"Charity begins at home."

But in this age of mass media, charity that begins at home can also proceed straight to your bottom line--by generating traffic to your web site or your business.

And best of all, mass media--especially news media-- are ready, willing, and more than able to partner with you.

Charity events and stories about community involvement appeal to media for a couple of reasons.

1. They're very sensitive to criticism that "You only want to show bad news," and will make every effort to show uplifting, positive stories whenever possible.

2. It's in their best interest to build goodwill by taking part in community events.

3. In case of radio and TV stations, they MUST show that they're serving community. Otherwise, their FCC license would be in jeopardy.

4. For most part (there are exceptions), they're good-hearted people who WANT to help others.

Remember Carl Carlson's 17-year efforts to make his copy machine (Xerox) a reality and Thomas Edison's 10,000 experiments to invent light bulb. The powerful lesson from many great inventors and entrepreneurs in human history is--Never Give Up! Even if everybody keeps telling you to give up and to get a life beyond your dreams, you should remember that negative people and negative reinforcements are only barriers to transforming your new ideas and dreams into reality.

Many famous inventors and entrepreneurs refused to give up regardless of how many people laughed at them or how many times they failed. Many of them took a great deal of risks in their personal and professional lives to sell their ideas and inventions. In their endless efforts to sell ideas and inventions they passionately believed in, these innovators approached hundreds of companies, paid multiple brokers to show their ideas to manufacturers, explained their new ideas to scores of consultants, attended dozens of trade shows and seminars, and made hundreds of telephone calls.

But, they knew that one can never be sure of how long it will take to succeed. And so, they never gave up. They smiled when friends and relatives would ridicule them and say "how is that big idea coming along"? They were heart-broken when some companies said that their new ideas were not worth considering. But, after initial disappointment, they became more determined to prove that those companies were wrong, and so they worked even harder to sell their new ideas and to transform their dreams into reality. All negative people and negative reinforcements could not destroy their spirit of endurance, perseverance and resilience. They remembered famous quote "Most people succeeded just one step beyond their greatest failure."