One of the biggest questions nonprofits face when putting together their websites is whether to use Paypal to accept donations or get a merchant account with an ecommerce company. While PayPal has its strengths, it is not always the best choice for nonprofits. An account with an ecommerce company offers your nonprofit more advantages, fewer issues and the opportunity to raise more money online.  Dharma partner 4AGoodCause offers the following 5 reasons to use an ecommerce company versus PayPal:

Planting Justice is an income-generating non-profit that is creating green jobs in edible landscaping and grassroots organizing, while increasing access to healthy food, building community, and offering environmental education and green entrepreneurship in economically disadvantaged communities. Their urban food forest program produces low-cost, organic, nutritious food in communities that structurally have little access to it. They empower urban residents to create sustainable, replicable gardens that demonstrate how it is possible to grow a complete nutritional diet safely and profitably in the city.

Planting Justice also works with local schools on programs that build skills in critical thinking, community organizing, public speaking, ecological entrepreneurship, and permaculture design, empowering youths to change the way they identify with the food they consume and strengthen their collective power to affect structural change in their communities. They work with community groups like The Canal Alliance, a comprehensive community resource center that has been serving Marin's low-income immigrant populations since 1982, to build sustainable gardens. They are also working with the Insight Garden Program at San Quentin State Prison to provide inmates with job-training skills on urban permaculture and organic food production.

Their "Transform Your Yard" program turns empty space into abundant edible landscapes and living classrooms for homeowners, creates green jobs for local youth that train them for a future in permaculture design and urban farming, and subsidies edible gardens for low-income families. Check out the fascinating pictures that show the remarkable progress over time of turning a plain yard into a thriving food oasis, and imagine this at your house!

In addition to sharing the magic of San Francisco's own Flora Grubb Gardens, we'd like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to Flora Grubb for being recognized as one of 11 recipients for Martha Stewart's first annual American Made Awards! It was a well-deserved honor, as FGG is not just a nursery but an oasis of creativity, beauty and innovation.  With a mission of "introducing a real peace and joy in city dwellers' lives through the act of gardening", FGG accomplishes that by carrying delightful decor, beautiful pottery and radiant indoor and outdoor plants. There's even a Ritual Coffee (another beloved Dharma client) cafe right in the 28,000-square-foot solar-powered, open-air store. They offer garden design, horticulture and floral services but also specialize in free workshops where their expert staff teaches ways to cultivate natural beauty in gardens and homes.  The Dharma team enjoyed a field trip to FGG to when moving into our new office, and we enjoy our beautiful plants every day. We're so grateful to be working with them!

Dharma partner SFMade is an organization dedicated to promoting and supporting San Francisco local manufacturer’s.  Our friends at SFMade offered public tours of its member merchants this summer to highlight merchants who manufacture, create or bake products within the city limits.  SFMade has over 350 members dedicated to creating job opportunities right here at home.  We were surprised to learn how many food and beverage producers were headquartered in San Francisco.  One of our favorites was San Francisco based single-source coffee producer Ritual Coffee.  With 4 retail locations in the Bay Area and a new roasting facility located in SOMA, Ritual has brought the art of artisan coffee roasting directly to SF coffee connoisseurs and has quickly built an intensely loyal fan base. 

“Coffee is a delicious, sweet, complex fruit. Plucked off its tree, it has a range of flavors that reflect its upbringing--cultivar, soil, pruning, and care,” comments Eileen Hassi, Ritual Coffee’s founder.   “We work with producers who care for their trees as they would their children, giving them both the love and attention that they need to live up to their full potential. We walk with these producers through their small farms. We sleep on the farm, we breathe the farm, trying as hard as we can to understand how our producers make magic happen in our cups.  Our continual mission is to present these coffees to our customers in the same sublime condition that we tasted them, both by serving them seasonally, to preserve their freshness, and by roasting them with the intention of accentuating the intrinsic qualities within.”  Eileen Hassi shared her belief that conscious businesses can serve as anchors for communities, both for the employees and the  customers.  Eileen's goal is to see Ritual Coffee grow organically and in harmony with her community. "I enjoy when regular customers meet, fall in love, marry or bring in their children to the stores."  

At right, a few of the Ritual Coffee community of  employees: Bryce Navin, production
Kaleena Stoddard, production manager
Eileen Hassi, owner
 and Ben Kaminsky, director of Quality Control

Ritual is unique in its commitment to buying coffee direct from coffee producers. Of the  166,000 pounds of coffee Ritual roasted last year, nearly 90% came from producers they work with directly.  Buying direct enables Ritual to source the very best coffees while ensuring that the quality-focused producers are rewarded for their hard work.  It also means that when you're drinking their coffee, you're only one step away from the producer responsible for this exquisite coffee.  Not only does this produce a delicious cup of coffee, but it also produces a fair and direct profit for the farmers growing the coffee  beans.  Hassi believes that it isnt necessary to give up integrity in exchange for great taste.  In fact, operating conciously and buying direct from the source has helped Ritual Coffee build a dedicated following in the Bay Area and beyod.  You can help celebrate Fair Trade Month in October by dropping by your local Ritual Coffee location or visiting there website.

By now, the idea of buying locally is imprinted on the minds of most sustainably minded consumers.  Buying food and products sourced from local vendors and stores close to your home (and preferably within your city limits) is smart AND eco-friendly for many reasons;

1.Local manufacturing and production of goods is vastly more eco-friendly
because the product doesn’t have to travel miles on a truck to get to you OR to be manufactured.

2.The money from your purchase stays in your community, allowing the business owner to reinvest in the community by hiring new employees and upgrading their facilities

3.Farm fresh produce from your local farmer’s market is picked at the peak of freshness and tastes delicious!

Organizations like SFMade know this better than anyone.  SFMade is an organization whose mission is to build and support a vibrant manufacturing sector in San Francisco  that sustains companies producing locally-made products, encourages entrepreneurship and innovation, and creates employment opportunities for a diverse local workforce.  Similar organizations have sprung up across the country in places as diverse as New York and Detroit to Chicago and Philadelphia;  all dedicated to promoting local manufacturing jobs.  Over the summer, I was able to tour several local SFMade merchants operating within San Francisco and was amazed to see the diversity of businesses operating and manufacturing products right here in the city limits.   From food and beverages to  clothing and accessories, I was amazed by how much actual manufacturing is done right here in San Francisco.   I will be profiling a few of these local businesses over the next week to share how they use local resources to produce superior, sustainable products.  Do you know of “Locally Made” organizations in your city?  If so, please let us know in the comments section below.

This month we’re honored to feature Sungevity, one of many of our beloved clients here at Dharma. One because we love solar, two because we love founder Danny Kennedy (the brilliant, passionate, orange-loving, former Greenpeace activist Aussie) and three because we love Danny's new book: Rooftop Revolution (How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy - and Our Planet - from Dirty Energy).

Sungevity is a solar power installation company that revolutionized the market with a virtual quote system: you can learn about solar energy and get a free, personalized iQuote for a lease on a system within 24 hours--all online before you make a payment. They use satellite images and aerial photography to assess your roof remotely, and accurately determine your home's solar potential. Sungevity consultants then personally designs two to five system options for you, taking into account all available rebates and incentives in your area to provide you with the most accurate quote available. In addition, Sungevity offers leasing programs, so you avoid the large upfront cost of buying solar panels and instead pay a monthly fee to Sungevity, which owns and maintains the panels. The leases are structured so the home owner's electricity bills will go down because of the electricity generated by the solar panels.

We’re reading Danny’s book the Rooftop Revolution (How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy - and Our Planet - from Dirty Energy) right now, and will follow up with a book review in Books We Love on our blog. So far it’s incredible, and we highly recommend it!  For more information check out the book's website, or purchase it on Amazon.

Thank you so much to all of you who participated in our photo contest. It was absolutely delightful to receive your entries and put smiling faces behind your familiar voices. It was also very difficult to decide on the winners - so difficult that we expanded the winners from the top three to the top seven! Congratulations to 100 Proof Press, Breathe Books, Ethereal Confections, Gracias Madres, Moonrise Jewelry, New Factory, Friend and Sarah Graham Metalsmithing, who are now on the homepage of our website. We love all of the photos you submitted, and they are in our new Beloved Clients photo album on our Facebook page.

We encourage everyone who didn't submit a photo to please send one in. We'd love to see you!

As we mentioned before, we're absolutely thrilled with our new website (thanks again to the folks at Earthsite!).  We hope you're enjoying it too and welcome your comments to help improve it even more.

We have one great idea already: we think a huge improvement would be to have it feature amazing pictures of you! So we're having a photo contest where you can submit pictures of you at your business and we'll choose three lucky winners to be featured on our home page. We're really looking forward to receiving your photos!

Submit your photos by July 31 for a chance to win!

To enter for a chance to be featured on our homepage, submit up to 3 photos of you at your business. The picture will need to feature the business owner and/or employee(s) at your place of business. So pick your best side, smile and snap away!

Not able to submit your photos through our Facebook submission form? Feel free to use the alternate submission form!

Grand Prize

The top 3 photos submitted will be featured in the rotating photo showcase on the homepage of DharmsMS.com. In addition, each featured photo will link to a description of your business in our Featured Clients directory.

All valid submissions will be featured on Facebook!

All valid entries will be featured in an “Our Beloved Clients” photo album on our Facebook page. Valid entries are creative but professional pictures of current Dharma Merchant Services clients that feature either the business owner and/or employee(s) of the business at their place of business.

Contest Dates

The contest begins on July 1, 2012 at 9:00am (PST) and ends on July 31, 2012 at 9:00pm (PST). 

The winners will be announced in our monthly newsletter and smiling back at you from our website in August!

Back to the Roots was founded by Alejandro Velez & Nikhil Arora two months before they graduated from UC Berkeley in 2009. A chance mention of the notion that mushrooms could be grown from recycled coffee grounds sparked an interest in growing healthy food and creating local jobs from what was otherwise considered waste.  With their first successful batch, interest from Whole Foods and a $5,000 grant from the UC Berkeley Chancellor for social innovation, they decided to forgoe their plans for investment banking careers to be full-time urban mushroom  farmers!

They have grown rapidly, and are now in over 300 Whole Foods Markets across the country.  Their products and company have received multiple awards, and have a number of incredible achievements in a very short period of time.  Since 2009, they have

• helped families grow over 135,000lbs of fresh food at home in 2011
• sustained 10 urban school & community gardens by donating BTTRs premium soil amendment
• created 14 green-collar, urban jobs in Oakland (and are currently hiring!)
• set a pace to collect, divert & reuse an estimated 3.6 million lbs of coffee grounds from Peet's Coffee & Tea in 2012, reducing waste and the release of methane, a greenhouse gas about 25x worse than carbon dioxide for our environment

Besides creating access to healthy food and reducing waste, another thing we love about them is their committment to their community.  They are constantly teaching "hands-on-sustainbility" workshops in classrooms across the country and hosting school tours for kids to visit their urban mushroom farm.  They also have an ongoing "1-for-1" Facebook Campaign, where they donate a kit & sustainability curriculum to an elementary classroom of your choice for every posted picture with your fully grown kit.

Alejandro and Nikhil are also great guys! We've had the great opportunity to hear them at our local TEDx talk, and Alexia got the chance to have breakfast with them at the spring 2012 Social Venture Network conference.  They are conscious business leaders who are humble, passionate and really funny, and we're so grateful for their well-deserved success and the chance to serve them.

Did you know that Authorize.net offers a mobile application that is free with your Authorize.net account? This app is a great way to process transactions using your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch at off-site events (an Android app is coming soon!). All transactions are recorded in the Merchant Interface and your customers can receive a receipt by email. If you already have an Authorize.net account, here are the steps to get started:

1. Download the free Authorize.net mobile app to your iPhone/iPad

2. Log in to the app with the same username and password you use to log in to the Authorize.net Merchant Interface.

3. Once you log in successfully, the app will issue a prompt that your mobile device is "pending".

4. Log in to the Authorize.net Merchant Interface. Click on "Account", then "Mobile Device Management". You'll see your phone in the list of pending devices and can enable it from there (you'll need Account Administrator access to do this).

5. Go back to the "Account" tab and click on "Payment Form" near the top. Click on "Form Fields" and un-check all items under the "required" column. Scroll down and click submit to save your changes and you're ready to start taking payments!

If you get stuck or have any questions on the app, Authorize.net offers free support at 1.888.323.4289. If you have questions about whether Authorize.net is the right mobile solution for you, just contact us and we'll help you assess this option against other mobile payment options.

In an effort to protect you against fraud we want to keep you informed about the latest phishing scams reported by Visa and MasterCard.

Phishing is an attempt to garner secure information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by posing as a trustworthy source in an email or instant message. Links in the messaging will redirect the victim to a website that looks almost identical to the legitimate site. Common sources used are popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators.

Here are two phishing scams going on right now in the payments industry which appear to come from Visa and MasterCard:

If you receive either one of these emails, please forward the email or contact information to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The good news is that you can rest assured that Visa and MasterCard will NEVER contact you directly.  To help protect against future scams and those from other sources, here are 6 tips from Visa:

1. Look Closely at the Sender's E-mail Address

Although the "From" line in the e-mail might resemble a valid e-mail address, a closer look might reveal unusual characters that can help confirm that the address is fraudulent. For example, a "-x" after the word "support" is an attempt to replicate a valid support contact email address but is really a fake.

2. Check E-mail Images and Graphics

Images used in fraudulent e-mails are often out of place or are inaccurate imitations. For example a fraudster may not fully understand the payment card industry and incorrectly provide co-branded images or images for the wrong product, such as the Visa Verified by Visa logo and the MasterCard SecureCode logo instead of the card brand logo.

3. Pay Attention to Message Format and Text

Message length, grammar, word choice and sentence structure play a large part in the success of a phishing e-mail. For the example, the brevity of the message and the lack of personalization (e.g., the merchant's name is not used; the sender's contact information is not provided) could indicate that the communication is fraudulent.

4. Pay Attention to Message Tone and Look for Consequences Resulting From Lack of Action

Be aware of the tone used in the e-mail message. Does it demand your attention and indicate that there will be consequences if you do not take action? This is a common thread in phishing messages.

5. Consider Whether the Message Received Seems Out of Character

Relationships with financial institutions develop over time. Through the course of business, you may learn that your financial institutions like to conduct business and exchange information in a particular way. Ask yourself, "Would my financial institution or transaction processor send a message like this?" Or is it more likely that you would receive a phone call or be asked to address the issue over a more secure method?

6. Be Wary of Embedded Hyperlinks

Hovering over an embedded hyperlink should reveal the associated URL. If you don't recognize the URL or if the URLs don't match, do not click on it! Even embedded links for sites that you know or recognize may contain clues indicating fraud (such as hidden characters or other slight modifications), which can be easy to miss. Instead, open a new browser window and type the web URL you know to be right.

We attended our first Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) conference this past May and had such an enriching experience that we know it will be the first of many. It was held in the beautiful city of Grand Rapids and brought in people from all over the US who are working hard to strengthen their local economies. Central themes of the conference were ownership and collaboration, and the content was completely incredible. Here are some highlights:

We were reminded by Fred Keller of Cascade Engineering, which stands out as a model of the positive change business can acheive, that "we're not ok if we're not all ok".

Malik Yakini of the Detriot Black Community Food Security Network quoted the moving African proverb "I am because we are" during his talk on removing racism in the food system and the physical, spiritual and financial well-being that comes from urban farming.

Charles Eisenstein who wrote Sacred Economics shared the benefits of a gift economy and operating as our connected self, and stated that "a leader is someone who helps you remember what you already know, and helps you believe in it".

Maggie Anderson gently but very firmly pointed out that buying local hasn't worked in black communities because the local businesses there are not locally owned.  The alarming statistic that business profits earned in a black community stay in that community for a mere 6 hours inspired her year-long committment to shop exclusively at black-owned businesess, documented in Our Black Year.

Alpha Demmellash of Rising Tide Capital shared the shocking and moving story of her childhood in Etheopia that included a year long kidnapping by her father, where it was her ability to love and forgive that literally set her free.  She went on to study at Harvard and create a business incubator for underserved entrepreneurs.

The breakout sessions were hard to choose from but "Leader as Host" and "Servant Leader" stood out and did not dissapoint. "Leader as Host", lead by Deborah Frieze, described an approach of hosting "wildly inclusive" conversations among all stakeholders as a way to create solutions to complex problems. "Servant Leader", lead by Ari Weinzweig, was part of the famous ZingTrain seminars. The session provided many fantastic takeaways, including "your customer service will never be better than the way you treat your employees".

More highlights, photos and videos are on the BALLE site here.  Next year's conference will be in Buffalo, NY. Once considered part of the "rust belt", it is now a thriving city thanks to the resiliency of its residents who understand the benefits of local ownership. We're going and hope to see you there!

On May 11th and 12th, I attended the first annual Wisdom 2.0 Business conference in San Francisco, which addressed health and wellness in the workplace. Presentations were focused around leading research and applications of employee productivity, well-being, mindfulness, creativity, meaningfulness, and wisdom. Over 300 attendees were actively engaged in the exchange of ideas and practices.  Click here to watch many of the inspiring talks from the conference.

What I got from this weekend was just how business in the Bay Area has evolved from the simple bottom line of generating profits as an end result to how the business environment is sustaining the body, mind, and spirits of their employees and customers. So many dominant companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the like have changed how their Human Resources Departments have gone from managing health benefits to promoting good nutrition, mindfulness, and spiritually creative practices. This is completely in line with what the great psychologist, Abraham Maslow, has identified as the Hierarchy of Needs – from taking care of basic physiological needs to self-actualization as the highest goal of the individual.

Dharma Merchant Services was created to foster these higher attributes of self-love, acceptance, compassion, morality, and so forth. We see that business can be the most influential element of an awakened life, hence should contain practices that reflect and inspire the presence of love. What could that look like in your company?

We continued our tradition of sponsoring the Global Exchange Human Rights award on May 10th and were so grateful to participate in the 10th anniversary of this special event. It was a festive evening, with silent auction items (we won a signed copy of Chip Conley's just-released book,
Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success), delicious food (and Ben & Jerry's!) and a signature cocktail, Justice 'n Ginger.

There was an appropriate, respectful, somber tone around the  presentation of the 2012 People’s Choice Award. Honoree PFC Bradley Manning, a 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst, is accused of leaking a video showing the killing of civilians, including two Reuters journalists, by a US Apache helicopter crew in Iraq. He is also charged with sharing the documents known as the Afghan War Diary and the Iraq War Logs. Bradley has not yet been tried, and was held in solitary confinement for the first 10 months of his incarceration. It was a special moment when Daniel Ellsberg, open government advocate and prominent whistleblower, accepted the People’s Choice Award on behalf of Bradley Manning in honor of Manning's courage to stand for what is right. 

The tone went back to festive when our beloved client Annie
Leonard took the stage to accept the 2012 Human Rights Award, acknowledging her 20+ year committment to investigating the true 
cost of our exploitation of resources, usage of toxic chemicals and excessive consumption. If you haven't seen The Story of Stuff, please take a moment to see this incredible eye-opening and entertaining environmental short film. Annie has gone on to produce other films, including The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Water and The Story of Broke. All are availble to watch for free at storyofstuff.org.

Thank you Global Exchange for more than two decades of activism, education and inspiration, and for creating such a special event to honor the monumental contributions of those working for a more democratic and just world.

See more pics on Facebook!

This past Wednesday night, Dharma was honored to join the rest of the SF Made community at their "Ramp It Up!" event, at one of San Francisco’s great breweries, Speakeasy Brewery.  They graciously opened the doors to their beautiful space, and hosted this event for the community. This was the kick off for a whole week of festivities dedicated to bringing more awareness to local artisans and manufacturers right here in our wonderful SF community.  If you’ve never heard of SF Made, head on over to their site.  They’re a fantastic group of hundreds of merchants who create, distribute, and sell their products and services all within the city limits.

Mayor Ed Lee was kind enough to stop by, and give his support for our local businesses.  He, along with the SF Made community, are advocating to make it easier for businesses to start production within San Francisco by reducing red tape and some of the costs associated with opening a new business.  It was great to see so many passionate manufacturers share their dreams for a new way of doing business, by operating with intention and awareness every step of the way.  The atmosphere was one of excitement, hope, and happiness.

We were wowed by the amazing food and drink selection!  Cellars 33 wines, Bluxome Winery, and SF Vodka were just a few of the drink hosts, and we got a little chocolate pleasure from Kika's Treats! For the coffee drinkers out there, Ritual Coffee generously shared a delicious new blend, while explaining the intricacies of coffee bean selection.  If you need something a bit more off the beaten path, the Kimchi provided by Sinto Gourmet was simply outstanding!  There were plenty of other fantastic sponsors, and we highly recommend learning more about these fabulous firms and SF Made, and supporting local businesses!