Today is the third day of the 16 Days of activism against gender violence and I will be sharing 10 simple steps to getting involved and making a real difference. Many people are passionate about a cause but struggle to get involved because of their busy lives. I completely understand this problem. My wife and I have 5 kids, I work 2 full time jobs, and I’m a full time student. Below I have listed 10 simple steps that have worked for me and will help you get involved no matter how much free time you can spare.

#10 Subscribe to RSS Feeds - Keeping informed is the single most difficult and time consuming part of becoming active. There is simply so many great sites that there is no way to visit them all regularly enough to keep up. This is where RSS feeds and a free RSS Reader like Google Reader comes in handy. With Google Reader you can get all your news in one place and it automatically updates so you never have to go out looking for news. Try it out by subscribing to my feed here.

#9 Comment on Blogs - Joining a discussion on one of the many great liberal blogs is an excellent way to get involved and start making a difference. This can take as little as a few minutes a day and will help get you involved in the community. Look through my blogroll and find a site that interests you and get involved. Of course I welcome everyone to comment here as well.

#8 Make a Donation - Not a ground shattering suggestion but one that is still badly needed. If you have more money than time giving even a small monetary donation can really help out. If you have even a few hours to spare there are many charities that always need help. So whether you are donating money, items, or time it is very rewarding knowing that your efforts are appreciated.

#7 Attend a Local Rally - Getting involved with local groups is one of the most rewarding parts of getting active for a cause. My wife and I try to find as much time for this as possible and we never regret it. The rallies and vigils are always great fun and the media attention these rallies generate will greatly help your cause. Last month my wife and our 3 youngest attended a vigil for SCHIP and they had a wonderful time, met some great people, and helped raise awareness in the community.

#6 Write a Letter to the Editor - Taking 20 minutes and writing up a good letter to the editor of your local newspaper can have an enormous impact. Even a small newspaper has a circulation of thousands of readers who are informed and interested in local events. The return on time for writing a letter is huge as a well written letter can bring in lots of support.

#5 Contribute to Liberal Blogs - Many liberal blogs, including this one, allow contributions from readers like you. Best of all these blogs often have daily readership of tens of thousands of progressives who are open to your ideas and thoughts. Daily KOS is the largest liberal site on the internet with hundreds of thousands of daily readers and they allow you to set up a diary for free where you can write about your cause. Take advantage of these offers to get your message out there.

#4 Tell Your Friends and Family - Many people overlook the simple act of talking with their friends and family. Oftentimes you will find that the person you least expected to be interested is in fact very receptive to your ideas. In fact quite commonly you will find that some of your friends and family are more than willing to join forces with you to help out.

#3 Start a Personal Blog - While this seems intimidating for many people, in reality it is as simple as filling out a quick form. Blogger.com and Wordpress.com are both excellent, fast, easy, and FREE. There is simply no easier and faster way to make a difference than starting your own blog. In less than 2 months we have had almost 50,000 visitors and you can easily do better than that.

#2 Get Involved Locally - The more local the cause the more of an impact you can make on your own so get involved with the local government. Take advantage of open forums and contact your local representative. You will be surprised at how much even one person can accomplish working at the local level. So even if all the time you have is to write a letter to your local representative that is time well spent towards making a difference.

#1 Vote - I cant stress enough how important getting out and voting is. In our great country the will of the people is represented by elected officials. By taking part in this process you validate your own freedom and help to ensure that the best candidate is the one in office. So please get out and vote because your one vote does make a difference.

Bonus Tip: Focus on a Single Issue at First - Often times we can get distracted by all the important causes and we start trying to do too much. This just leads to a lot of wasted effort and eventual burnout as we spread ourselves too thin. Pick the issue that you are most passionate and invest only as much as you can spare. This way you will maximize your efforts and combined with the 10 tips above you can start to really make a difference in the world.

There you have it, 10 simple tips to getting involved and making a real difference. I could have easily listed more but I wanted to keep this short and sweet. The single greatest threat is apathy so please bookmark this list and send it to all your friends because only by becoming active can we expect anything to change. Thank you so much and please feel free to comment and add to the list.

~ William ~
http://wwjv4.com

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