2024 Annual Report
ID8 (ide•ate), a Hawaiʻi 501C3 Nonprofit Organization
From the Chairperson
Year of the Shaka
has been the year of the Shaka. From finishing a 5-year quest to produce a documentary on the Shaka, to making the Shaka Hawai’iʻs official state gesture to getting an official Hawai’i State Shaka License Plate, to creating and implementing Shaka curriculum models, itʻs been one amazing year of thumbs and pinkies!
On Mission
The Shaka story attracted press, film festivals, collaboration partners and sponsors from around the globe. Our mission of fostering ideas and expressions to create positive impacts was met well this year in amazing ways through the Shaka.Razor-Focused
Project Shaka became our flagship movement. The Movement has long-term ramifications of sharing Aloha around the globe through championing the Shaka gesture with the Shaka license plate program providing long-term donor sustainability. I’m thankful for an amazing 2024 and look forward to an equally successful 2025 as we work to foster Ideas for Good. With Aloha,
PROGRAMS
Project Shaka Movement
Project Shaka became a legitimate movement this year both in terms of awareness and participation. It seems the world is ready for the good news of Aloha given recent acidic politics and pandemic, thus interest in the Shaka documentary has provide a springboard to share aloha through the Shaka.
Meanwhile, the Shaka State Gesture Law and Shaka State License Plate programs garnered global media stories while collaboration programs with 88 Tees and Buns Hawai’i, and our free Shaka Stickers program garnered significant local visibility.
Shaka Film Wins!
Our documentary, “Shaka, A Story of Aloha” is like the operating system of Project Shaka, providing an understanding of the history, meanings and uses of the Shaka.
Shaka premiered as the opening film at VC Film Festival, May 2 in Los Angeles. It was an epic event that had many Shaka gang folks making the trip to LA to join the fun. In Oct/Nov, Shaka screened on 4 islands at the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) where we won the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Documentary. Shaka has also been selected to additional film festivals for early 2025 screenings in Utah, Tokyo, Japan and Barcelona, Spain.
Current status is that we have entered into a producers representative who is negotiating distribution for the film. Streaming and airlines are our top targets. We hope to have an announcement on distribution in the first quarter of 2025. See ShakaFilm.com »
Shaka State Gesture
In January, Steve wrote a bill (SB3312) to make the Shaka the Official State Gesture of Hawai’i. Senator Glen Wakai presented the bill to the State Senate and Representative Sean Quinlan presented an identical companion bill to the State House.
The goal of the new law is to protect the meaning and origin story of the Shaka as being from Hawai’i. Countless businesses make products and provide jobs for local residents, thus itʻs important to preserve the Shaka.
Governor Josh Green signed the bill into law in June. Global press covered the story, helping Project Shaka become a known movement.
Shaka License Plates
In 2022, Steve wrote an application for a Shaka non-profit HI DMV license plate. Hawai’i residents can support a nonprofit of their choice by agreeing to an extra $25/year on their registration, $20 of that fee going directly to the nonprofit. The program went into production in June. The Shaka plate has increased the visibility of Project Shaka and as of this writing, enjoys over 2,000 participants.
The program has long-term funding ramifications for ID8, thus we are striving to grow the program quickly. A series of PSAs has gone into production, two of which have already been shot and are in distribution (PSA 1 directed by Bryan Spicer and PSA 2 directed by Rebecca Teresia). We also have robust social media ad campaigns running, managed by Vitamin B Studios.
Shaka Product Collaborations
Project Shaka partnered with several collaborators who really get the Aloha spirit. For example, 88 Tees, our T-shirt partner has created dozens of designs and printed thousands Shaka shirts. These are made available through a store-in-store at their Kalakaua Blvd., Waikiki store in a space branded as “Shaka Cove.” We also refer all online t-shirt purchase inquiries to 88tees.com »
Other collaborations include: PinkPill Apparel (Shaka shoes, bags, hoodies and more); JDM Hawaii (k-cars donated for Shaka license plate PSA 2), and; Buns Hawaii (craft services to the film and 2% of their overall proceeds to Project Shaka).
Shaka School Curriculum
We partnered with the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement (CLM) to deliver in-class curriculum written by Phyllis Unebasami, former Deputy Superintendent of HIDOE. CLM serves over 20,000 schools nationwide and schools in over 120 countries. A pilot program for middle- and high school levels at all HIDOE schools was funded by HIDOE. All educational institutions are welcome to use the free CLM curriculum.
The system consists of short Shaka film excerpts as ice-breakers to in-class exercises on Shaka themes of winning, forgiveness, compassion, aloha and gratitude.
The week after screening the Shaka film on all islands for HIFF, Steve traveled to 4 islands with CLM and Phyllis to conduct teacher training. See ProjectShaka.com/curriculum »
Shaka Corporate Workshops
Steve wrote two workbook systems this year, published at Amazon Books, suitable for both students and adults.
The first, “Add Aloha,” is a workshop experience for groups to increase their aloha quotient in any existing project, group or entity through exploring and improving their Shaka traits. In the first two quarters of 2025, we are running a “Create with Aloha” business development cohort at HISBDC in collaboration with First Foundation Bank.
The second, “Create with Aloha,” is a design-thinking creativity protocol for brainstorming concepts and plans using Shaka traits. In November, we implemented a full-day session of “Create with Aloha” for the Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce.
Free Shaka Stickers
Our free Shaka Sticker program has proven popular with hundreds of packages going out this year. See ProjectShaka.com/stickers »
Other Curriculum Continues
Legacy ID8 programs and their curriculum models continue to be available for self-implementation. Curriculum available on Amazon includes Lemonade Alley, Project Lemon Tree, “Entrepreneur,” “App-prenuer,” “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) and a Shaka-based entrepreneur series for sticker, t-shirt and friendship jewelry. See ProjectShaka.com/curriculum »
10th Annual Hawaii Comedy Festival
Event Director Kimee Balmilero, and “arm-candy” husband John LeBlanc pulled off the 10th Annual HCF, a conference-style event that provides learning, performance and showcase opportunities for local writers, performers and artists.
FINANCIALS
All ID8 Officers and Directors are unpaid volunteers. We have no employees. Chairperson Steve Sue donates his time to administrate the organization and donates our office space. We also actively seek to make our programs self-sustaining as social ventures.
This year was considered an investment year, with expenses in excess of income primarily due to the concluding production of the documentary, “Shaka, A Story of Aloha.” We view the film as a long-term asset that from this point forward, offers significant income as it goes into distribution and as it drives the Shaka State License Plate contributions program.
We look forward to a robust 2025 of sharing good ideas that foster positive impacts. If you believe in the potential of our programs, please support us.