ePIFanyNow™

ePIFanyNow is on a mission to create a revolution of positive, transformational experiences through acts of kindness.

FOCUS ON YOUTH

Our Y-PIF Award honors kids who come up with ideas that help other people, kids like sixth-grader Skyler, who saw a need and took action. Skyler collects gently used clothing to give to foster kids who arrive at their placement homes with little personal belongings. With the help of ePIFanyNow, Skyler now leads her own non-profit, Suitcases for Kids.

 The Elevate Prize will help:

• ePIFanyNow expand the Y-PIF Award to a national level and create an incubator, matching kids with screened mentors who can provide coaching, resources, and connections the students may need to grow their kindness initiative.
• Develop a K-12 Kindness Curriculum based on nationally recognized standards. The curriculum, and aligned online professional development, will support integrating kindness concepts into teacher's lesson plans.

FOCUS ON COMMUNITIES

ePIFanyNOW creates and shares weekly good news interviews with kindness contributors from across the United States. These interviews create awareness of resources, connections, and inspiration for others.

 The Elevate Prize will help:

• Expand production quality and expand the digital footprint of these good news videos.

After a road rage encounter on a Michigan highway, Bob Hoffman dedicated himself to making the world a kinder place. He put out an invitation, looking for friends to gather and do random acts of kindness. Anticipating a few friends, over 200 people met Bob, all with a shared intention of kindness.

That one gathering demonstrated that Bob was not the only person looking for a kinder world. With that thought in mind, ePIFanyNow was created. Our purpose is to shine a bright light on the good in our communities and generate opportunities for our neighbors to make a positive impact by Passing It Forward. (PIF)

ePIFanyNow™ continues to host groups of people celebrating the power of kindness.  Our initiatives have expanded to create the next generation of kindness through the Y-PIF (Youth Passing It Forward) program. We honor kids making a difference in their community and school.  Our goal is to expand this program across the United States and world.

Social media is powerful! We create positive video content that populates our social channels with stories of people making a difference. There is good news happening everywhere, and we want to make it more readily available, especially for youth.

The world is inundated with negativity!

Turn on the news, read the paper, watch television, play video games and you see it. Violence and negativity are everywhere. It is estimated by the age of eighteen; the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders.

ePIFanyNow’s mission and vision are creating an alternative to the seductive power of violence. We show, first-hand, the power of positivity.

Attend one of our annual ePIFanyNow gatherings and you will immediately plug into the creation of palpable, positive energy. Meet one of our Y-PIF kids and you can’t help but be motivated by their incredible vision for making the world a better place. Watch one of our videos, highlighting people making a difference, and celebrate that good news is happening everywhere. We celebrate it and share it!

Our vision to expand what we are doing. We hope to engage schools across the country to collaborate to develop new ways to elevate kindness. We invite those already making a difference to participate in video and social media content that will inspire someone else.

We are filling a void by showing our communities the power of positivity and connecting positive change-makers.

Since 2009 ePIFanyNow has hosted large events where hundreds of people gather to be inspired and then go out into the community to Pass It Forward. They return to the event after performing their good deeds and share their heartfelt stories. During the event, we also honor our Y-PIF (Youth Passing It Forward) finalists and announce the annual Y-PIF winner. This process creates a community of kindness and honors youth making a difference.

Like so many other non-profits, the 2020 pandemic created new challenges for the ePIFanyNow organization and the need to rethink how we do our work. Unfortunately, COVID immediately halted plans for our annual event. Instead of skipping a year or giving up, the ePIFanyNow Board decided to go virtual. Students continued to be nominated for the Y-PIF award and featured on our webpage. Online votes were tallied, and the Y-PIF winner was announced during a Facebook LIVE event.   

To support our community and spread awareness of COVID resources and heroes, 

ePIFanyNOW founder, Bob Hoffman, has conducted over 150 interviews that have been shared on multiple social media outlets. Engagement with these interviews has quadrupled followers and quickly spread the ePIFanyNOW mission.

ePIFanyNOW knows that when you do something kind for someone else, it is eventually returned to you! 

 The pandemic forced us to navigate new waters. We began interviewing positive change-makers and sharing them on our social media channels. We highlighted our Y-PIF kids, non-profits, and those who understand the value of making a positive difference in the world. 

One of the most positive outcomes derived from these COVID-inspired responses came from a Scripps local affiliate, FOX47. Because of the significant level of community engagement generated from over 150 ePIFanyNOW interviews, our founder, Bob Hoffman, has been commissioned to produce weekly television segments focused on the concept of kindness and acknowledging our Good Neighbors. Additionally, our ePIFanyNOW content and interviews are now being featured on the FOX47 website. This opportunity has brought thousands of new interactions with ePIFanyNOW.

We stand proud in the acknowledgment that the work of ePIFanyNOW is having a positive impact on humanity. Mahatma Gandhi was onto something big when he said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” With the support of the Elevate Prize, the basic tenants and application of our kindness initiative can be replicated in communities across the globe.