By Jon Simons

Just a few weeks ago I had a personal reminder of the true value of “show & tell” when it comes to lifting up mission.  I was visiting with my Dad in Boston and spent a morning volunteering with him at a food pantry he supports.  I must admit that although I have dropped off food to can drives and donated money to various hunger-related causes; I had never been to a food pantry.

Once we arrived I was assigned to help “clients” shop in the pantry.  There was a color code system that determined which foods and at what quantity people could choose.  As I shopped with folks, I learned their names and a little about them.  We joked around and I even offered a few simple recipes for the some of the vegetables we had that day.  When the supervisor was not looking, I even snuck a few extra sweets into the bags of some of the elderly clients.  Although I was only at the pantry for about 3 hours, it was a very impacting experience.  Before I left for the day, I stopped by the supervisor’s office and wrote a check.

I have a different view of hunger now and a closer connection to the mission of food pantries. Now that I am back in NJ, my family and I are looking for a local pantry to volunteer some time.  We have been touched by the cause of hunger in a personal way and feel compelled to help.

You have the same opportunity in your YMCA.  Never underestimate the value of “show & tell.”

By Lora Dow

Much is made – and rightly so – of creating a strong case for support. Organizations and charities spend an incredible amount of time, effort and money to get their case just right. To show the need. To show how they can make a difference. To ask for support.

Twitter, the much-ballyhooed (and often just plain booed) micro-blog site, provides a unique way to make your case. Twitter forces you to be concise. You have to make your case in a bare sentence or two. But you can make your point.

Love146 is an organization that works to end child sex slavery and exploitation and to provide shelter and support for those who have suffered this abuse. They use Twitter to inform and inspire advocacy, as well as ask for support. But I think tweets like this encompass their entire case for support in a few simple words:

Can you make your mission – and the need for your mission – come to life like this?

Charity:Water recently ran an e-card promotion for Valentine’s Day. Proceeds from the e-Cards went to support their work to provide clean drinking water.  Here’s how they thanked donors (well, one of the ways) and how they summed up that promotion right on the heels of its completion:

I don’t know about you, but saying that “745 people will get clean drinking water” is much more striking than simply listing the dollars raised.

The American Red Cross has done agreat job of communicating their responses to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but this tweet reminded me of the work they do right here in the U.S.  It was a powerful reminder of the breadth of their mission to someone who has been a long-time donor and thought she knew everything about the organization:

What stories can you tell in 140 characters or less? Who could you inspire with a tweet?