Busy season, isn’t it?

We have a few things we wanted to tell you about this week:

Best of 604: This blog has been nominated for an award! Please consider voting for us for “Best Company/Business Blog” in the Best of 604 – Metro Vancouver Web Awards.  Voting ends tonight (December 10th) at midnight.

Introducing DreamBank Gift Pledges! Want to find out more about them? We have the 411 here.

Gift Habits Contest: If you haven’t already completed our quick survey about how you feel about giving and getting gifts, this is a gentle reminder. You could win an iPod Nano or the equivalent contribution to your DreamBank dream.

Twitter: Did you know we’re on Twitter? If you want to hear more from us, you can always follow our tweets.

DreamBank is honored to have Global Greengrants as one of our wonderful charitable partners.

Greengrants is a “public charity funded by foundations and individuals making a difference for the planet”.

“We bridge the gap between those who can offer financial support and grassroots groups in developing countries that can make effective use of that support. We help donors overcome the barriers to grassroots grantmaking by identifying worthy organizations and moving funds at minimal cost. Our funds help grassroots groups achieve their dreams in the face of great difficulty. From protecting mangroves to protesting oil and gas development to fighting for indigenous land rights, our grantees have a significant impact in creating positive change for generations to come.”

An overview of Greengrants can be seen on their YouTube video:

Since 1993, Global Greengrants Fund has made “more than 4,000 grants in over 120 countries.” One of their current projects aims to promote food sovereignty and sustainability in Micronesia. The exportation of US crops in the 1960s and 1970s to the area has created a dependence on food that is far less nutritious and sustainable than Micronesa’s local crops. This cycle has led to various nutritional deficiencies in children, a dependence on US products and a neglect of much healthier local food.

“The Island Food Community of Pohnpei (IFCP) is a Greengrants grantee based in Micronesia that is addressing both the local and global causes of the current food and nutrition crisis. Through its awareness campaigns and workshops, IFCP is helping residents to reclaim and preserve knowledge of local traditional foods, building a grassroots effort to restore food production and consumption patterns back to their more sustainable and nutritious roots.”

We commend Global Greengrants on their impressive work.

We just launched our brand new Facebook app! It allows you to share your DreamBank dream gift with all your Facebook friends.

It’s easy to add our DreamBank app to your Facebook page. Just click here for instructions, follow the 4 simple steps and you’re ready to go!

Wait, those two thoughts are entirely unrelated… You’d like us even without the prizes. …Right?

1) Enter our Gift Habits Contest: We’re running a three-minute survey about how you feel about giving and getting gifts. You could win an iPod Nano or the equivalent contribution to your DreamBank dream.

2) Are you on MySpace? We are, now! Check out our new MySpace page and feel free to friend us. We like friends.

DreamBank is thrilled to have CARE as one of our incredible charitable partners.

Have you ever sent someone a “care package”? Then you know CARE. CARE was born in the 1940s with the sending of CARE Packages to the people of Europe suffering the aftermath of World War II. In the sixty years since then CARE has grown into one of the world’s leading humanitarian development organizations, defending dignity and fighting poverty in every corner of the planet.

Today CARE is breaking new ground with the “I Am Powerful” campaign.

Canadians are getting the message that women in the developing world hold the key to ending global poverty. When you empower a woman she will bring positive change for herself, her family and her entire community. CARE places “special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty.”

CARE has a presence in over 70 countries around the world. CARE programs are participatory, with the communities themselves playing an essential role in development and implementation so CARE projects are in every case tailored to meet the unique needs of the community.

CARE is “working to provide long-term development and economic empowerment to communities facing challenges like HIV and AIDS, poverty, gender inequality, environmental degradation, natural disasters and conflict.”

CARE educates women and girls, gives them vocational training, builds dams, build schools, provides economic development through tools like microfinance, teaches sustainable agriculture, fights malnutrition, helps communities adapt to climate change, provides immediate aid and helps rebuild in the wake of natural disasters and conflict, promotes gender equality, combats gender-based violence, promotes peacebuilding, combats HIV and AIDS through education and health services… the list goes on.

Take a look at the CARE website to read about its inspiring stories, see CARE Photogallery, find out what you can do to help and much more.

And here is one of their beautiful videos:

Mhairi Petrovic of Out-Smarts Internet Marketing sat down recently to chat with DreamBank founder Dawn Bowles. The discussion touched on several interesting subjects (from how DreamBank came about and its use to its future, charities and more).

One of the interesting points Mhairi brought up was the expenditure of mailing a gift (something that is eliminated with online gift registries like DreamBank). That’s something we don’t talk about that often since the avoiding packaging waste is one of our chief concerns. But of course, mailing gifts is often costly – especially if you are sending a gift last-minute. (Er, guilty.)

The podcast can be heard on the Out-Smart blog.

Thanks so much, Mhairi!

We’re so excited. Our very own founder, Dawn Bowles, will be speaking at the next Net Tuesday on October 14th . Net Tuesday is part of NetSquared, and is a monthly event where “Social Media and Web Innovators come together with Social Change Makers and Nonprofits to mix, swap stories and ideas, and build new relationships”.

Dawn will be part of a discussion about how to social media to empower their friends, family, or supporters to raise awareness, collaborate, and/or raise funds for a cause. William Trusty of SavethePlanetOnline.org will also be presenting on the topic.

If you’re in Vancouver, please feel free to come! RSVP on Meetup.com link here.

Local writer, radio personality and cool dude Buzz Bishop wrote a great profile of DreamBank in today’s 24 Hours:

The website allows you to post a dream and then solicit donations towards that dream from friends and family.

DreamBank is perfect for the couple getting married later in life. You already have the home, the dinette, maybe even the kids – the DreamBank can be a polite way to have your wedding gifts fund a bathroom makeover or an extended honeymoon you never could have afforded.

Thanks for the write-up, Buzz, and good luck on your dream!

We’re really psyched to announce that DreamBank has partnered with AdHack, a Vancouver startup with an exciting mandate:

AdHack is an open marketplace for ad creative. Anyone can make an ad. Anyone can buy an ad.

For ad creators, we provide

• a portfolio to showcase and share your work,
• review tools so peers can help you do better work
• search and matching tools so ad buyers can find and buy your ads.

For ad buyers, we provide

• an inventory of ads available to buy,
• tools to make it easy to find and buy word-of-mouth ads
• a commissioning service to get new ads custom built for your purpose.

We’d be the ‘ad buyers’ in that description. We’ve commissioned AdHack’s community to build us a 60-second web commercial that we’ll use around this site, post to YouTube and so forth.

Grab your video camera and get to work. Visit AdHack’s site for more details.

Tod Maffin recently interviewed Dawn Bowles, DreamBank’s Founder and CEO.

Here she is explaining DreamBank, what it is and how it works: