I worked out a tentative route for InvisiblePeople.tv Road Trip U.S.A.

*may travel alternative route that would replace STL and KC with Minneapolis, Sioux Falls, and Des Moines

** depending on interest and time may be dropped

All the above is subject to change depending on interest and support.

We are only weeks away and to make this happen I need your help

• If you work in homeless services or know people that do please help me connect in your area. My visit is a win win for all. References from Prado Day Center, Phoenix Rescue Mission and my personal references. Here is a small example of media generated from just one stop Homelessness.Change.org, TakePart.com and Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog
• Need sponsors! Really need a travel brand and this tour fits great with car companies, hotels, travel services, and yes – Red Bull! Gonna need lots of caffeine throughout! Don’t need money (unless of course you want me to wear hats and t-shirts like NASCAR) I’m simply looking to reduce travel costs. Hotels have empty rooms and I’ll yell real loud how great they are!
  Ford Motor Company donated a car to the Wedding Road Trip and I’m hopeful they’ll help out this excellent cause with an excellent ride. I also need mobile broadband and a good GPS. If you are connected to any travel brands please help get the word out. If you’d like to sponsor please contact me at the email below.
• Need hosts: To cut down on costs a few people have offered to host my stay. More hosts will also help cut travel expense. Please know I never want to be a burden or inconvenience.
• Speaking: If you’d like me to speak at your church, ministry, nonprofit or business let me know. I will have a speaking page up ASAP.
• Financial Support: A PayPal page can be found here. I am aggressively working on applying for a 501c3 but it may take some time to be approved.

Here is a link about the road trip and becoming a sponsor InvisiblePeople.tv Road Trip U.S.A. if you can help with any of the above please contact me at roadtrip [at] invsiblepeople [dot] tv

This is exciting and to be honest a little scary but it will be awesome! Right now I am not even close to the money needed to make this happen. Thanks so much for helping to keep the conversation of homelessness and poverty going! We can affect real change!

I really don’t know where to start because I have so many stories about social media changing my life and providing a tool to help others. Plus, to be honest, I hate writing about myself. I am also emotionally and physically exhausted right now!

I am typing this at the front desk of a homeless shelter where I am temping for the day. For the most part I have been unemployed since November, 07. Hard to imagine I’ve lasted 19 months! Crazy! I did have two jobs during that period both only lasting three months. I lost my house to foreclosure two months ago and I literally have lived without an income since the middle of March. As God as my witness my fridge only has a few bottles of water and some mayo – that’s it! If it was not for the people who network with me on Twitter and Facebook I don’t even want to think about where I’d be. It still slams my mind that I exist right now only because of the generous hearts who follow me via social media.

Sitting at the front desk of any homeless services organization may be the worst job in the world. It’s not the tremendous patience needed to deal with hurting people but having to turn people away that wrecks me. I am not a fit for this job. Again being honest; if I wasn’t in crisis and needed money I would never sit here. The stories alone will tear apart the hardest heart. Jenny, the girl who usually sits here is an angel, traffic cop and concierge all rolled into one! I love this shelter and believe it’s one of the best. There is just not enough help for all the hurt so the person sitting here is saying no far more than yes!

I only say all that not to get sympathy but so you’ll know how much social media has impacted my life. Also, as a little disclaimer, if some of this post is a little off – I am beat! Insane as it is I just returned from a few days in Seattle making new homeless friends and speaking at a tech firm about social media for social good. Me, the unemployed guy with no food or income traveling to Seattle! Crazy! Whrrl invited me up and treated me like real family! The history and reasons behind the trip I blogged about here. Takepart.com also wrote a great post you can read here. What gets me excited is how much social media can affect real change and how tech companies like Whrrl are providing the tools for nonprofits to tell their stories.  

I’m a storyteller who likes to use media to help tell a story. Whenever I go do my thing social media goes along with me. Homelessness.Change.org and Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog are only two of many blogs that wrote about my visit to Seattle’s tent cities. Below is the embed Whrrl story, “Nickelsville in Seattle. Day 1”

Please know I never planned on any of this. After seeing so much hurt I just had to do something so I started InvisiblePeople.tv with only $45, a laptop (that cannot even cut video), iPhone and Twitter. I started to use twitter for one reason – free! How I use social media is I try and tell a story and engage people to join me for the adventures. I never dreamed people on twitter would be helping me with food and rent!

I am honored that so many great blogs from many different countries have written about me and InvisiblePeople.tv. Here are two Mashable posts that relate the most to social media:

5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded – please see my comment

5 Unique Stories of Social Media Saving the Day

Then just now I found a post by one of my heroes Danny Brown who instead of putting me in a nonprofit category classified me under social media! WOW! (Thanks Danny)

Here is the deal. The world is a mess and if I think about it long enough I’ll go nuts. I have a choice: I can get depressed or I can take action to help others. Twice in my life I chased money and I failed. When your priority is helping other people you can only succeed! I cannot help the people in NY or Florida but I can help the hurting directly in front of me. In addition, I can hopefully show the nonprofit world it does not take huge marketing budgets to affect real change. Be real and tell a good story, social media will do the rest!

THANK YOU social media for saving my life and helping me to help others!

I don’t remember exactly how I stumbled onto Whrrl. Seems that since I’m primarily a storyteller any tool that can help tell a story attracts my attention. InvisiblePeople.tv is all about people’s stories yet some of the most powerful stuff happens before I hit the record button. I’m constantly looking for new ways of telling the story within the story.

At first I didn’t get Whrrl and broadcast some feedback over twitter. Yikes, be careful whenever you do that, ya just may get a response! Whrrl listens and immediately engaged me into conversation. I was a little shocked and to be honest standoffish. Lots of brands talk about listening, but from my experience it is still very rare. Plus, I didn’t want to come across as this weirdo “homeless guy” complainer.

John Kim actually took the time to call me. But wait! He really listened to me. I have unique needs for what I do and I don’t believe Whrrl originally planned on my style of storytelling! Right from the start I saw the potential in Whrrl and was very impressed someone would take the time to speak to little ol’ me!

For the next two weeks I played around with the app yet it wasn’t until I traveled to Sacramento’s tent cities that I got serious about Whrrl. You can see those Whrrl stories here. To be completely honest I was shocked by the response the stories received. Finally Whrrl gave me what I needed to tell the ‘other’ story.

I started to wrestle with driving around the country this summer giving homelessness a face and a voice. It was really just an idea when Heather Meeker called with great news. Whrrl came up with a sponsorship proposal and the InvisiblePeople.tv Road Trip U.S.A was set in motion. Whrrl was the first sponsor to believe in me and I’ll be forever grateful.

Now here’s the really cool part: Heather said she’d like to join me handing out socks to my homeless friends. WHAT! Sure enough in about a weeks’ time along with our friend Wm. Marc Salsberry we headed on down to Skid Row. Ok, Whrrl listens, now they want to go with me and hand out socks! How cool is that! You can see the Whrrl story here.

About two weeks ago Whrrl offered to fly me into Seattle and asked me to speak. I agreed under one condition, can you guess? Yup, I must hang with my homeless peeps. I most definitely am a little whacked. Most people when they visit a new city want to visit tourist sites! Well, most ‘normal’ people anyway!

It’s interesting that I’ve wanted to visit Seattle for some time now. I’ve looked at a map trying to figure how I could make that a stop on the tour. Too far north so I thought it was a wash. Also interesting is the tent city story that national media never picked up. (Oprah, ya need to address the issue and not just a region!) ‘Nickelsville’ homeless camp I believe has been moved 7 times and currently is a political hotbed. I’m used to walking into this type of situation yet I know it’s not for everyone! Now get this, John and Heather are going with me! That is AWESOME!

Thanks to Eugene Cho‘s help I was connected to Dustin and Jeff who started the Church Outside. The Church Outside is a gathering every Monday night in ‘Nickelsville’. I am so excited. I talked to Dustin today and he told me about all the great things that are going on. For one they try and create a welcoming environment for what he calls “roof challenged” or “nonhoused”. The service if you will is about providing a place for people to speak openly. I LOVE IT! Most church services are one-way. Preachers yelling at ya for an hour then you go home. There is no healing in that! What I noticed even just by talking to Dustin is he has a broken heart for the hurting. I’m very excited about connecting with him.

Those that know me will tell you that I don’t hold punches and I don’t ‘kiss’. Whrrl is the real deal. I am impressed with their professionalism and customer service, yet I am in awe of the company’s heart. In any cause marketing campaign there needs to be return on investment. But to be a successful relationship that affects real change everyone needs to be in it for all the right reasons. Whrrl is helping me tell the homeless story for all the right reasons.

If you’re in Seattle this Wednesday join us for ‘Social Media Can Save the Day‘ Click here to RSVP and find more info on the Pelago blog. An evening of interactive communication about the cause and how we can use social media to make big things happen for good. I took a little extra time to write about some of the history on how this tweetup came about. Because of how my relationship with Whrrl started, and that John and Heather will be going to the tent cities with me, I have a feeling this is going to be an amazing night for all!

I love Eugene Cho’s post, “the blog post no one wants to read”. Here is a little taste:

But how is the [C]hurch responding? How?  I’m more and more convinced that the reason why the [C]hurch feels paralyzed is that our paradigm nearly always involves two things: 1] Sundays and 2]our services in our buildings. If we can just think outside that box, we can unleash so much creative resources.  Understand what I’m trying to say.  I think Sundays and buildings are perfectly acceptable and important but maybe solutions don’t have to intersect with Sundays and buildings.  Literally, we need to think outside the box – or – building

The NYC Rescue Alliance is an organization that is thinking outside of the box. I first heard about what they are doing on Facebook. Someone posted an update that a group of organizations are combining resources like church basements to help get homeless off the streets. I just had to find out more. Churches working together – that alone is a miracle!

Here is the deal: We need to stop being territorial and dogmatic. Instead, we need to embrace genuine compassion. I don’t care what you believe or who you worship, if you’re actively helping hurting people you are my friend and I am going to stand beside you!

I love Don’t Walk By. I hope we’ll see more people joining together to battle a crisis.  Please watch this powerful video. I believe it’s for last years winter season but it is a great example how if we work together we can affect real change.

Don’t Walk By: The Rescue Alliance NYC from bowerymission on Vimeo.

A few months back I spoke about the issues of homelessness at a fashion show. when I was first asked I thought it was a little odd. But when anyone wants to engage in dialog that will affect real change I am there. It was an amazing night and I was so very impressed with the kids hearts, creativity and effort.

Special thanks to Novo Fashio Show, Jonathan Chan and KAC Media