Crowd Funding Expert Warns Against Scams Connected to Boston’s Terror Attack Victims

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Crowd Funding Expert Warns Against Scams Connected to Boston’s Terror Attack Victims

Los Angeles, CA –April 15, 2013—The tragic events in Boston have left American’s feeling venerable. While the authorities sort out the details of how and why it happened, many people seek to find a way to help. Crowd Funding has been used to raise funds for victims of various incidents over the past few years. The money has helped with medical bills, the cost of rehabilitation and restoration of damaged property. Crowd funding can also open the door for scammers to fatten their own pockets while claiming to raise money for the victims. Dr. Letitia Wright, Crowd Funding Expert wants to give the public some basic guidelines to use before they give to a campaign.

“There are plenty of people who mean well, but in the heat of the may give their money to crowd funding campaign that has nothing to do with the person they claim to help.” Says Dr. Wright. “It’s important to do your own due diligence when giving to any crowd funding campaign. I’ve created a short check list that people can use to before they give any money to any website.”

1) Before you give, find out about the organization that is asking for the money. Is it a non-profit? Have you heard of it before? Find and address and phone number and check on all the information. Chances are, if you cannot Google them and find out all the information you need, they may be just a new scammer online.
2) How is the person raising the money connected to the intended recipient? The victims are busy trying to recover and hardly have time to get a representative to get a campaign together in the first few days or weeks. This person could be just using their name as a front to get money.
3) What website are they using? The better-known websites are safer and more stable. There are over 500 crowd funding websites that someone can use. A few actually shut down every day.
4) Is there another, better known Non profit like the Red Cross doing the same thing? You are safer with a large Non-profit and your financial give is tax deductible.
5) How long are they raising money? Most crowd funding campaigns only last up to 90 days. If they started in April 2013 and are still raising money via crowd funding in September, that is far outside of the norms and you should take a second look before giving.

Dr. Letitia Wright is a Crowd Funding Expert who teaches crowd funding for the Small Business Administration and is available in person locally in Southern California and by phone nationally.

POSH LA Fashion Week

This was a great event! The next one will be FAB!

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How to Create a Mastermind Group

guest post by Brandana

So what is a Mastermind Group?

A Mastermind Group is a group of business professionals from various industries that meet up on a recurring basis to talk about their professional or personal life.

The concept of the Mastermind Group is simple – To be successful, you must surround yourself with successful people.

First off, you will need to promote or invite people to become a member of this Mastermind Group. Right off the bat, do you know of any like-minded professionals?  Go through your Facebook account and take a look at people’s profession and also create a Linkedin account if you don’t already have one. One Linkedin you could also create a Mastermind Group to stay connected with your members. You could post and share articles and of course, promote your actual meet up.

Once you’ve targeted the people you would like to invite, send them a simple email describing the event and purpose. I would try to keep it light and try not to make it sound too corporate or like a formal meeting. It’s simply a meet up for successful professionals. Also, be sure to extend the invitation to anyone your potential member thinks would be interested.

Next, you would need to have a couple of venues in mind. Affordable lounges, coffee shops and restaurants are always great. Make sure the venue is centralized to where everyone lives so it’s easy for everyone to get to it. I would recommend splurging a little and have some finger foods provided to your members. After all, they did join your group.

Like any other kind of group, organization is a key factor. In today’s world of technology, the internet has become the most effective form of communication. There are so many tools out there on the web that can help you get more organized in a time efficient manner.

The one tool I recommend for starting any kind of group is Whoozin.

Whoozin is an RSVP web application. Here you could place the group logistics and your members information and add them to a group which in this case, would be a Mastermind Group.  Whoozin provides the ability to email your members and track who is coming to your group and it also retains a history of events for the group. Whoozin can help you stay organized when it comes to registration or invitations to your Mastermind Group. I almost forgot to mention that Whoozin is free to use and provides an ad-free environment.

Finally, I don’t recommend handing out agendas like you would a meeting but you should have one in mind or a personal agenda handy. This agenda would contain topics of discussion or any announcements you would like to bring up.

After your first Mastermind Group is completed, make sure you call or email everyone a few days later to get your feedback from them. Always ask for ideas to improve the event.

Visit http://www.whoozin.com

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