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A hard blog post to write... 1MillionShirts

2010-07-28T11:02:40-04:00

It is with a heavy heart that I write this blog post. The past few months have been an eye-opening experience and one that I’ve learned a lot of life lessons from. I am making the decision to indefinitely cease operations for 1MillionShirts. I believe that life is all about timing and that with my other business, now is not the time to undertake building a non-profit organization. I don’t want to completely remove the website as I do see an opportunity to revisit it, and by leaving it up, it’s my hope that others may learn from this experience.

The negative feedback, the angry blog posts, the scathing emails, all of that has had no effect on this decision. Trust me, I had a lot more negative feedback with iwearyourshirt.com (IWYS).

As someone who is speaking publicly and telling people to “Focus More, Do Less,” I need to heed my own advice. I can’t build a business and run a non-profit at the same time. Both endeavors will suffer and it’s simply not fair to the non-profits involved, the gracious people who have offered to advise me and the ambassadors.

One thing that I will be doing to help non-profit organizations is to give away one day each month on iwearyourshirt.com in 2011. Twelve companies will have the opportunity to be marketed/advertised via social media completely for free as my way of giving back. It makes more sense and ties directly into my current business.

The 11,000+ t-shirts that have already been collected will still be used towards disaster relief and some projects already in motion. If you’ve recently shipped t-shirts they will not go unused. All of the money collected will be donated to our friends at H.E.L.P.International to be used in conjunction with the t-shirts.

If anyone would like to reach out to me about 1MillionShirts related matters, please contact me at info@1MillionShirts.org.

Thank you for reading and for your support,

Jason Sadler

Reduce. Reuse. TeeCycle!

2010-06-17T10:35:36-04:00

I bet you’re all excited to know where some of your donated t-shirts are going, right? Well, a few days ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tim Cigelske from TeeCycle.org.

What the heck is TeeCycle?
Teecycle.org was founded by Tim and Jess Cigelske in 2008 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The goal has always been simple: Reclaim the best t-shirts available and make the best use of our resources. It’s a simple and smart solution for being a friend to our environment.

TeeCycle shirts are unqiue, one-of-a-kind “pre-loved” t-shirts hand-selected from rummage sales, thrift stores or donated by friends. When you own a TeeCycle shirt, it says you care about the environment by re-using high-quality t-shirts with history, character and a unique story.

What’s so special about a TeeCycle t-shirt?
When you purchase a “TeeCycl’d” shirt from TeeCycle, you’ll be supporting the River Revitalization Foundation. $1 of each sale is donated to restore urban river trails and waterways in the Milwaukee area!

We’re still listening…
Jason and I know that many of you wanted the t-shirts to be repurposed, and that’s what we’re going to do. TeeCycle will be the first of many organizations that will receive your shirts and put them to good use. We’ve been exploring other ways to repurpose these shirts (i.e. reusable grocery store bags, quilts, etc), and if you’ve got any other suggestions, let us know!

Tim and Jess, great work on an amazing idea!

Reduce. Reuse. TeeCycle!

- Stephen

Brainstorming for Social Change

2010-06-15T06:38:35-04:00

Brainstorming is a fun activity. It used to be one of my most favorite activities (tied with eating paste), and I always liked the outcome of a good brainstorming session. Each time we had a brainstorm in school, we always had to recite the rules. To be honest, I’ve never participated in a brainstorm of this scale. Heck, I’ve never had the opportunity to get so many ideas about helping others than the forum on this website! It’s been quite the experience, and since we’ve all been participating in an online brainstorm, I’d like to play teacher for just a minute and provide my take on the rules.

Postpone and withhold your judgment of ideas
While simple, I think this is the most difficult rule to follow. There are a lot of people who are very passionate about humanitarian aid efforts. Even more of you have experienced when good intentions end up being detrimental to a societal problem. In this vane, I consider this a means to think out loud. True, we don’t know everything. True, we should do research. True, I used to eat paste as a child (it explains a lot, right?). At the end of the day, I hope that as we continue to fine tune 1MillionShirts, you will continue to provide your suggestions/comments. We appreciate them, and we are using them to create something for individuals to help themselves.

Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas
Collecting 1MillionShirts is a pretty wild and exaggerated idea, right? What started as an idea to help a friend who needed a couple hundred shirts, turned into something much larger. The most successful of people didn’t get where they were by thinking small. Some of the wildest ideas, oftentimes run into mistakes along the way. My late grandmother taught me that mistakes are always okay… it’s all about the recovery.

Quantity over quality (at this stage)
The more ideas, the merrier, right? Receiving so many responses has been excellent! It’s helpful that everyone has taken notice because now it’s easier (for me, personally) to get answers to all the questions I’ve had about what has/has not worked. Having a forum such as this has been a great way to get a better idea of best practices.

Build on shared ideas
And that’s what we’ve been doing. With the help of several aid professionals, we have created a way to foster entrepreneurs. We know that simply gifts in-kind aren’t the best way to change an economic situation, so the idea is that we’d like to fund the ideas of entrepreneurs so that they can do what needs to be done. We don’t know what needs to be done, but they do. Giving a group of individuals the tools to succeed has the potential to ensure a sustainable economy.

Every person and every idea has equal worth
Self-explanatory. As I’ve stated, we’ve listened to everyone, and we want to make sure we get it right. We know there are best practices out there, and we want to do whatever we can to get a better understanding of each component.

As we move forward, we want people to know that we’re not only about 1MillionShirts. We’re also about 1 million minds and the ways that social entrepreneurship can create economic sustainability. No, we’re not going to be able to help 1 million people directly, but we can help a few (think: Starfish Story). Equipped with tools to help the community, these few will be leaders in guiding social change. We don’t want to undermine anyone’s intelligence, and we know that we don’t know what’s best. And knowing this, is the first step to a successful dialogue that will lead to a successful project.

I hope that we can all work together on this global brainstorm for good.

If you’re wondering what will be done with the t-shirts, stay tuned for our next blog post!

First Milestone: 10,000 T-Shirts Donated!

2010-06-14T23:11:32-04:00

I’ll keep this short and sweet as we are working diligently to get our new plans in place. WAAAAHHHHOOOOOO!!! Thank you so much everyone for helping us hit 10,000 t-shirts donated in such a short period of time. We’re honored by everyone chipping in to help and know we have a long way to go.

Thank you for helping us reach our first milestone!

- Jason

One Great Skype Call...

2010-06-03T11:59:30-04:00

Stephen and I just got off a Skype call with Marieme Jamme (@mjamme) and Teddy Ruge (@tmsruge). Through the launch of 1MillionShirts they reached out to us to help, they reached out to offer guidance and they’ve graciously given their time and knowledge to help us find our way.

We’ve found our way.

Over the next week(s) there will be some minor changes around the website and some major changes in our goals and our focus. Will we still be collecting shirts? Absolutely. Will the name still be 1MillionShirts? Yes. With Marieme and Teddy’s help we are moving in the direction of the right way to help.

I’m very thankful for Teddy, Marieme, all of the 1MillionShirts ambassadors and every single person that is reading this post right now. Thank you for being apart of what will become a great project, I leave you with this: 1MillionShirts for 1MillionMinds.

Three strikes and you're out

2010-05-27T13:33:47-04:00

I’ll admit, I’ve never failed in business before. I’ve never been an entrepreneur who tried 50 ideas and 1 became successful. I’ve been very lucky, but I’ve also done a lot of research and done a lot more planning and thinking. With 1MillionShirts I’ve only led the way with my emotions and my heart, not with my head. I need to stop thinking with my heart and to start doing research before broaching a subject (especially sensitive ones I know nothing about).

I kindly ask that you accept my second apology for making uneducated and uninformed decisions. If there was ever a 3-strikes-and-youre-out rule, I’m putting it to the test. We have a lot of people contacting us that see we can reach people and we can’t try to help everyone. We need to talk with our advisors on our specific focuses of disaster relief, sustainability projects for rural villages in Uganda and how we can help use 1,000,000 t-shirts to raise money for these causes.

I’ve been trying to think too big picture. We need to focus and we need to stop trying to think we can do more than we can. 1MillionShirts needs to do 1 thing and do it well.

Thank you for taking the time to give me (and us) advice. I truly do appreciate it and hope you understand.

Human Trafficking, Part 2

2010-05-26T22:51:37-04:00

There are lots of issues in the world, and most need to be handled with care and sensitivity. Any form of human trafficking is an illegal practice that should be handled by the government. In cases where individuals have taken it upon themselves to remedy a bad situation, one has to take a look at the bigger picture. Most of us want to change the world and leave our mark on society. It goes without saying that sometimes our efforts may not be the best means of changing the status quo. We shared a story from someone whose efforts could be best aided by the help of the government. The story was real and after discussing with a variety of people, we now know that an issue of this magnitude is best suited for the authorities.

Human trafficking is serious. We didn’t mean to belittle it or make it seem like we were supporting it. There are several resources we’ve located online that discuss this issue in depth, and we’ve included them below. The story we heard was moving, but after speaking with several friends and colleagues (some of whom are employed by government agencies), they shared with us a variety of scenarios that we had not considered. We are collecting shirts for disaster relief. We are trying to help teachers and students that need supplies for school. We are a group of young people trying to help. It’s frustrating and disheartening when individuals with a great deal of experience in various efforts seem to get pleasure in crushing the energy and desire of people who want things to be better in the world. We want to listen and we want to discuss topics that we’ve never been apart of and know people reading this blog have not either.

The story we shared was simply that… a story. We’ve experienced a lot in a short amount of time. Given the visibility, we have had a great deal of people seeking help with their initiatives. We are sticking to the collection of shirts for disaster relief and instead of sharing stories apart from our mission, we’ll be asking our advisors and people with more experience. We simply shared a story that we heard and wanted to pass it on. It moved us, it is a scary part of this world and we will be staying out of it.

To learn more about human trafficking: Read this post

Special thanks to @texasinafrica for providing her insights

- Jason & Stephen

Field Trip: 1MillionShirts Warehouse

2010-05-21T20:06:36-04:00

Many of you have been wondering exactly what happens to the shirts once they’ve been shipped to the H.E.L.P. International warehouse. For approximately 8 hours, Jason and I met the people responsible for sorting, counting, and shipping shirts to those who need them most. It was an eye-opening experience sure to impress anyone who could see this operation at work.

The H.E.L.P. International warehouse is a 17,000 sq. ft. structure with a lot more than the shirts you’ve been donating (or will be donating). Not knowing what to expect, Jason and I were completely amazed at the number of items being stored for disaster relief. Down one aisle, we saw toys. Down another, we saw clothes. Toward the back of the warehouse, we saw medical equipment including operating tables, dentist chairs, and… an x-ray machine?! How cool!

When you send a shipment to the H.E.L.P. International warehouse, care is taken to make sure that your money and shirts end up in the right place. Upon receipt of your shirts, here’s what you’ll receive:

A receipt for your donation indicating that your contribution is 100% tax-deductible
A picture of children (in Masese, Uganda) who are being helped with your generous donations
A handwritten thank you note

H.E.L.P. International informed us today that YOUR shirts have already been shipped to Haiti, Navajo Nation, Pineridge Nation (Lakota-Sioux), and Jerusalem!

Keep sending in those shirts! Y’all are doing great!

- Stephen

Happy Birthday Mom, Thank You and Content Changes

2010-05-20T11:37:31-04:00

Thank you Mom for all your support and for donating your birthday to help spread the word about 1MillionShirts. Thank you to everyone reading this post for being here, for supporting us and for helping steer this ship in the right direction. We strongly believe in what we are doing and hope to educate others along the way as we continue to learn.

If you’re looking through the site today you should notice some content changes. You may not have memorized our previous messaging, but we have changed our goals and direction and want to reflect that. If you have read the listening/learning post, please do so. Also, read the TIME Magazine article about the evolution of this project and the apparent whirlwind we dropped ourselves into.

Hopefully you’ll take the time today to gather up a t-shirt or two, grab a $1 bill and send them to our warehouse in Colorado. The faster we reach our goal of 1,000,000 shirts donated, the faster we can begin to help those in need in the right ways.

Stephen and I are heading to Colorado for the weekend and will be seeing the process in action. We’ll be taking photos and video to give you guys a behind the scenes look.

- Jason

1MillionShirts in TIME Magazine

2010-05-12T12:59:14-04:00

If this is the first blog post you’ve read on this site, please refer to “Listening, Learning and Shifting Focus” first before leaving any comments. Thank you.

Here’s the TIME Magazine article: Bad Charity? All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt!

What I’ve tried to stress to folks in the AID/Non-Profit world is that I am a marketer first and have never claimed to be something else. Does that mean I should stay away from trying to help other people? Some would say YES and some would say NO. Deep down inside my gut I feel like I can do something great and I firmly believe 1MillionShirts will do great things. Am I ever going to make everyone happy? No I am not. But have I already had 1MillionShirts written about in Mashable and TIME Magazine in the first couple weeks, yes I have.

Regardless of what some people want to think, 1MillionShirts is not a huge marketing scheme I cooked up to help my day job. It’s not. If you don’t believe me, I’m sorry and instead of wasting your time/energy being angry with me go do something that actually helps someone. I trust the people that I talk to and when TIME Magazine wants to talk about my project it means I am on to something. It means I really do understand marketing and I really do understand that the majority of people do not and don’t see it as useful.

I’ve never said I wanted to fix a broken system. I’ve never said I wanted to end an age-old argument about good aid, bad aid, bandaids or other words with aid in them (that’s having a sense of humor folks). People have told me I can help make a difference with the talents I have and I will use those talents with a process that gets others involved. I’m not a fundraiser, I’m a guy who wears t-shirts for a living. T-shirts are my “in” with a sizable audience and that’s how I honestly believe I can make an impact.

If you’re here to naysay, you’re wasting your time. I’m speaking with people that I trust, with people that matter to me and with people who understand I’m willing to listen and learn.

Listening, Learning and Shifting Focus

2010-05-19T10:52:47-04:00

In the past week I’ve learned a lot of things. One of those things that has become crystal clear is that I offended some people with the messaging on the website. This was 100% never my intention and I take full blame and have apologized for it, and am apologizing again publicly. I haven’t immediately changed the messaging because I don’t just want to strip the site bare of content, I want to get it right. The one thing that will change as soon as possible is the tagline on the main image of the website from “Help us send one million t-shirts to the people of Africa.” to “Help us reach our goal of one million t-shirts donated.” The image itself may change as well if that has been deemed offensive.

1MillionShirts is here to stay. It is not going anywhere and negativity, cynicism and criticism will not stop what we are trying to do. From the good criticism and thoughtfulness of the right people (meet: @tmsruge & mjamme) we are learning that what we were trying to do was wrong. While on the surface it may look like there are people in villages/countries in Africa that could use clothing, there is a bigger issue and we would have done more harm than good by simply donating 1,000,000 t-shirts.

One thing I personally want to do with this project is to help educate people who were/are in the same position I was/am. There isn’t a clear resource that explains the ins and outs of what people in other countries around the world need. I’m not saying I’m going to create that, what I am going to try to do is educate people through this website as I continue to learn.

The important item to note about 1MillionShirts is that we are going to use t-shirts as the vehicle to help sustainable efforts in specific areas that the charities we choose to work with are involved in. Plain and simple, the money that you would have or are going to donate with your t-shirt(s) will no longer be paying for expensive/inefficient shipping costs to send t-shirts anywhere. That money will now be going to help people build wells, schools, homes, etc. The specific places and regions where this will be happening will be defined shortly and we want to make sure we get it right this time and don’t generalize anything.

So what will happen with the 1,000,000 t-shirts that get donated? We haven’t made the ultimate decision yet. The one thing we do know is that we’ll be storing the t-shirts for disaster relief when clothing is needed as an ancillary item. We’ll also be talking to homeless shelters across the US and looking to partner with organizations who can use second hand t-shirts to turn a profit and that money then goes back to our mission. For the time being, yes, you can still donate t-shirts and feel good that they will be making a positive impact.

I was hesitant to write this blog post at all without concrete answers, but I wanted to get something out there to keep up with the other blog posts being written about 1MillionShirts. There are 50+ posts on 1MillionShirts now, feel free to try to get caught up if you have a few hours.

I’m hoping we have a more clearly defined mission by the of this week and can refocus on our energies in the proper direction. Thank you everyone for your continued support and I know that we’ll turn this project into something positive and great. We don’t just have good intentions, we have the determination and desire to make a difference by doing.

- Jason

Changes Are On The Horizon

2010-04-29T10:44:55-04:00

We are listening. We have heard you and we are making sure we are doing the right thing. There are changes coming and we will address verbiage on the website and in our marketing materials very shortly. Please understand we are listening and we care about making a difference around the world (not just in countries in Africa).

1MillionShirts is not going anywhere and we are going to correct the messaging and the focus of everyone’s efforts to help make a difference.

1MillionShirts Has Filed To Obtain 501c3 Status

2010-05-19T10:53:17-04:00

We’ve gotten quite a few emails asking, “Is 1MillionShirts tax exempt?” The simple answer to that is… not yet.

We recently completed all the necessary documentation to be reviewed by the IRS. While the process was long, it will certainly be worth it when we can tell potential donors that monetary donations will be 100% tax deductible!

Until then, we have been working with two wonderful nonprofit organizations: H.E.L.P.International and WaterIsLife.

HELP International

H.E.L.P. International serves as a liaison between those who have so much and those who have too little. It reclaims supplies and equipment that would otherwise fill landfills in our country and uses them to help in community development in the US and other nations. They respond to major disasters as well as development of depressed areas by providing medical supplies and equipment and humanitarian aid.

We are truly grateful to have H.E.L.P. International as a proud partner of 1MillionShirts.

WaterIsLife

WaterIsLife seeks to provide water solutions around the world. Water is essential to all living things, and one of the their innovations is the creation of the water straw.

What’s a water straw?

I could tell you how awesome the concept of a water straw is, but Jason and Evan from IWearYourShirt.com do it so much better! On January 27, 2010, they wore t-shirts for WaterIsLife and demonstrated its almost magical powers. Click here to see photos and videos of the water straw in action!

WaterIsLife has offered to serve as a fiscal agent until we have obtained our 501c3 status

Keep the questions coming and don’t forget to let us know what you’re doing to collect t-shirts! We appreciate the effort that everyone has put into this, and we’re looking forward to taking it to the next level!

Stephen

An Update from our Ambassadors at Virginia Tech and University of Florida

2010-04-26T08:47:16-04:00

We hope everyone had a great weekend and had a chance to pack up some t-shirts to ship out this week. Don’t forget, the t-shirts don’t have to be brand new; just good condition. Here’s an update from our two ambassadors helping from college campuses:

- – - -

I came back from class one day and there was a box of shirts on my floor with a note on top of it that read: “Koop! I forgot my dollar but I’ll bring it by later!” I knew my friends were awesome (of course), but that was unbeatable. I realized at that time that the Virginia Tech students and community weren’t going to just let 1MillionShirts brush by. After all, every person I’ve talked to has admitted to having at least one shirt in their closet that they don’t want or wear.

I’ve coordinated a with a sorority and they have agreed to put a box in their house with a sign on it, along with sending an email to the listserv of girls. I’m looking forward to talking with more sororities and fraternities come Fall. This week I’ll be taking the collecting even deeper by focusing on the dorms. My hopes is to encourage students to look over their shirts as they pack up for summer and pick out which shirts they know they don’t need or want. Look for the Facebook invite going out later this week… and remember you can always drop shirts off at my room with your $1 bill!

- Bryan

- – - -

So as it turns out, college students like to do more than sleep in, play drinking games and Facebook stalk. They like to support great causes, too! When I signed on to this project, I did so because I wanted to make a real difference in people’s lives. I like to think 1MillionShirts is helping the world as a whole, but my motivation comes from imagining the impact that these shirts will make on one million individual lives across Africa.

As I began spreading the word about 1MillionShirts across UF’s campus, I found that my friends (and strangers) shared my passion for improving the lives of those less fortunate. Once I started telling people about the cause last week, I feel like I blinked and I had over 600 shirts!

I am incredibly proud and grateful for the support that this cause has already inspired, and I encourage other colleges across the country to start coordinating donations as well. Because let’s be honest…it sure beats going to class!

- Caroline

1MillionShirts Video and Jason Sadler's T-Shirts

2010-04-24T01:58:46-04:00

Here’s some weekend inspiration for you to go in your closet and box up some t-shirts. When I started 1MillionShirts I knew I had a couple piles of shirts and found out just how many in this video:

And for reference I took a photo of my receipt at the UPS Store where I shipped my shirts out from. The box of 105 XL t-shirts weighed 47lbs and ended up costing me $50.33. Obviously we don’t expect everyone to ship 100+ t-shirts, but if you do this is what to expect (smaller shirts should weigh a bit less FYI).

Thank you everyone for your continued support and we’re really excited to receive your t-shirts and help make a difference!

- Jason