I've recently listened to a radio program about Venture Philanthropy and thought 'what a wonderful idea'.
Instead of Venture Capital ... money used to get innovative ideas into a sellable form with a huge return for the money given, why not promote the ability of people to offer their skills and expertise to innovative ideas within the not-for-profit sector?
Hum ... does that make sense? Here's an example. I was chatting to a woman who is involved with New Zealand's Grey Power. She had also heard the same radio discussion and has an interest in getting Grey Power members to list their skills and interests.
She gave me her email address and I sent her an email listing the skills Common Knowledge Trust needs in order to totally re-do The Pink Kit package.
We've always known we have an imperfect resource. Most expectant parents who purchase and use The Pink Kit Package forgive it's presentation because the childbirth skills are so vitally important to learn and use.
However, we'd love to have a wonderful resource that is totally enjoyable for mothers and fathers-to-be to use in the privacy of their own homes. This woman with whom I spoke had an interest in teaching younger people to cook ... so there are references to that as analogies to growing a skilled birthing population.
So here is the list of Venture Philanthropy we need:
Written material:
Good editor: ... there will be two parallel products: The rewrite that I'm working on now that will be about 45 separate stand-alone yet interconnected resources that we'll sell online if we are able to redo the whole thing. And to edit the material that will go into the hardcopy book which will come from the above 45 + resources minus anything that really should be in a new visual.
illustrator/graphics: ... body illustration, cover design for all 45+ resources and final hard copy design for the multi-media resource.
Visuals:
computer generated graphics ... sophisticated in 3-dimensional and rotational graphics about body/pregnancy/birth. We'll guide the process but we don't have the software expertise.
filming/editing: ... If we have any real life shots ... perhaps presenter.
Marketing:
PR ... Press releases, radio interviews, magazine articles ...
- we have to shift the conversation from the oppositional approach to childbirth and talk about pregnancy as the time to prepare to do the activity of giving birth. In NZ the conversation could be around balancing the Partnership and the role of both mothers and fathers-to-be.
- We also have to get away from the belief that there is no way to know what your birth will be like (yes, true) therefore there is nothing you can do (not true) Birth will unfold and we need the skills to work through the proces.
- We also have to get away from the belief that one birth is better than another because one is 'natural' while the other is 'medical'. This produces shame, blame and guilt. Instead we have to focus on 'birthing better' in whatever birth we have as a family. Birth is always an activity.
- We also have to move away from a belief that birth is just a natural physiological process that we should just assume our instinct/intuition will carry us through. 100% of women do get through birth but in reality very few women know how-to give birth and fewer men know how-to meaningfully help.
- We have come to accept 'getting through' is NOT the best it will get.
- Also birth used to be connected to suffering. The modern maternity system continues to try to reduce suffering. Birth without any medical care in developing countries is both safe and very unsafe but more important the childbirth discussion in most modern countries lies with a belief that this physiological process should not be connected to our human brain. In your desire to teach people to cook you know that hunger is also a natural physiological urge that leads to a need to eat but humans do not have a built in ability to instinctively/intuitively know what foods are safe or poisonous OR how-to cook.
Our Trust wants to raise the awareness that preparing for birth is essential, learning skills to do the activity is vital and using the skills is appropriate in whatever birth you have ... because each of us can birth better when we are skilled.
Distributor ... We need to get into bookstores in english speaking countries.
translators ... Once we redo the whole thing we need to translate the whole multi-media resource.
course designers .... We have an opportunity to create online self-doing courses. We also have a trial with a childbirth educator in Nelson who is loaning a PKPackage to all couples attending the hospital ante-natal classes. The 6 ten minute Pink Kit sampler must be written better so our Trust could license that to other cbes worldwide. We also need to develop a short presentation that midwives, doulas can offer expectant parents AND something that can be used by wholesalers who want to invite families to a 1-2 hour presentation and sell the resources. AND we want to produce a simpler resource that can be translated in multiple languages and given to expectant families through clinics in developing countries.
Computer:
Someone to do internet research ... social network sites; how to get grandparents to give this resource to their expectant children/grandchildren; research some software and teach us how to use some of those (we'll explain further); keyword/phrase searches.
Article writing and submission ... using our material to write some articles and submit them to article sites online as well as press releases.
Macintosh user who can help me create more websites
Google analytics ... someone who can help us set up Google analytics tracking software and testing.
That seems like a bit. We're well down the road to becoming the one childbirth education/information/preparation/skills method that includes all pregnancy/childbirth because that's common sense and can replace the present trend that actually implies that one type of birth is better than another.
So if you have time and energy to help a New Zealand charitable not-for-profit to change the world please come on board. We need your expertise but we can't pay. After all what is money? It's a form of exchange for skills and services (excluding 'things'). However, venture philanthropy is all about giving your skills and services rather than being paid for them.
