By Michelle Thai

Last month, our Business Development Manager, Mike Duchen, shared his incredible journey with cancer. Today we’re honored to share another inspiring story from a member of our team.

Micheal Shallop, the latest rockstar to join our dev team, hasn’t cut his hair since April 15, 2002. That’s when his mother passed away from breast cancer.

There is no doubt that the number of obstacles for someone with cancer is endless. Acceptance, rounds of chemo, and living a normal life is just a fraction of them. One obstacle often overlooked is the impact of no longer having hair.

That’s one major issue Micheal’s mother faced during her illness. “One of the issues we faced with her illness was her need and subsequent search for an affordable wig that, of course, didn’t look like a wig,” said Micheal. “This, in itself, was an experience.”

Coming from a more frugal generation, Micheal’s mom was quickly put-off by the high cost of a quality wig. Fortunately his family helped her to get what she needed and wanted, so she could concentrate on her treatments.

She never allowed the issue to detract her from her treatments, but “I remember the hair-loss and wig-procurement being a huge priority and concern to Mom,” said Micheal.

And it wasn’t a priority simply out of cosmetics. “I think the wig helped her to help others deal with her disease,” said Micheal. “Her priority in obtaining the wig wasn’t so much vanity as much as it was making others feel more comfortable around her, especially her grandchildren,  most-notably while in the later-stages of her chemo treatments.”

Over the past decade, Micheal has been supporting several charities for breast cancer. However, the ones he pays most attention to are charities that help cancer patients directly, like providing them wigs.

Now that he has grown his hair down to his belt, Micheal has chosen the group Wigs for Kids to donate his hair to. Since 2002, he has made sure to never chemically alter his hair so it can be successfully donated.

Between now and April 15, Micheal would like to use this time to challenge everyone to pledge some donation that he can include when he sends his hair donation off to Wigs for Kids. To support Micheal and donate, click here for his Crowdrise page.

To learn more about Wigs for Kids, head over to its website, http://www.wigsforkids.org/.

By Michelle Thai

In just two months since the launch of the Football For Good Giving Assistant, Adrian Peterson’s nationwide campaign Football For Good – which is dedicated to providing opportunities to at-risk youth – has found success in engaging supporters and raising funds.

As of Monday, Feb. 9, over 5,000 fans, friends, family, and supporters of Adrian Peterson have installed the Giving Assistant into their browsers, generating a total of $7,390 for Football For Good so far.

Using GlobalMojo’s unique technology, that $7,390 was generated by users doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary; just making ordinary, once-in-a-while purchases online (Yeah- that easy). Learn more about the details of the technology here.

Overall, the Football For Good campaign has raised approximately $250,000 to benefit at-risk youth! As users continue to shop online with the Giving Assistant and invite their friends, the app will potentially raise $150,000 to $450,000 a year for Adrian’s cause.

Rallying support for the campaign hasn’t been difficult at all for popular Adrian, thanks to the power of social media. Throughout the last two months, he’s been engaging his 216,901 Twitter followers and 752,202 Facebook fans with shout-out videos, amazing prizes, and giveaways. (Thanks for your support Adrian!)

The first major prize was an all-expense paid trip for two to the Super Bowl. Every new user automatically received 100 entries to win the Super Bowl trip. Additional entries are earned when users invite their friends to download and use the app.

Lucky Giving Assistant users Andrew and Joseph from Southport, NC won the trip to the Super Bowl!  Below is a photo of the two with our awesome CEO, Dan Todd, at the 2012 Super Bowl! We’re only slightly jealous over here…

Keyonne Campbell won an all-expense paid trip to the Pro Bowl in Honolulu, HI by getting the most friends to download the app.

Random prize winners include Alison Lewis, below, who won a trip to a Vikings game to meet Adrian.

Nathan Pease, Josiah Joseph, Lara Vukelich, and Kristen Porter all won signed jerseys and a case of Texas Tea, Adrian’s favorite drink; and Alexandra Polier won a pair of game worn shoes, signed by Adrian.

While the opportunity to win prizes has been successfully engaging and exciting his fans and followers, Adrian reminds them, “It was always in my heart to be able to give back if I was put in that position. With the Giving Assistant, everyone can give back… just by doing what they already do online every day.”

To install the Football For Good Giving Assistant – and be entered to win an all-expense paid, VIP trip to Los Angeles to visit the set of CSI: Miami and meet the cast – visit footballforgood.org.

CONGRATULATIONS to Andrew and Joseph from Southport, NC for winning the Football For Good Super Bowl trip! We’ll let our winners tell it all:

Check out the other amazing prizes you can still enter to win at http://www.footballforgood.org/. The next prize? An all-expense paid trip to the VIP trip to Los Angeles to meet the cast of CSI: Miami.

Recently our team at GlobalMojo received some exciting news: another celebrity will be joining Adrian Peterson and Jamie Oliver by launching a Giving Assistant of her own! We are PUMPED about the news – which you’ll hear more about later on – but our fast growth also means our team needs some additional help. Last week, we welcomed three new members to our growing team!

Micheal aka Mike is a Chicagoan who’s been living the warm sunny life in California since 1994. Usually he can be found doing one of two things: coding or sleeping (we challenge him to do both… at the same time).

He’s been coding since 1980, which was when he picked up his very first computer and taught himself basic programming. He brings to GlobalMojo an honors degree in Computer Science from Oklahoma State (c/o 1991), a passion for building awesome apps for others to enjoy, and a commitment to advance GlobalMojo’s mission: combining corporate and social responsibility into a tool that can make the world a better place.

Mike has an adorable best friend: an all-white Siberian Husky named Einstein. Prepare your heartstrings for the dog below:

Bobby is also a native from Chicago. He’s a die-hard Bulls/Bears/Cubs/Blackhawks fan – always has been and always will, he says. As a intern from Miami University, Bobby is spending his spring semester in San Francisco with all of us at GlobalMojo, where he will help drive marketing and affiliate initiatives so users can enjoy our app just a little more.

As an aspiring entrepreneur, Bobby is excited to dive into GlobalMojo’s work and “gain great hands-on experience with a cool, hip start-up,” (aww, shucks!). He loves working with others to solve problems in a creative, sustainable approach, and establishing awesome relationships along the way.

[ Left: Bobby, Right: Anthony]

Anthony hails from Cleveland, Ohio. Like Bobby, he’s studying marketing and entrepreneurship at Miami University of Ohio and comes excited to intern at GlobalMojo because it’s “a startup that is not just looking to make an impact on the world, but an impact in a positive way.”

Anthony hopes “to gain some real world experience in a startup environment, meet new people and get a better feel for what I want to do when I graduate college,” he says. “I also hope to gain some knowledge and skills that I can carry with me to whatever career field I choose.” Fun fact: Anthony worked on a strawberry farm for six years!

Welcome to the team! Mike, Anthony, and Bobby, our team is so excited to have you three aboard! Now, if only we can add an office puppy to our team… *fingers crossed*

By Michelle Thai, Marketing Intern

A month ago, we blogged about our newest white label app for Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. This week, we’d like to share why his campaign means a lot to us at GlobalMojo.

Kids today are growing up overweight and malnourished from a diet of processed foods, and today’s children will be the first generation ever to live shorter lives than their parents.

At age 21, I myself am embarrassed that I really do not know how to cook. You can find me at Trader Joe’s aisle of already-made frozen meals. And it’s not that I chose to live this way, it’s more that cooking skills were not particularly important in my household. My dad has always worked 8 AM to 8 PM at his mechanic shop. My mom works swing shift at her job. They never really had the time or energy to cook from scratch, let alone teach me.

But Jamie’s Food Revolution has made me realize and inspired me to take control of what I’m consuming. Jamie’s website says it the best: the problem stems from the loss of cooking skills at home and the availability of processed foods at every turn, from the school cafeteria to church function halls, factories and offices.

The Food Revolution is on a mission to save lives by inspiring families to cook good food from scratch, like how it should be.

By cooking from scratch, families will be fighting obesity with better food. Did you know approximately 17% – or 12.5 million – children and adolescents aged 2 – 19 years are obese? Imagine how many of those kids continue to grow up obese.

A recent study published in British Journal Of Cancer revealed that each year, nearly half of the cancers in the UK alone are caused by avoidable life choices including diet, overweight and obesity. In the U.S., obesity is the #2 cause of preventable death.

“Food is one of life’s greatest joys,” writes Jamie Oliver, “yet we’ve reached this really sad point where we’re turning food into the enemy, and something to be afraid of.”

He continues to explain, “Knowing how to cook means you’ll be able to turn all sorts of fresh ingredients into meals when they’re in season, at their best, and cheapest! Cooking this way will always be cheaper than buying processed food, not to mention better for you.”

A 2011 survey conducted by Good Food channel discovered that out of 2,000 men and women, a typical female can cook just seven different meals from scratch – half as many as their moms were able to serve up. One in 20 women said they can’t even boil an egg.

Jamie has acknowledged these horrors in his Food Revolution, that’s why his campaign is working to create a nationwide network of community kitchens where anyone can go to learn basic home cooking. In your local communities, the Food Revolution is working to make cooking courses available in church halls, community, and healthcare centers.

However, the nightmare continues when our children are at school. We’ll let these photos tell it all:

VERSUS

[Images from Jamie Oliver Food Revolution's School Food tool kit]

The Food Revolution is working to bring freshly cooked meals in schools and colleges, as well as cooking lessons for kids at school.

If you believe in what Jamie and his Food Revolution is doing to save lives and end the obesity epidemic, support the campaign by signing his global petition here, downloading his Giving Assistant app here, and/or spreading the word on Twitter.

Just a little something for our awesome users and supporters!