You’re Helping the U.N. Feed and Educate Children Simply By Contributing Your Knowledge and Experience with Others – Help Us Double the Donation from SAP!

You’re turning collaboration to t-shirts, to cash, to food, to education, to a better future…

In the past, we used to send t-shirts around the world as a way of expressing our thanks to members of the community who shared their knowledge and experience with other SDN and BPX community members.  But, it got expensive once the community got so large (we’re at 1.4 million members now) and spread-out (we’re in 200+ countries and territories now) … plus, shipping bits atoms is not the most earth-friendly way for us to say “thank you.”  Many of you agreed and recommended a change; we listened and responded. 

Last year at this time, at SAP TechEd’07 in Bangalore, India, I announced that we would do something different for 2008 (based on the suggestion of community member Nigel James).  The commitment was: If you attain the same number of SDN and BPX points in 2008 as you did in 2007 (2.5 million collectively as a community), we’ll donate €100,000 to the United Nations World Food Program. 

The UN WFP would then use that money to feed hungry kids, at school, so the kids get the benefit of both immediate physical nourishment to sustain them, and longer-term educational nourishment so their future might be brighter.  I also gave stretch goals to encourage collaboration and sharing in our communities, all for a good cause: hit 3M points and we’ll increase the donation to €150,000 … hit 3.5M points and we’ll double our commitment to €200,000. 

You hit the first milestone last month! 

Several weeks ago in early September, you hit the first target: 2.5M points, which means SAP is making at least a €100,000 donation to the U.N. to feed and educate hungry kids.  With perfect timing, at the beginning of Community Day at TechEd’08 in Las Vegas, Laura Melo, Donor Relations Officer at the World Food Program, thanked you and our other SAP community members by video for your efforts and impact.   But I reminded those in attendance: “This is not something I ordinarily do… but please don’t let us leave money on the table – help us make sure we spend all of SAP’s potential donation.”

You hit the second milestone this week!

Last week, at the beginning of Demo Jam at SAP TechEd’08 in Berlin, Ralf Südhoff, a spokesman for UN World Food Program (WFP), took the stage in person and again thanked SAP community members for their contribution to feeding schoolchildren in Colombia, Ethiopia, and Laos.  He said, “For us it’s really thrilling to be here – Demo Jam is a lot of fun and so is the community, but at the same time it’s a great commitment for us. Very soon the 3 million-point limit will be passed by contributing to the community…” 

How right he was.  I’m now pleased to announce that just a couple of days ago you hit the second target: 3M points … which means we will donate at least €150,000 to the U.N. program to feed children in Laos, Colombia, and Ethiopia. 

One more milestone to go by year-end!

The U.N. WFP’s Food for Education project is an international, universal school nutrition program that aims to ensure that every hungry child has at least one meal every day.  Under our SAP Community Network program for 2008, the more points the community accumulates, the more money SAP will donate.

And how do you do that?  Simple: by doing what you do every day… by sharing your knowledge, experience, and expertise on SDN, BPX, and in the Business Objects community. And you do that by publishing blogs, answering each other’s questions in the forums, presenting at TechEd, editing the wiki, or authoring an article that’s published in our community. 

There are just a couple of months left.  Please help us double our donation – from the pledged €100,000 to €200,000.  Watch your own contribution status on the bottom-left of the SDN and BPX homepages, and watch the U.N. WFP “counter” on the right-hand column of the SDN and BPX homepages.

And, by the way, “thank you!” for sharing knowledge with each other, and for sharing our plenty with children who are truly needy. 

Regards,

Mark Yolton