselves back from taking that first step of action. You can build a plan to achieve the results you want along the way and do not need to wait for that to make the actual change right now.

Tip 3: Explore your positive curiosity and try new activities that can bring fulfillment into your lives. Sometimes we form opinions about certain activities or groups of people in life and we then incorporate those opinions as our own without even giving certain things a chance. Activities like yoga, meditation, sound baths, breath-work we may all have heard one thing or another about but until you actually try them out you will not know if they resonate with you and can help you achieve a fulfilled life.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

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“Tegu takes us back to the joy of play,” says Jose Zelaya, the Honduran toy manufacturer’s accounting manager. More importantly, the creator of wooden blocks with embedded magnets that fascinate and engage children, is employing people in a country stressed by poverty, unemployment and violence.

Tegu, founded by Chris and Will Haughey a decade ago, with the mission to create jobs in a country that desperately needed them. Along the way, they’ve proven that Honduras, less than three hours and just $233 (roundtrip, according to Google) by air from Houston, can be competitive with manufacturing in China and other Asian countries.

Ana Sauceda, an industrial engineer for Tegu, visited with me during my on-site research trip. You can view our discussion in the video player at the top of this article. She says the company is now shipping product to a variety of countries around the world, including China, Japan, Malaysia, Switzerland, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. The company’s biggest market remains the United States.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2GBSHL6.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

In 1998, Kurt Ver Beek had been living in Honduras for nearly a decade when he and four Hondurans founded the Association for a More Just Society, initially with the primary goal of delivering aid to vulnerable families. Quickly, however, they realized that little progress could be made without addressing the violence and corruption that then plagued and continue to plague the Central American country. Fighting those twin demons became their mission.

By 2012, Honduras had the highest homicide rate of any country in the world. Evidence was building that corruption and violence were closely related.

The son of the president of the National University was murdered by two uniformed policemen who were attempting to steal his car. The Association for a More Just Society helped to investigate and advocate for the prosecution of the guilty in that case.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2GAqtAg.

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For nearly two decades, Christie’s Place has been a refuge and a resource for women living with HIV/AIDS in San Diego. While the organization receives funding from a variety of sources, some of the funding comes with constraints and limitations.

Recently, Christie’s Place raised money via CaringCrowd, Johnson & Johnson’s global public health crowdfunding site, because it allowed the nonprofit to fill some critical gaps in its funding so that the organization can continue serving its community.

Executive Director Rhea Van Brocklin noted that J&J matched donations up to $250 during the campaign, dramatically easing the effort required to hit the funding goal of $5,000 in the most recent campaign. Over the years, Christie’s Place has raised over $14,000 on CaringCrowd.

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Spoonful Apparel, founded by Susan Elwer, to end child hunger, sells comfortable clothing with inspiring messages and donates 50 percent of the proceeds to the effort.

With slogans like “I choose kindness” emblazoned on the front, the clothing is virtually a living advertisement for doing good. The social enterprise sells the merchandise through online retail, to corporations and for events.

To date, the company has provided 65,000 meals to kids!

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Generous by nature and raised in a vulnerable circumstance, Elisa Torres, now a marketing manager at J&J’s Ethicon, is passionate about ending human trafficking. Recently, she raised money for A21 Campaign, a nonprofit that rescues women from slavery, using CaringCrowd, J&J’s global health crowdfunding platform.

By making human trafficking more difficult, profit margins are squeezed and perpetrators are encouraged to move on to other endeavors with less damage to human beings.

Elisa raised a total of more than $15,000 for the nonprofit using CaringCrowd in two separate campaigns. The site is easy to use and she notes that J&J matched virtually the donations in her campaigns, doubling her impact.

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One of the most remarkable social enterprises I’ve encountered in recent years is Ejido Verde, in Michoacan, Mexico, now run by CEO Shaul Paul. By reestablishing pine forest where they were once universal, Ejido Verde will grow a pine resin industry with the potential to employ thousands of people, lifting them into the middle class.

Ejido Verde is helping indigenous people to cultivate and care for trees for a decade before they begin to produce resin. Once they begin to produce, Ejido Verde will accept repayment in the form of raw resin--just 10 percent of the production. Ejido Verde also guarantee the purchase of the remaining resin at market prices.

Pine resin is a big business globally, totalling about $10 billion USD. The resin is used in all sorts of products, including colas.

After twenty years, the indigenous people will have the option to begin logging their trees or to continue harvesting resin--for up to 60 more years until the trees die naturally. Carbon credits are expected to supplement the income for the farmers.

One notable observation. A few people who had emigrated to the United States have now returned to their homes to work in the pine resin industry.

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“Hunger is a year-round struggle,” Jane Leal, Vice-Chair for Feeding Middlesex County, says. She’s grateful for the fundraising help offered by Johnson & Johnson’s CaringCrowd crowdfunding site that helped raise much-needed flexible funding to help close gaps in the community’s effort to feed those who are food-insecure.

Jane helped raise almost $7,000 using CaringCrowd, nearly half of which was donated by J&J as a match.

CaringCrowd is a crowdfunding platform for nonprofits that serve public health needs; food is a public health need.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Click the following link to learn my insider secrets to media publicity for social impact: http://bit.ly/75offmedia.