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Synopsis

This week Dr. Misner is joined by his wife, Beth, who introduces the new BNI Foundation Fan Club. This is a Ning social network for people involved with the BNI Foundation. There’s a rotating photo album showing the charities the foundation is involved in, discussion boards on topics like Givers Gain grants, and a chance for members to build relationships with the charities. Members can ask questions about the foundations and join special groups. Cys Bronner moderates the Ning network. BNI members are encouraged to join the BNI Foundation Fan Club.

October is BNI Foundation Awareness Month. The last week of October is the Each 1 Give 1 to Teach 1 Initiative. We are issuing a challenge to each and every member of BNI to donate ONE dollar/euro/yen/peso (insert your nation’s currency here) or more during the last week of October 2009. Chapter leadership teams will be given more information in September.

For more information about the BNI Foundation, contact Beth Misner at foundation [at] bni [dot] com.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcription of BNI Podcast Episode 119 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables.

I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coning to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, California, and I am joined on the phone today by the founder and the chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner.

Hello, Ivan. How are you, and where are you?

Ivan:
Hi, Priscilla. I am doing great, and I am at our lake house retreat in Big Bear, California with my lovely bride, Elizabeth, who is on the line with us today. We are pulling away from some vacation time to record this podcast about the BNI Foundation, something very near and dear to both Elizabeth and I, so I have invited her to be my guest on the podcast today.

Beth, hi.

Elizabeth:
Hey, Ivan. Hi, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Hi, Beth.

Ivan:
I think we would like to start¸ Beth, maybe by having you talk a little bit about the BNI Foundation Fan Club. Would you tell the listeners about that.

Elizabeth:
I would be glad to, thanks. We have started a fan club for the BNI Foundation. There is so much going on, and it changes on such a regular basis that I didn’t want to clutter our foundation Web site. The foundation Web site is a great place to go for general information. We do have some updates posted there, but it is not a real live community where BNI members and charities who are interested in applying for a BNI Foundation mini grant or Givers Gain grant, as we have started calling them, can really go for dialogue or ask questions or talk with other BNI members about what the foundation is doing and what is going on.

We started a fan club site. It is listed at a Ning community so the web address is BNIFoundationSans.ning.com. You can also click through the BNIFoundation.org Web site to get right into the foundation fan club. At the Web site, we have got a lot of cool features that being a Ning community allows us to have. We have a photo album that rotates through a slideshow of photos from, not only things that you and I have done, Ivan, with the BNI Foundation, but things that are being done out in other regions with fundraisers that chapters and regions are doing for the BNI Foundation. That is a lot of fun to kind of page through that.

We also have some discussion boards. The primary discussion board is where we are talking about Givers Gain grants that are in the pipeline, so things that have been applied for funding, projects, programs, teachers who are looking for a little bit of help, and we’re able to put the applications up on the Web site there and also invite the teachers to come in and talk about their project with our community.

You are going to see BNI members and BNI directors actually conversing with the charities. Guess what they are doing. They are building a relationship with these charities, most of whom maybe know someone in BNI that don’t really know a whole lot about BNI, so it is a great introduction to the charities that apply to see that we are a relationship marketing organization. I am pretty excited about that aspect of the fan club.

We also have a place for general discussion and an area where members or directors who have questions about the foundation can post those. They are facilitated by our very own Cys Bronner, who is a BNI director here in the LA area. I pop onto the board from time to time so you will see some questions answered by myself, but for the most part, we have her facilitating the site. We have some special groups.

Ivan:
BNI members are welcome to jump on there and join the Ning Foundation community, right?

Elizabeth:
Absolutely, welcome and encouraged.

Ivan:
So if you are listening to this podcast, we would love to have you, if you have any interest in what BNI is doing with the foundation, to join the community.

Elizabeth:
That is so true. Thank you for bringing that out. One of the really cool things I like is that as members join the community, they are posting their photographs so we get to see your beautiful faces alongside your names and comments, which is fabulous for me. It helps you and it helps me, Ivan, to get to know who our supporters are out there in the world, which is awesome.

Ivan:
Well, we are running out of time, and there is some content which I would love to talk about and that is the October BNI Foundation Awareness Month. Would you share a little bit of information about that, Beth.

Elizabeth:
I would be glad to. Every October we do a BNI Foundation Awareness Month within the organization, and this year, 2009, for the very first time we are doing a very special initiative. The last week of October, the week of October 20th through the end, we are doing Each 1 Give 1 to Teach 1. That is an initiative where we are challenging BNI members around the world to partner with us in making a difference in children’s educational programs by giving one dollar at your chapter.

Ivan:
Or one pound or one euro or one yen.

Elizabeth:
That is right, one yen, one euro, or more, whatever you feel like you would like to contribute. Chapter leadership teams are going to be given information in September as they transition to come back to the chapters to start making announcements throughout the month of October. We are putting this up on the BNI.com Web site. It is insouciant, and it is also going to be available at the BNI Foundation Fan Club site, so you can get more information in many of those different places.

Ivan:
We have something pretty exciting that is going to happen in the next year or two. The BNI Foundation will hit the $1,000,000 mark, we anticipate within the next year and a half to two years, in terms of donations. At this point, the BNI Foundation has given away over $850,000 in donations to charitable organizations. We are hoping to hit the $1,000,000 mark within the next couple of years.

Elizabeth:
And you know what? We are excited about that, but we want to congratulate our members, as well, who have supported that and have made that happen.

Ivan:
Absolutely, and the Each 1 Give 1 to Teach 1 initiative I think will help to throw us over that $1,000,000 in contributions that the organization has done which have done a lot of good in many communities around the world.

Elizabeth:
Absolutely, yup, and that will be fantastic.

Ivan:
Well, it is about time for us to wrap up. Any closing comments, Beth? I am not sure that the members know that you are the foundation administrator and that is why you are on this podcast. Will you give everyone the BNI Foundation Web site.

Elizabeth:
Absolutely, www.bnifoundation.org or you can email me at foundation@bni.com. I would be happy to see you at the fan club. And thank you for your time today.

Ivan:
Thanks, Beth.
Back to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Great, thank you both. That was really informative.

That was it for this week, and I want to thank you and let the listeners know that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com which is the leading site on the Net for networking downloadables. Thanks so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you’ll join us next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.