New (RED) Impact Calculator Helps Tie Value of Purchases to AIDS Treatment in Africa

As GoodBiz113 reported last Oct. 15 and Nov. 30, the (PRODUCT) RED campaign to raise funds for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has made significant strides since its Fall 2006 rollout.

Together, (PRODUCT) RED founder and CEO Bobby Shriver, U2 lead singer Bono and their associates have signed top names -- e.g., American Express UK, Apple, Converse, Emporio Armani, Gap, Motorola -- to create (PRODUCT) RED-specific goods, from which a certain percentage of the profits go to the Global Fund.

According to preliminary tracking numbers, total (PRODUCT) RED sales in the U.S. during the first six weeks raised enough money to:
* Provide more than 40,000 men or women with anti-retroviral treatment for a year;
OR
* Provide more than 2 million peer educators with HIV training;
OR
* Provide a year’s worth of school materials and daily hot meals for more than 86,000 children orphaned by AIDS;
OR
* Provide more than 1 million Rapid Tests, which detect HIV and deliver instant test results.

(PRODUCT) RED Impact Calculator Among Latest Innovations
Now, with the latest (PRODUCT) RED innovation -- the new (RED) Impact Calculator -- socially conscious consumers can find out the ways in which their (RED) purchases could affect people's lives in Africa.

For instance, let's say you bought an Apple iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition, two Gap (PRODUCT) RED T-shirts, two Gap (PRODUCT) RED Leather Bracelets, plus a Motorola (PRODUCT) RED MOTORAZR V3m Phone. Total profits would:
* Provide treatment for 200 pregnant women to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child;
AND
* Provide anti-retroviral [ARV] treatment for two months to a person living with HIV.

The number of (PRODUCT) RED goods you've purchased can be input into the calculator and saved in your own (RED) profile, where you can login to update it anytime at: http://www.joinred.com/news/45/track.asp?sel=3.

You can also tell your friends and family about your (RED) Impact via customizable greeting cards that you can print and send. Check out (RED) Impact Cards today.

For more information about (PRODUCT) RED, go to: http://www.joinred.com.
______________

iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition. 4GB and 8GB Models Available for $199 an $249.

Jan. 15 King Day of Service Celebrates Birthday and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Everybody can be great because everybody can serve." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the very embodiment of community, equality and idealism. He expressed the highest dreams of humanity and showed us all by example what we can create when we set aside our differences and work together.

Each year since 1994, when President Bill Clinton signed into law the King Holiday and Service Act, Americans have marked this observance by devoting the day to service projects in their communities. Together, President Clinton and Congress asked Americans of all backgrounds and ages to celebrate Dr. King's legacy by turning community concerns into citizen action, and reflecting on his life and teachings.

The King Day of Service brings together people who might not ordinarily meet, breaks down barriers that have divided us in the past, leads to better understanding and ongoing relationships, and is an opportunity to recruit new volunteers for ongoing service projects.

Participation in the King Day of Service has grown steadily during the past 12 years -- from a local project to a nationwide movement that perpetuates the life and teachings of one of America's greatest heroes. By renovating schools, cleaning up neighborhoods, tutoring and mentoring children, painting schools and senior centers, donating blood, delivering meals, building homes, organizing food drives, or reaching out in some other way to those in need, hundreds of thousands of citizens have worked together each year to make this a day on, not a day off, and made their own contributions to Dr. King's legacy of service.

How Your Company or Organization Can Help

Opportunities abound for businesses and organizations of all sizes and interests to contribute to their communities. By doing so, you will help strengthen local communities; bridge social and cultural differences; and demonstrate the compassion and commitment to make a difference and honor Dr. King's memory.

The Corporation for National & Community Service suggests the following ways to get inolved:

* Sponsor and organize a single service project

* Sponsor and organize a variety of service projects

* Form teams to vounteer

* Encourage friends, colleagues and families to seek out service projects in their hometowns

The late Coretta Scott King embraced the King Day of Service as a meaningful way to celebrate and honor her husband's legacy. She said, "The greatest birthday gift my husband could receive is if people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrated the holiday by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others."

For information about making this year's celebration a day on which tens of millions of people come out to serve their communities in King's honor -- and/or about getting involved year-round -- visit the Corporation for National & Community Service's website: http://www.nationalservice.gov/.
______________

GoodBiz113 Drafts Small-Biz Wish List for 110th Congress

On this, the eve of the Democrat-controlled, do-something 110th Congress, we small-biz champions at GoodBiz113 have a Lettermanesque Top 10 wish list for U.S. Senators and House representatives alike:

10] Ensure that federal contracts set aside for small businesses are, in fact, awarded to small businesses. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that many studies have shown that hundreds of government contracts set aside for small business are being awarded to large corporations.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., incoming chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has proposed giving the Small Business Administration more time to complete size determinations and to help prevent big businesses from slipping under the radar of a bureaucratic contracting process. The SBA recently required businesses to report their size every five years. Kerry's proposal would make the reports annual.

"The protest process is supposed to keep the system honest, but what's the point of protesting a contract if nothing happens?" Kerry said.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., the incoming chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, said she would work to rectify the problems faced by small businesses by ensuring that there is an effective protest system in place. She also wants to make sure that penalties are enforced.

"The fact that large businesses are being awarded with small-business contracts, and that there is no system in place with penalties or consequences for this, is extremely concerning," Velazquez said.

9] Require that federal contract-bidding and -award processes are totally transparent, and that all recipients of federal funds [e.g., public agencies, prime contractors, educational institutions] can instantly account for how dollars are being spent re compliance with small-biz and supplier-diversity statutory goals.

8] Hold federal agencies and prime contractors accountable for meeting small-business and supplier-diversity subcontracting statutory goals.

7] Require prime contractors and small businesses to endure the rigors of bidding on federal contracts. Read: No more multibillion-dollar, no-bid contracts -- e.g., for disaster relief, military/war-related products and services -- to be handed to corporate cronies of elected officials and/or administrators of federal agencies.

6] Boost small-business loan availability via SBA.

5] Overhaul No Child Left Behind. Academically, a lot of kids are getting left behind -- kids who will need to fill the jobs being vacated in droves by retiring baby boomers.

Physical education? Foreign languages? Art? Music? Drama? Sports? From coast to coast, those "complementary" body-, mind-, character- and spirit-shaping classes and activities have fallen by the wayside in far too many school districts.

Employers -- small and large alike -- need smart, articulate, well-rounded people to create, market and deliver products and services. Every child of every ethnic group, geographic location, socioeconomic background, religion, sexual orientation, physical ability, thinking style, etc., deserves a fair shot at being one of those people who can effectively contribute to society.

4] Simultaneously promote energy independence and rural economic development. According to Jackie Gleason, rural business administrator at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the United States will spend $300 billion this year on importing oil — exceeding the entire U.S. farm output for the year. If farmers can successfully capture even 20 percent of that oil revenue, he said, it will yield revenue "greater than the total of net farm income" for the nation.

Incoming U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said promoting energy independence is her "No. 1 priority." Incoming U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., said renewable energy offers the promise of keeping "the viability of our rural areas."

3] Make college more affordable by reducing interest rates on student loans. In order to grow our economy and be viable players in the global economy, we need well-educated women and men in all industries and sectors -- preferably, folks who don't have to stress about repaying student loans for years after earning their sheepskins.

2] Provide incentives for small-business owners to help make health care more affordable for their employees. Since Day One, Starbucks founder and CEO Howard Schultz has provided health insurance for all his employees -- including full-time and part-time baristas. Success leaves clues...

1] Raise the minimum wage ASAP. Yes, we know that a fair number of small-business owners will bristle [curse?] at this notion. To those folks we say, just note how prosperous Horst Rechelbacher [Aveda, Intelligent Nutrients], Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield [Ben & Jerry's] and other entrepreneurs have become by sharing the wealth with their employees. Beyond being the right thing to do, it's a karmic thing; i.e., what you put out comes back at least tenfold.

Incoming House Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., who's been assigned to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, can hardly wait to cast her vote during the 110th's first 100 hours. "I'm honored to be able to vote for raising the minimum wage," she told New Hampshire's Portsmouth Herald News. "All of the research I've read says this is not only good for workers, but small-business owners, too. If people have more money, they will spend it in the local economy."

Happy New Year, 110th Congress! Best wishes for the most productive, peaceful, fair-minded and prosperous year this country has seen in, well, too long a while.