How to Ignite Compassion in Teens
Hi All!
The following is a Guest Blog post contributed to me by Lori Butterworth. Lori is a wonderful woman and founder of iSpot Compassion™; a resource for teens, parents, educators and community organizations. It is designed to facilitate strong community collaborations in support of teens and enhance existing programs by making the web-based tools available free of charge to partnering agencies.
The following info is great for Millennial teens, parents, businesses, educators, and employers!
How to Ignite Compassion in Teens by Lori Butterworth
The national call to service asks all of us to increase our volunteerism and posits that the combined efforts of our nation’s citizenry can bring about positive social change. This intended change will not be realized without the full engagement of teens. Unfortunately, for many high school students, assigned community service can be an onerous, abstract concept.
iSpot Compassion was founded in order to ignite the power of young people to create a more compassionate world and to achieve greater personal success through meaningful community service. The new website, ISpotCompassion.org, is a “social-networking for good” platform that allows teens to use their ingenuity to create and share their own unique projects and experience a tangible impact on causes they care about.
By logging on to iSpotCompassion.org, teens can:
1. Create their own SPOT (profile) which allows them to keep a log of service projects and activities over time.
2. Find support and mentorships from university students, business leaders and philanthropists.
3. Upload pictures and videos of their individual and group projects.
4. Start and join an unlimited number of groups to connect, share new ideas for projects, send notices and communicate about events and projects with other teens and groups.
5. Write an actual business plan designed for teens: iSpot Community Service Business Plan©.
6. Create and print out an iSpot Community Service Transcript or Resume© that chronicles their projects in a professional, organized format.
7. Receive community service credit for helping iSpot by printing out an iSpot Community Service Confirmation Form©.
With the tools offered by iSpot Compassion™, community service can have a profoundly positive influence on the academic performance, self-esteem and professional potential of teens. More than one-third of college admissions officers state that, when it comes to getting into college, community service ranks highest, second only to GPA and SAT scores. Young people who participated in community service during high school are 22% more likely to graduate from college than those that did not. Teens who share a volunteer experience with others are twice as likely to volunteer regularly, and 44% believe that “people working together” can make a great deal of difference in solving local problems. (Davila and Mora, Tufts University 2006).
iSpot Compassion™ is looking for corporate partners who would like to work with us to support teens as they take leadership positions in addressing emerging community needs.
Contact: Lori Butterworth lori@ispotcompassion.org
ABOUT LORI:
Lori Butterworth is a former high school teacher and the founder of three, successful nonprofit organizations: Jacob’s Heart Children’s Cancer Support, Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition and iSpot Compassion™, which blends her life experience and passion to inspire the next generation to become the Compassion Generation.
Lisa Orrell is The Generation Relations Expert, and has appeared on ABC, MSNBC and NPR (to name a few). She is a speaker, consultant, and author of the book "Millennials Incorporated" (on Amazon). Based on her expertise, Lisa is an in-demand expert who educates well-known companies (such as Cisco Systems, Paul Mitchell, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield) about effectively attracting, recruiting, managing and retaining Millennials (Generation Y). She also conducts popular seminars on how to improve generation relations within the workforce – thus improving communication, productivity and revenue. MEDIA: Contact Lisa for an interesting interview!