Doing Good As a Team #MembersUnite

As a college student, I discovered the Jerry Lewis Telethon one Labor Day Weekend. I was new to the U.S. having recently moved from England to Pennsylvania for college.

As a kid in England I watched TV, but I had never seen a televised program designed for the sole purpose of raising funds for a charity. I was fascinated by the scope of the telethon. The show was on for almost 24 hours. It was broadcast from about every major market. There were dancers, singers, live acts, magicians, and company spokespeople all joined together with one common purpose. The telethon raised millions each year for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

I loved the idea of joining with others for the collective good. My meager donation when coupled with donations large and small could make a tremendous difference to children and adults with neuromuscular diseases. I recently learned of a group that I want to share with you.

Members Unite is a collaborative action network. Members donate a monthly contribution. As well as donating money, members can discuss, debate, lobby, and vote for the project they want to fund with the collective pool of donations. I love this idea. Kind of like crowdsourcing charitable donations.

Through relatively moderate participation and time, you can have a great discussion with those online and offline about doing good and helping others. Recently, my teen and I worked at a soup kitchen in Baltimore feeding hungry men, women, and families. We felt so good about doing our bit to make someone’s day a bit brighter. Helping others is a key lesson in our family. I want to pass on to my children a love for giving to others.

All of my children participate in school and church service projects. I talked to each of them about Members Unite. My teen was especially interested in pooling our money in with other people to make big change. Pennies and pennies and pennies can make a dollar. That’s how I explained the concept to my younger children. We’re looking forward to having many more opportunities to work together to help people both online and offline.

Here’s how Members Unite works.

Sign up for an annual membership.
Members Unite is a simple, interactive, fun way to fund amazing projects.
Members Unite finds the most interesting, impactful, meaningful projects and then lets its members figure out which ones get funded.
The projects are funded through member contributions.
The members ultimately control the outcome each month.
Members Unite motto: One person giving $20 is a drop in the ocean. One thousand people giving $20 brings clean water to a village for a lifetime.
Members Unite helps you do more than you could do on your own.

You can Like the Members Unite app on Facebook.

I was compensated for writing this post. The views expressed in the post are my own. I follow the tenets of Blog With Integrity.