Welcome guest blogger and marketing consultant, Sara Lancaster. Today, she shares with the Network355 community a few of the ways that non-profits can promote their cause online. The best part? You can implement each one of these ideas and not pay a thing. They’re all free!
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Many advertising and marketing agencies recommend that you spend thousands of dollars in order to raise a few more thousand dollars for your cause, but I believe that modern day promotion can be done online for free. Once you have a professional looking website and the ability to take donations online, all you need is a bit of Internet savvy to get the rest of the way there.

Free website design and website hosting

There are a few organizations out there that offer free or reduced price services for non-profit organizations. Check out Grassroots.org and see if you qualify for free website design and hosting.

We can't leave the world of Revolutionary War New York behind without finally exploring one of its captivating mysteries -- the identity of agent 355.

The Culper Ring was George Washington's clandestine spy network that operated in the streets of British occupied New York. Operatives would communicate with Washington using an elaborate set of codes, a seemingly nonsense collection of letters and numbers that could be decoded once the message was successfully delivered.

Many of Washington's operatives have been identified. However, one remains a mystery, a nameless woman known only by the codename 355. Her only appearance in coded documentation is in the missive: "I intend to visit 727 (code name for New York) before long and think by the assistance of a 355 (code for 'woman') of my acquaintance, shall be able to out wit them all."

She was believed to be within an important Tory family in New York, who could maneuver through offices and courtyards of New York's British society gleaning information which she would pass along via a bevy of secretive methods. It is speculated that 355 passed along critical information that eventually exposed the treason of Benedict Arnold and later assisted in the arrest of British intelligent officer John Andre.

But wait, it gets far more romantic. She was rumored to be the lover of fellow spy Robert Townsend and pregnant with his child when she was captured -- I've even read that Arnold himself ratted her out -- and thrown aboard the notorious prison ship HMS Jersey in New York harbor. She delivered the child -- a boy, Robert Townsend Jr -- but died aboard the fetid conditions on the ship.

Sadly, it all may be a little too good to be true. There was a Robert Townsend Jr., son of the famous spy, who eventually entered New York politics and was even involved in the very first incarnation of the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial in Fort Greene. But genealogists have not been successful in tracing his lineage to a woman of any mysterious import.

The story of 355 was fleshed out in the 1940s by Long Island historian Morton Pennypacker, an early enthusiast of New York's revolutionary spy ring. However it is unclear where Pennypacker got most of his information.

Network 355 met with a founder of MotherstoMothers (www.motherstomothers.net) Pamela Parlapiano, who expressed her urgent need in the immediate funding for $4,000 to finish the building construction of a  Day Care facility in Ethiopia, which is currently half way through.

Ms. Parlapiano is a recognized leader in the field of women’s empowerment.  She is a keynote speaker about women in developing countries and their ability to move beyond their circumstances.  She is a founding member of IDEA Integration, Dignity and Economic Advancement in 1994 for people who have had Hansen’s disease and has identified regional leaders for IDEA in several countries.  She continues to work with governments, non-governmental agencies, not for profit agencies, and the media all over the world, bringing a human face to individuals, who in spite of life’s challenges lead lives of dignity and courage. Her work, “Quest for Dignity”, photographs and words of people who once had Hansen’s diseases/leprosy, is an intricate part of an exhibit that has been translated in seven languages and continues to travel around the world. She works on several committees including Provision 1325 for women and empowerment and her projects are known to be geared towards empowerment and not charity.

Mothers to Mothers is an international not-for-profit 501(C)(3) organization that works in refugee camps, slums and villages, listening to the needs of mothers and works together with the mothers to create individual special well thought out projects that will facilitate their lives. All the projects have some things in common. Mothers learn skills to work, daughters who have been caring for babies go to school through our scholarship program and babies are made safe through projects that provide safe space for them.  All projects are created to be on-going but sustained though a business once overhead is established and other initiatives are put in place.

Please come and support Joanna Zablocki in her fight against Breast Cancer. This is Joanna's first fundraiser, and it should be a lot of fun for a great cause. 

Most of us know someone whose life has been touched by breast cancer. After losing both my Aunt and Grandmother to Breast Cancer, I’ve made it my mission to do something about it. Seeing them battle this horrible disease, going through Chemo and fighting the good fight, I've made a commitment to do something about it and I need your help!

 For two days and 39 miles, I’ll join thousands of others who share my conviction to end breast cancer. We’ll walk together and fight together, because none of us can do it alone. That’s why I’m asking for your help. Please join me for a lovely evening of art, music, wine, light snacks and great company. For your entertainment, we will have a dj and I am excited to have a guest speaker to share with us her unique story with breast cancer.Please consider this as a donation in honor of someone you know who’s been affected by this devastating disease. It might be your mom or sister. Or a friend of a friend. Not only will your gift help me reach my fundraising goal of at least $1,800, you’ll join the movement to help millions of people—and fuel researchers in their quest for a cure.  (*All ticket sales go directly to Avon Breast Cancer Foundation*).Are you in it to end it?