I joined CentUp to help save the lives of a million men and find a cure for breast cancer. Here’s the story. I recently read an article in The Futurist magazine, Ten Future Changing Inventions Ready to Launch. Many looked interesting, but the one that drew my attention was one called CentUp. The article seemed to speak to me and many of my friends who are trying to make a living as creative artists.
“There is no way to make money blogging, and all content is just becoming blogs,” goes a familiar complaint about what information technology has done to media. But the real problem is that, if the world is awash in free content, how do publications, writers, musicians, amateur movie directors, and other content creators convince people to support them financially?
CentUp encourages readers, listeners, and Web surfers to donate to their favorite artists through a CentUp button that appears on new posts, uploads, etc. And a portion of the money goes to worthwhile charities doing great work. When you reward your favorite blogger (or magazine) for a particularly insightful post, you can help buy school supplies for children in Africa, or support other good work. As the company explains in its promotional video, “We’re trying to make the world gooder, much gooder.”
A company trying to support writers and artists who want to make the world gooder, much gooder? I had to learn more.
I went to the site, looked around and signed up. I put in my credit-card information and bought 2000 Centup Credits ($20.00). I felt like I was in Las Vegas in the old days where we could play the penny slots, only here I could invest in something really positive.
I picked a charity where half my donations would be sent. They were all interesting, but I picked the Lynn Sage Foundation because they are committed to finding a cure for breast cancer. My wife, Carlin, is a breast cancer survivor and I thought it was appropriate to support a program for women while my MenAlive program focused on guys. (Ultimately when you sign up you pick one of the charities that CentUp has partnered with but my heart is with the Lynn Sage Foundation.)
I looked over the programs listed under “Where Can I Use CentUp” and saw some great ones I wanted to support with a donation. I couldn’t resist The Hairy Midwife. Benjamin Atkinson, the “hairy midwife” says, “I have no clinical training, but I’ve been with my wife through 5 births. I’ve been the moral support, the physical support, the deliverer and I’ve mourned with her.”
He goes on to say, “For many, childbirth may be the last rite of passage into manhood. The intent of my work as The Hairy Midwife is to help men engage as fully as possible in childbirth and take from this experience a roadmap toward manhood and stronger bonds with their wife and child.”
I enjoyed laying some money on The Hairy Midwife.
Kali Orkin is the Conscious Consumer. She promotes conscious living in the way we eat and purchase products for our home, family and lifestyle.
“Welcome to The Conscious Consumer,” says Kari. “This is where I share my articles and recipes for living better through sustainability. We can’t all go off the grid, but we can do our part by eating well, learning more and spending smarter.”
I loved giving some more of my credits to Kari.
Garry Bowden brings us an intimate look at the faces that make up the city of San Francisco. He takes beautiful pictures of San Francisco people. The guy in this picture reminded me of my father who was a street puppeteer in San Francisco. Garry’s pictures are all powerful, colorful, and intimate.
In earlier years, Garry might have taken my Dad’s picture.
And how could I pass up a look at “the penis window?” Jim Mitchem’s blog, “Obsessed with Conformity,” which was anything, but… Not sure if this is a picture of Jim. Really, I was only reading the accompanying article…
Just had to drop some money on this guy.
After this kind of experience, I was ready to join CentUp. I clicked the link and got a nice email saying I could apply to become a publisher and within a few days I got a nice email saying, “Thanks for becoming part of the CentUp community. You’re now part of something that will change how we all use the internet (for the better).”
Now that I was a member I wanted to know more about CentUp and how it started. I contacted Co-founder Len Kendall.
From his picture he looks like a pretty serious guy. According to his profile description, he’s a “Digital Marketer – Writer – Expert at Nothing.” He may, though, be underestimating his skills. Under “Achievements,” he says, “Proposing to my fiancé by turning myself into an internet meme. (She said yes).”
I asked Len to tell me a little about his motivation for founding CentUp. “In 2012 we saw the massive distribution of the “Kony 2012” video and it really bothered me. It had nothing to do with the content, but rather the rampant sharing and liking of a video that led to very little tangible change in the world.”
“The idea for CentUp was triggered by a desire to create a social impact,” he told me. “It evolved into something that would also help evolve publishing. As we dug deeper, we actually began to uncover just how prolific the act of sharing and liking was online (it’s in the billions every day) and we started to question how the behavior could be used for something better.”
“Thus CentUp was born,” he concluded, “a button which could take an incredibly low-investment action and turn it into something that helps the world. As we began to think through the business and build the platform, we realized that the success of CentUp would rely on distribution across the web. And that meant building something that online content creators would be drawn to. Thus we fused non-profits and content creators together to create a system that rewards both.”
For more than 40 years I’ve been helping men, and the women who love them, to live well. In creating MenAlive I now have a platform for writing articles, books, ebooks, blogs, and social commentary to help save the lives of men.
My wife, Carlin, and I have 5 children and 13 grandchildren. We’re both committed to making the world a better place. I’m trying to bring about a revolution in men’s health. Our campaign to save the lives of a million men was birthed after reading these statistics:
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“Over 330,000 lives would be saved in a single year in the U.S. alone if men’s risk of dying was as low as women’s,” says University of Michigan researcher, Daniel J. Kruger, PhD. According to Randolph M. Nesse , M.D, “If you could make male mortality rates the same as female rates, you would do more good than curing cancer.”
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If you’d like to join with us, “CentUp” our articles at www.MenAlive.com. Give what you can and all money will be split between the “Save a Million Men” project and the Lynn Sage Foundation for research to cure breast cancer. Jump in, have fun, change the world.
Main Photo Credit – Paul Chang Creative Commons
