Growing Small Business & Our Youth
Donation protected
For many years my brain has been racked trying to figure out some way to change the outlook and outcome for the many youth I have seen locked in impoverished neighborhoods across the United States. For 25 years I, like many others, have witnessed a seemingly systematic decline in the social fabric and breakdown of families. Somewhere at the root is an element that cause economic despair.
Dating back to early 1993, the nonprofit I started has maintained its same purpose, and that purpose is to continue to create opportunity; where none currently exist.
As a service provider and training agency, providing the basics is the easy part, it's that instilling of marketable skills and assuring an income for learning them that has been the most challenging quest. Local, state and federal unemployment & poverty numbers can be sourced from a variety of outlets to substantiate this claim.
The destination for this organization that I would eventually put all my time, energy and effort into requires visible and tangible results for me to stay interested. To me, it requires a systematic approach to solving a problem; not just talking and debating about it or just going through the motions to feel good.
Fast forward 22 years, the efforts to bridge the learning - income - opportunity divide for low-income youth and parents have gone nowhere, and in urban cities across the nation it is oh-so apparent that we begin to solve problems; and not just alleviate poverty.
Technology has advanced greatly since our founding days; just as anticipated, and now our social enterprise model can finally tie together to create longlasting opportunity to the few, the skilled and the motivated. Being a nation of small businesses, the time has become ideal for us to fully pair the success and promotion of small business; with a driving youth force learning technology.
Our goal is to raise $504,000.00
How do we propose raising that amount of funds?
In our city alone (Topeka KS), it is said that there are a little over 6,000 small businesses. Some of these businesses may have a website or not. They may have the time & skills to run/maintain an online social media marketing campaign or not. Or they may have video content to better exploit online social media & search engine technology to better attract new and potential clients or customers. With the architecture of algorithms and indexing changing the landscape of web development; integrated with video and social media networks... all small business must continually stay on top of these tasks if they want to maintain a strong presence on the internet. And the more affordable & reliable the better!
We remain conscious that we have many youth & young adults not interested in learning new tech skills marketable to small businesses & nonprofits, but we remain confident there are those that need, want and desire an opportunity to earn some respectable money for work they can legitimately do. This is where our campaign and your support helps to bridge the divide.
And it doesn't take rocket science or require deep thought.
Our organization has always provided an online business directory of businesses that support our efforts through paid listings. Before the advent of robust online search-engine capabilities (pre-Netscape, Aol, Yahoo and Google...) websites weren't indexed, spidered and geo-located as they are today. There were no smartphone, tablets or notebooks for webpages to reorientate to, but those days are the past. Even with modern-day websites, there is still ongoing SEO (search engine optimization) strategies that has to take place; and much of this can be done in a half-an-hour by repoststing Facebook share & blog posts, video and re-tweeting promotionals across highly interactive social network sites that targets customers and clients.
With 4,200 small businesses joining our directory at $120.00, this provides us the mechanism to incite a willingness to learn the practical use of technology; in a way that assure we can then pay those showing high potential for learning new skills and their work effort and for exhibiting social ethics requested by industries.
Each business that accepts this call to action will help us to accomplish several things. First, it allows us to provide you a service that works 24/7 to enhance and boost your online business presence. This is done by providing your business a listing in our online directory; located www.kansassmallbizdirectory.com
Our choice to build our directory's on the WordPress Platform makes the work it takes to create seo-ready profiles easy, and it doesn't require extreme coding knowledge, but does require one to learn the basics fundimentals of WordPress, time-management and completing tasks. Over 22.5% of all websites are created using WordPress; including Facebook, New Yorker, Best Buy, Wall Street Journal & Snoop Dogg ... so unbeknownst to youth that we recruit, they are learning skills that can take them places and earn them even higher earnings in the near future.
Once you donate to sponsor your business in our directory at $120,00, we will in-turn pay one of the motivated students involved $20.00 to create your business profile in our online directory. We will teach them how to access and use the WordPress dashboard for our directories and to add images, text and video embeds. Once proficient, this work can easily be competed within an hour.
We know that not many youth and young adults will take us up on our offer at first, but as the word spreads by those youth prospering from this opportunity, we anticipate that we will have gained more trust from the many that have come to believe real opportunities are fly-by night hustles at-best.
Not only does your support directly impact a young inquiring mind by allowing us to provide industry-level tech instruction, it's highly noted that the desire to earn money is really the prime incentive to participation iin entrepreneurial & enterprise programs. According to a report produced by IT Future Labs, 'Teen Views on Tech Careers ', "of teens with low interest in IT to begin with, nearly 50% reported they would be very interested in developing IT skills if they got paid".
When we meet our goal of recruitung 4,200 businesses, this means we also paid $84,000 to some low-income youth or adult willing to learn the requisite skills and dedicate their time and talent to completing the simple task of creating seo-friendly profiles for campaign sponsor businesses.
**On top of the $20.00 one can earn just by creating a profile, an additional $40.00 can also be earned for capturing 1-2 minute video clips of small businesses that will be edited, posted and shared by our more senior video editors, web developers and social media marketers.
"Or you can just make a $60.00 donation through this campaign to support our organizations efforts and we'll add your business without any logos, text, or links to your business social network pages; bypassing the opportunity to empower some youth or single-parent that could best use this opportunity? Sure your listing will still drive up your seach rank on Google, but the impact we are working to create will not result."
Finally, this opportunity is not just for youth, young adults and single-parents living in our city. The internet is called the 'world wide web' for a reason, it allows easier and a farther reach than any other affordable marketing service or platform at the click of a mouse. Because the need for such an opportunity is high, we have the ability to recruit, and pay youth living in any city located in the Continental United States of America.
If a business in Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, etc... wants to support (sponsor) a student in their city, we can make arrangements through partner organizations we already share resources & networks or those we can enlist to partner-up through this campaign. The online directory for small businesses outside of Kansas is located at: www.ussmallbizdirectory.org
Additionally, your business can pay for a local nonprofit you support to be listed you will receive the tax-deduction, the nonprofit organization is provided an added marketing asset and again, a young person or single-parent is provided instruction to learn a marketanle skill, and an income for doing work they can proficiently do.
The remainder of funds raised will be used to continue our goal to fulfill our building capital campaign .
So, this is our goal, task, mission and a 100,000 ft view on what we offer, what makes our offering unique, how it will make a difference in the life of one young person and what you benefit from through your financial support of $120.00 (tax-deductible)
We look forward to answering any questions, receiving inquiries and working to uplift our youth and propel small business, but more importantly we look forward to and appreciate your support via this campaign. We will keep you posted of new sponsors we recruit, students involved in activities and their individual achievements.
With your initial support this year of $120.00, we will build from where we are. If the listing does not meet your expectations within the first year, there is no need to renew your listing sponsorship, but if you choose to continue supporting one student per year by renewing your listing, it assures a longer lasting impact on their livelihood. It also allows us the time needed to instill some principles that some may never have been offered at home, in school or among their peers.
When the ability to secure a job or earn an income is non-existent and or sporadic at-best, there is little to no hope to build off of.
We thank you in advance for your time, consideration and to supporting this worthy campaign.
2015 CAMPAIGN GOAL:
Recruit and Signup 4,200 Business Sponsors
Lazone Grays, Jr.
President/CEO
IBSA, Inc.
FEIN: 48-1137236
Established 1993
www.ibsa-inc.org
Dating back to early 1993, the nonprofit I started has maintained its same purpose, and that purpose is to continue to create opportunity; where none currently exist.
As a service provider and training agency, providing the basics is the easy part, it's that instilling of marketable skills and assuring an income for learning them that has been the most challenging quest. Local, state and federal unemployment & poverty numbers can be sourced from a variety of outlets to substantiate this claim.
The destination for this organization that I would eventually put all my time, energy and effort into requires visible and tangible results for me to stay interested. To me, it requires a systematic approach to solving a problem; not just talking and debating about it or just going through the motions to feel good.
Fast forward 22 years, the efforts to bridge the learning - income - opportunity divide for low-income youth and parents have gone nowhere, and in urban cities across the nation it is oh-so apparent that we begin to solve problems; and not just alleviate poverty.
Technology has advanced greatly since our founding days; just as anticipated, and now our social enterprise model can finally tie together to create longlasting opportunity to the few, the skilled and the motivated. Being a nation of small businesses, the time has become ideal for us to fully pair the success and promotion of small business; with a driving youth force learning technology.
Our goal is to raise $504,000.00
How do we propose raising that amount of funds?
In our city alone (Topeka KS), it is said that there are a little over 6,000 small businesses. Some of these businesses may have a website or not. They may have the time & skills to run/maintain an online social media marketing campaign or not. Or they may have video content to better exploit online social media & search engine technology to better attract new and potential clients or customers. With the architecture of algorithms and indexing changing the landscape of web development; integrated with video and social media networks... all small business must continually stay on top of these tasks if they want to maintain a strong presence on the internet. And the more affordable & reliable the better!
We remain conscious that we have many youth & young adults not interested in learning new tech skills marketable to small businesses & nonprofits, but we remain confident there are those that need, want and desire an opportunity to earn some respectable money for work they can legitimately do. This is where our campaign and your support helps to bridge the divide.
And it doesn't take rocket science or require deep thought.
Our organization has always provided an online business directory of businesses that support our efforts through paid listings. Before the advent of robust online search-engine capabilities (pre-Netscape, Aol, Yahoo and Google...) websites weren't indexed, spidered and geo-located as they are today. There were no smartphone, tablets or notebooks for webpages to reorientate to, but those days are the past. Even with modern-day websites, there is still ongoing SEO (search engine optimization) strategies that has to take place; and much of this can be done in a half-an-hour by repoststing Facebook share & blog posts, video and re-tweeting promotionals across highly interactive social network sites that targets customers and clients.
With 4,200 small businesses joining our directory at $120.00, this provides us the mechanism to incite a willingness to learn the practical use of technology; in a way that assure we can then pay those showing high potential for learning new skills and their work effort and for exhibiting social ethics requested by industries.
Each business that accepts this call to action will help us to accomplish several things. First, it allows us to provide you a service that works 24/7 to enhance and boost your online business presence. This is done by providing your business a listing in our online directory; located www.kansassmallbizdirectory.com
Our choice to build our directory's on the WordPress Platform makes the work it takes to create seo-ready profiles easy, and it doesn't require extreme coding knowledge, but does require one to learn the basics fundimentals of WordPress, time-management and completing tasks. Over 22.5% of all websites are created using WordPress; including Facebook, New Yorker, Best Buy, Wall Street Journal & Snoop Dogg ... so unbeknownst to youth that we recruit, they are learning skills that can take them places and earn them even higher earnings in the near future.
Once you donate to sponsor your business in our directory at $120,00, we will in-turn pay one of the motivated students involved $20.00 to create your business profile in our online directory. We will teach them how to access and use the WordPress dashboard for our directories and to add images, text and video embeds. Once proficient, this work can easily be competed within an hour.
We know that not many youth and young adults will take us up on our offer at first, but as the word spreads by those youth prospering from this opportunity, we anticipate that we will have gained more trust from the many that have come to believe real opportunities are fly-by night hustles at-best.
Not only does your support directly impact a young inquiring mind by allowing us to provide industry-level tech instruction, it's highly noted that the desire to earn money is really the prime incentive to participation iin entrepreneurial & enterprise programs. According to a report produced by IT Future Labs, 'Teen Views on Tech Careers ', "of teens with low interest in IT to begin with, nearly 50% reported they would be very interested in developing IT skills if they got paid".
When we meet our goal of recruitung 4,200 businesses, this means we also paid $84,000 to some low-income youth or adult willing to learn the requisite skills and dedicate their time and talent to completing the simple task of creating seo-friendly profiles for campaign sponsor businesses.
**On top of the $20.00 one can earn just by creating a profile, an additional $40.00 can also be earned for capturing 1-2 minute video clips of small businesses that will be edited, posted and shared by our more senior video editors, web developers and social media marketers.
"Or you can just make a $60.00 donation through this campaign to support our organizations efforts and we'll add your business without any logos, text, or links to your business social network pages; bypassing the opportunity to empower some youth or single-parent that could best use this opportunity? Sure your listing will still drive up your seach rank on Google, but the impact we are working to create will not result."
Finally, this opportunity is not just for youth, young adults and single-parents living in our city. The internet is called the 'world wide web' for a reason, it allows easier and a farther reach than any other affordable marketing service or platform at the click of a mouse. Because the need for such an opportunity is high, we have the ability to recruit, and pay youth living in any city located in the Continental United States of America.
If a business in Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, etc... wants to support (sponsor) a student in their city, we can make arrangements through partner organizations we already share resources & networks or those we can enlist to partner-up through this campaign. The online directory for small businesses outside of Kansas is located at: www.ussmallbizdirectory.org
Additionally, your business can pay for a local nonprofit you support to be listed you will receive the tax-deduction, the nonprofit organization is provided an added marketing asset and again, a young person or single-parent is provided instruction to learn a marketanle skill, and an income for doing work they can proficiently do.
The remainder of funds raised will be used to continue our goal to fulfill our building capital campaign .
So, this is our goal, task, mission and a 100,000 ft view on what we offer, what makes our offering unique, how it will make a difference in the life of one young person and what you benefit from through your financial support of $120.00 (tax-deductible)
We look forward to answering any questions, receiving inquiries and working to uplift our youth and propel small business, but more importantly we look forward to and appreciate your support via this campaign. We will keep you posted of new sponsors we recruit, students involved in activities and their individual achievements.
With your initial support this year of $120.00, we will build from where we are. If the listing does not meet your expectations within the first year, there is no need to renew your listing sponsorship, but if you choose to continue supporting one student per year by renewing your listing, it assures a longer lasting impact on their livelihood. It also allows us the time needed to instill some principles that some may never have been offered at home, in school or among their peers.
When the ability to secure a job or earn an income is non-existent and or sporadic at-best, there is little to no hope to build off of.
We thank you in advance for your time, consideration and to supporting this worthy campaign.
2015 CAMPAIGN GOAL:
Recruit and Signup 4,200 Business Sponsors
Lazone Grays, Jr.
President/CEO
IBSA, Inc.
FEIN: 48-1137236
Established 1993
www.ibsa-inc.org
Organizer
Lazone Grays Jr
Organizer
Topeka, KS
