@twestival

3 Ways to Turn Strangers into Friends at Your Twestival

by Jackie Miao, Malaysia (@fooz, Lifebod.com), Twestival Orientation Team

Organizing a grassroots event means that the people who arrive on the big day will likely be strangers from all over your city, and it could be quite a mixed bag of personalities You should be ready to host everyone from the shy to the ﬂamboyant, from networking newbies to veteran socialites.

Trying to get such a diverse crowd to connect with you, the cause and each other takes a bit of work. The good news is that carefully planning a few parts of your Twestival will ensure everyone has a great time. Here are some tips on how you can get people from all walks of life to forget how diﬀerent they are and just have fun!

4 May 2013

Fun for Everyone

How to choose the right date to host your Twestival

By Christina Lor, Orientation Team Global Lead

Twestival has an important twist for 2013. Instead of every local Twestival being held on the same day everywhere around the world, this year each city or region gets to pick its own date that’s right for them.

But how do you select a good date? What makes a good day to hold a Twestival?

3 May 2013

A Good Day to Twestival

Great work! Visit their local blogs at doha.twestival.com and farnham.twestival.com.

20 April 2013

The first approved Twestival logos!

The wonderful Shira Lazar (@ShiraLazar), a past organizer of Twestival L.A., gives a complete download on all the excitement surrounding Twestival this year.

Is your city on the map yet?

If not, why not put it there? Get involved, have fun, and make a difference in your community!

18 April 2013

By Michelle Greer

With an 11-piece band, a photo booth, amazing giveaways like SxSW tickets and guitar lessons, and over 400 people in attendance, Austin’s first Twestival in 2009 was more successful than we’d ever hoped.

Are you planning your own Twestival? Here are some tips based on what we learned.

12 April 2013

5 Tips for Planning a Successful Twestival

A tale of global generosity and serendipity

To help launch our new approach for 2013, we also wanted a whole new look. Last November, we announced a logo contest on crowdSPRING, and donated $500 to a charity of the winner’s choice.

Fittingly, Twestival’s new logo is the creation of a fortuitous and generous online collaboration between two previously unassociated web designers living in separate countries, thousands of kilometres apart.

10 April 2013

The story of our new brand

What’s new and exciting for 2013

by Amanda Rose, Founder of Twestival

Do you remember what you were doing on February 12, 2009? I certainly remember where I was — sitting dumbfounded in my London flat with my laptop open to Twitter, watching #Twestival trend worldwide.

Everything had been set in motion just a few weeks earlier, when I began tweeting about an idea for communities in cities around the world to host events on the same day in support of a relatively new non-profit called charity: water.

Amazingly, organizers in 202 cities answered those first tweets, and together, we raised $264,000 to drill more than 50 wells in Ethiopia, Uganda and Cambodia, helping countless numbers of people get access to clean and safe drinking water.

If you were one of the thousands of volunteers or attendees on that first day, thank you! The success of that first global event inspired us to go further. Since then, hundreds of cities from more than 50 countries have joined in four Twestival campaigns, raising a total of $1.75 million for 285 amazing charities.

The impact has been nothing short of incredible. And by building on this success, we believe Twestival has the potential to make an even bigger difference.

4 April 2013

Twestival returns!

Twestival events in 202 cities around the world joined forces on February 12, 2009 to support charity: water’s mission of bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

All of the $264,000 raised was used to drill 50 wells in Ethiopia, Uganda and Cambodia.

Want to keep helping? Here is a simple way to make a difference: Pledge your birthday here!

Learn more about the communities that received wells thanks to Twestival donations!

4 April 2013

See the 50 wells Twestival helped drill

Lessons in educating the world’s poorest children

Photo: Esther Havens

On March 25, 2010, organizers in 175 cities across the globe held Twestivals in support of Concern Worldwide, raising an astonishing $405,538. Those funds directly improved the education of about 53,000 children — and another 120,000 indirectly — in Burundi, Haiti, Liberia, Malawi and Mozambique. Read the full story of Concern’s trusted approach, how Twestival donations were used, and the need that still exists for ongoing support.

4 April 2013

Update from Concern Worldwide: How Twestival helped

» Twestival Tunis organizers Hassen Saies, Mongi Bhouri, Amina Abdellatif, Ali Boulila and Karim Kik

Karim El Kik still remembers the moment he first learned of Twestival. It was early December 2010, and he was on a bus outside of Tunis, where he lives with his wife, Amina Abdellatif, and works as a communications director. He checked Twitter on his iPad, and within the stream was a tweet from a friend in Dubai about that city’s Twestival preparations for the March 24, 2011 event.

Karim and Amina, a graphics UX designer, looked into it further and discussed it with three similarly digitally savvy friends, Ali Boulila, Hassen Sales and Mongi Bhouri. The group agreed that it sounded like a fun event to host for the burgeoning population of young digital media professionals in the prosperous Tunisian capital, and proudly registered to organize Tunis’s first Twestival.

But within days, they had to put their nascent plans on hold, as angry protests engulfed their country in revolution.

27 March 2013

Stories From Across the Globe

Fun for Everyone

A Good Day to Twestival

The first approved Twestival logos!

5 Tips for Planning a Successful Twestival

The story of our new brand

Twestival returns!

See the 50 wells Twestival helped drill

Update from Concern Worldwide: How Twestival helped

After the Revolution: How the Arab Spring gave purpose to Twestival Tunis