Chris Tinney - Founder of Spread Peace

Chris Tinney is the founder of Spread Peace, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of homeless issues and providing services to those in need on the streets. Tinney and his wife Tysha Tinney worked together to get the organization underway with good works in their community in 2008 when they traveled the country to bring awareness to the struggles and challenges that homeless individuals in the United States face every day. They documented their travels and spoke to crowds throughout the country, asking the same refrain: “Who can you help today?”

Chris Tinney and his wife believe that every little act of kindness to someone in need helps cure an overall national problem. They believe that their work will create an avenue to end poverty and homelessness in the United States by the end of their lifetimes. While many scoff at the couple’s lofty goals, Mr. and Mrs. Tinney work every day to help those less fortunate than them find ways to thrive and get out of the trap that homelessness can become.

The Tinneys refuse to accept the premise that the reason that people are homeless is because they don’t work as hard as others. In fact, the vast majority of homeless individuals in the United States are on the streets and in shelters not because they don’t want jobs, but because of being born into terrible circumstances and dealing mental health issues.

Chris Tinney also works as the Managing Director for Hotei Media, a social media management company that, in addition to working with many large companies on building their brand awareness through creative and effective social media content creation, works with many nonprofit organizations on developing solutions for raising awareness of their worthy issues in communities throughout the United States. Tinney’s experience with social media and how to run social media campaigns effectively comes in handy when working for Spread Peace.

Spread Peace, under the leadership of Chris Tinney, is technically a nonprofit ministry, but it welcomes people of all faiths and belief systems to work with the organization and to seek help from it as well. So far, Spread Peace had delivered over 500,000 meals to homeless children over its history and counting. Tinney believes himself blessed to be able to work with caring individuals in his community with his wife and family to help those in need throughout.

Tinney has since diversified his organization’s reach to other causes and campaigns and has remained an advocate for children throughout the United States who need help growing into the world of adulthood. Tinney works with several staff members and hundreds of volunteers to achieve his organization’s goals. He invites anyone who wants to help make a difference in their community to join the organization and work to end homelessness in America.

Three Tips for Being a Successful Radio Talk Show Host

Radio is still a great way to promote yourself. It is useful if you are trying to sell a book, a product, or your personality because it is easy to connect to the masses on the radio. Radio talk show hosts have to be able to sell themselves on the radio because they are the product that they want to the audience to consume. Here are three tips for succeeding as a radio talk show host.

You have to be able to entertain your audience, which you means you need to be entertaining. Presenting interesting and compelling information will keep your audience entertained, as will presenting this information in an informative and interesting manner. If you can communicate information well to your audience, you will keep them entertained.

Part of being a radio talk show host is listening to other people, specifically your guests and your audience who will call in at times. You need to make an effort to understand the answers that you receive from your guests in an effort to be able to continue the conversation. Your questions need to have a purpose, which is why you need to listen to the answers that you get.

Avoid speaking in monologues; rather focus your speech on small sound bites. Small sound bites are easier for the audience to process, and they sound better on the radio. Giving a monologue or rambling on the radio is the easiest way of losing an audience. You need to keep your audience at attention and speaking in sound bites will do that.

Chris Tinney is the host of radio talk show, “Up Close with Chris Tinney.” He covers issues regarding poverty and homelessness while bringing in leaders, activists, and trendsetters who are making a difference in our world.

Three Ways That You Can be of Service to the Homeless

It is estimated that there are over 600,000 people who are homeless and living on the street in the United States. Those numbers have not changed drastically over the past few years, which tells us exactly how much more work needs to be done to help the homeless in the US. There are many ways that you can help and empower the homeless, are three of those ways.

• You can contribute to Project Night, which is a non-profit organization that gathers toys, blankets, stuffed animals, and books for homeless children. Many homeless children suffer from trauma due to the situation they are in. Providing children with comfort while also promoting the important of family and reading can set up homeless children for a better future.
• Between five to ten percent of homeless people have cats and dogs. You can help the homeless by helping them feed their dogs. Many homeless people rely on their pets for protection and companionship. Helping the pets of the homeless helps the homeless because you are caring for their loved ones. This gives them a peace of mind and allows them to focus on feeding themselves rather than just their pets.
• Provide a voice for the homeless by contributing stories about the day-to-day struggles of the homeless on blogs and website such as Invisible People. Interview a homeless person and have them share their story with you so that you can share it with the web. Giving the homeless a voice allows them to express their feelings in a way that they may not have been able to do before and gets more people to become more activate in helping the homeless.

Chris Tinney is an activist who co-founded Spread Peace USA. Spread Peace USA is fighting homelessness and poverty throughout the United States.

Three Ways You Can Help the Homeless

Helping the homeless is something that many has the opportunity to do. There is a plethora of ways that you can help the homeless in your community. The world of a homeless person is completely foreign to the world that you live in. They face constant struggles and challenges every day, and many people living on the street struggle to cope with these challenges on a daily basis. Here are three ways that you can help the homeless.

There are so many reasons why a person is homeless, and most of the time it is not their fault. Divorce, illness, job loss, lack of affordable housing, domestic abuse, and substance abuse are just some of the reasons why people can become homeless. The first step thing that you can take to help the homeless is educating yourself about how the came to be where they are now.

The second thing that you can do to help the homeless is to show them respect. Many homeless people will tell you that the most difficult thing to deal with as a homeless person is the loss of dignity that they experience. This loss of dignity makes their lives that much more difficult. When a homeless person says “good morning,” respond to them, or better yet, say “good morning” to them first.

Donating is one of the major ways that you can help the homeless in your community. There is always a need for shoes, food, clothing and blankets. Non-perishable items are short in supplies at food pantries and shelters, and they are always welcome. If you want to donate to a shelter, think about donating utensils, books, cups, plates, kitchen supplies, coats, blankets, and office supplies.

Chris Tinney is the co-founder of Spread Peace USA, which is a non-profit organization fighting poverty and homelessness in the United States.

Vegan Recipes – Vegan Fajitas

Being a vegan is not a difficult diet to stick by. It does require an amount of discipline, simply because there are constant temptations, but if you are committed to your vegan diet and believe in it, it is easy to stick to your diet and make vegan meals. Here is a delicious recipe for meatless fajitas, made in the same traditional way as common fajitas. Here are the ingredients you will need.

  ¼ cup of olive oil
  Two medium small julienned yellow squash
  One large sliced onion
  ¼ cup of red wine vinegar
  One green bell pepper that is cut into thin strips
  One teaspoon of dried oregano
  One teaspoon of chili powder
  One red bell pepper that is cut into thin strips
  Two tablespoons of olive oil
  Garlic salt to your taste
  Salt and pepper to your taste
  One can, or 8.75 ounces, of drained whole kernel corn
  One teaspoon of white sugar
  One can, or 15 ounces, of drained black beans
  Two small julienned zucchinis

Combine the vinegar, olive oil, chili powder, oregano, garlic salt, pepper, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the zucchini, yellow squash, green and red pepper, and onion to the large bowl. Combine the marinade with the vegetables well, and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes but not more than 24 hours.
Over medium high heat, heat olive oil in a large skillet. Drain some of the marinades from the large bowl and place the remaining contents of the bowl in the skillet. Sauté the vegetables until they are tender or for between 10 to 15 minutes. Add the corns and beans and increase the heat to high. Cook at high for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are brown. Serve the vegetables with tortillas.

Chris Tinney is an activist who is fighting for the plight of the homeless and the poor. He is a vegan and enjoys cooking vegan meals.

Growing Your Nonprofit Organization

Whether you are an active leader or member in a nonprofit, or you have created your own, every one of them must find the chance to grow at some point. The purpose behind nonprofit organizations is to spread awareness or create change within a community through events, research, and donations from supporters who feel the same towards a common cause. What are the steps to take when considering an expansion of a nonprofit, and how does it come about?

Before the mission even starts, it is important to find out exactly what audience you are speaking to. It is easy for nonprofit organizations to get caught up in the dream that they can reach and affect every person that comes into contact with their information. Don’t be that kind of nonprofit, but instead transition your success off of the reality that certain people will listen and certain people won’t. To make it a more impactful cause, it is more efficient to steer your advertisements, campaigns and events towards the demographic of people that will hop on board.

Once this is discovered, the next step is finding resources and information that will help publicize you to those individuals. Depending on your cause, different media channels may be required to gather followers in your demographic. Some useful websites to help you get started are nonprofitfundraising.com and helpfundraising.org, created by nonprofit advocate Chris Tinney. With platforms like these to begin searching, it won’t take long to find the right online or physical community looking to support a cause like yours.

Instagram - The Informal Business Marketing

Decades ago, it would be downright invasive for a marketer to join in on a potential customer’s conversation about their life and how they are choosing to think about it. These intruders would be marched out of the door before they had the time to bring up their product or service. However, with the increasing use of social media networks in marketing strategies, this reality has become more than possible, it has become an every second occurrence within the popular social media platforms such as Instagram.

                

Who knew that shared pictures with a caption would become such a powerful tool for businesses to spread information and advertising about a product? It’s hard to believe, but the effectiveness of Instagram marketing has become so prominent that entire marketing industries have been born from companies that strictly use Instagram to reach out to customers for clients.

                 

Chris Tinney is one of these marketing professionals, using social media platforms such as Instagram to gain exposure for his clients through his company, HoteiMedia. It is as easy as finding the trends that the public move towards, and identifying a target market from the hashtags, captions, and pictures that display their personality as a consumer. From there, it works like a blog posting content, except it comes in the forms of captivating pictures and creative 7-second videos. With a small amount of effort, companies are able to not only informally reach their customers, but make them buyers as well.

The Power of the #Hashtag

The younger generations began using the hashtag to easily convey a summary of their feelings at the end of their social media update. This was an innocent gesture, but this simplification of a person’s thoughts became a powerful tool that bloomed far beyond its original intentions. As digital marketers began to seek out new ways to learn about their target market, hashtags morphed into not only a representation of a social media summary, but a short and effortless way to represent a brand.

                 

The hashtag is a bridge between the users of social media networks internationally and the company’s, organizations, and marketers looking to find new ways to reach them. Think of hashtags as a social media search engine that allows users to get insights into things that are found interesting to other users. Together, Google’s SEO integration and the hashtags from social media networks became a powerhouse for market research.

                 

Because of this adoption by marketers, social media has now turned into a research and exposure hub for companies who wish to informally reach their customers, doing it passively through social expansion rather than direct marketing. ChrisTinney, the owner of social media marketing agency Hotei Media, uses this method of marketing in his company to help automate the process for businesses. An entire industry has formed under the pretense of the hashtag, and as technology continually accelerates the pace of the world’s globalization, so too will its marketing be accelerated.

Chris Tinney - Looking into Networking before Facebook

The Millennial Generation and beyond would never be able to imagine a world without social media networks, those that instantly connect them to the people both around them apart from them, tethering everything together into the comfort of a phone or computer screen. However, what was life like before the big names like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, and how did people stay connected? This is difficult to conceive for some, as the history of networking in the 20th and 21st century took a sharp transition in a very short period of time.
   
Networking was a difficult journey for individuals before the development of computer technology and the Internet. Physical interaction was paramount to scaling one’s contact list, and in order to keep in touch with these people, constant follow ups and reunions were required to keep people fresh on each other’s minds, in order to sustain a strong network. People steadily picked up on the tools and resources that continuing computer technology provided, but even the Internet was reserved for government entities and academic communities.
   
Once computer technology began to accelerate, many networking platforms were created well before they became popular from Myspace and Facebook. Chris Tinney, a serial entrepreneur and social networking professional, created some of the first social networks to exist, creating the online community, Powerful Intentions, that went on to become the official online community for the most successful Independent movie in its time, The Secret. Though not universally used, these seed-stage networks created by people like Chris Tinney created the momentum that eventually made Facebook what it is today.

Certified Hootsuite Professional

Hootsuite University is the most esteemed social media education available anywhere offering the opportunity to become a Certified Hootsuite Professional. This certification gives you an industry accepted social media certification and allows you to learn at your own pace with an easy to use course outline. Also, you will have a broad curriculum of training in social media with best practices and guidelines. Mastering HootSuite and social media has never been this accessible before.

Social media certification gives you industry-respected credentials. Hootsuite University gives you those credentials, so you emerge and stand out from other social media experts. Now you can work through the courseware on your lunch break, weekends, or between meetings. HootSuite University's on‑demand educational program gives you a chance to learn whenever that is advantageous for you. Quite a few people call themselves social media specialists; however few really are truly experts. Hootsuite University sets you up to utilize the Hootsuite dashboard and social media at a specialist level.

It is imperative to be certified as a social media team leader.  Certification opens up doors and enlightens you on all things social media while gaining credentials to showcase this ability. At any juncture in time if you can stick out like a sore thumb in this industry it is a great accomplishment, but more so if you are certified as a professional. Adding Hootsuite Certification to your resume will expand your credibility as a social media marketer and guru.

Chris Tinney is a unique social media marketer who is proudly designated as a Certified Hootsuite Professional.

Tips for Animal Welfare

Start off by remembering that only you can set yourself back, this type of work requires strong conviction and tough skin. Only you can believe in yourself.  Try not to yield to anyone, as long as you are not endangering yourself and always convey valor in conviction at every given opportunity.

To be effective advocating in the defense for animals you can begin by seeking out supporters willing push it with you on the issues. Find individuals who are super-wise and can talk governmental issues, some who have associations that can help you, particularly in the event that you are attempting to pass legislation to help animals or seeking to repeal legislation that allows for the abuse of animals.

You'll need volunteers and battle facilitators that are willing to remain in the snow conveying signs, getting mark on petitions, and some to "annoy" local people by distributing leaflets, getting more signatures on petitions, going to pet shows, meetings, & social occasions or going into pet stores/shopping centers. Find people that are ready to work with you helping animals. A simple Google search will normally result in several organizations in your area. You should learn about them and what they do so you can either learn more or join them.

If you plan to have your own event make sure you have secured financing for any of the items you’ll need. You should begin fundraising far in advance of the event.  Many times it can take months of weekend car washes, bake sales and door to door canvassing to raise the amount you need, but if you’re passionate about your cause it will not only be well worth it – it will be personally rewarding.  Work on finding other associations to band together with; attempt to locate a corporate giver like the fine people at PetSmart Charities, Newman Foundation, or IAMS, or a backer near and dear like a nearby eatery, doggie boutique, games group, or other gathering that you know cherishes animals. It never hurts to have somebody available that has involvement with raising money, connecting with people or even writing grants depending on how much you’re seeking to fundraise. 

Chris Tinney knows that Animal Welfare comes with many battles and challenges. It does not deter Chris from fighting against the cruelty and crimes against wild and domestic animals across the globe.

Budget Vegan Cooking

It's amazing when you consider the amount of money you can save when you purchase in bigger quantities from the “bulk” bins and your helping the environment by not purchasing individually wrapped items.

When you go to the store you’ll see the areas where you can buy in bulk by scooping out the amount of the item you want from a bin or barrel. The items are almost always cheaper the individually wrapped items and many times much fresher. The large bulk item bins are one of the first segments I go to in any health food store or well-supplied supermarket. You can discover anything from pasta noodles to chickpeas, frequently for a small amount of the canned or packaged equivalent. Furthermore, it's brilliant to have the ability to purchase little amounts of some items from the bulk bins as well. A good example would be purchasing two or three cups of buckwheat flour to make amazing pancakes. There are several options when buying in bulk that help you to create amazing dishes for you and your family to enjoy such as hummus, pasta, lentils, soups, pancakes, waffles, polenta and black beans. In the event that you would prefer not to soak and prepare beans or chickpeas to prepare them for cooking, attempt to buy precooked canned beans or chickpeas for easy preparation.

Purchasing in mass and bulk quantities isn't limited to food items. You can frequently discover mass body care items at your neighborhood health food store too or save money by making your own natural body care products. Save your most loved shampoo bottle and basically refill from the bulk area of the store mentioned earlier or use it to make your own.

Chris Tinney is an avid Vegan cook who shares his vegan recipes and tips on his Facebook page, “Vegan Friends”