My good friend Melissa Lipani has started her own full service pet care business, Woof! SLC, where she offers services ranging from Walks, Pet Sitting, Pet Taxi, Bathing, Yard Cleanup, etc. within the Sugarhouse (and surrounding 5 miles) area.

Melissa has three pit bulls of her own, one of which she has nurtured back to good health from his battle with an auto-immune disease.  She contributes numerous hours of volunteer work with No More Homeless Pets and Best Friends, being a constant representative for animal rights and adoptions.  I highly recommend her for your beloved pet’s needs.

For further information, visit her site and blog or call her at 801-419-2464.

Utah Blood (also known as ARUP Blood Services) is the sole provider of  blood to Huntsman Cancer, Primary Children’s Hospital, Shriner’s Hospital for Children and University of Utah Hospital and Clinics.  These four (out of the total of 43) Utah hospitals represent 25% of the needed blood in Utah with any donations made directly helping someone within the SLC community.

Utah Blood is constantly trying to expand their platelet donor base as they need 25 people a day to fulfill the platelet needs within these four hospitals.  A platelet donation can be a bit more time consuming than a blood donation, taking anywhere from 80 minutes to 2 hours, but donors are constantly needed due to the short shelf life, a mere 5 days, of platelets.

For more information visit their site, subscribe to their Blood Blog, join their Facebook page or follow their twitter stream.  Or to make an appointment at their Research Park or Murray location, call 801-584-5272.

As you may have noticed (that is, if I still actually have any readers to this blog.. *smile*), this blog has been quite dormant for some time.  The reason?  In August 2008 I decided to take some time off to travel, moving from a full time to part time role with my firm.  I’m single and still somewhat young… so why not travel a bit? 

I am an avid rock climber (which you can read about on the CragBaby, a crag being an outcropping of rock and CragBaby being the name of my chihuahua) and decided to go on a 9 month rock climbing road trip.  I am currently hitting month 6 and am temporarily located in Hueco Tanks State Park in El Paso, TX.

Though I will probably still travel for 3 months, I figure it is about time to pull the WasatchGirl out of dormancy, striving to write about something other than climbing. =)  Hopefully a new post will come to fruition within the week’s end.  

Aahhhhh, it feels nice to be back.

This simple campaign made me ponder how a good sum of money could be raised over such a short period of time and if it was a model that could be used in the non-profit realm. Looking back on the Chip In Widget, it seemed to be have such an impact for four main reasons.

1. It Hit A Pain Point – many of us probably know someone who has been diagnosed with cancer. But the pain point in Serenity’s case is that she is young, being diagnosed at the age of 22 months. An age that shouldn’t have to endure pain or a terrible disease.
2. It was Personal – often with non-profits you see a picture of a child or a family but you don’t personally know that family. I don’t know the exact distribution of the widget, but it seemed that many of us personally knew Phil.
3. It was Targeted – The widget was distributed through the technology community with which Phil is a member.
4. There was a Deadline – It is human nature (or at least in my case) to procrastinate. The creation of a deadline made people respond.

Would this be able to work in a non-profit scenario if they had an online presence and following? Seems like the targeted and deadline points could easily be achieved, but hitting a main pain point and making It personal are the tricky aspects. What do you readers think?

Numerous posts and tweets have been hitting the Utah scene lately concerning Phil Burn’s daughter, Serenity, being diagnosed with Leukemia. I blogged a couple days ago about the new Chip In Widget, created by Jesse Stay, that thankfully has been distributed amongst a handful of bloggers and is seeing a good up-tick in donations.

However, there is another way to help out.

I truly try to volunteer on a weekly basis (often posting about my experiences on the Cragbaby here, here and here), with my very favorite volunteer activity being donating platelets at ARUP. I have been donating platelets since last summer, trying to give every other week, health permitting. I find it to be the easiest form of service because by sitting and watching a movie (albeit with a needle in my arm) I can directly impact a life.

I choose to donate at ARUP because all donations are used at the local hospitals, helping cancer, transplant and traumatic injury patients. Platelets only have a shelf life of a five days resulting in a continual need. To date I have only been at the ARUP lab on one occasion where I was told they were finally catching up with demand, though they expected to be behind within the next couple days.

The UtahBlood site shows where units of blood are being used. (I am not quite sure if this includes platelet distribution.)

If interested in the Serenity cause or are looking for a fantastic volunteer activity, consider platelet donation. An appointment with ARUP can be made by calling 801-524-5272.

I have gotten to know Phil through a handful of his startups and by following his online presence. He is a good guy willing to take the continual risk of being an entrepreneur in order to provide innovation to many. I would urge you to help him out in this time of need.

Friday was the first day of SXSW so the lineup of events was quite small, providing only two panels for the day. After waiting in the line for my badge and meeting the EchoDitto crew, I headed over to the Dabble, Dabble Toil and Kick Ass career related panel. Nothing new or novel there, but no biggie as it was the first panel of the event. Next I headed off to the Bankrupt Your Startup Panel with panelists Andrew Hyde (startupweekend.com and the recent vcwear.com), Joshua Strebel (Obu Web Technologies), Sean Tierney (Jumpbox) and a unicorn. Yes, you read that right. A unicorn. The panel had so much potential, but none was achieved as the whole event was a joke with Godzilla slides and money being thrown around. Once again, no biggie. Still just the first day at SXSW.

That night I hit up the Friday Night Mix at Six and met some great people such as Michael Pilla of Indie Flix, Robb Wood of an uber stealth project and the Path 101 team consisting of my blogger friend Charlie O’donnell, Danielle Collins and Alex Lines. The crew of us headed over to grab some dinner with some friends of Charlie’s at Opal. The dinner gang included Josh Guttman of Sphere, Jason Falls of Doe Anderson, Richard McGinnis of Radian6, Shawn Morton of CNet and Profilactic, Nick Huhn of Yum! Brands, and Todd Earwood and Nicky “Lindy” Key of DailyIdea.tv. Good times!

Danielle Collins and me.

Jason Falls and Richard McKinnis.

Nicky (Lindy), Todd and Charlie.

The semi-annual KCPW Pledge drive is underway. Please take the time to pledge your support by calling 801-359-5279 or visiting their site. Being a phone volunteer for this event is actually one of my favorite volunteer opportunities due to the interesting people involved with the drive. If interested in volunteering in the future, fill out this form.