Speaker Spotlight
He Walked More Than 240 Miles Across Ohio in 10 Days to Keep One Promise. Every Dollar of His Speaking Fee Goes to Charity.
Alex Sheen — Founder of because I said I would · Five-Time TEDx Speaker · 15 Million Promise Cards Sent to 178+ Countries
Alex Sheen started because I said I would after losing his father. The organization sends promise cards to anyone, anywhere in the world, at no cost. More than 15 million of them have gone out to over 178 countries.
He is not asking audiences to do anything he has not done first. He once walked over 240 miles across the entire state of Ohio in 10 days to fulfill a promise. He volunteered at 52 different nonprofits in a single year.
And 100 percent of his speaking fees go to the charitable programming of because I said I would, a 501(c)(3). He has donated more than $7.1 million in fees to date.
The Rarest Thing in the Speaking Industry Is Alignment
Most values keynotes have a gap in them somewhere. The speaker talks about integrity and the audience half-consciously wonders what the person is like when the microphone is off. That gap is why a lot of inspirational programming lands softly and fades by the following week.
Alex closes it in an unusual way. The proof of his message is his fee structure. Nothing about a talk on keeping commitments has to be taken on faith when the person delivering it routed every dollar of their income from it into the cause. That is the sort of detail an audience notices, repeats, and remembers a year later.
His argument is that anyone can become a person of their word, and that accountability is a skill rather than a personality type. He builds it from real cases that came out of the promise card movement, some of which made headlines internationally.
Where He Fits on an Agenda
Alex works best in the slots where a room needs to feel something and then be handed something to do. Opening or closing keynote at an annual conference, an all-hands, an employee appreciation event, a nonprofit or association gathering, or a healthcare or patient experience conference.
He also fits organizations in the middle of a values or culture reset, because his framing is about individual accountability rather than corporate messaging. That tends to land better with skeptical employees than a slide about company values does.
The organization’s work has been featured on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, CNN, The Today Show, NPR and the Los Angeles Times. Alex is a five-time TEDx speaker based in Columbus, Ohio, and the nonprofit runs Camp because I said I would in Walhonding.
Book Alex Sheen
Available for keynotes on accountability, integrity, commitment and personal character. All speaking fees fund the charitable programming of because I said I would.