Phones 4 Loans! Again!

As you might remember I have written a post in the past highlighting a campaign called Phones 4 Loans. I recently had a conversation with the leader of Recycle to Eradicate Poverty, Brian Weinberg. A summary of the campaign can be found at Digiactive.org soon. Brian is still a student at University of North Texas where he founded the campaign. He has told me that it has been difficult in the beginning. He told me that his greatest challenge was being patient through all the problems he had with website developers. Many times the website developers did not have enough bandwidth to develop the kinds of sites that RTEP wanted. This happened twice and he told me it wasted a huge amount of time that could have been used to focus on getting people involved with the campaign. I think that is part of the reason why the cell phone collection rate has been low in the past year and a half.

They have also told me that they have started to create videos to put up on Youtube. They are hoping to make more videos that are humorous in nature that will become viral. The videos have only been up for a week and I believe as they post more videos that are good quality the more people will eventually view them. If it is possible for musicians to start careers on Youtube it should be possible for a socially responsible campaign to become famous on Youtube.

Brian Weinberg also told me that he is travelling often to go to summits and conferences to meet other leaders in the microfinance field to learn from them and network with them. He hopes to be able to get more organizations informed about his campaign so he can be featured on sites like Global Microfinance Forum. The site is perfect for microfinance leaders to discuss issues and network with each other and collaborate together. I believe that Brian Weinberg is really passionate and dedicated to this project. Although he is young he will eventually learn and become more experienced especially if he is taking steps to contact other leaders in the field. I urge you to go to their website and get involved. This is a great idea and I would hate to see it go to waste.