Friday, August 29, 2014

OSC Road Trips 5 Cities and 3 Countries part 2

 

Colorado Springs, Colorado

 

       Headquarters for many parachurch organizations

       Likely abundance of Christian homeschoolers

       Super beautiful scenery

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Springs,_Colorado

       http://www.springsgov.com/

 


India

       Lots of smart engineers

       Highly value education

       Very rich and very poor

       Highly value spirituality

       Plenty of English speakers

       Country in growth and modernization surge

       More purchasing power than USA

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India

       http://india.gov.in/

 

 

Philippines

       Super friendly people

       Christian heritage

       Top rated outsource workers on Odesk https://www.odesk.com/  

       Islands so learn to serve subsistence fishermen

 

 

 

 

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines

       http://www.gov.ph/



Australia

       Highly value online education

       Solved many water related problems

       Western country yet near severely poor

 

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia


       http://www.australia.gov.au/

OSC Road Trips 3 Cities and 3 Countries part 1

5 Cities and 3 Countries



        College Station Texas

        Arlington, Texas

        Plano, Texas

        Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

        Colorado Springs, Colorado

        India

        Philippines

        Australia



College Station Texas

       Japanese auto manufactures

   Locate near labor base

 

       Many grew up on farms and ranches

       Majors

   Engineering

   Education

   Business

 

       esprit de corps

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Station,_Texas

       http://www.cstx.gov/

 

 

Arlington, Texas

       Churches of different denominations working together

 

 

 

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington,_Texas

       http://www.arlingtontx.com/

 

 

Plano, Texas

       Plano area

       Business

       Christian

       Money

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano,_Texas

 

       http://www.plano.gov/

 

 

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

       Life Church

       http://www.lifechurch.tv/

       I have been attending church online 3 years

       Major digital outreach

       Much prayer support

       Vision for the nations

 

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City

 

       http://www.okc.gov/

 


 

OSC Road Trips Introduction with links to context details

Road Trips
to Relieve Severe Poverty


This is a text overview to introduce how my going on road trips will help to relieve severe poverty in remote villages of developing countries.


The bottom line is that the location of the headquarters for innovative educational nonprofit organization named Our Stewardship Community will make a big difference.

I was born and I grew up in Houston, Texas. Then I lived in Atlanta, Georgia for a few years. I have been in Dallas, Texas since 1985. I know that each of those cites shaped me.

Today I am at an important crossroads as I seek to launch and then lead this innovative educational nonprofit organization named Our Stewardship Community. I need to choose a location for the headquarters.

I know that if I based out of London or Singapore that the location would shape the processes and products. There would be a subtle yet profound imprint due to the setting of the home office. I would personally be influenced as the leader. The availability of offline staff would limited by those who lived in the area. For example there are cities in Florida that have an abundance of retired people. There are places like Silicon Valley with plenty of high tech people and there are college towns. The staff and I would be impacted by the strengths and weakness of the surrounding communities.

As I have reflected on that I have made a list of 5 cities that have some appeal to me today. Also there are 3 countries that appeal to me. I will make a short video explaining why I like each of those. And I will post the link to that video here.


Those cities are College Station Texas, Arlington, Texas, Plano, Texas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Colorado Springs Colorado. The countries are India, Philippines and Australia.

My next steps are to go visit those locations. I will make contacts ahead of time and set up appointments with key people and small groups. There I will cast the vision and present the game plan. I will get their feedback in the form of comments, suggestions and questions. These inputs will be used to make continual improvements.

While I am traveling there I will be enrolling more members of the Launch Team that includes intercessors, advisers and donors.

I will offer a range of email newsletters that the supporters can opt into subscribe. Then little by little there will be an increase of the support base and the momentum of the organization.

I do not need to select a city and have the grand opening of the offices in order to start creating the web based platform. I will be enrolling and working with volunteers while also going on these road trips. We will begin to create online prototypes of some of the services and products.

Today I am in the early stages of startup. I am boot strapping. I use nearly all of my waking hours on this while paying my modest living expenses from contributions given my family and friends. Many of them know this has been my passion since the year 2000. I have dabbled with this off and on all those years and now it the time to make it happen. It is time for the blueprints to move from the drawing table into the light of reality.

When I go on these road trips I will share my reports, stories and insights online. I will interview others that are doing similar works and share those video interviews.

Along the way I will be seeking for members of the initial board of directors. Together we will file the necessary forms to become a 501c3 nonprofit and tax deductible organization.

The wise choice for location of the headquarters, membership of the board of directors and growing base of supporters will contribute to the long term success of Our Stewardship Community. Long before all that comes together we will have been together creating many valuable digital resources.

I have set the fund raising goal at 3 thousand dollars and a deadline of 40 days. That is just a moderate size amount of money to get this started. After I have gone on some road trips then I will have a better idea of my costs for each one. This just gets the ball rolling. Then I might come back to Indiegogo with another campaign that has some realistic line items budget numbers based on the initial road trips.

Along this journey I will be consulting with advisers to craft a fund raising goal and initial budget for launching the nonprofit. Many years ago I made up a number of 40 thousand dollars. Maybe that is enough to create the kind of online platform needed to get started. Maybe more money will be needed. And I will look to my advisers to guide me. But that will come to pass after I have gone on some road trips where I have met with a wide range of experts.

Today I consider 3 thousand dollars to be a modest fund raising goal. My first thought was to set it at 5 thousand dollars. But I would rather go over the 3 thousand than under the 5 thousand.

One thousand will be used to hire experts to work with me to craft a short, medium and long video presentation. The short will be less than 3 minutes, the medium will be less than 18 minutes and the long will be less than 45 minutes. These will be both published online and burned on DVDs. Those DVDs will be mailed ahead to the key people I seek to meet with and to those who support this as a perk.

One thousand will be used for the costs of the road trips including taking out to lunch the key people.

One thousand will be used for my living expenses so I can continue to make my dream a reality.
In conclusion let me state that as I write this at the end of August 2014 I intend to make a road trip to each of those 5 cities and 3 countries. (College Station Texas, Arlington, Texas, Plano, Texas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Colorado Springs Colorado, India, Philippines and Australia)

I would not be surprised if I was invited to visit other locations and I might do that too.

I am in no rush to make such a critical decision. And all along the way I could be growing the web based platform as well as increasing the support base.

Finding a suitable geographic location for the headquarters is of strategic importance. But also growing lists of supporters that is wide and deep is also of strategic importance.


This is part of the initial fund raising campaign on Indeigogo https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/road-trips-to-relieve-severe-poverty/x/8411792

You can read more about this crowdfunding campaign on this blog http://osccrowdfundingplatform.blogspot.com/


Here is a blog about the vision for the Community Centered Libraries

Here are videos about the 5 cities and 3 countries mentioned here.

Here is the blog related to the road trips