GlobalFluency, CMO Council and BPM Forum Unite to Support Freeplay Foundation and Ubuntu Education Fund
Members Urged to Back Humanitarian Efforts through Cause Directed Marketing Programs,
Product Contributions, and Project Underwriting

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Dec. 14, 2005) — GlobalFluency today announced that two of its influential global affinity networks, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum, have launched “Non-Profit Partner Centers” to support humanitarian aid around the world. The organizations have chosen the Freeplay Foundation and Ubuntu Education Fund as two beneficiaries in 2006. Both provide education, health and technical assistance to some of the world’s most vulnerable people – orphaned children, refugees and women in developing countries.

The CMO Council™ and the BPM Forum convene under the auspices and administration of GlobalFluency, a global Intelligent Market Engagement group offering demand generation, perception management and authority leadership marketing through 120 offices in nearly 70 countries. Its Silicon Valley headquarters recently completed a major pro bono project for the UEF including a redesign of the www.ubuntufund.org web site. GlobalFluency’s North American operations have also donated computers to the Freeplay Foundation, provided public relations services, and launched fundraising drives to finance the purchase and distribution of special self-powered radios that receive educational programming in the remote villages of Third World countries.

The CMO Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, through leadership and personal relationship building among nearly 2,000 senior marketing decision-makers controlling more than $50 billion in annual marketing expenditures worldwide. The BPM Forum brings together C-level executive leaders and senior staff managers from global 2,000 companies to advance enterprise accountability, operational visibility, corporate governance and financial transparency. The organizations are encouraging members to provide financial underwriting, in-kind services, or the donation of enabling technology to support both the Freeplay Foundation and the Ubuntu Education Fund.

“We are committed to building mutually beneficial partnerships between corporations and non-profit organizations not only during this season of giving, but throughout the year and across the globe,” said Donovan Neale-May, GlobalFluency’s Founder and Managing Partner, who also serves as Executive Director for both the CMO Council and the BPM Forum. “We believe that technology should be available to all as a means to educate people and help them improve the quality of their lives. We are proud to support both Ubuntu Education Fund and the Freeplay Foundation, whose tireless efforts in Africa and beyond have helped improve the lives of millions of people.”

Ubuntu Education Fund provides technology, library and health services for more than 40,000 orphans and vulnerable children living in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, primarily in Port Elizabeth. Ubuntu is an African term that is defined as “what makes us human is the humanity we show each other.” Teaming with GlobalFluency, the organization recently launched its new Web site (www.ubuntufund.org) to simplify the donation process and to showcase its health, literacy and technology initiatives.

The most notable changes on its new Web site are a navigation structure, which allows the site visitor to easily and quickly perform a donation transaction in a secure environment. The digitally enhanced, interactive site also boasts design elements that provide compelling rich content such as a massive library of photographs of people, especially Port Elizabeth children. Through the use of Flash technology, the site refreshes by randomly selecting new photos and images.

“GlobalFluency has been a wonderful supporter of our cause, and we are excited to have been chosen as one of the charities of choice by GlobalFluency, the CMO Council and the BPM Forum,” said Jacob Lief, one of the founders of Ubuntu Education Fund. “Their combined global reach will greatly enable Ubuntu Education Fund to raise awareness and funds to help us in the continued struggle to make the free South Africa a prosperous South Africa.

“Our goal is to bridge the digital divide so that South Africa does not become a technological apartheid,” Lief added. “Those same children who inspired us to start Ubuntu Education Fund in 1999 are now about to graduate from high school. We think we have made a difference in their lives. Where we saw decaying infrastructure, we now see libraries and computer centers – where they saw hope, they now see true progress.”

For their abiding belief in the power of education and their work in transforming the lives of thousands of orphans, Lief and Banks Gwaxula, the other founder of Ubuntu Education Fund, have been named finalists in the Schwab Foundation’s “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” award program representing South Africa. Winners in 24 countries will be named Schwab Foundation Fellows in February of 2006 and will have full access to the global network provided by the Foundation.

Already a Schwab Fellow and someone who has similarly worked on behalf of African orphans is Kristine Pearson, executive director of the Freeplay Foundation (www.freeplayfoundation.org). The Freeplay Foundation was established in 1998 with a mission to provide disadvantaged people with sustained access to information and education via self-powered “Lifeline” radios to the poorest people in Africa.

“For many orphaned children the radio has become their surrogate teacher,” said Pearson. “It’s amazing what the turn of a knob can do. The power of the spoken word over the radio profoundly opens the mind so that people can learn how to break the cycle of poverty and mortality. These children have learned to trust the voice of the radio, enabling them to build more productive and healthier lives. Being named one of the first non-profit marketing partners chosen by GlobalFluency, the CMO Council and the BMP is a great honor. We’re looking forward to working with their influential network of worldwide executives to help us transform the lives of vulnerable groups of people and make the world a better place.”

The Freeplay Lifeline radios are uniquely designed with patented technology to use wind-up energy and solar power instead of batteries or electricity. These radios provide many people the only way they can learn how to prevent AIDs and malaria, grow crops more productively, take care of animals, and learn what their governments are doing. These radios are often the sole source of news and information in remote regions. Today, about 100,000 Lifeline radios are being used in almost 20 countries, mostly in Africa, directly benefiting nearly two million people.

For her concept and success with the Lifeline radio, Pearson was honored with the 2005 James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award, delivered at the Tech Awards ceremony for Technology Benefiting Humanity at the San Jose, Calif. Tech Museum of Innovation.

For more information about GlobalFluency, please visit www.globalfluency.com; for the CMO Council, click on www.cmocouncil.org; and for the BPM Forum, click on www.BPMForum.org.