Values.com's Jim Thorpe billboard

Our Mission StatementThe Foundation for a Better Life creates public service campaigns to communicate the values that make a difference in our communities--values such as honesty, caring, optimism, hard work, and helping others. These messages, communicated utilizing television, theatres, billboards, radio, internet, etc., model the benefits of a life lived by positive values. The Foundation encourages others to step up to a higher level and then to pass on those positive values they have learned. These seemingly small examples of individuals living values-based lives may not change the world, but collectively they will make a difference. And in the process help make the world a better place for everyone. After all, developing values and then passing them on to others is The Foundation for a Better Life.BillboardsThe Foundation creates these billboards to promote our values. If you have a good idea for a billboard, we’d love to hear from you.Here's the one Native billboard (so far):

ExcellenceJim Thorpe didn’t excel in just one sport, but in many, making a name for himself in track and field, professional basketball and football, as well as major league baseball. In 1999 the Associated Press placed him third on their list of top athletes of the century, behind only Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan.

The sheer excellence with which Thorpe performed every sport he ever competed in is an inspiration to many. Undoubtedly, Jim Thorpe is one of the greatest athletes this world has ever seen.

Comment:  By my count Values.com has done 49 billboards so far. Only one appears to be Native, which is a fair proportion for the US population.

The billboards are pretty diverse, although they skew toward white males. For instance, they include Michael J. Fox (Optimism), Christopher Reeve (Strength), a white guy who wrote a book on living while dying (Motivation), a white guy who donated bone marrow to a stranger (Sacrifice), and a white guy who climbed Mt. Everest while blind (Vision). Values.com could've found a woman or minority for all these values.

But there's an opportunity here to promote more diversity. Values.com lists 68 values but has only 49 billboards. That means it's open to suggestions for 19 billboards. It also does TV and audio spots for each value, so even more opportunities exist.

For example, there's no billboard for True Beauty. Before someone submits a picture of a pretty young girl, how about this? A beautiful older Navajo woman sitting at her loom weaving a beautiful Navajo rug. That would emphasize the Native value that true beauty is about what someone does, not who someone is.

I submitted this suggestion to Values.com, but it's an example of what you could do. Find an unfilled slot and suggest something. Let's get a few more women and minorities into this values campaign.

Below:  An image from the Weaving Worlds documentary.



True Beauty

It's the process, not the person.

or

Beauty is as beauty does.