Beth Kanter: Social Change in Tech

Beth Kanter's daughter poses in a Laughing Squid shirt before it gets shipped overseas.

In this world of IPO rodeos, billion dollar acquisitions and social networking widgetry, you might not know Beth Kanter. But you probably should.

I first heard about Beth in late 2006 when she launched her Sharing Foundation donation drive with Network for Good's Six Degrees badge. Sharing Foundation, a humble organization working to improve the lives of disadvantaged Cambodian children has benefited so much from Beth's participation as a board member. In 2006 she raised enough money amongst her friends and family to send a man in Cambodia to College and in 2007, she won the Yahoo for Good/Six Degrees grant challenge raising nearly $100,000 for the organization and their community development work. Today she's sending swag shirts to a small orphanage in Cambodia.

T-SHIRTS FOR CAMBODIA
Did you know that the term "swag" is actually an abbreviation for the phrase, "stuff we all get?" The truth is of course that there is pretty much no item that we (the universal We) all get - not clothing, food, love, shelter, political voice and certainly not branded laptop bags, travel mugs and shirts. After bringing a whack of discarded conference swag to distribute at the Cambodian Blogger's Summit, Beth Kanter took her left over shirts to an orphanage. Since then, Beth's friends and colleagues have been sending shirts over to orphanages as well in support of her great work. Beth's even getting calls from the corporations themselves to donate more product.

ETHICS IN ACTION
Beth Kanter simply wants to get clothing and support to children in Cambodia; nevertheless, at what point does corporate donation become branding? Second hand swag is one thing, but new donations may be viewed differently depending on the donor's expectations. Are companies doing this out of the goodness of their hearts or is this all a marketing ploy on their part? Is this different than companies buying space on homeless people's signs? I don't have the answers on this one and judging by Kanter's brilliance in the past, I'm sure this project is done with the utmost respect; however, I've never really gotten a handle on where ad-based exploitation begins and ends. One case that seems to blur ethical boundaries is the sponsorship of Frank Chu, a man with a history of mental health issues who holds the Guinness record for longest protest despite the fact that the protest itself is extremely nonsensical. Sponsors pay Chu a fee to advertise on the back of his sign.

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Beth Kanter: Social Change in Tech

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