beverleypomeroy.com

Turning my back on Abundance

August 29th, 2010

Over the last several years, the word ‘abundance’ has infiltrated it’s way into conversations and goal making. Many people I know put energy into creating ‘abundance’. I never used to see anything necessarily wrong with that thought and even bought into the ‘abundant life’ mentality myself. It has been a comfortable term to attach to.

But what is an ‘abundant life’ and do we really need to have ‘abundance’ as a personal or professional goal?

The definition of abundance is “an extremely plentiful or oversufficient quantity or supply“, “overflowing fullness“, “affluence; wealth“. The other word that tends to be found with abundance is ‘prosperity‘. Now if you are talking about love and happiness, abundance of the heart is a good thing. However, our society’s focus on having an abundant life tends to be anchored by the volume of one’s pocket book.

I’ve been contemplating relocating recently and it has stemmed from my desire to lead a life of simplicity. There was a great article in the Globe and Mail featuring blogger Victoria Vargas of www.smallerliving.net. Victoria has embarked on a journey to live a smaller lifestyle, in order to live large. I know, a bit of an oxymoron, but she and many others, are advocating this simplistic lifestyle in order to unclutter not only our homes, but our minds and our energy.

One of her most recent blogs was The 50% Solution for Smaller Living. Wow, what a concept…check it out.

Another great advocate is Dave Bruno who has undergone his own 100 Thing Challenge. The goal? To break free of consumerism. Dave believes “that living without abundance of personal possessions for an extended period of time is the first step we ought to take in order to realize that we don’t need ever-more stuff.“ He has even listed the 100, well, 94 items he has in his possession. Can you imagine, being able to list your possessions in a list of a hundred or less?

Now, I don’t want to slam all the ‘abundance’ seekers out there, but I for one, am adopting Victoria’s mantra to “Live Small and Prosper”.

Crazy idea, I know, but what if living a smaller live, reducing our ‘things’ and decluttering our life actually creates prosperity? Whatever the word ‘prosperity’ means to you. Maybe living small is a way for all of us to create sustainability not only in our homes, in our economy, but for our planet?

My goal, to reduce my life in half…half the possessions, half the expenses, half the time spent in the car, half the food I have to buy (which means umm yea, growing it ourselves). Maybe I will have more time to spend with my children, more money to save, and more energy to garden?

Dare to take the challenge with me?

Thanks, Victoria…for your inspiring message and to Dave, who I noticed owns a Mac Book, iPad and iPhone? Come on Dave, I’d at least have one more pair of shoes in there!!

Tags: abundance, dave bruno, smaller living, sustainability, victoria vargas

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CHARITABLE GIVING EASIER TO IMPLEMENT THAN EVER WITH NEW GLOBAL CURRENTS TECHNOLOGY

August 10th, 2010

CHARITABLE GIVING EASIER TO IMPLEMENT THAN EVER WITH NEW GLOBAL CURRENTS TECHNOLOGY

VANCOUVER, BC, August 10, 2010 – Non-profit organizations now have access to a range of high-tech, affordable and easy solutions to their donor programs with the launch of Global Currents. Global Currents, parent company to PincGiving, houses the company’s IT platforms ranging from simple Donation Gateways to fully custom Peer to Peer Platforms.

“We created Global Currents with the idea that web solutions for non-profits should be affordable and simple to use”, says Beverley Pomeroy, Global Currents founder and CEO. “Our platforms, whether they are the free PINC Donate Now button or even our more complex Give Cubed Platform are all straight forward solutions that actually work for a non-profit. Affordable innovation – what a concept”, says Pomeroy.

Global Currents works with charities to help generate, sustain and develop sources of income, drive partnerships, and utilize the web to create ‘peer to peer’ fundraising. The Company offers Corporate Social Responsibility consulting for companies wanting to do ‘the right thing’ and maintains a large database of cause driven content. Global Currents also owns The Life On Purpose™ Network, an online cause driven video platform dedicated to profiling philanthropic content from around the world.

“We are the most dedicated team of ‘doers’ you will find in the industry”, says Pomeroy. “More than selling you a product, each member of our team brings a combined experience and understanding of what is needed in the not-for-profit world that you quite simply won’t find elsewhere.”

Cause Driven Platforms for Cause Driven People

Global Currents contact: (604) 648-9428

www.globalcurrents.org

Media contact:

Madelaine Hatch

604 720-5185

madelainehatch@shaw.ca

About Beverley Pomeroy

Global Currents & PincGiving were started by Beverley as a living legacy to her daughter Sophia, who was born with a life limiting illness so rare there is yet to be a name; she requires constant medical care, and utilizes many resources within her community. Beverley’s passion for global change and her desire to find a purpose in the tragedy her family faced, led her to find a solution to some of the issues she was hearing within her own supportive not for profit community. With the intention of facilitating online giving, PincGiving was born and continues to grow globally into a recognized social giving platform.

Beverley is a 2009 Business in Vancouver Top 40 Under Forty recipient as well as a 2009 Stevie Award finalist, recognized as one of Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneurs. She has spoken at the UN Informal Regional Network, Social Media for Social Good, SXSW, and is participating in the upcoming Transatlantic Forum in NY.

As a sought after speaker, Beverley’s honest, heartwarming story of mom to business creator breaks down the walls of any audience while her expertise in online fundraising has listeners walking away armed with tangible solutions to make their own online fundraising successful.

Beverley sits as a director on the foundation board of Reach Youth and Child Society, formerly Delta Association of Child Development.

Tags: causes, change, charity, corporate social responsibility, Online Fundraising, philanthropy, social enterprise, technology, Women in Business

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The Melancholy Ebbs ~ A decade Later

August 3rd, 2010

Sleep last night was elusive; Sophia’s feeding pump is on the fritz again so we had to get up every hour to bolus feed Sophia. ‘Bolus feed’ means we have to draw up her formula in syringes and manually feed her each hour to maintain her sugars.

The irony is ten years ago today, I was doing the exact same thing but in Special Care Nursery the day Sophia was born. Today is my gorgeous girl’s birthday…

Ten years later, it is hard not to reflect on a decade of ‘Sophia’. As I sit here typing this, Sophia sits next to me all bundled up in her blanket, wearing her Hello Kitty pajamas watching her morning show. She is cuddly, her arm wrapped around mine making it a little difficult to type. For those of you who have seen my five finger typing, you can appreciate the added difficulty.

My best friend has shared a quote with me over the years “Whenever we experience substantial disappointment, we are attached to expectations of a specific outcome. Indeed we must plan for the future. We must see our objectives clearly and aim for them carefully, but we open ourselves to suffering when we make our happiness dependent on expected outcomes.”

For the first few years of Sophia’s life, I had no expectations. Well, I expected her to die, to be candid and pragmatic. And that caused a tremendous amount of suffering. Each time I found myself in the back of an ambulance, or on the floor doing CPR, in a room full of medical staff having to make decisions on the fly, my expected outcome was Sophia’s death.

Life was bitter sweet, milestones became a measurement of imminent death, my heart was saturated with melancholy as each Christmas came and went, each first day ‘of’ and birthdays, birthdays would find me curled up in my bed crying for another one.

As the years have gone, and despite the progression of Sophia’s disease, of added symptoms to manage, ever increasing rounds of meds and treatments, endless days spent at Children’s for appointments with no answers…something has changed, my melancholy has ebbed.

I find myself more and more embracing the simplicity in life. And yes, I have expected outcomes…I expect to wake up kissing my children, I expect Sophia to have fun in school and learn to read. I expect to find support in our community of friends and family. I expect Sophia will want to spend her birthday swimming in the lake…

And I expect to suffer, like any parent with a child who has a life limiting illness or not…we ALL suffer in our own way. Some suffer with supporting a child with addiction, some suffer with a child who is brilliant, some suffer with a child who has an intellectual disability, a gift for sport, or dance, or music.

There is a quote I’d like to share…

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” Ben Okri

Sophia has taught me in her decade of suffering, in her resilience for life…to be greater than our suffering.

And I love her with all my being and wish her a wonderful tenth birthday, swimming in the lake…

My angel...

Tags: children, Sophia, special needs, support

Posted in Children with Special Needs, Parenting

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Organizational Leadership – The Necessary Revolution

June 24th, 2010

I have been hearing a lot about organizational leadership lately and wanted to delve into what is organizational leadership and why is it becoming so important in our nonprofit sector.

When I looked at Wikipedia it didn’t have ‘organizational’ leadership, it just had leadership. And even then in brackets the word ‘disambiguation’. With the word leadership having so many different meanings and connotations, my search for organizational leadership took on an even more daunting road.

For all intents and purposes, leadership is defined as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.”^[1] Definitions more inclusive of followers have also emerged. Alan Keith stated that, “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.”^[2]

Loosely, organizational leadership could be defined as the above as a way for ‘organizations’ to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.

Recently, I was introduced to the works of Peter Senge who has a Society for Organizational Learning. Beyond the Five Disciplines Peter and SoL teach and the Beer Game, yes, the Bear Game (they use for teaching organizational learning), I found The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together for a Sustainable World to be of most interest to me as our G8 and G20 summit are about to begin here in Canada.

THE NECESSARY REVOLUTION reveals how ordinary people at every level are transforming their businesses and communities. By working collaboratively across boundaries, they are exploring and putting into place unprecedented solutions that move beyond just being “less bad” to creating pathways that will enable us to flourish in an increasingly interdependent world.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a small grassroots organization that provides counseling support to victims of crime, not just any crime, but horrific crimes of rape, murder. People who’s grief we could not comprehend. This organization gets referrals from dozens of agencies in our city. They basically get the cases that other agencies are unable to deal with.

This small grassroots organization is struggling due to lack of funding and loss of grant monies and support from United Way and other like funding agencies. They’ve had to move twice to reduce their costs and into locations that they themselves are not safe to work in.

The agencies that refer clients to them attain funding, have resources, yet, do not share those resources, attend nor promote any fundraising initiatives…despite depending on sending their high risk clients to this organization.

This seems fundamentally wrong, and according to Peter Senge, a ‘necessary revolution’ needs to occur in this sector they are working within. The agencies that are referring, and the organizations that are receiving those referrals would benefit from connecting, in person, in a safe place, to dialogue about their like services and how the clients they serve, would benefit even more from their collaboration.

I challenge those who are in areas of nonprofit work, in particular our social services sector, to work collaboratively across barriers to create a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen to help sustain this valuable and necessary grassroots organization who desperately needs our support.

Tags: community, leadership, nonprofit, organization, peter senge

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The Climb ~ Sophia Singing

June 18th, 2010

After such a crazy week, and with all the ups and downs…I wanted to repost this blog from over a year ago and add the link of Sophia singing this song with Beth, the music therapist from Canuck Place Hospice. Means so much more hearing Sophia’s voice singing the words…

Sophia – The Climb

Original Blog Post: April 2009

I never thought I would see the day that I would be so inspired to write a personal blog because of Hannah Montana.

Well, today is that day…

I took my beautiful gorgeous Sophia to see The Hannah Montana movie at the theatre. Now most would wonder why that would be a momentous occasion to blog about. Well, with her pint size frame, her stumbling gait, the backpack holding her feeding pump hanging off her shoulders, her shots and meter tucked into my pocket…and crowds of excited pre teens, I’m sure you can imagine, for a moment, my anxiousness.

However, Sophia is a huge fan of Hannah Montana. Her bed is adorned with blankets depicting both Hannah and Miley, her walls covered with magazine posters and on any given day, I am certain our neighbours can hear Sophia at the top of her lungs singing word for word, Hannah songs.

So, off to the movie we went. I got Sophia all sorted, her little body looking seemingly smaller in the big theatre chair; her body weight barely able to keep the seat down, her maltesers already half gone. I settled into my seat next to her, her little hand grabbing mine…the theatre went dark, and for 90 minutes I got lost.

I didn’t necessarily get lost in the movie, although, it was a great movie; I got lost in my daughter’s smile, the life in her eyes and the sound of her voice singing every song, word by word.

There was one moment when my eyes watered; it was when Miley sang ‘Climb’. It is appropose to hear this song today, on the Easter weekend, the weekend that depicts the fall and rise of Christ.

“I can almost see it. That dream I am dreaming. But there’s a voice inside my head that’s saying you’ll never reach it. Every step I am taking. Every move I make. Feels lost with no direction. My faith is shaking.”

“Got to keep trying. Got to keep my head held high”

“There’s always going to be another mountain. I’m always going to want to make it move. Always going to be an uphill battle, Sometimes you going to have to lose”

These words rang in my head. Sophia’s hand wrapped tightly in mind, I looked down and saw her singing Climb with all the happiness in the world. She looked up at me, smiled widely, moved her body in time to the music and sang her heart out.

And then these words…

“Ain’t about how fast I get there, Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side. It’s the climb”

Every day I wake up worried about Sophia. Every rash, every gurgling breath. Each night I go in to give her her shots, check on her, hoping that she will wake up to see the next day. I think about her future, will she have one, how will it look. What happens when she is too big for me to pick her up and cuddle her in moments of pain, what happens when she is in high school and kids tease her, hurt her. My mind fills constantly with the worries of a mother, the worries of a daughter who is sick, who with each day moves closer to her own mortality.

“The struggles I’m facing. The chances I’m taking. Sometimes might knock me down but No I’m not breaking. I may not know it but these are the moments that I’m going to remember most . Just got to keep going.”

Sophia’s voice ringing in my ears…

“There’s always going to be another mountain. I’m always going to want to make it move. Always going to be an uphill battle, sometimes you going to have to lose.”

Tears now streaming down my face; “Ain’t about how fast I get there,
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side. It’s the climb”

Our worlds, our lives collide for so many reasons and tonight, I was brought to hear, to truly hear the words of a talented young singer, who in the innocence of her song, allowed a mother to relish in the sweet, gentle simplicity of a movie, a song…and a now empty bag of maltesers crumpled up in the most beautiful little girl’s hand.

Just jump…

Tags: adversity, Sophia, The Climb

Posted in Children with Special Needs

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‘We’ the system

June 16th, 2010

So the other day I had my rant on how the system failed and I received an overwhelming response from both my close friends and those in our community.

One good friend who I have known for so many years and had lost touch with spoke so eloquently in response to my cry of a failed system. She said “in your eyes the system has failed but in the eyes of your beautiful daughter “you” are her system and that is the strongest built system she has ever known.”

Thank you my dear friend…

It made me think about all the other families out there with children who have special needs, or families tending to their aging and sick parents. We are their system. We organize doctor visits, we fill out forms for funding, seek alternative assistance, learn about their diseases, their needs…

There is a fantastic website in the US I learned of recently called Patients Like Me. It was founded in 2004 by three MIT engineers. PatientsLikeMe is a privately funded company dedicated to making a difference in the lives of patients diagnosed with life-changing diseases.

Their goal is to enable people to share information that can improve the lives of patients diagnosed with life-changing diseases. To make this happen, they’ve created a platform for collecting and sharing real world, outcome-based patient data (patientslikeme.com) and are establishing data-sharing partnerships with doctors, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, research organizations, and non-profits.

It made me think that if ‘we’ are the system then we can create something similar in Canada for parents and families of children who have life-changing diseases, from asthma, to celiacs, diabetes, muscular dystrophy, you name it. Not only will ‘we’ the system find a common community platform we can also contribute to informing service providers and health care providers with information to drive treatment research and improve medical care, and service opportunities.

I invite all those interested to contact me and begin a discussion on how we can create our own platform so ‘we’ the system can somehow help solve the issues that not only I endure, but many of us as we traverse down the road of being a support giver to our children, and families.

Thank you to all those who have responded so kindly, with words of wisdom, support and acknowledgment.

Tags: children, special needs, support, system

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The system has failed us…

June 14th, 2010

The system has failed you, Bev…were the words that were said to me today, repeatedly. The system has failed you…

These were the words of conciliation I received as tears streamed down my face, my voice cracking between sobs, my hands and legs shaking with every word I was trying to inch out of my brain. The system has failed you…

When Sophia was born almost ten years ago I got to know ‘the’ system very very well; be it the hospital system, the pharmaceutical system, even the hospital cafeteria food system. Then came the home nursing system, the community support systems and of course, our confusing public school system.

Have they failed me, or Sophia, for that matter? Maybe. Have they played an integral role in her well being, of course. Could it be better, absolutely.

Today, however, I had an expectation of a resource only children and families with the enormity of a ‘life limiting’ diagnosis have the privilege of receiving. A resource that is supposed to catch families like ours, children like Sophia when the ‘typical’ system fails us or does not meet our needs at various stages of our child’s disease progression. A resource that clearly communicates it is there to ‘assess, manage and coordinate’ our multi system complex disease encompassed children…where we are invited to find support that provides ‘assessment and management of disease’, ‘information about symptoms, trajectory’, ‘parent education and support’ and my biggest need today ‘coordination with other health care professionals’.

A system failed me today…and with every request, every query, every worry, that system indicated all the things I need to do in order to assess, manage and coordinate the care of my daughter and the progression of her unknown disease. There was no offer to alleviate the already overwhelming responsibilities and tasks surrounded with Sophia’s care. There was no offer to coordinate a much needed MRI that seems to have stalled between orthopedics, neurology and radiology since October; a test that could determine trajectory for Sophia, and could demonstrate the need for surgery that would alleviate her major pain issues. There was no offer to do the blood work, or refer to other specialists based on Sophia’s symptoms. Or to simply pick up the phone and call to have a tangible plan of next steps…

I was offered respite, which is great and needed and appreciated…however, what happens when I pick her up from respite? We jump right back on that ferris wheel to no where, left with all the unanswered queries, left to manage her symptoms, and left to coordinate the dozens of physicians and clinics who do provide for Sophia through a system that on a regular basis, fails us.

A system failed us…and as a parent, a list of additional tasks will be added to my role, as it does each and every time a system fails.

Today was our plea for help in coordinating the complexity we live with every day, a complexity that happens to belong to a beautiful little girl, who through no fault of her own or her family, was born with a rare, one of a kind chromosome deletion…and who needs the help of a system, of ALL the systems working collaboratively in order to continue living, to continue laughing, to continue a quality of life that day by day seems to be slipping before our eyes…

Tags: children, morality, special needs, system

Posted in Children with Special Needs

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Corporate Social Responsibility versus Corporate Moral Responsibility – Is there a difference?

May 21st, 2010

We talk a lot about CSR, known as Corporate Social Responsibility, and what that means but rarely do you hear Corporate Moral Responsibility mentioned. It has me thinking about whether or not the two are really that different.

Wikipedia defines Corporate Social Responsibility, also known as corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, responsible business, sustainable responsible business (SRB), or corporate social performance,^[1] is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure its support to law, ethical standards, and international norms. Consequently, business would embrace responsibility for the impact of its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.

So how is this different from Corporate Moral Responsibility? Interestingly enough, Wikipedia doesn’t have a definition for Corporate Moral Responsibility. When searching for CMR, ‘moral responsibility’ simply comes up. A person, or in this case, a company/corporation, has a moral responsibility if they are responsible for something occurring. And if something does occur, then they are responsible for the outcome, good or bad. In most cases, we tend to hear the bad outcomes much like the Louisiana Oil Spill and BP’s responsibility for the disaster.

It gets even more complicated in that we can also be called ‘moral agents’ and such, can have ‘causal responsibility’ for the disaster that occurred.

Moral agents are those who have a moral responsibility for an action.

I argue that we are ALL moral agents, and regardless of what we label it, CSR or CMR. If we all went about our day, our business understanding that our actions have an impact on our world, on our neighbours, our environment, we would think twice about how we do business, where we do business, who we do business with. We would align our businesses with other ‘moral agents’.

As a moral agent, it removes any suggestion of hypocrisy or insincerity in our business practice. As much as I do agree we need developed business ethics, fair trade policies and organizations like B Corp, I think the core of CSR and/or CMR comes down to an individual being that ‘moral agent’.

So is there really a difference between Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Moral Responsibility? I don’t think so, they are one of the same.

Whipping out the door with my ‘moral agent’ cape flapping in the wind…anyone care to join me?

Tags: B Corp, corporate social responsibility, CSR, ethics, moral agents

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Grassroots ‘re distribution’ of wealth; Delta’s Annual Spring Cleanup

April 12th, 2010

Every year I am both shocked and dismayed when in my community of Ladner, British Columbia the annual ’spring cleanup’ occurs. Once a year, our city has given our community 72 hours to dig through our over stuffed garages, our cluttered yards, and under the stairs for unused or broken items.

This year I tossed to the curb the old porch screen that got broken when one of the dogs ran through it, an old sandbox table that someone outgrew, luggage that got wrecked in my many travels and plant pots, a couple lamps I no longer use that were taking up valuable garage space. Oh, and an old go kart the boys made many years ago that was getting rusted at the side of the house under the pine tree!

For me to take all those items to our local garbage dump, not only would it entail me attempting to backup with the trailer on, but it would also cost me about $20.00. Spring cleanup takes merely an hour of my time to go through my garage and discover items that can be ridden.

So, the stuff goes out the curb…and a wondrous thing occurs; for 72 hours people from around our community and beyond drive slowly along the streets scoping out other people’s junk. My discarded lamp was picked up by a woman walking by with her dog. The sandbox table by a family who happened to be driving by.

Large trucks roll along picking up feverishly all and anything that has metal especially copper; these are the professionals who then take all that metal and recycle it making money. Can you imagine? Making money from old rod, old broken down bicycles, barbecues…what a novel concept. AND cleaning up our neighborhood in the process.

We hear a lot about recycling, how we have too much stuff in our homes. Did you know one of the biggest growing industries is mobile storage? And look at the reality show, ‘Hoarders’. They are in no way at a lost for participants for their show.

I applaud my community and the city leaders for maintaining spring cleanup when many other communities in the lower mainland have chosen to cancel this annual junk frenzy as it is too time consuming and costly to their city. Spring clean up is one of the most grassroots way of re distributing our wealth in the form of ’stuff’. You know the saying, ‘one man’s junk is another man’s treasure’ and that is so evident during spring clean up days.

Now if only someone would take that go cart before my kids get home from school!!

Tags: cleanup, delta, recycling, sustainability

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