Anyone who knows me knows that I love sneakers. Ok, you might even say I am sneaker obsessed. From the walk-in closet with 160+ pairs of shoes, to my blog SneakerBlogger, to the custom Nike’s in Yahoo! colors I created for CES earlier this year, I try to find any way I can to incorporate them into my personal and professional life. So when I saw that Yahoo! was going to be hosting a Freecycle-inspired “Free is Good Fair” for employees on campus today (a belated Earth Day swap meet) and that one of the items being donated would be Chief Yahoo David Filo’s signature Adidas sneakers, I started cleaning out my closet.

Much to my wife’s delight, among other things I contributed were five pairs of sneakers and athletic shoes and I was able to actually watch people pick them up and give them a new home. (Yes, people WILL wear other people’s shoes…) Hopefully they will get some great use and their new owners will think hard about what THEY could give up to turn their personal trash into someone else’s treasure.

I’m told Yahoos brought in more than 2,000 items from closets and basements throughout the Bay Area that might otherwise have been destined for landfills. The more interesting things I saw included a vintage map of Silicon Valley businesses from 2000, a red lacy bra (which seemed to disappear quickly), last-generation Tivos, Rockem Sockem Robots, vacuum cleaners, a complete set of Star Trek: Next Generation VHS tapes, bunny slippers, fleeces galore, Yahoo! schwag (Yahoo! Chicago stickers, anyone?), and gently used sporting equipment. Items that had not seen the light of day for years were suddenly adopted by new guardians, who promised to put them into immediate use. Although I think the snow skis might have to wait until next season…

We duplicated this fair in six California, New York, and Oregon offices. And whatever wasn’t claimed was carted away by local charities like the Salvation Army.

So if you see me around campus with size 10.5 Adidas shell-toes, know that they will be well cared for and infused with the spirit of giving.

Hmm… I wonder what size Jerry wears?…

Here are some photos and a video recap:

Lucas Mast
Senior PR Manager
Connected Life

EDITOR’S NOTE: The earthwise among you know that tomorrow is Earth Day. We are teaming up with Freecycle™ and other popular reuse groups to inspire people to swap stuff they’d normally send to a landfill. In honor of Yahoo!’s “Free is Good” campaign, into which we’ve tucked treasures like a Smart Car, eco-resort vacation, and Sheryl Crow tickets, we’ve asked a Yahoo! user to reflect on what a boon Freecycle has been to her life:

September 19, 2003 should be memorable as my son Davis’ fifth birthday. Instead, we remember it more clearly as the day we started the very long recovery from Hurricane Isabel, which had hit our small Virginia town the day before. We lost just about everything in the bottom three feet of our garage to floodwater.

Several months later, I read about the local Yorktown Freecycle Yahoo! group and quickly joined. I immediately saw how it could help my town in its recovery efforts (which is, I might add, STILL ongoing five years later as friends and neighbors continue to shell out to repair floors and foundations).

The group proved useful just a few days after I joined. I had posted a want for a lawnmower and within 48 hours, I heard from “uubooklady.” When she let me know that her husband had recently bought a new mower to replace their 1985 Toro and that we were welcome to it, I was elated. I’ve always been happy to use hand-me-downs, and Deron Beal’s brilliant idea to use modern technology to share belongings locally via the Freecycle Network was a perfect match for my earth-friendly leanings.

When my husband Jim went to retrieve his “new” mower, lo and behold, his work colleague Ellis came pushing it out of the garage! These men worked mere feet from one another at NASA, yet they would have never made the lawnmower connection if it hadn’t been for Yahoo! Groups and the Freecycle Network.

I started FreecyclePoquoson for my own town that very week and have been happily moderating it ever since. We’ve grown to almost 600 members and we connect neighbors on a daily basis.

I’ve given away furniture, kitchen items, clothing, toys, and office supplies. I’ve received puzzles, games, craft supplies, used egg cartons (we raise hens and reuse cartons), even empty Kool-Aid Jammers (which I sew into very cool purses). I also get nearly-expired bread each week from a guy I met on Freecycle, who rescues it from grocery stores. I’m now known as “the bread lady” because I put a giant stack (we’re talking over 100 loaves) on my porch for neighbors who might be too proud to get food from the food pantry but are happy to keep it from being tossed into the landfill.

There are literally MILLIONS of similar stories about how helpful the Freecycle Network has been in people’s lives. I’ve seen time again how, while Freecycle often begins with an experience of a person receiving, it inevitably turns into discovering the joy of giving.

Freecycle, through Yahoo!, makes every day Earth Day and provides a modern, free, easy to use format to prove true the old adage, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” It sure beats spending hours having a yard sale or trolling sales!

Davis is nine now. He’s never known anything other than listing his old “stuff” on Freecycle. I don’t know when Poquoson will fully recover, but I do know that Freecycle and Yahoo! have and will continue to play an important part in the healing process… both for our community and for Mother Earth.

Traci-Dale
Yahoo! Groups user
Moderator, FreecyclePoquoson

“Using technology to make the world a better place.” That was the theme of remarks I made yesterday at Georgetown University, where I had the chance to honor the research of Irene Wu, the inaugural Yahoo! International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet Fellow. Irene’s work is part of a partnership we created with Georgetown a year ago to study the link between international values and Internet and communications technologies.

Our goal is to inspire scholars to explore new ways to use technology for good, particularly in navigating the complexities that go hand-in-hand with the shrinking globe that the Internet has created. These are complexities we at Yahoo! are well familiar with. While we’ve been at the forefront of opening up new communications and information frontiers for citizens of the world, we’ve also seen the challenges that come when these technologies are used by governments for other purposes – those that run counter to our values.

Although our challenges have been widely reported, the full scope of efforts we’ve been making to address freedom of expression and other human rights issues may not be as well known. So I thought I’d take an opportunity to set out some examples:

• Industry Code of Conduct: We’ve been working with industry counterparts, academics, human rights organizations, and socially responsible investors to develop a code of conduct that would guide leading global technology and communications companies operating in challenging markets. We hope to announce the results of our collective efforts in the near future.
• Academic Fellowships: In addition to the Georgetown Fellowship program, we also initiated the Yahoo! International Journalism Fellowship at Stanford in conjunction with the John S. Knight Fellowships program. It focuses on journalists from press-restrictive countries, allowing them to withdraw from their environments for a year of study. The first fellow came from Pakistan and this year’s fellow is from Zimbabwe.
• Human Rights Fund: Recognizing the plight of unfairly imprisoned political dissidents, we established a Human Rights Fund last month to provide humanitarian and legal support for these individuals and their families. We’ve partnered with noted human rights activist Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in a Chinese labor camp, to administer the fund. It will also support educational efforts on human rights. We’re so grateful to have Harry’s partnership in this.
• Policy Dialogue: While we’re committed to advancing human rights globally, there are practical limits to corporate diplomacy. That’s why we’ve been urging government officials in the United States and abroad to advocate for policy change. We believe governments have the most leverage to influence the decision-making of other governments.
• Advocating for Freedom: Having followed these issues intently and having now met personally with the families of dissidents, I understand our responsibility in advocating for their release. In fact, just yesterday, I went to Capitol Hill with Harry Wu to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dianne Feinstein to discuss these issues. And I recently sent a letter to Condoleezza Rice before her visit to Beijing, urging support in seeking freedom for Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning. With the Summer Games approaching, there seems to be a perfect window of opportunity for exerting diplomatic leverage. Senior Yahoo! leaders have also met with high-level Chinese and U.S. officials to directly appeal for release. We’ll continue to pursue this doggedly.

We’ve learned important lessons from our experience in China. We hope our experiences and plans can help guide other companies and ultimately influence the emergence of more open societies around the globe — when technology can truly be used to make the world a better place.

Jerry Yang
CEO and Chief Yahoo

Winston Churchill said: “We shape our buildings. Thereafter, they shape us”.

On Tuesday, I watched Jerry Yang and his wife Akiko Yamazaki speak in the sunny main atrium of the Yang and Yamazaki Energy and Environment Center at Stanford University. The newly dedicated building will house scholars whose mission is to solve difficult environmental problems. Jerry and Akiko contributed $50 million toward the construction of this state-of-the-art, day lit building that represents the cutting edge of sustainable design. Made with recycled steel and other green materials, the building will use an estimated 56% less energy and 90% less water than comparable non-green buildings.

The building also encourages collaboration, an especially critical feature when you consider the diverse disciplines it will require to tackle problems such as climate change and growing water shortages. People are more likely to write papers or conduct research together if they regularly bump into one other in the hallway. The open floor plans at Yahoo! are based on the same principle of open communication. Jerry and Aikiko’s building brings professors from a staggering range of departments together with students in a building that is green, beautiful and invites interaction and cross-pollination.

Y2E2 reflects green design at the most thoughtful level: low impact in its initial construction and ongoing operations; consideration for the health and productivity of the students and faculty who will spend their time within its walls; and a place that will encourage playful, unconventional, creative thinking that is the hallmark of Silicon Valley at its best. It’s also exactly the sort of living and thinking that that has to happen in order to solve some of the planet’s most pressing challenges.

Standing in the building’s atrium that evening, surrounded by a cross-section of scholars, business people, students, and other greenies, I was reminded why Yahoo! is so committed to the environment and energy efficiency. The guy at the top obviously cares quite a bit about this stuff, too.

Here’s a video of the dedication.

Chris Page
Director of Climate and Energy Strategy

Hi, my name is Carol and I’m a Flickr addict.

I’ve been hooked on Flickr since 2005, so you can imagine how excited I was when I heard I might be able to share my Flickr fever as part of my job! I work for TechSoup, a nonprofit that other nonprofits go to for technology help and resources. Typical nonprofits we work with are very small organizations working with the poor or youth activities.

Here at TechSoup we’ve been using Flickr’s photo service for years in a variety of ways. NetSquared, a TechSoup program, set up the “I Want Change!” and “NetSquared” Flickr Groups to help people share ideas about how nonprofits use Web 2.0 and social networking tools like Flickr to tell their stories and spark change. We encouraged NetSquared participants from all over the world to use event-specific tags to make it easy to share their pictures of group meetings and events on Flickr. So it seemed a perfect pairing when Flickr started talking with us about offering nonprofits a donation program of free Flickr Pro accounts.

When nonprofits turn to TechSoup for technology help and resources, they’re often looking for donations of software and hardware. Their technology is sometimes so out of date that they can hardly imagine something beyond the basics of word processing, fundraising, and virus protection. Donating Flickr Pro accounts will let nonprofits effortlessly use social networking both for fun and to help better fulfill their mission for social benefit.

I am a firm believer that photos have the power to amplify storytelling and provide a glimpse into the reality of a situation to move people to take action around causes. Such a believer that we think it’s important to reach out to the 90,000 nonprofits that are registered with TechSoup to help them find like-minded people by introducing them to the world that is available to them through Flickr and cool tools like tagging and creating groups. For example, Interplast has used Flickr to demonstrate the results of free reconstructive surgery for poor children in developing countries.

I have met so many amazing people through Flickr. I have chatted with people from countries I will never visit — people in war-torn areas who amaze me in their openness, people with shared interests and visions that can mobilize quickly to effect change. And I’ve even met some Flickr people face-to-face who have become good friends. I can’t imagine a world without Flickr. I am so glad to have a professional mission that now allows me to show nonprofits how Flickr can open so many possibilities for them, their staff, their volunteers, their clients, customers, and friends.

If you work as nonprofit volunteer or staff member, please check out the Flickr donation program on TechSoup. So, get on with it, go forth and load up your photos!

Carol Rudisill
Director, TechSoup Stock
TechSoup

Black Friday, Cyber Monday….how about a day or even a week that celebrates the giving-back part of the holidays? Two years ago, we launched the idea of Cyber Giving Week, dedicated to generous giving and raising money for local and national charities throughout the last week of December (of course, the tax reduction doesn’t hurt). Since our inaugural year, we’ve helped to raise millions of dollars for hundreds of charitable organizations. A feat only possible because of your generous helpings of goodwill.

With that in mind, we’ved kicked off our Cyber Giving Week program a little early this year to put a spotlight on you. We want to hear your inspirational stories of giving and to share them with our global community. Today we launched our “Be a Better Inspiration” campaign on Bix, so you can tell us about individuals making extraordinary differences through their charity work in your local community.

The cool Bix platform lets you upload audio so that the story can really come to life (I promise it’s easy — even I could do it). Just make sure to submit your story and vote for your favorite by December 19. On December 25, we’ll announce the top five finalists on a microsite that will allow you (and our community) to really make a difference — by voting with your wallets. The finalist associated with the charity that receives the most number of unique donors will receive a matching grant from Yahoo! of up to $50,000.

For the third year in a row, we’ve teamed up with Network for Good to make it easy for you to donate and see in real-time which charity has the highest count. As you make plans to spend your holidays with friends and family, share with them how you’re giving back this season (think Facebook, MySpace, or your personal blog) or make this the year you offer gifts of donations on their behalf. It turns out that the number one reason why someone donates to a charity is because a trusted friend or family member has asked them. What are you waiting for?

Tell us your inspirational story, vote for your favorite local hero, and encourage your friends and family to join your good cause! Tis’ the season for some pulling of the heart strings!

Meg Garlinghouse
Yahoo! for Good

Because hope is a treasure, countless people felt robbed by the recent surprising announcement that an experimental AIDS vaccine had failed. Many had hoped it would be the first to prove at least partly effective. That it didn’t was disappointing. What would be worse is if we allow this news to slow progress toward developing a vaccine, which remains our best hope of reversing the epidemic. Now is precisely the time to do more.

The arithmetic hasn’t changed. Despite the good news released by UNAIDS earlier this month that there are fewer people living with AIDS and fewer infections than previously estimated, there are still 33 million HIV-infected people on the planet and 7,000 new infections daily. AIDS is the fourth leading cause of death globally. Life-prolonging treatments for AIDS have improved and have become more available and affordable even in poorer countries. These drugs are not cures, nor are they, because of resistance and toxicity problems, a long-term solution for sufferers. The best hope for ending the epidemic is a preventive vaccine.

Securing funding for this vital but long-term work is a challenge, and Yahoo! is once again bringing its resources to bear. In 2001, Yahoo! became International AIDS Vaccine Initiative’s (IAVI) first major corporate supporter, providing free advertising to raise awareness around AIDS vaccines. On the occasion of World AIDS Day 2007, Yahoo! will bring hope to the field by featuring IAVI’s “Make AIDS History – $100K Campaign” on its World AIDS Day microsite. The money raised will support IAVI’s Innovation Fund , our newest scientific initiative designed to bring fresh, bold approaches to AIDS vaccine research.

We hope that you will visit the IAVI-Yahoo! microsite and consider making a donation. Securing financial support is key to our mission, as is spreading the word about the need for an AIDS vaccine. Vaccines for other diseases have altered the course of human history. They have eradicated smallpox from the world and polio from most western countries. More than two dozen fatal diseases can now be prevented by vaccines. We must add AIDS to this list. We hope you can do your part today.

Seth Berkley
President & CEO
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative

What motivates people to give? It’s something that we at the Yahoo! Employee Foundation (YEF) think about a lot. YEF was started in 1999 by our founders, Jerry and David, along with a few other motivated Yahoos who wanted to create a unique program designed to help Yahoos give back to their communities. They hatched a grassroots organization that has since contributed nearly $6 million to more than 250 non-profits in our surrounding communities, donated 2,500 holiday gifts to low-income children, held countless volunteer events, and has chapters in every U.S. office.

The most special and unique thing about YEF is that it’s 100% employee driven on an all-volunteer basis. All of the money is donated by Yahoo! employees (many allocate a portion of their paychecks), all grant recipients are championed by Yahoo! employees, and all YEF activities are run by a volunteer committee of Yahoo! employees. The coolest aspect of the foundation is that it can turn a modest contribution into a windfall for a favorite non-profit. A donation of at just $50 can turn into a grant of up to $40,000 for a charity you support. You do the math — that’s a good investment! The foundation focuses grants on the areas of Youth & Education, Family & Community Building, and Environment — causes that come directly from an annual employee survey to be sure we are properly aligned with what Yahoos feel is important. (Note that YEF doesn’t accept unsolicited requests, but you’re more than welcome to sidle up next to a committed Yahoo for grant championing.)

Every fall, we try to remind Yahoos about the power of YEF and increase our enrollment. This year we used a two-pronged approach. First, Jerry and David baited us with a $1 million donation if we were able to meet 25% participation among U.S. employees. Then many of our leaders upped the ante by promising to subject themselves to public humiliation, which turned out to be just as much (if not more!) of a motivation.

It did the trick. We beat our goal and raised a lot of money that will be given in future grant cycles. And now it’s time for Yahoos to cash in on the degradation of their leaders. Executives from our Search, Listings and Search Marketing groups have donned fantastic Mod Squad-era wigs and fed breakfast to an army of Yahoos in our Burbank office. Engineering leaders threw a beer and pizza party and volunteered to get submersed in a dunk tank — in jeans and sneakers, no less. (Nothing quite beats giving your manager a good soaking.) Up next, still more executives will host karaoke parties, invitation-only group dinners, hairnet-shielded pancake breakfasts, and raffles for choice parking spots (the only reserved parking at Yahoo! is won at our annual year-end auction, benefiting YEF… and it’s quite a sacrifice to give that up!).

I’m proud to say that the Yahoo! Employee Foundation is one of those things that distinguishes the experience here. It’s a collective effort showing that many of us Yahoos share a common gene. One that compels us to give back and make a difference.

Ben Baker
President, Yahoo! Employee Foundation Board
Director, Customer Care

Photos from Jeremy Johnstone

The competition was fierce. Bloggers promised to don tomato suits and dance at NYC’s Rockefeller Center. They pimped their cute kids for persuasive videos. They dangled free iPods and whatnot. They offered matching funds All in the name of doing right for the kids (and maybe having lunch with Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang.)

Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge are in. The Yahoo! award, for the highest number of donors, goes to Tomato Nation’s Sarah Bunting, who raised more than $100,000 (blowing past her initial goal of $40,000) from 1,099 donors in support of programs and supplies for America’s public school children. Her reward was lunch with Jerry at URL’s Café at our Sunnyvale headquarters (because our food is that good). But selfless tomato that she is, Sarah will be offering this grand-prize dining experience to one of her loyal readers — stay tuned on her blog for more.

Sarah also made good on her promise to be transformed into a giant tomato while going about her work day. Her brother filmed it all last Friday and you can catch it below.

(You gotta love New York City, where a gum-chewing red orb with tights, leafy-green headgear, and a purse snatches nary a glance as it squeezes through subway turnstiles and into crowded elevators.)

We were so inspired by the nail-biting competition in the technology category, that we offered a second grand prize to the winner of the Technology Leaderboard. That honor was ultimately snaked by Fred Wilson of A VC, who raised more than $18,000 from 92 donors. Fred, too, threw some icing on the cake by offering his seat at Jerry’s table to a reader via an essay contest. Word has it the lucky diner will be a student selected from a tech workshop in urban Oakland, California.

Jerry’s hungry. He’s got the lunch trays all ready. And he thanks the many DonorsChoose contributors who paused their busy days to make a difference for the kids.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Talking to my husband Robert on the phone on October 21st, I noticed he sounded worried. At first I didn’t pay much attention, figuring that it had just been a long day for his crew. After all, when you’re a Los Angeles County firefighter, your days can either be extremely hectic or slow — they’re very rarely anything in between. When he mentioned “all the fires,” it sounded like any other conversation we’d had. But when I turned on the news, I saw that this day was different. Ten fires were being pushed toward homes by Santa Ana winds, gusting to over 100 mph.

In shock that so much was happening all at once, I immediately began to worry for all the firefighters. The week continued with reports of more wildfires, news of evacuations and massive firefighter deployments.

We got lucky. My husband never got sent out. He quite fortunately had the day off when his shift was deployed. He ended up working overtime locally to cover for the missing crews. The days continued and the intense winds kept the firefighters from getting the upper hand. Reports said that it could be a week before firefighters would return home, and I knew, from dealing with my husband, that firefighters only carry 3-4 days of supplies in their bag. The command centers would be stocked with water, food, and firefighting equipment, but items like toiletries, socks, and T-shirts came from each firefighter’s personal supply. It was clear they’d need some help.

I mentioned this to a co-worker, who suggested bringing it up to Yahoo! for Good to see if Yahoo! could help. Working with my husband to figure out what would be needed, I rallied some volunteers and worked with Yahoo! for Good to engineer a “Purple Act of Kindness” to donate the requested supplies. Yahoos from our Burbank and Carlsbad offices traveled to command posts this week to deliver everything directly to the firefighters.

Yahoo! has helped about 3,000 firefighters in just a matter of days. That we could play some part in bringing these brave men and women comfort and words of thanks at a time when they’re so focused on helping other people is amazing. I’m happy to know that I work for a company that was so willing to repay those who always risk their lives to protect others.

Stefania Bisharat Bauer
Senior Revelance Analyst, Marketplace Compliance
Yahoo! Search Marketing