UP | uncultured project

A few months back, I was contacted by the brilliant Dr. Michael Wesch. If you don’t know who he is – he’s basically writing the book (literally & figuratively) on what it means to form and be a community on the internet. This video with over a million views is one of Dr. Wesch’s most well known online works.

Dr. Wesch had contacted me because one his students is doing a term-long research project on me and the uncultured project! It’s a very surreal experience. It just seemed like yesterday I was the one doing term papers and calling up people to interview as part of my research. Now I’m the one being interviewed.

But this project isn’t about me – it’s about you guys. And I need your help.

Danielle Vaughn (the student doing the research project) has asked people to let her know why it is you support the uncultured project. Part of her report will have a video component to it, so she’s asking for people to submit video responses on YouTube to this video that she made.

I’m hoping you can help Danielle out – not just because I know how hard it is to research these things, but also because this helps me as well. For much of the time I’ve been doing this project, I’ve been guessing, assuming, or piecing together why you guys support this project.

This is a perfect opportunity for me to learn from you guys and learn what you like about UP. Not just that, but it’s also an excellent opportunity for me to have concrete feedback on certain things I should keep in mind as I move forward with this project.

For example, in this above response, I learned that the fact that I’m not selling anything and that I’m not asking for huge amounts of cash is important. I now have something I can cite the next time someone insists I should start selling t-shirts or that I should “take my work to the next level” and focus on big fundraising campaigns.

I won’t lie: the landscape of charities, non-profits, and people wanting to make a difference are changing. When I first uploaded my first video on YouTube, most charities & orgs were still only using YouTube digitize and store their TV spots. There wasn’t anything by which to compare my efforts to.

Now major charities are vlogging, creating creative online content, and interacting with their supporters. And, more often than makes sense to me, I’m told (in private) that my work is cited as the “one to beat” or the “one to copy” in boardrooms and briefings of some of the biggest (and smallest) charities.

This little project is getting less unique by the day – and maybe that’s for the better. And so this research project is a great way to put together what made this project unique in the first place – and what I can continue to build on.

[And, sidenote to charities reading this, what's with the competition? Why hire someone to copy me when I'll team up with you for free. I work for food, shelter, and enough logistical support to get the job done. Charity work doesn't need to be as competitive as many of you make it to be.]

Hi! If you just found this website because of this CNN.com article let me give you a quick introduction. I’m Shawn and “The Uncultured Project” isn’t a charity, organization, or anything formal. Think of it as “citizen journalism” meets “citizen philanthropy”.

I raise funds online (as an individual – alas, not tax deductible) and I give 100% of what I raise away to charitable causes. And I mean 100% – I even have a friend who covers the PayPal fees of your donation (for now at least). I then show you were the money goes via YouTube and/or Twitter. Sometimes both as you can see in this video.

Most of my work focuses primarily on Bangladesh because I have an ancestry there and still have a few aunts & uncles who live there (although they’ve kinda shunned me for pursuing a project like this – but that’s another story). But, poverty exists everywhere – even around your street corner. That’s why I decided to focus on the LA Regional Food Bank – you don’t need to go overseas to help people.

If you have a few minutes to spare, you can watch my food bank video by clicking here (it’s 3 minutes long). If you want to know more about “The Uncultured Project” you can watch this (it’s also 3 minutes). And if you have a bit more time, please do check out this video of a water project I did in Bangladesh that took over a year to complete (it’s a 4 minute video).

If you are wondering how to support my work – well, donating isn’t the biggest way. The biggest way is by helping me build a bigger voice on YouTube. Please consider signing up for a YouTube account (it’s free) and subscribing to my channel on YouTube. The bigger the voice this project can get, the better the chances that sustainability and more opportunities can come around the corner.

I also want to give a shout-out to my friends Hank & John Green (who were also quoted in that article). Without Hank & John, I wouldn’t have started to accept online donations from the public (they also get automatically notified every time you make a project donation). Also a huge thanks to my friends working at YouTube (many of whom I got to meet IRL) who made this interview with CNN possible.

Stick around. There are lots of hurdles – but I’m positive the best is yet to come.

In January of 2007, I withdrew from grad school at the University of Notre Dame and began an unemployed, unplanned, and “uncultured” journey to help the poor.

Almost exactly three years later, that journey has brought me to within grasp of being able to talk to world leaders about global poverty at one of the planet’s most important conferences. I can get there – but only with your help.

Out of 75 applications from around the world (and many more that didn’t make the deadline), I was selected as one of five potential candidates to go to Davos. The winner, is determined by you – because it’s your vote that determines the winner.

I won’t lie. I’m up against some brilliant people. I wish we could all go – because I’d love to meet them all and brainstorm. At the same time, I know that it’s not like global poverty can be solved with a one week trip to Switzerland.

But this could be big. It’s the biggest thing to ever happen in my life and it could be the biggest thing for the future of this project. So, if you’d like to help, here’s how you can do so:

Things you will need [REVISED as of Jan 11th, 2010]:

1. A YouTube or Google account. Signing up for either is free. UPDATE: You don’t need to signup for anything to vote.
2. An internet connection good enough to use YouTube.
3. The ability to get online every 24 hours until January 15th.
4. If Possible: Friends & family who might be interested in voting as well.

Here’s how you can vote:

1. Go to http://YouTube.com/Davos

2. On the top half of the page, you will see something about the Davos Debates. It will have three tabs. Click on “vote”.

3. You will see five videos from the five candidates. Select my video called “A Message to Davos” – the thumbnail is my picture.

Videos Are Randomly Sorted and May Not Appeared In This Order

4. Once the video starts playing, click the green thumbs-up button. Wait a few seconds. Your vote has been placed.

When The Red Thumbs Down Turns Grey, Your Vote Has Been Cast.

5. You can vote again everyday.

It may seem that, with so many followers on Twitter and so many subscribers, this is all but guaranteed. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Without getting too academic, it boils down to public vs. private networks. My support network is very public. And, like every network, not everyone following me or subscribed will be reading my tweets, watching the videos, or reading this blog.

It’s very possible (and very likely) that many of these candidates have a group of friends, family, and colleagues who will be diligently voting. This could be close.

Every. Vote. Counts.

(Photo Seen in Featured Content is from Flickr)

Children in Barguna, Bangaldesh watch YouTube video responses of people who told me to provide this village with clean & safe drinking water. Clean water project implemented with Save the Children.

You can see the full video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJubQzKYMGg

Are you ready for the 17th of December?

I Give a Talk to YouTube & Google Staff in San Bruno, California

“Years from now, I’m going to be looking back at this point in my life and laugh,” I told my friend whom I’m staying with in San Francisco. “I’m doing something successful enough that people are inviting me to meet them and give talks… yet unsuccessful enough that I can’t afford to buy myself some new clothes,” I said with a wry laugh.

Right now I’m in San Francisco – home of Silicon Valley. It’s home to where all this technology that has made this project possible exists. There’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google and so much more. Heck, I got to meet one of the guys that designed the MacBook Pro I’m typing this blog post on! As awesome as this place is… I’d rather be back in Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, I’m the guy that helps others. I’m the guy that comes out of nowhere and - if I’m lucky – make a difference in someone’s life. In San Francisco, I’m the guy looking for help. In a city with such a disproportionate amount of well connected and successful people, I’m hoping someone comes out of nowhere and – if I’m lucky – makes a difference in my life by helping me sustain my work.

I’m taking it one day at a time.

One of the biggest days for me happened not to long ago. I was invited to speak at YouTube Headquarters. People have told me that the talk I gave was really well received and that the turn-out for this talk (which went for an hour) was much higher than expected. But, in all honestly, I don’t remember much because I was nervous as could be.

The question of why I'm doing this is easy. How to sustain this? Not so much.

The one thing I do remember is that I stressed at the talk is the fact that my work would not be possible without YouTube. Whether it was John Green & the Nerdfighters convincing me to accept donations, teachers at the American International School in Dhaka helping with room, board, and contacts with charities, or people around the world reaching out to me – none of this would be possible if it was not for YouTube & it’s community.

Although in a completely different way, the same is also true for Twitter. When I think about how I’ve been able to use Twitter, it’s only now sinking in how much of what I’ve done have been Twitter “firsts”. I was, for example, the first person to use Twitter as a means of providing real-time donation receipts. People donated to Cyclone Aila relief – and many got a tweet with a photo of the exact person they helped in real-time from the disaster area.

One thing that people who are seeing me in real life often comment is how excited I get when I talk about my work. I love what I do – and I don’t want to stop. As much as I love the sights, sounds, and food of this place – the only reason I’m here is because I want to find a way to get back to Bangladesh and to keep doing this project.

Wish me luck. One day at a time.

Since I started talking about “Changing the Conversation about Global Poverty”, a lot has changed.

People, organizations, and charities are starting to realize you can’t guilt your way into getting people to support your cause. Many charities are also starting to use the internet in a way that’s just more than uploading their TV spots.

I’ve talked about a lot of charities that are taking the lead in this. But today I’d like to talk about an unlikely source in helping to change this conversation – CollegeHumor.com.

CollegeHumor is one of my favorite sites. They’ve helped create amazingly funny videos like the Powerthirst 2 commercial, Where the Hell is Matt spoof (NSFW.. kinda), Jack Bauer in 1994, and much more.

Their recent spoof is a stab at what I consider the most annoying, guilt-inducing, charity commercial in the history of the world. First, take a look at the original (the charity has disabled YouTube embedding so that their video cannot be used in blog posts like this):

[Please Click this Link to See the Original Video]

It’s got all the hallmarks of what I hate about charity commercials. CollegeHumor’s spoof takes this on – almost phrase by phrase. They also make fun of grad students which – as a former grad student – I can especially appreciate the humor.

Sometimes criticizing something doesn’t work as well as spoofing it. Hopefully, the only time we’ll be seeing Mr. White Beard of Guilt from now on is when he’s trying to help grad students.