The technology pieces are falling together here at Phil and Tropic! Step one was creating a platform  that could be creative, fun and engaging, with an enormous amount of new technology “behind the curtain.” Believe it or not, That piece took nearly two years!

Now, step 2 has been released. Our Rewards program offers a fun way for you to claim spots at your favorite places for Free! First, you create an account with a username and password. Then, you choose how you want to earn rewards. It only takes 10 reward credits to claim a spot for free. Here is a breakdown of potential credit actions you can take:

Like or Follow: You can Like our Facebook page, Follow us on Twitter or put us in your circle at Google Plus and earn 1 credit. This is the only action you can only take once per social network. You can return again and again with the other action rewards.

Recommend or Tweet: When you are at any page or place listing on our site, you can recommend us on Facebook, Tweet about us on Twitter or +1 us at Google Plus and earn 1 credit.

Tell a Friend: Click the “Tell a Friend” button and send a note to somebody about all the fun we are having at Phil and Tropic and earn 1 credit.

Blog: Do you blog? Create a blog post about Phil and Tropic that contains a link back to our site and you can earn 3 credits.

Newsletter Story: If you publish a newsletter, write a story about Phil and Tropic and include a link to our site. Then send us your issue and you will earn 2 credits.

Claim a Spot: If you purchase a Spot as a claim for yourself or as a gift, you earn 2 credits. It’s like getting a 20% rebate for your Spot!

Create a Listing or Fundraiser: If you list a Place where people can claim Spots or start a Phil and Tropic Fundraiser Place for your school, classroom, team or club we will reward you with 3 credits.

This is just the beginning of the fun we have planned for you. Join in today and create an account. By spreading the word about who we are and what we do, you can earn free spots at all your favorite places across the USA!

Yellowstone didn’t beat the all time record of 3.6 million visitors logged in 2010, but 2011 was the second highest attendance total ever for the park who has seen five years in a row of 3 million or more visitors.

While we are just getting started on our fundraising adventure, can you imagine, if just 1% of these visitors last year was able to purchase a Green Spot keepsake souvenir to remember their visit to Yellowstone? From this one Green Spot alone, we could generate in excess of $500,000 in charitable contributions to conservation organizations like the Land Trust Alliance and the Conservation Fund; two of the five eco-oriented charities we have nominated to receive funds from our efforts!

We are busy loading national parks, state parks, local monuments and places of interest into our Green Spots data base, so that when people catch on to this way of collecting souvenirs memorable gifts, we will be there for them. You can help spread the word! Go out an tell three people about what we are doing today to get us started!

The needs are great more today than ever. That is what caught our attention with the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund in the first place. This organization got its start in 2000 and has a mission to support and serve military personnel who have been wounded or injured in service. They have raised over $120 million since 2003 entirely from donations.

In 2007, they opened the Center for the Intrepid. This physical rehabilitation center in Texas features 60,000 square feet of space and is outfitted with the latest and best in equipment, technology and care givers. With that completed and underway, the organization created the 72,000 square foot National Intrepid Center of Excellence in 2010 for treatment of traumatic brain injuries.

Very few organizations operate like Intrepid Fallen Heroes does, creating large scale capital projects. Their work fills a tremendous need beyond the basic services the government provides wounded and injured military personnel disabilities and everything that comes with transitioning out of the service and back into society.  These people fought for our security in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hopefully our efforts can help make a difference in the thousands who deserve as much as we can repay them with.

We have nominated five military family support organizations who will receive funds from our efforts in the Fun Spots category of the web site. If you feel Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund is the most deserving of the five, you can vote for them. The organization with the most votes will receive the largest share!

Someone motivational once said that unless you write a goal down you cannot commit to it. The caveat here is that if things don’t go well, these are only predictions, not “Goals”, right? Wrong! We’ve got high hopes for Phil and Tropic in 2012. However, everyone involved has been around the block, perhaps, a time or two. So, our hopes are tempered with the knowledge that doing something right is not easy. As Mom said, “If it were, everybody would be doing it!” Who can argue with Mom.

But we really feel we are on to something:

1. People draw personal affinity with places and people they visit and interact with.
2. Many public places and groups are in dire need of ways to generate additional funds to stay operational or improve.
3. As part of our business plan, we give the majority of the money we raise through our efforts to people, places and organizations in need of the funds!

This past Fall, we “soft launched” and began to flesh our concept out further. This isn’t some out of the box program. Many of the things we are pioneering require new code to be written that allows certain processes to occur. We’ve refined our message. For the foreseeable future ALL signups are FREE. While this makes it harder on us. At the same time it makes it easier on you!

Green Spots is our launch pad category.

It houses parks and public places, monuments, landmarks and open spaces. We are busy loading national parks where you can purchase Novel Deeds where 75% of the money collected will go towards conservation organizations you can vote for! By this time next year, many city parks and recreation departments, state park foundations, national park foundations and sponsors who support them will populate this category with literally hundreds and hundreds of places you can claim your spot at!

Fun Spots is a place where we are working to marry all of the memorable attractions across the country with military family support organizations following the same 75% formula as Green Spots do. In the future you will find hundreds of resorts, roadside attractions, historical places, zoos, amusement parks and more, populating this category.

School Spots is one of the reasons the other two categories exist.

We can offer schools, teams, classrooms, clubs, churches – any organization, a place on our web site where they can team up with Phil and Tropic to raise money for their cause! Many of the traditional fundraisers have horrible payouts for the effort put forth by the students and their families. We aim to change that with a meaningful way of raising fund for 1x as well as ongoing needs.

Sports Spots is dedicated to the fans of sports. Like School Spots we provide space for youth sports, club sports and college sports to raise money for their programs. Here, you will also find pro sports and college sports venues where you can “Claim Your Spot!” A generous portion of your purchase will go towards children’s support organizations.

We are not some big corporation. Just a couple of entrepreneurs with a vision that our business plan will make the world a better place. It’s easy to stand around and wring our hands during these trying times. Instead, we’ve adopted the slogan, “little things can make big things happen.” It means, if a platform can be developed that enables us to all help ourselves and in so doing, help others – what better goal can there be?

So, in 2012 we hope to keep spreading our word, testing and refining our process to make it easier and more accessible to all the people we know who would like to engage with a concept like this. We will have many city and state partners as well as conservation foundations and land trust partners and the challenge will be to leverage those partnerships wisely. School Spots will see its first 25 schools engage in the program. Fun Spots is a powder keg and a crap shoot. But lets just set the bar high at 50 attraction partners. Potential other “home runs” will be the sports venues. We’ve got boots on the ground and believe we have a simple, honest, turn key program that works. If we can land a couple major sponsors who understand the vision, it will make the going much easier. There’s plenty to do. If you know anyone who can help, this is a win – win – win deal going on that just needs the word spread around! The act of “claiming a spot” for $19.95 that supports a cause and is easy to share on twitter and Facebook would seem to be ready for prime time,don’t you think?

What began as the National Military Wives Association in 1969, became the National Military Families Association in 1984. Since the beginning, this organization has kept a focus on the rights and benefits of military families. Most notably, health and survivor benefits as well as relocation and spousal employment programs have been their accomplishments.

It was not a hard decision to nominate NMFA. This organization is a highly rated non profit which spends over 90% of the funds it receives on programs. Administrative and fundraising expenses are less than 10% with an overall budget of more than 9 million dollars.

Today the organization concentrates on three programs; military spouse scholarships, Operation Purple for children of deployed military and, the family award program.

Military support organizations are slated to receive funds from the Fun Spots and Magic Spots categories. Visitors to the Phil and Tropic web site can vote for their favorite charity. The organization with the most votes will receive the largest percentage of contribution from our efforts.

The Trust for Public Land is a conservation effort that began in 1972. Their main focus has been to help people create public parks and natural places in urban environments. Since inception they have completed over 4000 projects in more than 40 states that has ended up protecting over 3 million acres.

While TPL may be on the high side of expenses when we consider organizations to support. What they do and how they do it over rides this infraction. 85% of money collected goes towards the programs they support. 15% is spent on administration and fundraising activities. Their overall goal is to ensure that every American is within a ten minute walk from a park. This is a lofty and worthwhile goal!

One of the key measures to creating parks out of urban blight happens at the state and federal legislation level. To that end TPL and another nominee, Land Trust Alliance, have partnered to create LandVote; a database of all active state and federal legislation affecting conservation efforts. It keeps the public informed on upcoming elections and is a premier source of information about conservation finance measures. We think this “two level” source of activity to conserve land is nothing short of brilliant and the results of TPL over the past 4 decades have made a real difference.

Every time someone purchases a Green Spot on our web site, we donate a high percentage of those funds towards our charities. Anyone who visits our web site has the opportunity to vote for their favorite conservation organization which The Trust for Public Land is one of. The organization that gets the most votes will gain the largest share of the funds we contribute!

Did you or someone you know take a family vacation at one of our national parks in the past? Phil and Tropics’ Green Spots just might be that stroke of brilliance that comes from a thoughtful gift giving experience. Here’s why:

You purchase a Novel Deed at your favorite national park in the Green Spot category at the Phil and Tropic web site. The Novel Deed marks the exact GPS spot of your memorable occasion. You can then upload your own pictures to personalize your “deed” and include a personal message about the visit. It can then be printed out if you like and, or, easily shared on facebook.

This perfect national park keepsake makes a great gift too. What’s more, it’s totally green! It lives in cyber space available when you want it! But as the saying goes, that’s not all! The majority of your purchase price funds go to support the top conservation organizations in the country. In fact, you can help choose who gets the largest share of the proceeds by voting for your favorite organization.

The purpose of the Phil and Tropic Fundraising Adventure is to educate and perpetuate a culture of philanthropy. In addition to offering public places, space is provided free of charge to all kinds of fundraisers who are encouraged to freely tag on to the Phil and Tropic story. Additional space is being readied for businesses who operate “attractions” like resorts, amusement parks and roadside places we all like to stop at who want to be a part of a causal marketing effort, the likes of which have never been seen before!

A wide swath of organizations can take advantage of the Phil and Tropic fundraising adventure. Free online fundraising is a click away if our program makes sense for your group. Our fundraising adventure revolves around “spots”; GPS points that can be sold as a novelty. The supporter receives a certificate declaring him the owner of a “Novel Deed”. They are able to load their own pictures in an online virtual viewer and share them with others socially. It is a completely green product that makes a great gift. The fundraiser receives 75-90% of the sale. We take a small portion and contribute the rest to a variety of top national charities. It’s what we call win – win – win!

Any of these types of organizations can sign up for a free listing right now!

Community Spaces – Do you have a park, public square, statue that is in need of public support? This is the perfect, sustainable fundraising program that is virtually made for you!

Schools – Classrooms, sports teams, clubs – Everybody who is your school fan, every year will want to show their support and remember the year with our keepsakes and gifts.

Land Trusts – stewards and owners can create a program with us that is perpetual and meaningful to your constituency. The perfect way to connect the land with the people.

Resorts, Attractions and Venues – People come to your places and make memories that last a life time. Partner with us and your fun spots for a turn-key causal marketing program that has been designed just for you!

We have tied together several powerful tools that will put your fundraiser into the hands of your potential donors right where they are today; online. Twitter Follow and Facebook Like and Share at several points in their engagement. Plus, people can comment right on your fundraising page too. We’ve thought of every way you might want to build and communicate with your growing online fan base. So, lets get started! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

We got really excited when we learned about what KaBOOM was doing with its’ playground project. Over 80% of the money they raise goes towards their charitable work. Salaries and fundraising expenses are a little higher than we like to see. But we give KaBOOM a pass because it is a decent percentage for a program that is nothing short of remarkable. Since inception in 1996, they have raised over $200 million to fund the creation of more than 2000 playgrounds. Their vision is to ensure there is a park within walking distance of every child in America!

The founder of KaBOOM was recently recognized as a U.S. Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Mainly because the organization doesnt just sell a city a playground. KaBOOM mobilizes communities to take the collective steps necessary in reclaiming land and involving community volunteerism to bring the playgrounds to fruition.

Helping schools, childrens’ programs and youth sports is a passion of ours. Kids deserve the best opportunity to learn and experience as much as possible. So, we have set up two categories in our Phil and Tropic fundraising program that are specifically designed to help classrooms, clubs, teams, schools and other organizations; School Spots and Sports Spots. When a Spot is claimed and a Novel Deed is purchased at any spot found in those two categories, a portion of those proceeds goes towards supporting our nominated charities! We need You! People coming to our web site can vote for who will receive the funds. So, we chose 5 nominees but you choose the winner!

It’s programs like this that get us excited to work harder at what we do and encourage you to learn more about KaBOOM and then vote for them if you feel they are the most deserving of the eco / conservation organizations we have nominated.

Sports is an integral part of everybody’s lives today with kids and adults playing a variety of organized sports like football, soccer, baseball and so many more. It’s no secret, some of these programs are under heavy pressure to raise funds for one reason or another. With these Phil and Tropic online fundraising ideas you are sure to have found a sustainable revenue generator for years to come!

Our tool enables you to sell “Novel Deeds” to your home field. There is room for thousands of spots. People come to your fundraising web page at Phil and Tropic to adopt or claim their spot. They receive a GPS point on the map, a certificate of appreciation and an online picture viewer. It’s easy to share on Facebook and Twitter to get others involved and best of all, its perpetual.

Your team receives the majority of the funds and we receive a very small percentage to provide this platform but we also donate a portion of it to national children’s charities that you help us choose. Soon, your team can be earning unlimited funds for projects and programs. This kind of fundraising is green too! Everybody has fun with it and is excited to share it with others. Best of all, this fundraiser features no inventory to account for or any of the other hinderances found in other conventional fundraising ideas. Get started now! It only takes a few moments to set up.