‘Giving Tuesday’ year-end donation drive: thank you all who donated! Reply

From December 1st until December 3rd, ProZ.com, Dutch translator and copywriter Pieter Beens and the rest of the ProZ.com community joined forces in a ‘Giving Tuesday’ year-end donation drive and collected over $1,800 USD to be donated to Books For Africa, Concern Worldwide and SOS Children’s Villages. In turn, ProZ.com matched dollar for dollar the collected amount and over $3,600 USD will now benefit these three non-profit organizations.

Funds were collected through ProZ.com membership sales, training purchases, as well as from direct donations, and the translator community also shared their translated version of a very famous quote by Mother Teresa:

Click here to see translated versions or suggest your own.

Special thanks go to…

• Pieter Beens for proposing this initiative and spreading the word.
• ProZ.com professional trainers Claudia Brauer, Anneta Vysotskaya, Konstantin Kisin and Samuel Sebastian Holden Bramah for donating their time and knowledge.
• ProZ.com users and members who donated through membership and training, or by making a direct donation.
• ProZ.com users and members who proposed their translation of Mother Teresa’s quote.
• Everyone who helped to spread the word!

Thank you all who joined ProZ.com’s 2015 celebration of Giving Tuesday!

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How did you celebrate Giving Tuesday? Share below.

Guest post: The importance of translators for charities 2

This is a guest post by Pieter Beens in promotion of ProZ.com’s ‘Giving Tuesday’ year-end donation drive. To find out more about this initiative and learn how to contribute, visit the drive’s main page: http://www.proz.com/pages/drive

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#GivingTuesday is an international phenomenon to raise funds for a host of charities. In the spirit of this event, ProZ.com is hosting the #ProZcomDrive, a special campaign to raise funds for three non-profit organizations: SOS Children’s Villages, Concern Worldwide, and Books For Africa. All proceeds from the ProZ.com ‘Giving Tuesday’ year-end donation drive will benefit these programs to help families in need, raise funds for emergency response programs, and support literacy initiatives.

Although fundraising within the translation community is a major aspect of the campaign, there is much more to say about the importance of translators for charities. In this article I will mention a few.

Translators often do not associate themselves with charities professionally. Of course many of us are involved in volunteer jobs, varying from caregiving to supporting political parties, but there are few translators and translation agencies that continuously support charities for free.

That is nothing to blame translators and agencies for: supporting charities is not the most obvious choice when it comes to sponsoring or even to corporate sustainable development. At the same time many charities do not ask translators and agencies to help them out with translations for free. One initiative to connect charities and translators for free translations is Translators Without Borders.

Translators can play an important role for charities. First of all, they can offer free translations (also outside Translators Without Borders), so charities can do their lovely jobs and reach their goals with a minimum of resources. However, free translations should not be the main objective for charities when collaborating with translators. Indeed, translators can offer much more than just financial help.

Language professionals, and in particular native translators who live in the countries where charities are active, have actual knowledge of the country and culture of the language in which they translate. They can be the “eyes and ears” of the charities they work for, and know how these organizations can be most successful in reaching their goals. At the same time, they can inform charities about local developments, and even point out new goals and locations where their efforts are needed.

Translators can also contribute their commercial knowledge to these organizations to help them better deliver on their mission. For example, they can share best practices in reaching out to the public or in translating different types of texts. They can help educate charities as to how they can be successful in motivating volunteers or raising funds. Translators can also apply their knowledge from particular areas of specialization, like healthcare or technology, in translating texts for non-profit organizations as well.

A final important role of translators in the non-profit sector is the role of networker. Charities often do not know where to find the right translators for a particular language or where to go in a certain country to get help, subsidies or support. Language professionals can guide them to local authorities or centers that can help the charities to realize their goals.

The #ProZcomDrive

All proceeds donated by the translation community from December 1st to December 3rd as part of ProZ.com’s ‘Giving Tuesday’ year-end donation drive will benefit SOS Children’s Villages, Concern Worldwide, and Books For Africa. In turn, Pieter Beens is also donating 10% of his income for the entire month of December to a fourth initiative: Project Jedidja, a project to fight illiteracy and discrimination among disabled children in Guinea Bissau.

Learn more about Project Jedidja here: http://veldwerkers.kimon.nl/jedidja

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Are you considering donating translations to charities? Read Pieter Beens’ tips at http://www.vertaalt.nu/blog/tips-for-translators-when-supporting-charities/

Let’s join forces in a ‘Giving Tuesday’ year-end donation drive 1

Giving Tuesday is here!

After an entire year networking, expanding your business, improving your work and having fun, you now have the opportunity to give something back: whether it be through donations, fundraising, volunteering your time and expertise, or simply by calling others to support a particular cause or initiative.

At the end of October this year, one ProZ.com staff member was approached by Pieter Beens, a Dutch translator and copywriter, as well as a ProZ.com member since 2011, with the idea of a charity campaign to be promoted among ProZ.com community members. The result? A ‘Giving Tuesday’ year-end donation drive that starts today, Tuesday, December 1st, and will run until Thursday, December 3rd:

Help spread the word on social media using the hashtags #GivingTuesday and #ProZcomDrive.

Join this #GivingTuesday movement and support the following non-profit organizations:

Books For Africa collects, sorts, ships, and distributes books to students of all ages in Africa. They remain the largest shipper of donated text and library books to the African continent, shipping over 34 million books to 49 different countries since 1988.

Concern Worldwide implements emergency response programs primarily in the world’s poorest countries, has been a leader in health and nutrition issues, and has been on the forefront of helping communities develop resilience to high-impact climate extremes.

SOS Children’s Villages works to prevent family breakdown and care for children who have lost parental care, or who risk losing it. They work with communities, partners and states to ensure that the rights of all children, in every society, are respected and fulfilled.

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ProZ.com will match, dollar for dollar, the first $10,000 USD donated to these charities.

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Make an impact. Join this drive →

Special thanks go to Pieter Beens for the initiative, to ProZ.com professional trainers Claudia Brauer, Konstantin Kisin, Samuel Sebastian Holden Bramah and Anneta Vysotskaya for donating their time and knowledge in support of this drive, and to the members of the translation community who join ProZ.com and Pieter Beens in this #ProZcomDrive!

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Do you have any other plans for #GivingTuesday? Share below.