Startup of the Week - Give Mondays

by Startacus Admin

Usually when we are researching Startups for this feature, we tend to choose businesses that have developed new products or platforms or innovative services. This week however, it’s slightly different. Our Startup of the Week is more of a community - a movement, if you like. And we just love it!

Give Mondays is an anonymous community of givers who start the week with a random act of kindness each Monday.
Their first initiative is quite frankly, brilliant and it’s one that anyone could get involved with.
Intrigued? Read on...

In essence, all you have to do is:

- get an envelope ( ideally in a nice blue shade )
- pop into the envelope a little note encouraging the recipient to repay the gesture by being nice to people as well as a message to “Share your good fortune on www.GiveMondays.com #givemondays .”
- also add a little money ( they suggest a £10 note but you can simply put in whatever you can afford).
Then the fun begins!
On a Monday simply put the envelope somewhere where it can be found - a bus stop, a cafe, your gym changing room, wherever you want!
Then you can add the fact that you have given one away to the Give Mondays site and sit back and hope that the person who finds it follows your lead, repays the gesture as well as adding to the site the fact that they have found one!
Give Mondays has a map showing all the envelopes - the ones that have already been claimed and the ones that are still out there, waiting to be discovered!
Their Facebook and Twitter feeds are filled with tales of envelopes found, envelopes left and the real impact that it has had on people - the givers and the recipients.
We reckon this initiative ought to be everywhere - just imagine how different your Monday could feel if you happened to be one of the lucky ones and then the heartwarming feeling you’d get from passing it on another Monday!

For Give Mondays, this is only the beginning though - the folks behind it have all sorts of quirky, imaginative and inspirational plans for encouraging people to do good things on Mondays. We can’t wait to hear what they have in store...

Inspired by this? Why not do something about it next Monday! (*hint!*)

If you like this weeks Startup of the Week - check out last weeks Startup of the Week too.

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• #social good
• #

Published on: 13th February 2013