Dear Earth Deeds Supporters,

A quick post-Halloween joke:  Why do ghosts like elevators?  Because they raise their spirits! I hope this Earth Deeds update will raise your spirits as we share what’s been happening with Earth Deeds in the last month or so.

• Pilots: We’re continuing to pilot Earth Deeds in order to test and develop our beta-site and we’re ready for more!  Please let us know if you have an event you would like to make Climate Conscious and/or a Project you think others might want to support.  Thanks!
• Academic Pilots:  We’re particularly excited about dialogues we’ve started with Second Nature, which manages the American College and University President’s Climate Committement (ACUPCC), about using Earth Deeds offering an alternative to “climate neutrality” and a way for campuses to become climate conscious and support campus and community-based sustainability projects.  And Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) has committed to being our first pilot university!
• Events:I presented Earth Deeds at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) conference on Oct. 7 and there was lots of interest, especially among campus Sustainability Directors.  I then attended the Social Venture Network conference on Oct. 17-20 where I received excellent advice from some extraordinary entrepreneurs and welcomed a new Core Advisor — Gifford Pinchot, the Founder and President of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute.  And Shanti recently received a lot of interest and helpful feedback while talking about Earth Deeds at the Connecting for Change conference from Oct. 25-27.  More to come!
• Beta-Site: We recently redesigned our home page, incorporated an advanced search of over 112,000 global sustainability projects via the Wiser Earth database, and started a Blog where you can view this and older updates.  Lot’s more to come!
• Competitions: We were excited to pitch to the Valley Venture Mentors on Sept. 25, but it made us realize we should stick with more sustainability focused competitions and incubators such as the Social Innovation Forum (which we were personally invited to apply to), Echoing Green, and the William James Foundation.  Let us know if you know of others we should consider.
• Funding: We were thrilled to receive our third infusion of start-up capital a few weeks ago and now have an Executive Overview and Business Plan we feel good about sharing with other potential investors.  Please let us know if you or others might like to see these materials.
• Interview: Check out this video interview by some members of Valhalla, a growing ecovillage in Montreal whose intent is to make sustainability sexy and mainstream!  The first 14 minutes have some crazy video angles as their primary camera had a technical glitch.

Thank you all for your ongoing interest and support of Earth Deeds.  Please let us know if you have any thoughts and/or if you have an Event or Project you would like to pilot with us.  Take care and I look forward to hearing from you.

In community,
– Daniel