generatekindness.org

We love this video!

Man! That was a nasty bug. Someone from an un-named country *cough*russia*cough* hijacked the GK site and was sending all our traffic to a random search site in Russia. We thought we’d eliminated the problem a few weeks ago, then it returned and wouldn’t go away.

Well, we basically wiped everything out and reinstalled WordPress, the Bueno WP theme and that seems to have resolved the problem. Such a colossal waste of time, too. At least 12 hours of time that could have been spent improving the GK site, sending out stickers, etc., instead spent wrestling with server configuration files, and other command line !fun.

The result was severe health warnings for anyone who tried to come to GK, consequently severely impacting our traffic.

Anyway, apologies again, on behalf of our Anonymous Russian hacker.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled exploration of compassion in action.

Be kind, people.

“Pay It Forward,” “Generate Kindness” – there are lots of ways to talk about Kindness in Action. “Life Vest Inside” has created a music video that illustrates the principle of Kindness and interconnectedness in a really beautiful way. Worth checking out!

Well, it appears that the hack attack we were hit with has been resolved. If you are seeing this blog without a nasty Google malware intercept page (it still kinda freaks us out that Google can do that), then all is back to well and right with GenerateKindness.org.

We moved to WordPress and apparently used a plugin that had a trojan horse script in it that placed a website redirect instruction on the webserver, which took all traffic to a Russian affiliate link site. Google doesn’t like it when that happens, so they threw a glaring red warning page.

Anyway, it appears that the blog is back. Sorry to have freaked anyone out. The worst part of this was all the wasted time. We spent hours working on finding the source to this problem (our fingers are still crossed that the problem, has, in fact, been permanently fixed). It was like being on a treadmill that got us nowhere. A total waste of time. Thanks, unkind Russian hackers.

Well, thanks for daring to move beyond the GoogleWall of Shame. Still trying to track down the source of this problem. So far, no luck

This is the smallie.

So GK got hacked. Not exactly sure the point of entry, but the hack is injecting .htaccess redirects to some Russian site. This means that when someone comes to GenerateKindness.org (if they’re not deterred by Google’s Malware warning page*) that they’ll find their browser whisked off to some random website. (That’s the extent of the malware as far as I can tell).

Anyway, I’ve deleted the .htaccess and am going to disable a bunch of plugins on the theory that that’s how they’re hitting me.

Sorry to all who thought they’ve been hoodwinked by a sticker.

* and does it bother anyone that google can just automatically insert a page into your browsing at any point? I’m really glad they do it for this reason, but I don’t think I signed up for any “Google Protection” service. kinda spooky.

I’m sad to say that the amount of spam that was piling up in the comments was too much, and I’ve turned off comments (I think). We weren’t getting a ton of comments anywya, and the signal to noise ration of the comments was unbearable. LIke hundreds of commentspam. Will try to think of another way for people to give feedback. Got ideas? Leave a comm…. oh, right. Um…

We really believe in the concept of “Theory of Change” – the reasoning behind a project that suggests how it might actually bring about some kind of change and what’s required to make it happen. This concept or structure is one that nonprofits and activists of any type should consider when engaging in an effort to change something.

It occurred to us that we’ve never posted OUR Theory of Change, so here goes:

Kindness is the white blood cell of humankind. It is an act of healing that touches both the healer and the healed. Kindness must be generated – it must arise from within a human being and be expressed. In today’s hurried world, people are easily distracted into their daily routines and easily lose touch with their humanity or the humanity of others.

The proverb of the power a butterfly’s wing falling in a desert in Africa suggests that we each potentially play an integral role in the world around us. We have a constant choice to be kind or to be unkind. Most often, we react unconsciously to the world around us. Our culture teaches us that we do not have “enough” and that we need more. This has us feeling stressed out and worried about our own needs without considering the needs of others. And occasionally, there is a reminder that pops us out of our daily haze and influences us to make a more mindful choice.

The GenerateKindness.org project intends to be that reminder for as many people as we can touch through the distribution of free stickers bearing a website address that gives away free stickers bearing a website address.

Each act of kindness inspired by a sticker is a step in the direction of peace. Each act of kindness inspired by a Generate Kindness sticker is a ripple in a very big pond of humans.

It will be nearly impossible to measure the impact of this project. Thus, proving the Theory of Change is implicitly unrealistic. Only the qualitative contributions of people through the form of letters, donations, promotion, and other forms of support and the occasional comment left by a website visitor.

Otherwise, printing and distributing free Generate Kindness stickers is about the equivalent of throwing messages in a bottle from a desert island. But when you’re trapped on an island with only bottles and a notepad, that’s what there is to do.

In a more metaphysical sense, the generation of kindness is a self-fulfilling agent of change, perpetually reminding others and ourselves that Kindness and compassion begins with one person – us.

Self-Sustaining
For the project’s long-term success, it must eventually generate a self-sustaining revenue model to cover the costs of printing and shipping stickers. This could come in the form of grants by foundations and philanthropists. More likely, it will come from the many thousands of people who contribute small amounts.

Transparency
Key to supporting an ongoing donation base is the element of transparency. Showing all costs associated with operating the project, along with all revenue received is important to establishing trust with and between the GenerateKindness community.

Generosity
There are approximately 157K+ stickers requested from this site so far. Because of the overwhelming demand for stickers and the limited supply of funds to fulfill those requests, the website form has been taken down. All SASE requests are being fulfilled and all site donors are getting stickers sent to them. To print and mail the 157K+ stickers will require tens of thousands of dollars.

Viral Sharing
As more stickers are put in places around the world (both physical and on the web), more people will come to the site. The more people that share the site or stickers mean more people are likely to be reminded about generating kindness. This is the essence of our Theory of Change – that a bumper sticker can change the world.

Get a freshie by sending a SASE to Generate Kindness c/o Ian Rhett, 912 Cole Street #273, San Francisco, CA, 94117… Got a couple of SASE’s to send out this week . Thanks Lauren in Long Beach, CA and Monica in Eaton, OH! I think this batch cost close to $475. Feel free to pitch in!