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• Martha Beck Interview: Finding Your Way in a Wild New World

  Have Fun • Do Good

  Britt Bravo

  25 Jan 2012 | 11:35 am

  We’ve proliferated and thrived because we never stop playing, and the way to cope with the increasing complexity of the wild new world is to play more. --Martha Beck, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World  Like many of you, I know Martha Beck fromher O Magazine column (it's the first thing I read), and her many self-help books (e.g. Finding Your Own North Star, The Joy Diet). She always delivers good advice with a healthy dose of humor. When I signed up for her mailing list in the fall of 2010, I received a PDF of the first chapter of her book-in-progress with the working title, The…

• 8 Guidelines to Get Through Challenging Times

  Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In

  Sandy East

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:02 pm

  Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Sandy East “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” ~Charles Swindoll I’ve recently dealt with numerous challenges that range from the ridiculous to the life-threatening. I’ve had friends telling me they “can’t bear to hear any more” about illness, financial loss, and an array of physical and emotional accidents that have broken parts of me, but not all. Every aspect of my life is changing: career, relationships, health, and beliefs. I have to make the most of every situation and so I’ve created my own…

• I Support Hope

  WhatGives!? Do Something Good...

  Joey Leslie

  19 Jan 2012 | 8:36 pm

  I’ve been listening to Shaun King for several years now. I’m not the only one. It’s not just that Shaun is persuasive. He is very, very persuasive. He sets daunting goals, dedicates every resource he can scrounge, works his ass off, and meets that goal, smiling all the way. Then, for reasons no sane person [...]

• Weekly Roundup: Davos, Igloos and the Future of Capitalism

  Dowser

  Dowser

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:34 pm

  WEF Discusses Global Inequality in the Swiss Alps This week the world’s political leaders, policy analysts, tech titans, successful businessmen, and members of the social sector convened for the annual World Economic Forum.  Despite all the wealth in the room, one of the biggest discussion points was income inequality---not surprising given the economic frustrations globally. # The big question was: Does capitalism have a future and what will it look like in the coming years?  How can it be more socially responsible and inclusive? # As a result of this recession, that's lasted longer than…

• Celebrate the Anti-Heros of Change

  Inspiring Generosity

  geofflivingston

  26 Jan 2012 | 7:03 am

  Image by James Wong These days, social change online seems to always involve a central figure–a hero, if you would. Whether it’s the individual cause champion rallying online influencers and donors, or a benevolent foundation driving a program of change. Yet, in reality while the hero myth makes an attractive narrative it belies the truth. You need to be an anti-hero to accomplish change. This is not to demean the role a project lead, public figure, or funding organization makes. Far from it, their contribution is critical to success. Yet, we see many individuals and organizations…

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  WhatGives!? Do Something Good...

• I Support Hope

  Joey Leslie

  19 Jan 2012 | 8:36 pm

  I’ve been listening to Shaun King for several years now. I’m not the only one. It’s not just that Shaun is persuasive. He is very, very persuasive. He sets daunting goals, dedicates every resource he can scrounge, works his ass off, and meets that goal, smiling all the way. Then, for reasons no sane person [...]

• Viral Video Checklist

  Marijane Miller

  17 Jan 2012 | 9:45 am

    Client: We would like our video to go viral. Me:  Um, okay.  Here’s our checklist: Monkeys in hats. Famous athlete who just finished rehab/winning a national championship/doing something charitable (preferably “for the kids”). Current pop hit mashed up with client jingle, created by a 12-year-old in another (preferably less-fortunate) country. Spectator minor injury caused [...]

• Get Your Holiday Spirit Out Of Layaway…

  Marijane Miller

  16 Dec 2011 | 4:39 pm

  Hey, all you Secret Santas, I have a great idea for you. Okay, I stole it.  But a good idea is a good idea, so here it is. Go pay off someone’s Christmas layaway bill.  Go to Kmart or WalMart or any of the marts that have layaway, walk up to the counter, and hand [...]

• Passports with Purpose is Back! (are back?)

  Marijane Miller

  12 Dec 2011 | 2:11 pm

    My passport has expired. There was a time when that would be impossible to imagine. I love to travel and even when my bank account doesn’t allow me to go to Pasadena, much less Paris, just knowing I could go makes it bearable.  But it has been gathering dust for a couple of years [...]

• Holiday Party Hotlist 2011

  Marijane Miller

  6 Dec 2011 | 1:39 am

  Ho ho ho, here we go! It’s time again for our annual list of fun fundraisers that give you the nice cozy giving glow to go along with that rum punch warm-a-licious feeling.  You know you’ll be out and about all month anyway, so why not enjoy yourself and make a difference at the same [...]

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  Dowser

• Weekly Roundup: Davos, Igloos and the Future of Capitalism

  Dowser

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:34 pm

  WEF Discusses Global Inequality in the Swiss Alps This week the world’s political leaders, policy analysts, tech titans, successful businessmen, and members of the social sector convened for the annual World Economic Forum.  Despite all the wealth in the room, one of the biggest discussion points was income inequality---not surprising given the economic frustrations globally. # The big question was: Does capitalism have a future and what will it look like in the coming years?  How can it be more socially responsible and inclusive? # As a result of this recession, that's lasted longer than…

• Conversations with Unreasonable Fellows: Ties Kroezen of NICE

  Dowser

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:35 am

  Ties Kroezen lives in the Netherlands, but the fruits of his labor are in Africa. His company, NICE International, brings IT services and clean energy development to The Gambia and other African countries. Kroezen was selected to represent NICE at this year's Unreasonable Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where he was able to spend part of the summer with social entrepreneurs from around the world. He spent some time recently talking with Dowser about his company's work in Africa. # Dowser: Can you describe how NICE works? Krozen: NICE International is based in the Netherlands, where I am. We…

• Waste Farmers: A Company Aims to Put Nutrients From Food Waste Back Into the Soil

  Dowser

  24 Jan 2012 | 12:11 pm

  The United States has a topsoil problem. About 75 percent of it is gone, primarily because the large, single-crop farms that dominate American agriculture rely on chemicals and synthetic fertilizers to produce their harvests, depleting natural soil systems in the process. # John-Paul Maxfield thinks compost can help solve this problem. Environmentalists love compost for several reasons, including that it helps divert waste from landfills -- the world's largest source of human-produced methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. But for Maxfield, composting organic…

• New California Law Combats Human Slavery via Supply Chain Transparency

  Dowser

  23 Jan 2012 | 12:10 pm

  January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, a time to educate people that slavery exists today and build support for the fight to stop it. But this January also happens to be the month that a new law in California has come into effect, the first of its kind in the U.S., and one that has the potential to do more than just raise awareness of human trafficking and actually make a real dent in the problem itself. # Human trafficking and forced labor are largely hidden problems, but they persist in just about every country in the world (including in the U.S.) whether it's in cotton fields that…

• Weekly Roundup: SOPA and the Art of the Online Protest

  Dowser

  20 Jan 2012 | 11:57 am

  Hearing the Different Voices on SOPA People power is back.  Wednesday’s protests against the SOPA bill continue last year’s theme of the power of protest.  However, this time the protesters include corporate giants, like Google, which went “black” in support of a free Internet this week.  It wasn’t just the big sites that went down for the day -- countless blogs, tumblr sites, and smaller companies also shut down on Wednesday.   # One blog visually captured what the Web looked like, courtesy of the SOPA protest:  Another captured the power of the movement, comparing SOPA…

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  Have Fun • Do Good

• Martha Beck Interview: Finding Your Way in a Wild New World

  Britt Bravo

  25 Jan 2012 | 11:35 am

  We’ve proliferated and thrived because we never stop playing, and the way to cope with the increasing complexity of the wild new world is to play more. --Martha Beck, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World  Like many of you, I know Martha Beck fromher O Magazine column (it's the first thing I read), and her many self-help books (e.g. Finding Your Own North Star, The Joy Diet). She always delivers good advice with a healthy dose of humor. When I signed up for her mailing list in the fall of 2010, I received a PDF of the first chapter of her book-in-progress with the working title, The…

• Tea, Cupcakes and Creative Bloggers in Your Town

  Britt Bravo

  24 Jan 2012 | 12:05 pm

  A couple weekends ago I facilitated a 3-hour Tea, Cupcakes and Creative Bloggers workshop at Teahouse Studio. It was so much fun, I want to teach it again soon.  I'm planning on offering it at Teahouse again in the fall, but am also looking for other venues for this spring and summer. If you know of a place that might like to host a TCCB gathering/workshop in the Bay Area and beyond, let me know in the comments, or email me at britt AT brittbravo DOT com. Maybe I can combine visiting your town with a vacation! Cupcakes by Batter and Dough Here are some of the nice things that the ladies…

• Your Free Winter 2012 Big Vision Worksheet (Jan/Feb)

  Britt Bravo

  23 Jan 2012 | 1:06 pm

  Happy Chinese New Year, Have Fun * Do Gooders! To celebrate the New Year and new moon, here's a bee-you-tea-full Big Vision Worksheet (illustrated by the hubs) for you to record some of your goals for the year, season, and lunar month. You can download the PDF for free from Dropbox by clicking here. Instead of  listing numbers beneath each category (like we've done in the past), we left the space open so that you can write a little, a lot, a list, or a paragraph. Enjoy! Tweet

• Juicy Blogging E-Course Starts January 25

  Britt Bravo

  16 Jan 2012 | 5:40 pm

  Just a quick reminder for folks interested in taking the Juicy Blogging e-Course that the early registration discount ends January 18th.  The class begins January 25th. You can join the e-course on brittbravo.com (gift certificates are available!), and find out about upcoming classes by subscribing to the Juicy Blogging eNews.  We'll do three kinds of fun-work during the 4-week class: Reflection questions to refine your blog’s purpose  Connection assignments to build community and traffic  Creative and juicy blog post prompts to get you writing Past students have said…

• Have You Called Your Grandma Lately?

  Britt Bravo

  12 Jan 2012 | 3:59 pm

  My Gram I called my grandma today just 'cause she's awesome, and because I was moved by Kimberly Wilson's post i heart my gramma about her 99-year-old grandma's transition into hospice care. If you have a special older person in your life, why not give them a call, or send them a card today?  I'm sure they'll appreciate it, and you can tell them how much you love them. Feel free to share a little about the awesome older person in your life in the comments. You can read a little about my grandma in my 2006 post, How to Look Fabu at Any Age: A Little Tribute to My Grandma. Tweet

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  Inspiring Generosity

• Celebrate the Anti-Heros of Change

  geofflivingston

  26 Jan 2012 | 7:03 am

  Image by James Wong These days, social change online seems to always involve a central figure–a hero, if you would. Whether it’s the individual cause champion rallying online influencers and donors, or a benevolent foundation driving a program of change. Yet, in reality while the hero myth makes an attractive narrative it belies the truth. You need to be an anti-hero to accomplish change. This is not to demean the role a project lead, public figure, or funding organization makes. Far from it, their contribution is critical to success. Yet, we see many individuals and organizations…

• Oldie But a Goodie: Thanking Your Donors

  ifdy

  25 Jan 2012 | 11:15 am

  Photo by meddygarnet Editor’s Note: Recently I got a request to re-post one of our most popular blog posts so far. I find this post to be one of the most informational pieces on how to thank your donors–a critical element of a successful ongoing fundraising campaign. Written by Alex Bornkessel, this post was originally published on September 6, 2011. Enjoy! What do 10 donations, 3 thank yous and 7 failures to communicate have in common? They are all a part of Kivi Leroux Miller’s annual “What I Got When I Gave” experiment. This reminds us about the weight (and…

• What is peer-to-peer online fundraising anyhow?

  johnhaydon

  25 Jan 2012 | 7:31 am

  Raising money online is probably the hardest thing any small or medium-size nonprofit will ever do. Sometimes all the effort and lack of results makes it feel like pulling teeth with chopsticks. Online Fundraising Is No Easy Marathon First of all, there are the obstacles you have at the starting line. You have to establish an extraordinary amount of trust before they actually make a donation–even if it’s just $10. There’s also the issue of human resources, which usually includes only one or two people that are trying to manage the entire online fundraising process.

• Facing Your Fear of Social Media

  ifdy

  24 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pm

  Photo by SashaW Robin Lane is a public relations strategist in Washington, DC. For more than a decade she has been working with clients to create traditional and social media strategies that get results. Her expertise includes search engine optimization, event planning, thought leadership programs and digital strategy. Follow her on Twitter @robinhlane. Did your 2012 resolutions for health and well-being this year include social media? As scary as the gym seems, for many of us it is nowhere near the horror of navigating the online world. After all, you can hide at the gym but not in social…

• Has Your Fundraising Lost Its Magic? Here’s How to Make it Reappear

  joewaters

  24 Jan 2012 | 8:40 am

    I watched one of my favorite films recently, The Prestige. Set in 19th century London, the movie depicts the rivalry of two talented magicians, played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. It’s a great movie, and has an ending I promise you’ll love. The movie opens and ends with the words of a character named “Cutter,” who’s played by Michael Caine. Cutter describes the three parts or acts of every great magic trick. But his description isn’t limited to illusionists who make things disappear and reappear. They are true to every field that takes…

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  GoodGuide Blog

• Mobile Technology and the Future American Diet

  Sheila Viswanathan

  26 Jan 2012 | 5:37 pm

  Last week, GoodGuide founder Dara O’Rourke delivered a keynote speech at the Sustainable Foods Summit that focused on how mobile technology will transform the food system. Whether it’s bringing transparency to the marketplace (like our app) or improving food safety, there is no doubt that this technology can and will make a difference in how our food system operates. However, despite the various tech-based solutions presented to consumers, retailers, distributors, and farmers, there still remains the question of who is will capitalize most from this new trend. During his talk,…

• A Nod to Popcorn

  Sheila Viswanathan

  19 Jan 2012 | 1:43 pm

  Corn Kernels Popcorn isn’t just meant for the movies anymore. A stop in the chips aisle at the grocery store reveals a plethora of options for at-home popcorn enjoyment that fall into three main categories: bagged popcorn that’s ready to eat, microwave popcorn, and corn kernels. Corn kernels score noticeably higher on GoodGuide, because they have yet to be popped (in oil) or flavored with salt or butter. Turning corn kernels into popcorn is a form of processing, but one that is necessary as our bodies are unable to efficiently digest raw corn kernels. We have the choice of…

• Going Unprocessed

  Sheila Viswanathan

  17 Jan 2012 | 2:40 pm

  It’s January, so most of us are still talking about (and hopefully sticking to) our new year’s resolutions. While we have some ideas about what you should strive for this year, we know that many people are hoping to eat healthier over the course of 2012. Eating healthier is a worthwhile resolution, but it’s essential to drill this general resolution down into a manageable, actionable goal. We’re much more likely to keep a resolution if we have clear benchmarks or defined actions in place. Some examples of “eating healthier” include eating more whole grains,…

• The Smarter Barcode

  Mia Gralla

  11 Jan 2012 | 7:15 pm

  The simple arrangement of black and white lines that revolutionized shopping decades ago has done it again. To celebrate the barcode’s 60th birthday, The NY Times wrote an article examining its history and exploring new innovations from advancements utilizing mobile technology to the introduction of its rival, QR codes. So what does all this mean for consumers? Today, it’s not just the cashier at the grocery store who has the ability to scan and receive information from a barcode. Anyone with a smart phone can scan QR codes to gain product information, enter contests and even…

• 12 Tips For A Healthy 2012

  Mia Gralla

  5 Jan 2012 | 6:16 pm

  Do you pause when people ask what your New Year’s Resolutions are? Feel guilty when you see all your co-workers trekking to the gym, but not guilty enough to actually go? Whether you are a health nut with a green thumb or still trying to kick your potato chip habit (obsession), try these simple resolutions to kick 2012 off to a healthy start: 1) Live in a toxic-free home. Who wants to come home to a formaldehyde-laden house? Unfortunately, toxins are so widespread these days that they are found everywhere from our cleaning products to personal care products. Use this checklist from…

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  Greater Good

• Your Smile or Your Life

  Greater Good

  26 Jan 2012 | 2:18 pm

  Have you ever wondered what’s behind people’s smiles? Lip Service, by psychology professor Marianne LaFrance of Yale University, is full of fascinating research about the development of smiles from infancy to adulthood, offering a comprehensive and entertaining account of the important role smiles play in human interactions. Infants begin to practice smiling in the womb a month or two before they are born, because they need smiles to communicate with and win over their caregivers for survival. Babies’ smiles may not reflect true emotion; but, like all smiles, they have currency in human…

• WHY to Be Involved in the Occupy Wall St. Movement

  Greater Good

  26 Jan 2012 | 2:00 am

  Why your involvement matters for your children’s happiness—even if you feel the problems are overwhelming. In this podcast, I reference Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s Principles of Nonviolence; those principles can be found here.

• What Mel Brooks Can Teach Us about “Group Flow”

  Greater Good

  25 Jan 2012 | 2:00 am

  In 1949, the comedian Sid Caesar brought together a legendary group of comedy writers and created one of the biggest television hits of the 1950s, Your Show of Shows. Caesar’s team included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Neil Simon. It may have been the greatest writing staff in the history of television. They developed the show in a small suite of rooms on the sixth floor of 130 West 56th Street in Manhattan. Caesar created a fun and improvisational environment, where the team would riff on each other’s ideas constantly. “Jokes would be changed 50 times,” Mel Brooks later remembered.

• Marriage Advice for Newt Gingrich

  Greater Good

  24 Jan 2012 | 5:51 pm

  When President Clinton cheated on his wife with a White House intern and then publicly lied about the affair, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich led the campaign to impeach the president in 1998, positioning himself as a champion of “traditional values.” Now, of course, everyone in the world knows that Gingrich himself was having an affair at the time, then lied about it to both his wife and the public. When the affair was discovered by his wife, he reportedly asked her for an open marriage—that is, one in which they could both have multiple sexual partners; she declined.

• The Captain Who Fell into the Lifeboat

  Greater Good

  20 Jan 2012 | 8:03 am

  It is a heroic tradition as old as the Sea itself—in a crisis, the captain is the last person to leave the ship. The privilege of being the master of a vessel also comes with the “burden of command”—the responsibility for every soul aboard.  The term “hero” is overused in today’s media-driven culture and has been equated with everything from being a celebrity to just being a good person. Heroism is different than altruism because it always involves accepting some form of risk in order to uphold a noble cause.  In prior research we have noted that these risks can be…

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  Bridgespan - All RSS Feeds

• Where Do We Go From Here? Reflections on the Closing of Hull House

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

  Where Do We Go From Here? Reflections on the Closing of Hull House 2012 01 26 Hull House’s founding signaled the start of a new era in social services in the late 19th century. Its demise at the outset

• Refreshing Your Nonprofit Board Dashboard

  16 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

  Refreshing Your Board Dashboard 2012 01 17 Matthew Forti With 2012 upon us and many New Year’s resolutions already broken, Matt Forti suggests one you can easily keep  a refreshed board dashboard With 2012 upon us and many New Year’s resolutions

• The View from the Cliff: Government-Funded Nonprofits Are Looking Out on Steep Cuts and an Uncertain Future

  15 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

  The View from the Cliff Government Funded Nonprofits Are Looking Out on Steep Cuts and an Uncertain Future 2012 01 16 Daniel Stid Vishal Shah Federal, state, and local government underwrites the bulk of the cost to support vulnerable

• More Bang for the Bucks That Help the Neediest

  10 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

  More Bang for the Bucks That Help the Neediest 2012 01 02 Daniel Stid Many of us finished up 2011 by writing checks to worthy causes in an end of year rush to give to charity. Though, what few realize,

• Next Generation Community Revitalization: A Work in Progress

  18 Dec 2011 | 6:00 pm

  Next Generation Community Revitalization Overview 2011 12 19 The Bridgespan Group A new generation of community revitalization initiatives is gaining momentum. This report takes a look at six nascent networks making promising headway, the key characteristics they share, and

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  how to save the world

• Group Works Card Deck – A Joyful Announcement

  Dave Pollard

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:54 pm

  For the past couple of years a group of professional facilitators and others experienced in and interested in improving “group process” has been working to create a “pattern language” (an integrated collection of practices, processes, qualities and other phenomena that “work” in many different group contexts and at different scales) to improve the effectiveness of meetings, conferences and other deliberative gatherings. I have had the privilege to have been part of the core team developing this “language”. When we started, we expected to produce…

• What We Like vs What We Want

  Dave Pollard

  19 Jan 2012 | 6:35 pm

  This is another in my series of articles exploring the basic existential questions of who we are and what motivates us to do what we do. For those puzzled about what that has to do with “saving the world”, my answer is that if we hope to be able to organize with others to make the world a better place, and deal with the huge crises we are now beginning to face, we are going to have to be cognizant of the truth of human nature, and specifically these existential questions. There is no point hoping millions or billions of people are going to change their beliefs and behaviours if…

• Gangsters and Banksters

  Dave Pollard

  15 Jan 2012 | 1:52 am

  cartoon by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, from Cagle comics The Occupy movement has focused public attention on the vast and growing disparity of wealth and power in the US, and increasingly in other affluent nations. You’ve all seen the statistics — essentially all of the increase in real wealth and income over the last 40 years has accrued to less than 1% of citizens, and for the other 99% real wealth and income have declined, in some cases precipitously. As a result, nearly half of all Americans, and well more than half of American children, now live in poverty or near-poverty.

• Links for the Month: December 27, 2011

  Dave Pollard

  27 Dec 2011 | 11:39 pm

  Cartoon by Terry Mosher (Aislin) in the Montreal Gazette It’s been a particularly dispiriting month for those of us doing the grim duty of chronicling civilization’s collapse. I had hoped that when the unsustainability of our economic and political systems became obvious, those with wealth and power would take their money and run, rather than fight an unwinnable battle. But it’s becoming clear that denial among the 1% is strong, and they’re willing to do just about anything to hold on to power, including waging an all-out war against the citizens who gave them that…

• Collapse! The Game: Early Draft

  Dave Pollard

  20 Dec 2011 | 5:33 pm

  Some of you are aware that I have been working on a cooperative board game called Collapse! designed to help people learn and practice grassroots community-building and preparing locally for the various crises that may precede civilization’s collapse. I’ve finally got a first outline draft of the game, and decided to share it with the world before I go any further. Here are the rules and some images of the game equipment that I have developed thus far, along with a list of what I still have to do to complete the game’s development. You can download larger PDF versions of the…

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  What's a BOPreneur?

• "I See Dead People"

  Paul

  10 Jan 2012 | 11:06 pm

   A famous line from the movie "Sixth Sense."Some people thrive on trusting their intuition. Despite what the behavioral psychologists and neuroscientists say, many believe they can predict the future, or at least bits of it. When good things (or bad things) happen, we remember our wanting them to be so, and say "I could see it coming." Of course, our mind doesn't bring up all the things we thought might happen, but didn't.I think there is something to intuition, even if we can't predict the future. As Steven Johnson notes in his book "Where Good Ideas Come From," slow hunches play a big…

• This is what disruption looks like

  Paul

  4 Jan 2012 | 11:20 pm

  My wife says Sal Khan is one of the best teachers she has ever had. She went to Boulder High, Smith College, Colorado College and University of Colorado, and has taken classes at Front Range Community College. Until Sal, she thought she had had some wonderful teachers. She also likes that she can learn from Sal whenever she wants (try that with Mrs. Maple, or Professor Hudnut). And she can learn at her own pace.Now, my wife has a wifi connection (at least most of the time... don't get me going on Comcast). And through such connections, Khan Academy can reach 1/3 of English speaking world (the…

• Charity 2011

  Paul

  3 Jan 2012 | 10:01 pm

  For the past two years, I have shared our family's giving in a year end post. This year, while I made the year end deadline for giving, I did not make it for blogging.As in past years, we have tried to spread our giving somewhat equally between 5 categories, and various members of the family have proposed organizations they would like to fund. We have also continued to use Peter Singer's pledge to set a target for our giving as a percentage of our income.New from past years, we set up a family fund with the our local Community Foundation. We intend to do our giving from this fund each year,…

• "Non Profits Can't Scale"

  Paul

  15 Dec 2011 | 9:03 am

  The next time you hear someone say this, confront them. Confront them with One Acre Fund, or Envirofit, or Root Capital, or Doctors Without Borders, or VisionSpring, or Aravind Eye Care.Successful non-profits can scale, and some of them are doing it. It is time to study what they are doing right, and stop the silly talk.Last year, there was good news about progress on maternal mortality. In the past few weeks, there has been good news about malaria mortality. Non- profits played a big role in both of these. Certainly, neither of these problems are past, and I am sure non-profits will continue…

• "Market Creation Is Hard Work" - Seth Godin

  Paul

  14 Dec 2011 | 10:35 am

  I was fortunate to hear this talk at the Acumen Investor Gathering in November. Nice perspective on the hard work required to create markets in BOP- for the first time in their history, people are "buying something for the first time."To subscribe to feeds, click on your feed icon on your toolbar.

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  The Road to the Horizon

• Happy 2012 everyone. Now start changing the world, will you?

  31 Dec 2011 | 2:39 pm

  Since we kicked off our Kiva microfinance project "Change Starts Here" in November 2008, our Kiva Lending Team has already funded over 1,500 projects, for a total value of US$54,000. Check out our project score card on our Have Impact! blog. In 2011, I had a wide range of sponsors for the blogs I manage. After deducting the running costs for my blogs, I want to invest the left-over funds in our microfinance project "Change Starts Here" . Seems like a good way to start 2012 off on a good... Full post on www.theroadtothehorizon.org

• Looking for a job as an aidworker? Here is a good start!

  24 Dec 2011 | 3:20 am

  Ever since I wrote the post on "How to become an aidworker", I get mail from people asking for advice. Most struggle with getting into "the system", which is indeed the hardest part: "getting through that solid iron gate". Part of the problem is that people don't know where to look for vacancies. Job announcements in the aid and nonprofit sector are spread in many different places. I tried to change that, and built an aggregator. AidJobs collecting job vacancies in the international aid... Full post on www.theroadtothehorizon.org

• Teased bull frog eats finger

  24 Dec 2011 | 2:15 am

  An African bull frog is trying to catch ants on an smartphone screen. Kinda funny. Is even more funny when he takes revenge.. Discovered via AllTop Full post on www.theroadtothehorizon.org

• Where the hell is Matt?

  16 Dec 2011 | 11:03 am

  This is really sweet.  From his website: Matt is a 35-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around Asia until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep... Full post on www.theroadtothehorizon.org

• Hans Rosling: The only way to stop population growth.. is to increase child survival rates.

  4 Nov 2011 | 1:43 pm

  ... even if it sounds contradictory: Increasing child survival rates will stop population growth. With thanks to GB for the link! Full post on www.theroadtothehorizon.org

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  Timbuktu Chronicles

• Birritu Express - Online Money Exchange Service

  Emeka Okafor

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:00 am

  Tadias reports: “Birritu Express was created by Ethiopians to meet the specific needs of the global Ethiopian community “It is designed to be the most inexpensive, convenient and secure way to transfer funds to Ethiopia from abroad.” The Ethiopian Diaspora’s annual income is estimated to be tens of billions of dollars , about equal to Ethiopia’s gross domestic product, according to Precise Consult International, organizers of The World Bank and USAID backed annual Ethiopian Diaspora business conference. Crude calculations using remittance figures ($1.1 billion in the first 9 months…

• 'Mediated Matter'

  Emeka Okafor

  26 Jan 2012 | 5:00 am

  From the MIT Media Lab: Mediated Matter research integrates computational form-finding strategies with biologically inspired fabrication in order to enhance the relation between natural and man-made environments. The group seeks to establish new forms of design, and novel processes of material practice at the intersection of computer science, material engineering, design and ecology.

• Caranda Ginger January

  Emeka Okafor

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:00 am

  From Caranda Fine Foods,the bracing delights of Ginger Tea: Image courtesy of Caranda Ginger is a very special herb or spice with significant healing powers and soothing magic. This amazing herb enhances the teas that we have selected for you with a bright, clean taste of a mild yet spicy ginger note. The flavor is an upper note of an earthy spice in our Ginger Nectar Rooibos Herb Tea. The Rooibos introduces an even honey note. If you enjoy the kick of ginger then also travel to the world of our green teas. We are pleased to offer our Sencha Ginger Green Tea. The lemon verbena and lavender…

• Activespaces | An Incubator

  Emeka Okafor

  25 Jan 2012 | 5:00 am

  The VOA reports on Activspaces: Image courtesy of Africa News Zinger Systems began as a business idea in the minds of a few Cameroonian entrepreneurs. After they spent one year developing their academic software and business model at Activspaces, a technology hub in southwest of the country, they eventually launched their business and now employ eight people. Activspaces is a shared office space where designers, software developers, artists and more can gather. “We’ve realized that many enterprising techies work in isolation in Cameroon," said the space's community manager, Al Banda.

• Mifuko

  Emeka Okafor

  24 Jan 2012 | 5:00 am

  Along the Helsinki-Nairobi-axis Mifuko Oy is a Finnish design company, which co-operates with several small artisan workshops in Kenya...While the designs are done by Finnish artists they are inspired by the colours, textures and vibrancy of Africa. Every product is designed in such a way as to utilize traditional craftsmanship and available materials.

• 

  Echoing Green - Think Big. Be Bold. Drive Change.

• What We're Noticing About 2012 Applicants

  Lara Galinsky

  26 Jan 2012 | 7:32 am

  Echoing-Green-What-Were-Noticing-Title.jpg It’s always encouraging and, frankly, fun to dive in the statistics of our Fellowship applicants. As one of the few open seed funding processes for social entrepreneurs, we're often one of the first to notice emerging trends in the sector. Here are a few. The 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship and Black Male Achievement Fellowship application process officially closed two weeks ago, and we’ve been hard at work evaluating all 3,508 applications—an increase of 23 percent over last year, and a staggering 228 percent increase from 2010. We had…

• Advice to Aspiring Social Entrepreneurs

  Jay Geneske

  24 Jan 2012 | 10:01 am

  Echoing-Green-Jodie-Wu-TED-Conversation.jpg Jodie Wu 2010 Echoing Green Fellow Jodie Wu recently led a conversation on TED.com centered around advice to aspiring social entrepreneurs. We've excerpted moments of the conversation below. Click here to view the full transcript. How do I know if a business is the right way to make the difference to the area I want to explore? I'd say let it grow organically. Start it on the side, and then when it starts taking off, then you turn it into a business. I started Global Cycle Solutions with intentions of going back to grad school after 6 months, but…

• The Buzz 1-20-12

  nidhi

  22 Jan 2012 | 10:10 pm

  Whispering 3-4-11.jpg Our quick read on the top tweets, news, and buzz circulating in the field of changemaking for the past couple of weeks. Tell us, what's got you talking? And what do you want to be talking about? Bronnie Ware, who has been a palliative care nurse for many years, shares the most common regrets people share on their deathbeds. You might even be able to come up with them without reading her moving essay. Don’t let them be your regrets. http://ht.ly/8CjTb Researchers at Harvard Business School have been analyzing data on social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship as a…

• Social Impact Jobs: January

  Lara Galinsky

  20 Jan 2012 | 4:34 pm

  parkouregypt.jpg A new year marks new opportunities to bring purpose to your career and life. My team and I have been discussing articles like "Five Lessons from World Changers" by John Coleman that declare the need for more purpose-driven individuals to address challenges facing the world. Coleman's Passion & Purpose survey found that one of the top three reasons graduate students chose a workplace was the "opportunity to impact the world." This is exciting to hear. If you are looking for a workplace that aligns with your purpose, take a look below. This month’s social impact job…

• Time for Change in Haiti

  nidhi

  18 Jan 2012 | 2:58 pm

  01-Haiti.jpg Peter Haas 2006 Echoing Green Fellow Peter Haas shares a powerful essay on the two year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. This post was reprinted from the TED Blog. Today is the two-year anniversary of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and I wanted to write a positive article about the good projects I have seen there. Unfortunately after reflecting, I felt that it  would be a disservice to all the people still living in camps; it would be a disservice to all those who have been evicted. Things are getting better and will improve in the coming year in Haiti, but we are a long…

• 

  Green Parent Chicago

• Kids Eating Green - 6 Veggie Tomato Sauce

  Christine Escobar

  20 Jan 2012 | 6:57 pm

  We all know it can be difficult getting kids to eat their vegetables, especially the leafy green kind that are so good for us. But with a little creative preparation, I believe any vegetable can be turned into something kids will find delicious and be excited to eat. Take pasta with tomato sauce for example, a quick, go to meal that many families eat on a regular basis. A meal, I might add, that most kids absolutely love. The tomato sauce can be a vehicle for serving a whole bunch of vegetables to picky to eaters without them even knowing it. For this recipe, I use kale or collard greens from…

• EarthTalk: Should You Take Echinacea For Your Cold?

  Christine Escobar

  11 Jan 2012 | 12:05 pm

  Dear EarthTalk: What’s the story with Echinacea? Many herb teas contain it, and many people swear by it as a cold remedy. But I’ve also seen headlines saying that the herb has no medicinal value whatsoever. Can you set the record straight? -- Arlene Hixson, Portland, ME Echinacea, also known as purple coneflower, has gained popularity in recent years as a nutritional supplement that proponents believe is helpful in staving off the common cold and shortening its duration. But given the variation between dosages and formulations—such herbs are not regulated as medical drugs by the U.S…

• Goodwill to All...

  Christine Escobar

  24 Dec 2011 | 6:00 am

    -credit: Bludgeoner86, flickr

• Little Locavores: A is for Apple-licious!

  Christine Escobar

  27 Oct 2011 | 1:52 pm

  Did you know that October is National Apple Month? We at Purple Asparagus sure do! These days our cars are smelling all apple-licious as we cart varieties like Mutsu, Razor Russet, Scarlet O’Hara, and Lucky Jon’s to Chicago Public Schools all over the city.See Purple Asparagus is a non-profit that educates children, families and the community about eating that’s good for the body and the planet. Our cornerstone educational program, Delicious Nutritious Adventures, teaches elementary school students about fruits and vegetables in season. Starting with a tasting and ending with a cooking…

• The Green Stork Recommends: I now pronounce you…Baptized….

  Christine Escobar

  22 Sep 2011 | 7:30 am

  My eldest son had three “costume changes” for his baptism. Above, was the a bit too white Christening gown that I bought him based exclusively on the fact that it had the most lace (I’m Cuban.) Below was the outfit that he wore to begin the baptism. It’s The Family Gown. All Cubans have one of these and all grandmothers will feign heart problems if the child does not wear it for at least half the baptism. Cuban grandmothers are second only to Jewish ones for chest clutching. (Important note: The cross my son is wearing was worn by my grandfather as he landed on Omaha Beach the…

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  Acumen Fund Blog

• 20 questions every fundraiser must be able to answer

  Sasha Dichter

  27 Jan 2012 | 10:17 am

  Photo Credit: http://enspiral.tumblr.com Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on Sasha Dichter’s blog on January 25, 2012. (subtitle: this is why I can’t for the life of me understand how “fundraiser” became synonymous with “not totally integrated with the core work of the organization”) What are your top three priorities right now? Where will the organization be in 5 years? What’s your annual operating budget?  Walk me through it. What does success look like for the organization? How will my donation make an impact? How much do you spend on overhead? What’s…

• Lighting Up Bihar

  Blair Miller

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:34 am

  Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on Blair Miller’s blog, on January 14, 2012. I just got back from a three day trip to Bihar, India where I was visiting Acumen Fund Global Fellow, Neha Kale, as part of my work on leadership at Acumen Fund.  Neha is currently working for Husk Power System (HPS), an Acumen Fund investment that uses rice husks to electrify rural villages in India (check out how they do it here). Husk is located in Patna, Bihar the poorest and darkest state in India and probably the place most in need of light.  Patna is a few hours flight from Mumbai so…

• A View from East Africa: Living in a Shanty Town – Breaking the Poverty Cycle

  Pauline Wanja

  25 Jan 2012 | 1:14 pm

  A section of Kibera; the white high rise afar is the decanting site for KENSUP Acumen Fund launched the East Africa Fellows program to identify and train the next generation of leaders united by a common mission of harnessing the power of social innovation to create solutions to East Africa’s most pressing problems. We received over 500 applications from the East Africa region in response to our call. Each of the 19 Fellows we selected for this inaugural class has a unique approach to solving problems in the region. We have invited each of our fellows to share their story and social change…

• Orb Energy, d.light design, and Acumen Fund recognized by the Zayed Future Energy Prize

  Acumen Fund

  24 Jan 2012 | 11:37 am

  An Orb Energy installation Last week, Orb Energy was honored as an innovator in the renewable energy sector at the award ceremony for the Zayed Future Energy Prize, held in Abu Dhabi at the World Future Energy Summit. The Zayed Future Energy Prize aims to catalyze innovation to create a new, sustainable energy future, and to inspire entrepreneurs to create a vision for a more environmentally responsible and socially-just energy sector. Orb Energy was recognized as First Runner-Up in the Small and Medium Enterprise/Non-Governmental Organization category of the Zayed Future Energy Prize. The…

• Seen & Heard – What you might be missing

  Rohit Gawande

  20 Jan 2012 | 3:59 pm

  Seen & Heard Around Acumen Fund January 1 – January 20, 2012 Seen & Heard is a collection of recent headlines in the news about our world, our work, and the spaces and places in between. In each post, we also share a list of job openings at Acumen Fund and in our sector. Seen & Heard appears twice a month on the blog. For those of you who like keeping a pulse on the latest news as it’s happening, please consider following us on  Twitter and Facebook! Finally, if you have ideas for how we can improve Seen & Heard, please don’t be shy and leave a comment below to let us…

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  So what can I do?

• Change the world.

  Karama

  6 Oct 2014 | 5:52 pm

  How will you make our world a better place?* Health and education* Economics, social entrepreneurship, and microfinance* Food and water* Energy and technology* Women, children, and family* Environment, land, and sustainability* FaithAnd don’t forget to visit the So What Can I Do Bookstore. Your efforts can change the world.”Be the change you want to see in the world.” - Mohandas GandhiPlease visit http://sowhatcanido.blogspot.com to offer your comments and suggestions, forward this post, and peruse the archives. Thanks for reading "So what can I do", the public service weblog promoting…

• Make it a day/life of service.

  Karama

  6 Jan 2012 | 10:02 pm

  I remember one Martin Luther King day many years ago, when I was in grad school, that I spent in the lab. That wasn't too unusual because I generally went to the lab every day. But one of my colleagues (who was also working) asked me why I was in the lab on the King holiday. I replied that I thought Dr. King would want me to get my PhD. I still think of the King Holiday as a day on rather than a day off, but now that I have finished school, I have a bit more time to be of service to others on that day. Readers of So What Can I Do are likely to feel the same, so I offer two resources to find…

• EITC: Ask for it!

  Karama

  6 Jan 2012 | 9:30 pm

  Tax time is upon us once again. You've got a couple of extra days this year - til April 17. And here's another piece of good news: lots of folks, many of whom don't know it, will qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit. EITC can mean up to $5,751 in your pocket. That's money to pay bills, save for college or a downpayment on your home, or stash away for a rainy day. Find out if you're eligible or ask your tax preparer about it.Remember you have to file a tax return (even if you're not required to or do not owe) in order to claim the EITC.You've already earned it. Now go claim it."Next to…

• Join the So What Can I Do blood donation team.

  Karama

  20 Jun 2009 | 10:40 pm

  I went to the Red Cross blood center today and gave a pint. Regular readers and regular donors know that blood donation is a fast and easy way to save up to three lives. You never know when you or someone you know will need blood. So please consider donating blood, platelets, or red cells. And if you do, you’re invited to join the So What Can I Do Red Cross Racing Team. Here’s how:• Visit redcrossracing.com .• After you register scroll to the bottom and click “Team Competition.”• Enter the So What Can I Do team code: O?67SO .• Remember to log your donations to win points and…

• Celebrate World Free Your Mind Day – June 19th.

  Karama

  18 Jun 2009 | 11:07 pm

  I spent this Juneteenth thinking about what my family would have been like if my great-great-granddaddy Griffin Henry Belk hadn’t walked off that plantation when he did. I expect it would have made a huge difference, because when Griffin Henry Belk left, he was able to travel (searching for his parents), purchase land (160 acres for $11 in Ozan, Arkansas), and generally prepare to provide for his wife and five children to come. So I woke up Juneteenth morning and told my daughter about her great-great-great-granddaddy. Even though she’s only two, I expect it resonated with her, or will…

• 

  Social Business Blog

• Has SRI gone mainstream?

  Rod Schwartz

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:51 am

  Before Christmas, the Financial Times reported on an announcement from Henderson Global that its socially responsible investment team was likely to leave the company. It was the latest in a series of similar developments that had seen many others, including JP Morgan and UBS Securities, making cuts to their social and environmental teams. The most instinctive response is to view this news as a sign of an industry losing faith with socially responsible investing. However, I’d suggest there are several other ways to look at it. One alternative would be that the SRI sector is now so…

• Making a leap of faith: investing in developing countries

  Malcolm Johnston

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:52 am

  Malcolm Johnston of Angello Capital Partners explains why a leap of faith can kickstart growth in the developing world. Three years ago, a group of professionals set out to achieve something few people would have even imagined: to start a new investment fund supporting small businesses in Moldova. It might have sounded crazy, but three years in, we’ve managed to make it to first base. Initial funding is in and we’re already making first investments. For us Moldova represents an ideal testing ground for a model we believe can bring transformative change to countries throughout the…

• Social enterprises and VAT

  Tom Cropper

  23 Jan 2012 | 8:42 am

  Here are three little letters to strike fear into the heart of anyone: VAT. It’s something that many public sector workers will never have had to confront, but for those taking up the opportunity to spin out into a social enterprise, it’s something they need to get right. In advance of our upcoming Breakfast Briefing on dealing with VAT, we spoke to Andrew Norman of accountancy firm Buzzacott to see what these new social enterprises need to consider. What do social enterprises need to consider? One of the major things we’ll be getting across in the briefing is that social enterprises…

• Word on the streets: listening to young people

  Michael Otadende

  20 Jan 2012 | 4:04 am

  In 1996, the renowned political scientist Samuel Huntington predicted a future in which international relations would be marked, not by a clash of states, but of civilisations. Today in Britain I would argue we’re seeing just such a clash – between the Government on the one hand, and the nation’s youth on the other. Cast your mind back to August 2011 when, for a few days, the capital resembled a scene straight out of an Armageddon style movie. Riots spread across the city and eventually the entire country – giving the world a harrowing glimpse of the city which, in less than a year,…

• Content marketing: telling tall tales

  Tom Cropper

  11 Jan 2012 | 8:24 am

  A new year calls for new thinking which is why it’s interesting to note this change of direction from Coca Cola. In a two part video it outlines a proposed new strategy for content marketing. Aside from the somewhat dry corporate speak from the narrator, it does contain a number of interesting ideas – most particularly the notion of creating a narrative about what exactly Coca Cola stands for. Now, for me – and I suspect the millions of people who have grown up with it – Coca Cola stands for a fizzy drink and nothing more. Not that there’s any shame in that? Making fizzy…

• 

  Gimundo.com

• New Stuff on Gimundo!

  editor@gimundo.com

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:52 pm

  Check out some new features on the rest of the site and elsewhere.

• Flash Fortunes: How the Suddenly Rich Make Their Money

  editor@gimundo.com

  25 Jan 2012 | 9:09 am

  How do people come into sudden wealth? Check out these sometimes inspiring, sometimes unfair, examples.

• Thin Isn’t Everything: Unique Standards of Beauty Around the World

  editor@gimundo.com

  24 Jan 2012 | 9:02 am

  Learn about different concepts of beauty around the world, and a few tips to help yourself feel more confident about your own appearance.

• Five Secrets to Getting Places on Time

  editor@gimundo.com

  23 Jan 2012 | 8:49 am

  Professional organizer Janine Adams shares tips to avoid being late.

• Pueblo, Colorado Girl Escapes Kidnapper

  editor@gimundo.com

  21 Jan 2012 | 3:40 pm

  A nine-year-old girl from Colorado escaped her captor and was reunited with her parents after calling 911 at a Circle K convenience store.

• 

  How I changed the world today.

• kiva loans to Julia's

  Julia

  25 Jan 2012 | 1:28 am

  Receipt Loan Julia Epifania Cercado Rubio $25.00 Loan Julia Petrona Mairena $25.00 Loan Julia Xiomara Soto Hernandez

• kiva loans to Julia's

  Julia

  20 Dec 2011 | 4:19 pm

  Receipt Loan Gaby Julia $25.00 Loan Ana Julia $25.00 Loan Maria Julia $25.00 Loan Ana Julia Moya Ramirez $25.00 Loan María Julia $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia Huamani Llacsa $25.00 Loan Ana Julia Fino Mendoza $25.00 Loan Julia Cruz Reyes Rodriguez $25.00 Loan Julia Esperanza $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Marta Julia

• Shelter for Girls in Kenya

  Julia

  14 Dec 2011 | 11:30 am

  This is from a friend of mine who spends a lot of her time trying to make the world better. She asked me to post this today. Today is a great day to help her because its 'bonus' day and your gift will be matched.We are currently taking part in a fund raising competition with a project called "Tareto Maa". http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/protect-70-girls-from-genital-mutilation-in-kenya/ Tareto Maa runs a shelter in Kenya for girls at risk of Female Genital Mutilation and early enforced marriage. The challenge runs from now until December 31, 2011 (2359 hrs EST).One way to help us win…

• Adopt a Gorilla

  Julia

  13 Dec 2011 | 10:42 am

  A few years back I adopted Gorillas for my family for Holiday presents. I adopted them through the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.This is a great organization that really helps Gorillas.

• kiva loans to Julia's

  Julia

  13 Dec 2011 | 10:41 am

  New Kiva loans to Julia's: Loan Julia Evagelina Alvarez Quiej $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia Esperanza $25.00 Loan Julia Cruz Reyes Rodriguez $25.00 Loan Julia Huamani Llacsa $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia Mabel

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  WhatGives!? Do Something Good...

• I Support Hope

  Joey Leslie

  19 Jan 2012 | 8:36 pm

  I’ve been listening to Shaun King for several years now. I’m not the only one. It’s not just that Shaun is persuasive. He is very, very persuasive. He sets daunting goals, dedicates every resource he can scrounge, works his ass off, and meets that goal, smiling all the way. Then, for reasons no sane person [...]

• Viral Video Checklist

  Marijane Miller

  17 Jan 2012 | 9:45 am

    Client: We would like our video to go viral. Me:  Um, okay.  Here’s our checklist: Monkeys in hats. Famous athlete who just finished rehab/winning a national championship/doing something charitable (preferably “for the kids”). Current pop hit mashed up with client jingle, created by a 12-year-old in another (preferably less-fortunate) country. Spectator minor injury caused [...]

• Get Your Holiday Spirit Out Of Layaway…

  Marijane Miller

  16 Dec 2011 | 4:39 pm

  Hey, all you Secret Santas, I have a great idea for you. Okay, I stole it.  But a good idea is a good idea, so here it is. Go pay off someone’s Christmas layaway bill.  Go to Kmart or WalMart or any of the marts that have layaway, walk up to the counter, and hand [...]

• Passports with Purpose is Back! (are back?)

  Marijane Miller

  12 Dec 2011 | 2:11 pm

    My passport has expired. There was a time when that would be impossible to imagine. I love to travel and even when my bank account doesn’t allow me to go to Pasadena, much less Paris, just knowing I could go makes it bearable.  But it has been gathering dust for a couple of years [...]

• Holiday Party Hotlist 2011

  Marijane Miller

  6 Dec 2011 | 1:39 am

  Ho ho ho, here we go! It’s time again for our annual list of fun fundraisers that give you the nice cozy giving glow to go along with that rum punch warm-a-licious feeling.  You know you’ll be out and about all month anyway, so why not enjoy yourself and make a difference at the same [...]

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  Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy - Institute for Food and Development Policy

• WalMart, pay the minimum wage. It's the law.

  admin

  26 Jan 2012 | 3:55 pm

  Stand With Daniel Lopez: Tell Walmart to Stop Abusing Warehouse Workers. Sign this petition. Why he and his fellow workers need your support read more

• Davos: Taking Back Globalization

  admin

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:44 am

  Analysis by Olivier De Schutter New Europe Online - JANUARY 25, 2012 The World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos is normally little more than a toast to the benefits of increasing global GDP, trade and investment. But this year’s meeting came at an unusual time: global economic expansion no longer appears guaranteed, and the uneven benefits of past growth are sparking mass social unrest. read more

• LabelGMOs.org - California campaign for labeling

  admin

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:50 pm

  If you live in California, learn how you can help gather signatures to allow us to vote on an initiative to label products containing genetically modified foods. For more information go to www.labelgmos.org

• The Joe Show on KGMI-AM - an interview on Food Movements Unite! Strategies to transform our food systems

  admin

  24 Jan 2012 | 5:39 pm

  Radio interview with Eric Holt-Giménez, executive director of Food First and Rosalina Guillén, executive director of Community to Community http://www.kgmi.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=5651774

• Hunger is a Weapon of Mass Destruction

  admin

  23 Jan 2012 | 1:46 pm

  Hunger Is a ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’, says Jean Ziegler By Siv O'Neall. Axis of Logic Axis of LOgic Thursday, Jan 19, 2012 "Every five seconds, a child under 10 dies of hunger. – Thirty-five million people die each year from hunger or its immediate aftermath. – One billion people are permanently and severely malnourished and the situation is becoming increasingly catastrophic." (Jean Ziegler) read more

• 

  Chris Blattman

• Do the big newspaper blogs plagiarize?

  Chris Blattman

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:40 pm

  I regularly read at least two big blogs run by newspapers — Freakonomics at the NY Times and Ideas Market at WSJ. They find a wonderful sampling of things across the web.What’s interesting: they seldom say where they find their material. The bloggy custom of hat tipping is nearly absent. Once in a while Freakonomics gives a blog hat tip, but (oddly) they never actually hyperlink.What’s the deal? One guess: the newspapery-blog-powers-that-be don’t want people leaving the site.Impolite? Yes. Nefarious. Possibly. Plagiarizing? I’d ding my students if they did this…

• Adult swim with Oxfam

  Chris Blattman

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:55 pm

  Oxfam is busily providing relief to drought- and famine-struck people in the Horn. On Wednesday, Duncan Green, Oxfam’s research director, asked his blog readers whether Oxfam’s Nairobi guesthouse should stand by their policy to keep the pool closed (it came with the house).Some might think the question trivial, but I find these things symbolically important to the outside, as well as the inside. One of the worst transgressors in my mind is the World Bank, frequenter of business class and 5-star hotels–possibly more than any organization in the world. That has to shape…

• And the Exploitative Oscar goes to…

  Chris Blattman

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:27 am

  Bill Easterly starts the official “Exploiting Africa Academy Awards”:Following the Academy Award nominations earlier this week, we introduce the Exploiting Africa Academy Award (EAAA) nominations to recognize films who do the best against stiff competition to portray the most insulting and exploitative images of Africans, usually being heroically saved by some white people.Machine Gun Preacher. This one is so exemplary that it inspired the EAAA in the first place. A commercial film based on a violent ex-con turned violent Christian who goes to central Africa to shoot bad guys…

• The powers of data prediction

  Chris Blattman

  23 Jan 2012 | 9:01 am

  I was a skeptic, but I have begun to hang on Nate Silver’s every prognostication, election addict that I am. More importantly, some conflict forecasting work we’ve been doing in Liberia has (so far) unexpectedly successful. More on that in the next weeks.In the meantime, others have been forecasting more weighty matters:Hunch then looks for statistical correlations between the information that all of its users provide, revealing fascinating links between people’s seemingly unrelated preferences. For instance, Hunch has revealed that people who enjoy dancing are more apt to…

• The Descendants

  Chris Blattman

  21 Jan 2012 | 9:40 pm

  It is a critic’s pick (e.g. the NY Times) and apparently a favorite for Best Picture. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.It is entertaining and pleasing to watch. It avoids most of the opportunities for cliche. The Hawaiian soundtrack is original. George Clooney does an excellent rendition of George Clooney. Ho hum.Usually a good litmus test for a character-driven story is: “Would I feel much emotion if one of the characters were hit by a bus?” In this case, not really. There is no sense they are real or interesting and hence worthy of attachment.You might think…

• 

  ...My heart's in Accra

• David Weinberger: Too Big To Know

  Ethan

  25 Jan 2012 | 10:02 pm

  David Weinberger‘s new book “Too Big To Know” (#2B2K – be sure to pick book titles that make good hash tags…) launched last night at Harvard Law School with a talk entitled “Unsettling Knowledge”. If you know David’s work, it’s obvious that the title is a pun. And David’s new book is a wonderfully unsettling piece – it challenges our notion of what knowledge is, and introduces the uncomfortable question of how we navigate this new space. Knowledge as we know it is coming apart, David tells us. The bastions of knowledge, the…

• Beth Kolko: “Hackademia – Leveraging the conflict between expertise and innovation to create disruptive technologies”

  Ethan

  25 Jan 2012 | 9:42 am

  Beth Kolko is the sort of academic who follows her muse from one fascinating topic to another. Colin Maclay traces some of her past work from a doctorate in English through research on use of technology in the developing world, through her current research on human-centered design and engineering at the University of Washington. For the past couple of years, Beth has been focused on research for a book on hackers and makers. This is a project that comes from her daily life, where she’s spent the last six years participating in hacking and making events in the Seattle area –…

• MIT Media Lab opposes SOPA, PIPA

  Ethan

  15 Jan 2012 | 1:31 am

  I’ve been working with friend (and boss) Joi Ito to help the Media Lab put up a statement about our collective opposition to SOPA and PIPA. Joi and I are both posting this piece on our personal blogs, and a shorter piece from the Media Lab site leads to both these posts. As we get ready to post, it seems like the tide in the battle is turning, and major concessions are being offered by bill sponsors. That’s good news, but SOPA and PIPA are still worth our close attention – there are powerful forces advocating for their passage, and as we try to document below, the harms of…

• More notes from Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium

  Ethan

  13 Jan 2012 | 4:07 pm

  Some notes from day 2 of the Microsoft Research Social Media Symposium: My attempts to transcribe Wael Abbas’s talk about media and protest in Egypt prior to the Arab Spring. Becky Hurwitz has been active in the Occupy movement in New York City, and offered reflections on how Occupy is developing and testing technology for protest. She invites us to use the people’s mic, a technology created to ensure that participants in Occupy General Assemblies can hear speakers, despite police bans on amplification. We dutifully echo her in a mic check and in repeating a few words of her talk,…

• Wael Abbas on video and social media in Egypt prior to the revolution

  Ethan

  13 Jan 2012 | 9:53 am

  Wael Abbas himself to the crowd at Microsoft’s Social Media Symposium saying, “I’m just a blogger.” Yeah, and Clay Shirky, who introduces him, is just some bald dude. Here’s my attempt to transcribe Wael’s talk. I want to talk about social media in Egypt from 2004 through the revolution and why we needed to use social media. In our country where we’re told we have freedom of speech, where they’ve convinced us we have independent media, we weren’t being told the whole truth. The media is not covering everything. In 2004, we started seeing…

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  CRIN News Feed - Home - English

• UNITED STATES: Clemency urged in Louisiana child life without parole case

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:57 am

  The Louisiana authorities should grant clemency to a woman serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for a crime committed when she was a child, Amnesty International said today as the state Pardon Board meets in Baton Rouge.

• SYRIA: Activists report 'terrifying massacre' in Syrian city of Homs, with dozens killed

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:50 am

  A "terrifying massacre" in the restive Syrian city of Homs has killed more than 30 people, including small children, in a barrage of mortar fire and attacks by armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, activists said Friday.

• RUSSIA: Doll 'protesters' present small problem for police

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:43 am

  Police in Siberian city ask prosecutors to investigate legality of protest involving display of toy figures holding miniature placards. But activists say they have no choice but to adopt creative measures of protest.

• JORDAN: Teen activist jailed for burning king's picture

  27 Jan 2012 | 5:31 am

  Activists have criticised the ruling, saying that burning an image of a member of the royal family as a political statement should not be criminally prosecuted, as to do so sends a chilling message that criticising the king is off limits.

• JAPAN: Legislation on Hague pact must ensure children's best interests

  26 Jan 2012 | 5:54 am

  Legislators have drafted domestic laws required to participate in the Hague Convention, which sets rules for international child custody issues.

• 

  Angel Covers

• Yak Sustainability Program Update

  Angel Covers

  25 Jan 2012 | 12:43 pm

  The Yak Program is a self-sustaining project that provides yaks to rural boarding schools for orphaned and destitute children in some of the most remote locations in western China.These schools are very poor boarding schools with few resources and large numbers of children. Located at high altitudes, these schools and the children who attend them must live and learn in harsh conditions.Whereas few animals are able to survive in the extreme conditions of such high elevation, yaks are uniquely able to live comfortably outside in these harsh conditions where vegetation is virtually nonexistent.

• December Newsletter

  Angel Covers

  15 Dec 2011 | 10:28 am

  The holidays can be a time of abundance of food and fabulous feasts for many people. We, at Angel Covers, ask that you please keep the less fortunate in mind during this giving season. It’s easy to overlook or forget how far these programs have come have and what provisions are being made possible through donations. Your support means that many impoverished children won’t have to worry about where their next meal will come from or of what quality it will be. Please keep us, and the children we serve, in mind when considering your year-end charitable donations.HuaibeiAs you already may…

• Gifts From The World Auction

  Angel Covers

  28 Nov 2011 | 1:53 pm

  Every year, Angel Covers hosts our annual Gifts From The World on-line auction. We are thrilled to say this year is no different. Beginning December 1, Angel Covers will have beautiful items from around the world for auction on eBay. Items such as a banana leaf Santa and sleigh, books signed by the author, Chinese yo-yo's, children's clothing, and eggs stands from Europe will be auctioned with 100% of the proceeds going to the Humble Hearts School for the Deaf in Kenya. Making the auction even more beneficial to the school, again this year we have 50% a matching donation of all of the…

• Angel Covers' New Website

  Angel Covers

  15 Nov 2011 | 11:53 am

  I am thrilled to announce that Angel Covers has a brand new website!! Please check it out at http://www.angelcovers.org/ We are sure you'll find it easy to maneuver and full of wondering information about our work.With the holiday's fast approaching, please consider shopping with Angel Covers. Our holiday cards are beautiful! Drawn by the children of Humble Hearts, these cards not only provide a great way to connect with friends and family, but also support the Humble Hearts School. Other products such as shoes, blankets, hooded bath towels and craft aprons can be found on our products pages.

• Holiday Cards from Angel Covers

  Angel Covers

  3 Nov 2011 | 5:57 pm

  During our recent trip to Kenya, the children of Humble Hearts created beautiful sketches of a variety of different scenes. We are thrilled to announce that we have taken 10 of these sketches, added some color, & turned them into beautiful holiday These cards benefit the children of Humble Hearts & all proceeds are being matched by 50%. Order yours today! Quantities are limited.http://www.angelcovers.org/angel-covers-store/greeting-cards/holiday-cards/

• 

  PopTech Blog

• This week in PopTech: Innovating the news and minding the mind

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pm

  There’s always something brewing in the PopTech community. From the world-changing people, projects and ideas in our network, a handful of this week’s highlights follows. Interested in exploring if and how mental training involving mindfulness exercises changes attention and emotion in the brain? Take a free, online course on The Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness with 2010 Science Fellow and brain scientist Amishi Jha.  This week PBS’s IDEA LAB takes a look at how journalists are using FrontlineSMS, founded by 2008 Social Innovation Fellow…

• Climate Resilience Lab: PopTech goes to Nairobi

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:23 pm

  The effects of climate change are well documented. Climactic events such as floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, typhoons, and prolonged droughts are among the most visible results of recent dramatic changes in the earth’s atmospheric conditions. Less visible, perhaps, is the effect these events have on the world’s most vulnerable populations – girls and women in resource-poor communities. It is a cruel fact that those with the least resources to combat the effects of adverse climate events are also the most vulnerable to those effects. A 2011 Plan…

• Bernard Lietaer on money: Monoculture vs. multiplicity

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:26 am

  Bernard Lietaer has been studying the implementation of monetary systems for over thirty years. Trained as a civil engineer and economist, he has worked as a central banker, fund manager, university professor and consultant to governments, corporations and communities. He travels the globe researching and speaking about currency systems and is the author of numerous books and articles.  In his 2011 PopTech presentation, he argues against a monoculture of currency – fiat currency, that is, such as the dollar, euro, or yuan –  in favor of a high diversity of currencies…

• 2012: Toward Resilience

  24 Jan 2012 | 3:12 pm

  After a freewheeling, decade-long “vacation from history” at the tail end of the 20th century, the opening decade of the 21st abruptly returned us to a world fraught with fragility and surprise. And this new context is here to stay. Each week, it seems, brings some unforeseen disruption, blooming amid the thicket of overlapping social, political, economic, technological and environmental systems that govern our lives. They arrive at a quickening, yet erratic pace, from unexpected quarters, stubbornly resistant to prediction. The most significant become culture touchstones,…

• RoboHash: Turn text to robots

  23 Jan 2012 | 3:32 pm

  Looking for a friendly robot to add some sci-fi flare to your website or blog? RoboHash is a cool little script that will turn any snippet of text, username, file name, etc. into a cute custom robot (or monster, or alien!) that you can use as you see fit. You can change the size and file type to further meet your needs. And speaking of robots and text, January is the birth month of Czech writer Karel Čapek  (b. Jan. 9, 1890), who was the first person to use the word “robot” in written form. The word robot originally comes from the word Czech word “robota” meaning…

• 

  quoteflections

• #168 The Final Wisdom

  27 Jan 2012 | 11:01 pm

  The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it. ~Reinhold NiebuhrDefinition of incongruous: out of place, inappropriate, unbecoming, not harmonious in character, inconsistentMaxim of the DayGrace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity. ~ William Hazlitt

• #167 The Big Picture

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:01 pm

  I do not believe in a simplistic and inflammatory view of good and evil. I believe this is a big world full of men, women, and children who struggle to eat, to love, to work, to protect their families, their beliefs, and their dreams. ~ Sean PennAdditional QuoteEveryone has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life. ~ Jimmy Carter

• Maya Angelou: Present in All Things

  26 Jan 2012 | 7:34 am

  Maya Angelou (1928-) is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer." She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. This critically acclaimed author has been awarded over 30 honorary degrees.Here is a select list of quotations which offer an introduction to her perspectives:-Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.-I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but…

• #166 Nature heals

  25 Jan 2012 | 11:01 pm

  Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike. ~ John MuirMaxim of the DayModern technologyOwes ecologyAn apology.~Alan M. Eddison

• #165 Global Human Rights

  24 Jan 2012 | 11:01 pm

  We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal right of men and women and of nations large and small....And for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors...have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims. ~Preamble, Charter of the United Nations, 1945Additional QuoteFrom this vision of the role…

• 

  Dollar Philanthropy

• Renewable energy: Physics of a Hug

  Carol Kirshner

  9 Jan 2012 | 7:16 am

  Its free and its a good thing.  Click here to read more about why hugs matter. "So, bottom line, if you want the world to be a more harmonious place, find someone you're fond of, and who's fond of you. Then put sternum to sternum and squeeze. You'll brighten the world, and this is one supply of renewable energy that only increases with use!" ~Bill Miller Photo credit: Ganesha-Isis

• Tis The Season: Workplace Philanthropy - How Sweet It Is

  Carol Kirshner

  27 Oct 2011 | 7:24 am

  Guest post by Lydia Walshin, founder/director, Drop In & Decorate: Cookies for Donation As the founder of Drop In & Decorate: Cookies for Donation, a nonprofit organization that encourages people to play with squeeze bottles of icing and sprinkles, and even permits taste-testing and finger-licking afterwards, I’ve learned a few things about having fun while doing good: Volunteering should be fun. Volunteering at work makes work more fun. Employees who have more fun work harder, and are happier at their jobs. Employees who volunteer as a team, and have fun doing it, work better as a…

• HH Dalai Lama Speaks on Having an Altruistic Attitude and Peaceful Mind

  Carol Kirshner

  24 Oct 2011 | 5:42 am

  I follow HH Dalai Lama on Facebook because he always throws out great attitude adjusters to start my day.  This morning's pearl: The more adept we become at cultivating an altruistic attitude, the happier we will feel and the more comfortable will be the atmosphere around us. But if our emotions fluctuate wildly and we easily give in to hatred and jealousy, even our friends will avoid us. So even for people with no spiritual beliefs, it is important to have a peaceful mind.

• This Week's Attitude Adjustment

  Carol Kirshner

  24 Aug 2011 | 10:34 am

  Some days, weeks, months, and years are harder than others.  This week it has been difficult to keep my cynicism, feelings of nothing will make much of a difference, and general pessimism at bay.  There's no real cause, just the doldrums I suppose. In an effort to adjust my attitude this week, I've looked for some motivating thoughts and found the following sage advice: “Consciously or unconsciously, everyone of us does render some service or another. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and it will make not only…

• One Frog and One Cookie Can Make a Difference

  Carol Kirshner

  17 Aug 2011 | 9:28 am

  Guest post by Lydia Walshin, founder/director, Drop In & Decorate: Cookies for Donation Kermit knew it all, and he wrote a book about it. “One Frog Can Make a Difference” spelled out Kermit’s philosophy of life, and though the book parodied the self-help books of the 1990s, it also spoke more than a few truths about doing good. When I speak to groups about Drop In & Decorate, the nationwide nonprofit cookies-for-donation program that grew from an aha! moment in my Rhode Island kitchen, I tell them I’m not green, not skinny, and not a TV star, but I try to channel a bit of…

• 

  Gift Hub

• Schambra Demystifies Metrics

  Phil Cubeta

  27 Jan 2012 | 10:23 am

  Bill Schambra takes on metrics. But to win funding from a knowledge-generating foundation, the nonprofit must shoehorn its real-world work into the abstract, unfamiliar professional jargon to which data accumulators resort when they wish to generalize across (that is, to make disappear) the varieties of particular experiences.   The ability of a nonprofit to attract funding from multiple sources is, of course, an essential ingredient for a successful grant request. So that means it must recast its programs into as many different languages and metric frameworks as the foundations from…

• The Trouble with Impact Investing

  Phil Cubeta

  27 Jan 2012 | 10:10 am

  Kevin Starr of Milago Foundation in Stanfard Social Innovation Review on the problem with social impact investing. The bottom line is either profit or impact. In the real world of the poor, real change still means stepping up with money that you don’t expect to get back, while demanding maximum returns in the form of impact. When you find someone who can do that, just give them the money.

• Catalytic Women

  Phil Cubeta

  27 Jan 2012 | 8:23 am

  Resources for Women Philanthropists: Catalytic Women harnesses the economic power of thoughtful, intelligent women who give to our communities. Individually and collectively, our decisions about charitable gifts can transform the nonprofit arena and our world. By sharing best practices in philanthropy – through salon-style discussions and online forums – catalytic women have the ability to shape the most effective models for community change. 

• Donor Networks from Bolder Giving

  Phil Cubeta

  25 Jan 2012 | 2:24 pm

  Excellent list of links.

• Save the Panda; Screw the Poor

  Phil Cubeta

  25 Jan 2012 | 2:11 pm

  Pablo Eisenberg, at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, on the misplaced giving priorities of America's wealthiest. My best insight into why the rich are more likely to give to savedogs or cats or pandas rather than the poor came, actually, from a rising corporate star whose house was full of adopted cats. "The cats are poor through no fault of their own, unlike people." Travelling on philanthropic business, I shunt from country club, to luxury homes, to businesse high rise with donors, to Holiday Inns for fundraisers and bare church basesments for social justice…

• 

  WellnessCoach.com™

• Announcement: Free Monthly Q&A Call for Wellness Coaches

  Erica Ross-Krieger

  17 Jan 2012 | 6:32 pm

  Got Wellness Coaching Business questions? Let’s Talk! I’m excited to announce the new Free Monthly Q&A Call for Wellness Coaches. Beginning Wednesday, February 8, 2012, on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, I’ll be taking the business questions that are foremost on your mind. No two calls will be the same and you’ll be setting the agenda. Get answers to questions such as: • How do I create added revenue streams & not just trade time for money? • When is it time to establish a business entity? Should I incorporate? • Which marketing strategies work best?

• Focusing: The “Do Less” Attitude in Action

  Erica Ross-Krieger

  17 Jan 2012 | 5:58 pm

  I’ll bet that at the moment this photo was taken the rider shown here had hundreds of email messages in her in-box, a To Do list a mile long, and a blog post she thought she’d like to get out on January 1st that she hadn’t even started to write yet. In short, like you and me, she always has many things vying for her attention at any one point in time. But at this moment, her focus is 100% on the event in this arena. As my friend, colleague, and Exceptional Horsemanship owner Lauren Woodard explained to me, the rider put all her attention on this jump, lined everything up and…

• Wellness Coaches: How’s the Free Toolkit Working?

  Erica Ross-Krieger

  31 Dec 2011 | 5:55 pm

  Hundreds of you have downloaded the Free Toolkit! Many of you have sent email notes of thanks. You are so very welcome! Thank YOU for taking the time to write. I’m truly jazzed you appreciate the kit. And, you know me…I’m always looking for ways to add to it. So… Now, I’m after specificity. I’d love to hear the details: - Are you using the Calendar’s action steps to plan your year? -  What business changes did you make after taking the Success Quiz? -  Anything else you’d like added to the calendar itself or included in the whole toolkit? -…

• Wellness Coaches: 8 Questions for a Softer End-of-Year Business Review

  Erica Ross-Krieger

  15 Dec 2011 | 8:46 pm

  Yes, the end of the year is an important time for reviewing the “hard” data of your business results. Yes, you do need to check out the P&L, look at goals met, goals unmet, market trends, social media results, and other hard numbers that measure overall business success. You know this and you do this. So how about taking time for a “soft” review of your business as well? Each year at this time, you’ll find me spending quiet time with a mug of tea, a notebook and a pen, and a smile of delight on my face. You would have found me this way this morning, sitting…

• 2011 Cornucopia of Thanks

  Erica Ross-Krieger

  17 Nov 2011 | 7:44 pm

  Thank you for joining us and “sitting down” to the “WellnessCoach.com table” for our annual post of Thanks, Appreciation and Gratitude. Our 2011 Cornucopia contains a list of and links to the inspirational quotes, books, music, DVDs and resources that we appreciate for having touched our lives this year. We hope they’ll touch yours. Please enjoy the feast. Warmly, Inspirational Quotes of Thanks & Gratitude: • “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” ~G.K. Chesterton • “To speak gratitude is…

• 

  Social Citizens Blog

• Social Citizens Weekly Round Up #8

  Emily Yu

  26 Jan 2012 | 12:46 pm

• Are you ready to Do Something?

  Emily Yu

  24 Jan 2012 | 9:43 am

• Social Citizens Weekly Round Up #7

  Emily Yu

  18 Jan 2012 | 4:43 pm

• Social Citizens Gets a Facelift and a Fresh Voice

  Kari Dunn Saratovsky

  17 Jan 2012 | 10:00 am

• Social Citizens Weekly Round Up #6

  Emily Yu

  12 Jan 2012 | 10:18 am

• 

  Operation NICE

• NICE Site: The Nicest Place on the Internet

  Melissa

  23 Jan 2012 | 1:44 pm

  Originally I had thought I'd just post something on here and not mention the fact that I haven't blogged since November 1, but I know I can't sneak anything past you guys. Things have been kind of nutso for me over the last few months. Using this handy flowchart, I've realized that I need to make a change. Oh, I'm happy, don't get me wrong. But there is one area of my life that I'd like to improve. My career. And ever since October, I've been dabbling in some new arenas that I'm super excited about! Really time-consuming new arenas. :) So while I've been exploring these opportunities, other…

• TEDxPhilly winner!

  Melissa

  1 Nov 2011 | 9:14 am

  Before I announce the winner of the TEDxPhilly giveaway, I just wanted to mention that this past weekend I went to see TEDxMidAtlantic in DC. It was phenomenal. It's amazing to listen to these presenters who are so passionate about changing the world. One of the themes I picked up on was that we shouldn't really complain about the state of affairs unless we're prepared to work towards change. It's easy to trash talk opposing viewpoints, but unless we're actually doing something about it, that talk is pointless. So many of the presenters showed their creative solutions to various challenges.

• NICE Site: 88 Ways To Make A Stranger Smile

  Melissa

  25 Oct 2011 | 10:11 am

  My friend, Bryan, posted this link on his Facebook page this morning. I love it! Making people (strangers, acquaintances, best friends, WHOEVER!) smile should be something we strive for every day. And like I always say, it doesn't take massive amounts of effort. The simplest things can make a big difference. 88 Ways To Make A Stranger Smile These are some of my favorites on the list: 10. Send flowers to someone anonymously. 11. Be a courteous driver. Let people merge in front of you. 17. Send letters of appreciation to business owners/managers and other people who support you. 35. Wave to a…

• NICE Giveaway: TEDxPhilly

  Melissa

  19 Oct 2011 | 8:52 am

  Things are WILD right now! This past weekend I participated in Startup Weekend Philadelphia and had the best time of my life! Short story: I had an idea for an app, pitched it, formed the most incredible team ever who made the thing in a weekend, and took 2nd place! Woot! FYI, it will be launching for realz in a few weeks. :) In addition to that, I have so many events going on this and next month, that I'm hoping I can make it to the holidays without burning out. But hey, I liked to be busy. One of the things I'm most looking forward to is TEDxPhilly on November 8th (my mom's birthday,…

• NICE Assignment: Make something for someone

  Melissa

  10 Oct 2011 | 7:56 am

  Hi everyone! How's your October going so far? This fall has been one of the busiest ever for me. So many things to see, people to meet up with, events to attend. I really love having a packed schedule, although it can be exhausting. This upcoming weekend I'm participating in Philadelphia Startup Weekend. I'm a little (okay a lot) nervous. I think it's going to be intense. But I'm hoping that by the time it's over, I'll have gained some skills, some friends, and maybe a new project. The one problem with keeping busy is that I'm slacking on my hobbies. I used to love crafting for hours and…

• 

  Case Foundation - Investing in People and Ideas that Can Change the World

• What's New on CaseFoundation.org: January 23-27, 2012

  blogger

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:07 pm

  Want to get a quick view of what's new in Social Media, Active Citizenship, Good Giving, and Corporate Responsibility? Here are the highlights from what we've added to CaseFoundation.org this week: Social Media The Millennial Story, Told by Infographic(s) KDS Straegies, January 25, 2012 50 new tech tools you should know about CNN, January 24, 2012 Active Citizenship 9 Digital Ways to Become a Social Good Hero in 2012 Mashable, January 23, 2012 America: Built to Last - NCoC Response to 2012 State of the Union Address NCOC, January 25, 2012 Good Giving Early Facebook App Causes Is Being Reborn…

• How Brands Can Manage Facebook Comment Overload

  blogger

  27 Jan 2012 | 9:38 am

  Check out the recent comment counts on nearly any major Facebook brand Page — the numbers get big very quickly. Disney’s image of Happy, the dwarf from Snow White earned over 1,600 comments at the time of publication. Coca-Cola asked fans whether they have ice-cold Cokes in their fridges – 2,170+ comments. Published Date Jan272012 Source:  Mashable Business Link to:  http://mashable.com/2012/01/26/facebook-comment-overload/ Post Origin:  Other

• 50 new tech tools you should know about

  blogger

  26 Jan 2012 | 10:02 am

  You may have dozens of apps on your phone and scores of websites bookmarked on your laptop, but that doesn't mean you have all the latest tech tools at your fingertips. New mobile apps, services, social networks and other digital tools pop up so frequently that keeping up with them is a nearly impossible task. Just when you think you're up to date, something newer and hipper comes along. But before you wave the white flag, let us help. Published Date Jan262012 Source:  CNN Link to:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/tech/web/50-tech-tools Post Origin:  Other

• Davos 2012: What Would You Ask the World Economic Forum?

  blogger

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:56 am

  The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is under way, and Mashable is reporting on location from this annual gathering of heads of state, politicians, and leaders from all sectors. As usual, we’re looking for the way that digital and social is changing the world, which is nowhere more evident than in the ways that this traditionally closed conference is being brought to the public. Published Date Jan262012 Source:  Mashable Link to:  http://mashable.com/?p=903425&preview=true Post Origin:  Other

• Advanced Segmentation Techniques: What You Say Is as Important as Who You Say It To

  blogger

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:51 am

  If you're a loyal follower of the NTEN blog, you may recall a post by Event 360's CEO/President, Jeff Shuck on segmentation. Or maybe you attended his session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference last year in DC. Or maybe not. It's okay, we know you've got a lot going on: annual appeals, website updates, events, eNewsletters, Facebook and Twitter updates, updating your Pinterest boards... We hope you remember the message: segment your constituent messages to get real fundraising results for your organization. Published Date Jan262012 Source:  NTEN Link to: …

• 

  Helping Help

• Real Leaders Inspire Ongoing Action

  16 Jan 2012 | 6:49 pm

  The day after MLk day is more important than the holiday itself. It is the day that we truly see who the real leaders are. It is the day that the celebrating masses give way to the nonconforming minority of change-makers. MLK taught us to lead fearlessly, selflessly, and righteously. His accomplishments - and sacrifice - is worth celebrating and remembering, and I am proud that we take a day every year to do it. But celebrating is easy. The day after MLK day is where true leaders shine. And they continue to shine for the weeks and months in between celebrations. Right now, the world doesn't…

• Passionate Leaders are Better Leaders

  9 Jan 2012 | 8:05 pm

  Leadership Passion Pyramid To be a truly inspiring and effective leader, you must have passion. But not any passion will suffice, the best leaders focus their passion on 4 main areas: Passion for the development and fulfillment of the people they lead Passion for the cause they are working towards Passion for making an impact Passion for their own personal growth The ordering is just as important as the area of passion. Why? Nothing happens if the people you lead don't make things happen. Be invested in the people you lead, as their happiness and…

• Look Back Before Moving Forward

  24 Dec 2011 | 10:40 am

  At the end of every year, I dedicate a day to looking back. I think about a lot of things, and I use Who, What, Where, When, Why, How as a framework... Who slowed me down Who helped me  What I set out to do What I did  When I was struggling When I was happiest  Where I tripped Where I soared Why I failedWhy I succeeded How I lost motivationHow I inspired, motivated, and empowered others and myself I look within myself to find balance, and I look outside to find knowledge. I listen and learn from experts in all fields, knowing the diversity of…

• Inspire Others To Exceed Their Expectations

  17 Dec 2011 | 6:12 pm

  Forbes.com just published a brilliant article on leadership that was written by Russell Raath. In it, Russell share a scene from the movie Invictus where Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela: Morgan Freeman’s Mandela offers some final words of wisdom. “We need inspiration,” he says, “because in order to build our nation, we must all exceed our own expectations.” You can read the full article on Forbes and I highly recommend it. The takeaway is simple and powerful. As a leader, your job is to do more than just setting and achieving goals. Your imperative is to inspire and…

• Increase Motivation, Inspire Action and Drive Behavior

  4 Dec 2011 | 4:09 pm

  No matter your position, role, and responsibilities - you have the ability to motivate others and inspire action. There are thousands of books, research reports, and case studies on this topic - and out of all of them that I have come across, the three best resources are the following two videos and link Dan Pink on the Surprising Science About What Motivates Us (video) Simon Sinek on How Great Leaders Inspires Action (video) Chip and Dan Heath on How to Change Things When Change is Hard (book, and article) Here are the videos and book summary for your convenience: Dan Pink on the…

• 

  Changed by Design

• How to choose charitable investments more wisely

  editors

  13 Jan 2012 | 3:44 am

  All too often, great design solutions for the developing world fall victim to dependency on charitable giving to achieve their goals. Few social enterprises have a truly sustainable business plan, so it is no surprise that there is no flood of wealth coming from traditional investors to fund these enterprises. This post focuses on understanding the investor’s two bottom lines, which will yield a Part 2 post advising social enterprises on how to attract more funding. A recent Harvard Business Review article on “Funding Social Enterprises” opened my eyes with a new perspective…

• Emily Pilloton gives Stephen Colbert a new pair of specs

  editors

  20 Jan 2010 | 1:20 am

  We were delighted to see Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H Design and author of Design Revolution, appear as a guest on the Colbert Report last night. The highlight of the interview was the rousing response from Pilloton’s call for a new measure of success according to “the triple bottom line: Planet, People and Profit”. Pilloton chose excellent visual aids to show Colbert how design can improve lives. Selected from her book, Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, Colbert walked to the interview table wearing Spider Boots, donned a pair of Adaptive Eyewear,…

• The Project H Redesign of Hippo water transport

  editors

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:06 pm

  In a recent interview with Hippo Water founder Cynthia Koenig, we learned a bit more about the recent re-design of the Hippo Roller. It was a dream experience for this blog. The challenge In third-world countries, women and children must haul water over long distances in order to supply their communities with clean, safe water. Alternative sources like wells are only functional 6-8 months of the year, and well pumps are unreliable or fuel to power them can be difficult to obtain The first version of the Hippo Roller multiplied the hauling capacity of a single person but the cost of…

• Hippo Water: Smarter and ready to go further

  editors

  14 Oct 2009 | 3:14 pm

  We’ve had the fortune of interviewing Cynthia Koenig, founder of Hippo Water International, to learn more about their recent re-design and their latest plans to spread Hippo technology to more communities outside South Africa. Before we dig in, Hippo most urgently needs your vote for a much-needed scouting trip in India to exchange ideas and advice with other social entrepreneurs and establish critical distribution partners. The contest is hosted by JustMeans, offering an India Social Entrepreneurship Journey with Journeys for Change, for which Hippo Water is currently in the Top 5…

• Chicken a la Carte

  editors

  22 Jul 2009 | 3:33 am

  Sometimes, a well-told story can do just as much good for a problem as a well-designed solution. This principle attracted me to switch careers from engineering to advertising years ago…I’m still so far from becoming like the storytellers I so admire. This short film makes Ferdinand Dimadura one such storyteller. I won’t spoil it by telling you what’s in it, but I will say that people have been inspired to share this video so much that it has been viewed nearly 10 million times. In fact, I found this from my aunt who forwarded it to my entire extended family! View this…

• 

  What Do You Stand For?

• Corporate Philanthropy: Looking Beyond the Check

  25 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  While charitable giving is finally back on the rise, so too are the pressures facing nonprofits in appealing to corporate partners. Gone are the days of writing checks to the CEO's favorite "pet" charity, as companies look deeper into the business case for philanthropy. Two new studies released this week demonstrate that employee engagement and ROI from product donations are often key drivers in determining which nonprofit organization to support.  A recent study by Forbes Insights found that 72 percent of the 311 global senior executives surveyed said they primarily donate to…

• Eco-labeling: Is There an App for That?

  19 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  From "Farm Verified Organic" to "USDA Organic," "Processed Chlorine Free" to "Totally Chlorine Free," eco-labels are proliferating and consumers are having a tough time keeping them all straight. Cone's 2011 Green Gap Trend Tracker found 51 percent of Americans are overwhelmed by the amount of environmental messages in the marketplace, and no wonder there are more than 5,000 products currently on the shelves touting green claims and more than 400 green labels in the market.What was once a solution for effective green marketing has become a contested topic among marketing experts and…

• #whatsinyourstuff: Transparency Predictions for 2012

  17 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  Its no secret almost all of the products Americans buy are produced by workers in developing countries; workers who often receive low pay, work long hours and live in questionable conditions.87% of consumers say theyll hold companies accountable for ensuring human rights in their supply chains. Yet, when it comes to our favorite brands, many of us are willing to look the other way. We explored this topic at Cone Communications #whatsinyourstuff event, and, even among a crowd of transparency enthusiasts, the majority admitted they own and would continue to purchase Apple products regardless of…

• Are You Listening?

  12 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  From ponytails to braids, long locks to updo's, Barbie's hair often reflects the trends of the times. But, according to some consumers, there's one style the iconic doll is long overdue for: going bald. A new Facebook page "Beautiful and Bald Barbie: Let's see if we can get it made," has cropped up online, driven by two women affected by cancer. The group, now more than 87,000 "likes" strong, is asking toy maker Mattel to create a bald Barbie to support children with cancer and help them deal with situations when they or loved ones lose their hair. Although Mattel has yet to publicly enter…

• 10 Experts, 10 Predictions, 1 Year

  5 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  Last month we looked back at the top trends of 2011, but now that the New Year is upon us, it's time to look forward to what 2012 has in store. We've convened the biggest and brightest minds in cause marketing, corporate responsibility, nonprofit marketing and volunteerism to share their top predictions, programs and issues for the New Year.As for our perspective, we say look out for an influx of disruptive campaigns in 2012. The cause industry continues to mature, and with the flood of new campaigns in the market, companies and nonprofits must do more to make sure their cause stands out…

• 

  Helping Help

• Real Leaders Inspire Ongoing Action

  16 Jan 2012 | 6:49 pm

  The day after MLk day is more important than the holiday itself. It is the day that we truly see who the real leaders are. It is the day that the celebrating masses give way to the nonconforming minority of change-makers. MLK taught us to lead fearlessly, selflessly, and righteously. His accomplishments - and sacrifice - is worth celebrating and remembering, and I am proud that we take a day every year to do it. But celebrating is easy. The day after MLK day is where true leaders shine. And they continue to shine for the weeks and months in between celebrations. Right now, the world doesn't…

• Passionate Leaders are Better Leaders

  9 Jan 2012 | 8:05 pm

  Leadership Passion Pyramid To be a truly inspiring and effective leader, you must have passion. But not any passion will suffice, the best leaders focus their passion on 4 main areas: Passion for the development and fulfillment of the people they lead Passion for the cause they are working towards Passion for making an impact Passion for their own personal growth The ordering is just as important as the area of passion. Why? Nothing happens if the people you lead don't make things happen. Be invested in the people you lead, as their happiness and…

• Look Back Before Moving Forward

  24 Dec 2011 | 10:40 am

  At the end of every year, I dedicate a day to looking back. I think about a lot of things, and I use Who, What, Where, When, Why, How as a framework... Who slowed me down Who helped me  What I set out to do What I did  When I was struggling When I was happiest  Where I tripped Where I soared Why I failedWhy I succeeded How I lost motivationHow I inspired, motivated, and empowered others and myself I look within myself to find balance, and I look outside to find knowledge. I listen and learn from experts in all fields, knowing the diversity of…

• Inspire Others To Exceed Their Expectations

  17 Dec 2011 | 6:12 pm

  Forbes.com just published a brilliant article on leadership that was written by Russell Raath. In it, Russell share a scene from the movie Invictus where Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela: Morgan Freeman’s Mandela offers some final words of wisdom. “We need inspiration,” he says, “because in order to build our nation, we must all exceed our own expectations.” You can read the full article on Forbes and I highly recommend it. The takeaway is simple and powerful. As a leader, your job is to do more than just setting and achieving goals. Your imperative is to inspire and…

• Increase Motivation, Inspire Action and Drive Behavior

  4 Dec 2011 | 4:09 pm

  No matter your position, role, and responsibilities - you have the ability to motivate others and inspire action. There are thousands of books, research reports, and case studies on this topic - and out of all of them that I have come across, the three best resources are the following two videos and link Dan Pink on the Surprising Science About What Motivates Us (video) Simon Sinek on How Great Leaders Inspires Action (video) Chip and Dan Heath on How to Change Things When Change is Hard (book, and article) Here are the videos and book summary for your convenience: Dan Pink on the…

• 

  How I changed the world today.

• kiva loans to Julia's

  25 Jan 2012 | 1:28 am

  Receipt Loan Julia Epifania Cercado Rubio $25.00 Loan Julia Petrona Mairena $25.00 Loan Julia Xiomara Soto Hernandez

• kiva loans to Julia's

  20 Dec 2011 | 4:19 pm

  Receipt Loan Gaby Julia $25.00 Loan Ana Julia $25.00 Loan Maria Julia $25.00 Loan Ana Julia Moya Ramirez $25.00 Loan María Julia $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia Huamani Llacsa $25.00 Loan Ana Julia Fino Mendoza $25.00 Loan Julia Cruz Reyes Rodriguez $25.00 Loan Julia Esperanza $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Marta Julia

• Shelter for Girls in Kenya

  14 Dec 2011 | 11:30 am

  This is from a friend of mine who spends a lot of her time trying to make the world better. She asked me to post this today. Today is a great day to help her because its 'bonus' day and your gift will be matched.We are currently taking part in a fund raising competition with a project called "Tareto Maa". http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/protect-70-girls-from-genital-mutilation-in-kenya/ Tareto Maa runs a shelter in Kenya for girls at risk of Female Genital Mutilation and early enforced marriage. The challenge runs from now until December 31, 2011 (2359 hrs EST).One way to help us win…

• Adopt a Gorilla

  13 Dec 2011 | 10:42 am

  A few years back I adopted Gorillas for my family for Holiday presents. I adopted them through the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.This is a great organization that really helps Gorillas.

• kiva loans to Julia's

  13 Dec 2011 | 10:41 am

  New Kiva loans to Julia's: Loan Julia Evagelina Alvarez Quiej $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia Esperanza $25.00 Loan Julia Cruz Reyes Rodriguez $25.00 Loan Julia Huamani Llacsa $25.00 Loan Julia $25.00 Loan Julia Mabel

• 

  Kiva Stories from the Field

• 20 Years in 2012: A Celebration of Serving the Filipino Poor

  The Musings of a Sponge

  22 Jan 2012 | 6:51 am

  The new year is already in full swing and resolutions are being met or failed as we speak. This New Year’s celebrations, for me, was a little different as I got to spend a full week with Center for Community Transformation staff as they celebrated 20 years of growth and successful service to the poor in the Philippines. President Ruth Callanta spent time reflecting on the past but also casting vision for the future as CCT hopes to transform more communities in the Philippines and reach more marginalized people groups. There was a three-part theme set to guide the educational and…

• Celebrating the Epiphany in New Orleans

  charlottemakoff

  12 Jan 2012 | 10:36 am

  I expected Christmas to be different in New Orleans and I was right. The people of New Orleans celebrate everything with flourish and style and of course Christmas is no different. So what’s so different about Christmas? Well, it’s the King Cake tradition. It involves a special cake, a tiny baby and a party. The tradition of having King Cake Parties has evolved through time, but no one in New Orleans ever remembers a time when there weren’t King Cake parties after Christmas. The tradition started in New Orleans, no doubt, with the French Catholics. It celebrates the twelfth…

• Perks + Atatürk + My hero

  act4impact

  11 Jan 2012 | 5:03 pm

  By Kim Strathearn, K16, Turkey Perks! Perks of some sort are a part of every job.  Recently one of the loan officers brought back these cookie samples from a potential client.  YUM! Cookıe samples = Perks! Mustafa Kemal Atatürk died at 9:05 a.m. on November 10, 1938 at the age of 57.  He was the founder of the Turkish Republic and its first president.  Every year on November 10, daily life and traffic stops at 9:05 a.m. for two minutes as sirens wail, traffic stops and people observe two minutes of silence out of respect to Atatürk”s memory. Independence Monument in Taksim…

• What’s next for KF16? (Part 2)

  laurie4485

  8 Jan 2012 | 10:54 pm

  Compiled by Laurie Young, KF16, Indonesia Last week you read about about what six of the fellows from KF16 were doing once their fellowships ended.  Read on to see what adventures 2012 will bring to some more! Jill Hall, CCT, Phillipines My Kiva fellowship has really been a joy and I am sad to see this time come to a close. I have a desire to continue to work in development and non-profit work and so the next few steps after my Kiva fellowship is to contribute to that goal. After Kiva I will spend the next couple of months visiting friends who are working at various NGO’s and…

• Typical Day of this Kiva Fellow . . . in New Orleans

  charlottemakoff

  4 Jan 2012 | 7:13 pm

  I interned at the Kiva Headquarters in San Francisco for six months. If you have six months to spare this is a very worthwhile experience. Never had I met so many great people working toward a common goal. And being an unpaid intern was one of the most satisfying things I have ever done. Kiva depends on teams of volunteers, and it is very appreciative of its teams and expresses it on a daily basis. Sure, I did some collating and copying, but I also was invited to brainstorming sessions, wrote country memos, wrote articles for the Kiva Fellows Alumni newsletter, vetted Fellows’…

• 

  So what can I do?

• Change the world.

  6 Oct 2014 | 5:52 pm

  How will you make our world a better place?* Health and education* Economics, social entrepreneurship, and microfinance* Food and water* Energy and technology* Women, children, and family* Environment, land, and sustainability* FaithAnd don’t forget to visit the So What Can I Do Bookstore. Your efforts can change the world.”Be the change you want to see in the world.” - Mohandas GandhiPlease visit http://sowhatcanido.blogspot.com to offer your comments and suggestions, forward this post, and peruse the archives. Thanks for reading "So what can I do", the public service weblog promoting…

• Make it a day/life of service.

  6 Jan 2012 | 10:02 pm

  I remember one Martin Luther King day many years ago, when I was in grad school, that I spent in the lab. That wasn't too unusual because I generally went to the lab every day. But one of my colleagues (who was also working) asked me why I was in the lab on the King holiday. I replied that I thought Dr. King would want me to get my PhD. I still think of the King Holiday as a day on rather than a day off, but now that I have finished school, I have a bit more time to be of service to others on that day. Readers of So What Can I Do are likely to feel the same, so I offer two resources to find…

• EITC: Ask for it!

  6 Jan 2012 | 9:30 pm

  Tax time is upon us once again. You've got a couple of extra days this year - til April 17. And here's another piece of good news: lots of folks, many of whom don't know it, will qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit. EITC can mean up to $5,751 in your pocket. That's money to pay bills, save for college or a downpayment on your home, or stash away for a rainy day. Find out if you're eligible or ask your tax preparer about it.Remember you have to file a tax return (even if you're not required to or do not owe) in order to claim the EITC.You've already earned it. Now go claim it."Next to…

• Join the So What Can I Do blood donation team.

  20 Jun 2009 | 10:40 pm

  I went to the Red Cross blood center today and gave a pint. Regular readers and regular donors know that blood donation is a fast and easy way to save up to three lives. You never know when you or someone you know will need blood. So please consider donating blood, platelets, or red cells. And if you do, you’re invited to join the So What Can I Do Red Cross Racing Team. Here’s how:• Visit redcrossracing.com .• After you register scroll to the bottom and click “Team Competition.”• Enter the So What Can I Do team code: O?67SO .• Remember to log your donations to win points and…

• Celebrate World Free Your Mind Day – June 19th.

  18 Jun 2009 | 11:07 pm

  I spent this Juneteenth thinking about what my family would have been like if my great-great-granddaddy Griffin Henry Belk hadn’t walked off that plantation when he did. I expect it would have made a huge difference, because when Griffin Henry Belk left, he was able to travel (searching for his parents), purchase land (160 acres for $11 in Ozan, Arkansas), and generally prepare to provide for his wife and five children to come. So I woke up Juneteenth morning and told my daughter about her great-great-great-granddaddy. Even though she’s only two, I expect it resonated with her, or will…

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  Green Tech

• Hydrogen 'sponge' could extend EV driving range

  Martin LaMonica

  27 Jan 2012 | 9:49 am

  Novel molecules with as much surface area per volume as a football field could be used to store more hydrogen than compressed gas, extending the range of fuel-cell electric vehicles. Originally posted at News - Cutting Edge

• U.S.-backed battery firm Ener1 seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy

  Brooke Crothers

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:49 am

  Another company that received backing from the U.S. Department of Energy files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Originally posted at Nanotech - The Circuits Blog

• Flower power: Ford interiors made of tropical plant

  Martin LaMonica

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:37 am

  The door bolsters inside Ford's latest Escape SUV will be made with a tropical plant called kenaf, offsetting 300 pounds of oil-based reins per year. The SUV will be 85 percent recyclable. Originally posted at News - Cutting Edge

• Want better EV range? Hitch it to a fuel cell

  Martin LaMonica

  26 Jan 2012 | 6:00 am

  Startup Oorja Protonics has developed a methanol fuel cell to give battery-powered forklifts a lift and it's planning to apply the same hybrid approach in fleet vehicles. Originally posted at News - Cutting Edge

• Electric car that folds itself launches in Spain

  Liane Yvkoff

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:44 pm

  Spain will begin producing an electric car next year that's about the same size as Smart For, but can collapse itself into an even smaller footprint when parked. Originally posted at The Car Tech blog

• 

  GoodGuide Blog

• Mobile Technology and the Future American Diet

  Sheila Viswanathan

  26 Jan 2012 | 5:37 pm

  Last week, GoodGuide founder Dara O’Rourke delivered a keynote speech at the Sustainable Foods Summit that focused on how mobile technology will transform the food system. Whether it’s bringing transparency to the marketplace (like our app) or improving food safety, there is no doubt that this technology can and will make a difference in how our food system operates. However, despite the various tech-based solutions presented to consumers, retailers, distributors, and farmers, there still remains the question of who is will capitalize most from this new trend. During his talk,…

• A Nod to Popcorn

  Sheila Viswanathan

  19 Jan 2012 | 1:43 pm

  Corn Kernels Popcorn isn’t just meant for the movies anymore. A stop in the chips aisle at the grocery store reveals a plethora of options for at-home popcorn enjoyment that fall into three main categories: bagged popcorn that’s ready to eat, microwave popcorn, and corn kernels. Corn kernels score noticeably higher on GoodGuide, because they have yet to be popped (in oil) or flavored with salt or butter. Turning corn kernels into popcorn is a form of processing, but one that is necessary as our bodies are unable to efficiently digest raw corn kernels. We have the choice of…

• Going Unprocessed

  Sheila Viswanathan

  17 Jan 2012 | 2:40 pm

  It’s January, so most of us are still talking about (and hopefully sticking to) our new year’s resolutions. While we have some ideas about what you should strive for this year, we know that many people are hoping to eat healthier over the course of 2012. Eating healthier is a worthwhile resolution, but it’s essential to drill this general resolution down into a manageable, actionable goal. We’re much more likely to keep a resolution if we have clear benchmarks or defined actions in place. Some examples of “eating healthier” include eating more whole grains,…

• The Smarter Barcode

  Mia Gralla

  11 Jan 2012 | 7:15 pm

  The simple arrangement of black and white lines that revolutionized shopping decades ago has done it again. To celebrate the barcode’s 60th birthday, The NY Times wrote an article examining its history and exploring new innovations from advancements utilizing mobile technology to the introduction of its rival, QR codes. So what does all this mean for consumers? Today, it’s not just the cashier at the grocery store who has the ability to scan and receive information from a barcode. Anyone with a smart phone can scan QR codes to gain product information, enter contests and even…

• 12 Tips For A Healthy 2012

  Mia Gralla

  5 Jan 2012 | 6:16 pm

  Do you pause when people ask what your New Year’s Resolutions are? Feel guilty when you see all your co-workers trekking to the gym, but not guilty enough to actually go? Whether you are a health nut with a green thumb or still trying to kick your potato chip habit (obsession), try these simple resolutions to kick 2012 off to a healthy start: 1) Live in a toxic-free home. Who wants to come home to a formaldehyde-laden house? Unfortunately, toxins are so widespread these days that they are found everywhere from our cleaning products to personal care products. Use this checklist from…

• 

  Latest Items from TreeHugger

• Fact-Checking Obama: Is There Really '100 Years' Worth of Natural Gas in the US?

  Brian Merchant

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:22 pm

  A: Not likely.

• Is There Any Hope For A Non-Genetically Modified Future in America, Or Africa?

  Mat McDermott

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pm

  One one hand we have the state of affairs in the US. On the other we have the future Bill Gates would like to manifest in Africa, all in the supremely laudable goal of reducing poverty and hunger. It's not a pretty picture for people or the planet.

• Coal Ash Activists Acquitted in Filipino Court

  Rachel Cernansky

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:43 pm

  Filipino activists had been charged with trespassing in December 2009 to document toxic coal ash.

• Hey, Beltway Pundits, Nobody Cares About Solyndra Anymore

  Brian Merchant

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pm

  It must have been fun breathlessly trying to turn Solyndra into a scandal, but Americans still aren't buying it.

• Watch Revenge of the Electric Car for Free on Hulu!

  Michael Graham Richard

  27 Jan 2012 | 11:20 am

  You can now watch Chris Paine's sequel documentary to 'Who Killed The Electric Car?' for free!

• 

  Green

• New York's Fracking Deliberations Inch Along

  By MIREYA NAVARRO

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:39 pm

  A meeting with an advisory panel is deferred, suggesting that the decision-making process will not be rushed in coming months.

• Racing Up (and Down) the Performance Index

  By FELICITY BARRINGER

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:32 pm

  In the latest Environmental Performance Index, Switzerland is at the top, Russia is much closer to the bottom and the United States has failed to gain much ground.

• When Marine Mammals Become Food

  By DOUGLAS M. MAIN

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:46 pm

  Rising human consumption of marine mammals in tropical regions poses a threat to animals like the dugong, which is similar to a manatee, and the Atlantic humpback dolphin, researchers write.

• On Our Radar: 6 More Coal Plants to Close

  By THE NEW YORK TIMES

  27 Jan 2012 | 11:45 am

  FirstEnergy says it would not be cost-effective to install scrubbing technology at aging plants to meet new federal emissions rules.

• Reaping a Bonus From Cap-and-Trade

  By MIREYA NAVARRO

  27 Jan 2012 | 10:37 am

  Rather than imposing higher costs on consumers and businesses, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative lowered their bills.

• 

  GOOD

• GOOD Books: Life on the Campaign Trail

  Kristy Pyke

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

  The 2012 Republican primaries commenced this week and already the election has seen political scandals worthy of the books.  From Herman Cain’s sexual harassment charges, to Newt Gingrich’s open marriage proposal to Stephen Colbert’s joke campaign, this political season is one you will not want to miss.      Here is a list of books that attempt to give you an inside look into what the campaign trail is really like.  Some are fiction and some are non-fiction but they all seek to paint a picture of the truly dramatic, scandalous and stressful lives of…

• Make it by Monday: DIY Cards for Every Occasion

  Becca Nath

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:00 pm

  Welcome to Make It By Monday, GOOD's weekly DIY feature in which we curate, demystify, and add our own tips for craft projects from around the web (and our apartments). This week: DIY your belated thank you cards. This week's project: lovely and creative cards for every occasion. If you're looking for something homemade in a hurry, these thank-you card printables from the pretty blog are a great pinch-hitter. Simply print on cardstock, fold, and go. If you have a bit more time, these personalized, hand-sewn cards from the wedding chicks are a lovely way to send a note. What…

• Rick Santorum Says College is 'Indoctrination'; We Say It's Necessary

  Nona Willis Aronowitz

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:30 pm

  Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has really gone after higher education lately. Earlier this month, he called President Obama's suggestion that everyone should go to college "elitist snobbery." Now, he's speaking out in response to Obama's State of the Union education plans: It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid go to go college... The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making…

• Activists Send Hundreds of Tacos to Connecticut Mayor

  Cord Jefferson

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:15 pm

  East Haven, Connecticut, Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr. ruffled a lot of feathers this week when he told a reporter that he would address Latinos' concerns over police discrimination and abuse by "eating tacos." Maturo has since apologized numerous times, but activists around the country continue to take him to task. Some, like Connecticut's Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, have asked for his resignation. Others have gotten a bit more creative with their protest. Immigrant rights group Reform Immigration for America started a "text-the-mayor-a-taco" campaign,…

• Intermission: A Dog's View of Dogs Playing

  Wylie Overstreet

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pm

  The weekend is here. Don't forget to play. 

• 

  GOOD

• GOOD Books: Life on the Campaign Trail

  Kristy Pyke

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

  The 2012 Republican primaries commenced this week and already the election has seen political scandals worthy of the books.  From Herman Cain’s sexual harassment charges, to Newt Gingrich’s open marriage proposal to Stephen Colbert’s joke campaign, this political season is one you will not want to miss.      Here is a list of books that attempt to give you an inside look into what the campaign trail is really like.  Some are fiction and some are non-fiction but they all seek to paint a picture of the truly dramatic, scandalous and stressful lives of…

• Make it by Monday: DIY Cards for Every Occasion

  Becca Nath

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:00 pm

  Welcome to Make It By Monday, GOOD's weekly DIY feature in which we curate, demystify, and add our own tips for craft projects from around the web (and our apartments). This week: DIY your belated thank you cards. This week's project: lovely and creative cards for every occasion. If you're looking for something homemade in a hurry, these thank-you card printables from the pretty blog are a great pinch-hitter. Simply print on cardstock, fold, and go. If you have a bit more time, these personalized, hand-sewn cards from the wedding chicks are a lovely way to send a note. What…

• Rick Santorum Says College is 'Indoctrination'; We Say It's Necessary

  Nona Willis Aronowitz

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:30 pm

  Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has really gone after higher education lately. Earlier this month, he called President Obama's suggestion that everyone should go to college "elitist snobbery." Now, he's speaking out in response to Obama's State of the Union education plans: It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid go to go college... The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making…

• Activists Send Hundreds of Tacos to Connecticut Mayor

  Cord Jefferson

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:15 pm

  East Haven, Connecticut, Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr. ruffled a lot of feathers this week when he told a reporter that he would address Latinos' concerns over police discrimination and abuse by "eating tacos." Maturo has since apologized numerous times, but activists around the country continue to take him to task. Some, like Connecticut's Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, have asked for his resignation. Others have gotten a bit more creative with their protest. Immigrant rights group Reform Immigration for America started a "text-the-mayor-a-taco" campaign,…

• Intermission: A Dog's View of Dogs Playing

  Wylie Overstreet

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pm

  The weekend is here. Don't forget to play. 

• 

  GOOD

• GOOD Books: Life on the Campaign Trail

  Kristy Pyke

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

  The 2012 Republican primaries commenced this week and already the election has seen political scandals worthy of the books.  From Herman Cain’s sexual harassment charges, to Newt Gingrich’s open marriage proposal to Stephen Colbert’s joke campaign, this political season is one you will not want to miss.      Here is a list of books that attempt to give you an inside look into what the campaign trail is really like.  Some are fiction and some are non-fiction but they all seek to paint a picture of the truly dramatic, scandalous and stressful lives of…

• Make it by Monday: DIY Cards for Every Occasion

  Becca Nath

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:00 pm

  Welcome to Make It By Monday, GOOD's weekly DIY feature in which we curate, demystify, and add our own tips for craft projects from around the web (and our apartments). This week: DIY your belated thank you cards. This week's project: lovely and creative cards for every occasion. If you're looking for something homemade in a hurry, these thank-you card printables from the pretty blog are a great pinch-hitter. Simply print on cardstock, fold, and go. If you have a bit more time, these personalized, hand-sewn cards from the wedding chicks are a lovely way to send a note. What…

• Rick Santorum Says College is 'Indoctrination'; We Say It's Necessary

  Nona Willis Aronowitz

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:30 pm

  Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has really gone after higher education lately. Earlier this month, he called President Obama's suggestion that everyone should go to college "elitist snobbery." Now, he's speaking out in response to Obama's State of the Union education plans: It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid go to go college... The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making…

• Activists Send Hundreds of Tacos to Connecticut Mayor

  Cord Jefferson

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:15 pm

  East Haven, Connecticut, Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr. ruffled a lot of feathers this week when he told a reporter that he would address Latinos' concerns over police discrimination and abuse by "eating tacos." Maturo has since apologized numerous times, but activists around the country continue to take him to task. Some, like Connecticut's Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, have asked for his resignation. Others have gotten a bit more creative with their protest. Immigrant rights group Reform Immigration for America started a "text-the-mayor-a-taco" campaign,…

• Intermission: A Dog's View of Dogs Playing

  Wylie Overstreet

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pm

  The weekend is here. Don't forget to play. 

• 

  GOOD

• GOOD Books: Life on the Campaign Trail

  Kristy Pyke

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

  The 2012 Republican primaries commenced this week and already the election has seen political scandals worthy of the books.  From Herman Cain’s sexual harassment charges, to Newt Gingrich’s open marriage proposal to Stephen Colbert’s joke campaign, this political season is one you will not want to miss.      Here is a list of books that attempt to give you an inside look into what the campaign trail is really like.  Some are fiction and some are non-fiction but they all seek to paint a picture of the truly dramatic, scandalous and stressful lives of…

• Make it by Monday: DIY Cards for Every Occasion

  Becca Nath

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:00 pm

  Welcome to Make It By Monday, GOOD's weekly DIY feature in which we curate, demystify, and add our own tips for craft projects from around the web (and our apartments). This week: DIY your belated thank you cards. This week's project: lovely and creative cards for every occasion. If you're looking for something homemade in a hurry, these thank-you card printables from the pretty blog are a great pinch-hitter. Simply print on cardstock, fold, and go. If you have a bit more time, these personalized, hand-sewn cards from the wedding chicks are a lovely way to send a note. What…

• Rick Santorum Says College is 'Indoctrination'; We Say It's Necessary

  Nona Willis Aronowitz

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:30 pm

  Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has really gone after higher education lately. Earlier this month, he called President Obama's suggestion that everyone should go to college "elitist snobbery." Now, he's speaking out in response to Obama's State of the Union education plans: It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid go to go college... The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making…

• Activists Send Hundreds of Tacos to Connecticut Mayor

  Cord Jefferson

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:15 pm

  East Haven, Connecticut, Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr. ruffled a lot of feathers this week when he told a reporter that he would address Latinos' concerns over police discrimination and abuse by "eating tacos." Maturo has since apologized numerous times, but activists around the country continue to take him to task. Some, like Connecticut's Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, have asked for his resignation. Others have gotten a bit more creative with their protest. Immigrant rights group Reform Immigration for America started a "text-the-mayor-a-taco" campaign,…

• Intermission: A Dog's View of Dogs Playing

  Wylie Overstreet

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:00 pm

  The weekend is here. Don't forget to play. 

• 

  SocialEarth

• Top 5 Reasons Why Coworking is for Social Entrepreneurs

  Genevieve DeGuzman

  27 Jan 2012 | 7:30 am

  Over the past five years, coworking has emerged as a movement that is changing how entrepreneurs and innovators work. Coworking has been touted as everything from a way to find [...]

• New Ashoka Fellow addresses failing environmental programs

  Guest Author

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:11 am

  Minneapolis, MN – “Understanding that ‘knowledge and determination to solve problems’ is where progress will come from” has earned the founder of Recycle Across America™, Mitch Hedlund election to Ashoka’s global fellowship [...]

• seToolbelt Resource of the Week: Social Enterprise Explained

  Lindsay Miller

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:00 am

  OK, maybe we got a bit ahead of ourselves. Maybe we should have kicked off with this resource right from the start. But, it's never too late to re-do. This [...]

• The Recipe for Sustainable Development

  Sabrina Natasha Premji

  25 Jan 2012 | 9:09 pm

  The only thing worse than the smell of a dead rat is not knowing where the dead rat is.  I can sadly say this with conviction, for I have been [...]

• From Idea to Impact

  23 Jan 2012 | 11:04 pm

  For the last 6 months, I have spent countless hours looking at social innovations in primary health care settings in Kenya. I have come across leading organizations harnessing the capabilities [...]

• 

  Cause Global: Social Media for Social Change

• Teaching

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:25 am

  This year, I'm delighted to be team-teaching a new course on social media strategy at New York University with my friends and colleagues Tom Watson and Howard Greenstein. The course expands a pilot social media strategy course I put together for NYU's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising last spring -- and builds it into a 13-week class for the Center's Master's program.The class is "The Wired Nonprofit 2012: Social Media Strategy and Practice" and Tom, Howard and I will be helping graduate students and future advocacy leaders "to create a comprehensive social media strategy for…

• Occupy Us!

  19 Nov 2011 | 6:10 am

  It is said that good advertising anticipates -- and acknowledges -- social trends. [Apple's "Think Different" campaign comes to mind.] But bad advertising? Clueless. Consider Bank of America's new "Together, we are the 100%" campaign, which tries to monetize Occupy Wall Street's anti-greed movement, if not simply "re-image" the bank, which is under fire for improper foreclosures and hiking debit card fees. The bank kicked off the new campaign earlier this month and promoted it on Thursday -- Occupy Wall Street's nationwide Day of Action, which successfully orchestrated protest marches across…

• Counter-swarms

  15 Nov 2011 | 8:33 am

  Occupy Wall Street organizers -- to further protest their eviction earlier today from Manhattan's Zuccotti Park by New York City riot police -- are stepping up their scheduled global "Day of Action" rally set for Thursday throughout New York City and in other cities where Occupy encampments have been shuttered in recent hours and days.In a flash rally today attended by hundreds of Occupy protesters along 7th Avenue in midtown Manhattan near the failed Lehman Brothers' former world headquarters building, the movement's organizers asked passersby to "join the Global Movement for Economic and…

• Re:volution Notebook

  24 Oct 2011 | 8:39 am

  New takes on the political impact of social media: * Vlad Teichberg, a 39-year-old former derivatives trader, is in charge of Occupy Wall Street's livestream video feed of GlobalRevolution.tv. He says in this week's New Yorker that he has been working for months to help build, from New York, what he calls "camera Kalashnikovs" to help seed and sustain the movement, which he characterizes as having its roots not on Wall Street, but in the rise of the Arab Spring. Teichberg had been operating from under a tarp in Zuccotti Square but now manages the movement's livestream feed from a small,…

• Rethinking Africa

  22 Oct 2011 | 9:12 pm

  Erik Hersman -- a cofounder of Ushahidi; founder of the group blog, Afrigadget; the author of the blog, White African, and the founder of iHub, Nairobi's innovation hub offered this week's PopTech conferees contemplating the world's geopolitical power shifts a new definition of the term, white space. "In business, it is defined as a place where rules are vague, authority is fuzzy, budgets are nonexistent and strategy is unclear," said Hersman, who was raised by missionary parents in Africa and spent his childhood traveling between Sudan and Kenya. [Hersman still lives in Africa, with his wife…

• 

  Sasha Dichter's Blog

• 20 questions every fundraiser must be able to answer

  Sasha

  25 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

  (subtitle: this is why I can’t for the life of me understand how “fundraiser” became synonymous with “not totally integrated with the core work of the organization”) What are your top three priorities right now? Where will the organization be in 5 years? What’s your annual operating budget?  Walk me through it. What does success look like for the organization? How will my donation make an impact? How much do you spend on overhead? What’s your long-term vision for sustainability? How much cash do you have on hand?  Is it too much or too little? What is your organization’s…

• More or less, but not the same

  Sasha

  24 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

  There’s lots of stuff out there about how to make really great powerpoint (and about terrible PowerPoint).  What I’ve observed is that people read these great suggestions and think “I could never do that” (which isn’t true) and use that conclusion to do nothing different.  Because the leap to “No more than six words on a slide.  EVER.” is a big one. I’m actually a big believer in taking that leap, because once you leap, your audience has no choice but to listen to you, the presenter, instead of pretending that the most important thing up there is the slide (it isn’t). On…

• Today: T-shirt, Causes, and Volunteer needed

  Sasha

  23 Jan 2012 | 1:54 pm

  We’re just three weeks away from Generosity Day, and we have a lot of fun things in the works!  You’ve probably already seen the great Generosity Day t-shirts by our friends at Selfless Tee, so we wanted to remind you that TODAY is the last day to buy them for guaranteed delivery by Valentine’s Day (they make amazing thank you gifts to your volunteers, or to your spouse or your co-worker or just for you!).  You can get them here: www.selflesstee.com/generosity Also we’ve quietly launched a Causes page for Generosity Day, so if you haven’t yet please sign up for the cause and take…

• How do you find a great Head of Development?

  Sasha

  19 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

  I’ve been asked this question a lot, and was asked it again the other day by the CEO of a growing, successful nonprofit, so here are some thoughts. First, let’s clarify who’s asking the question and what this means about what they’re looking for. For a long time I’ve argued on this blog that the nonprofit sector has radically misunderstood what fundraising means, what fundraising jobs are, and, consequently, how to staff the fundraising (“development,” whatever) department.  To recap: it’s not separate from “the real work.”   It is core to your strategy, to who you are,…

• How did you raise all that money?

  Sasha

  18 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

  “I hustled.” “Yeah, but what else?” She already answered your question.

• 

  Foreign Policy BlogsForeign Policy Blogs | The FPA Global Affairs Blog Network

• Paper Wars

  Aarti Ramachandran

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:09 pm

  It’s all-out war, and yes, South Indians plan to relish every minute of it. After all, it is rather gratifying to see the dignified Hindu getting down and dirty with the more boisterous Times. In a recent series of much-discussed ads, The Hindu wittily takes on the Times’ penchant for sensational and tabloid-centric news, urging readers to “stay ahead of the times.” The adverts sharply smack Times of India’s readers for being clueless about everything except inane Bollywood gossip. Yet, the ads are another sign that South India’s grand old paper itself is finally catching up to…

• Unsafe Abortions on the Rise

  Cassandra Clifford

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:20 pm

  Photo by EuroWeb The right to life is unquestionably one of the biggest human rights debates in the United States. Some argue there is never an acceptable reason for the termination of a pregnancy, others will allow it in the case of a medical emergency or to save the life of the mother, some are for the use of only early term abortion, others argue that it is simply the mother’s choice.  The recent March for Life in DC this month is only one manifestation of this debate, which has been a major battle amongst individuals and parties since the historic Roe vs. Wade decision. However,…

• Standing up for Women’s Rights

  Catherine Shakdam

  27 Jan 2012 | 12:03 pm

  Amal Hassan, a young mother of three, began fighting to promote women’s rights in Yemen based on her own experiences of injustice. Amal always aspired to better herself academically as she felt she truly came alive when she was learning new things, her mind opening up to novel possibilities and ideas. Like many women across Yemen, Amal is bright and gifted, she only wanted to be given the opportunity to choose her path in life, not to be forced onto a mold by others. Raised in a traditional Muslim Yemeni household which idea of morality and properness was to stifle their girls and…

• Toy Story: Revolt of the Little Guys

  Vadim Nikitin

  27 Jan 2012 | 9:39 am

  “Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events” lamented an exasperated Russian police chief yesterday. What are these insidious technologies? Twitter? Talking spy rocks (wait, those are British!)? Putin’s beloved nano-particles? Wait, he was getting to that. The protesters are “using toys with placards at mini-protests”, he concluded. That’s right: toys. Protesters in Siberia have circumvented the ban on demonstrations by assembling a series of dolls, teddy bears and action figures in the snow, complete with miniature…

• Know Your Religion

  Sahar Said

  27 Jan 2012 | 7:12 am

  A year ago I stumbled upon an interesting website. After relating a short story, it asked the reader to guess the religious context in which the tale was set. The questions varied from the way women dressed (burqa-esque, fully clad) to the practice of allowing men multiple wives. When I finished taking the quiz and looked up the answers, I realized how pre-programmed my perceptions were. As a Muslim, I was willing to accept that all listed societal vices were somehow traceable to acts of Muslims (albeit not in line with the true teachings of Islam); but what I was not expecting was for these…

• 

  High Impact Philanthropy

• News and Events: Links to what we’re reading this week

  impactsp2

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:27 pm

  In case you missed it… Philanthropy as R&D in Urban Women’s Health – both in the U.S. and abroad from Carol McLaughlin, our research director. We experienced a hiccup with our email subscription service. Announcement For the past two years, our executive director, Kat Rosqueta, has served as a judge for the Purpose Prize, a $100,000 prize awarded to each of 5 winners, all entrepreneurs and community leaders over 60 recognized for their contributions to social good. Nominations for the 2012 Purpose Prize are now being accepted. Education Notes from Kate Hovde, Senior Analyst…

• Philanthropy as R&D in Urban Women’s Health – both in the U.S. and abroad

  impactsp2carol

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:25 am

  Carol McLaughlin, Research Director We are often asked, “What is the sweet spot of philanthropy?” Donors can always fund proven approaches (e.g., nurse visitation programs, women’s groups for health education). However, our chapter in the recently released Women’s Health and the World’s Cities highlights the additional critical role philanthropy can play. Given its smaller size in relation to government financing, particularly in the global arena, philanthropy’s ability to be nimble and to take greater risks makes it a critical partner for testing and refining new approaches…

• News and Events: Links to what we’re reading this week

  impactsp2

  20 Jan 2012 | 12:07 pm

  Announcement The Center for High Impact Philanthropy joins 100Kin10: The Center is delighted to announce that we have been selected as a partner in the 100Kin10 coalition. 100Kin10 is a multi-sector,non-partisan mobilization that responds to the national imperative to prepare, deploy, and support 100,000 excellent STEM teachers over the coming 10 years. The mission of 100Kin10 is to reverse our country’s decades-long decline in STEM subjects, to ensure that all children have the basic STEM literacy to be full participants in our economy and democracy, and to enable our country’s students…

• Heart, Head . . . and Legwork

  impactsp2kat

  19 Jan 2012 | 11:05 am

  “So much of philanthropy is about the ‘heart’. You’ve talked a lot about [metrics that satisfy] ‘the head.’ Can you talk about metrics that get to satisfying the ‘heart,’ or how you think about integrating the heart and the head?” Katherina Rosqueta, Executive Director That was the last question of the Q&A session following my keynote remarks at a Philadelphia Estate Planning Council luncheon on Tuesday, sponsored by The Philadelphia Foundation. Two hundred and forty estate-planning professionals—lawyers, private bankers,…

• News and Events: Links to what we’re reading this week

  impactsp2

  13 Jan 2012 | 10:56 am

  Crowdsourcing-for-Good: CrowdFlower’s 2011 Retrospective  focuses on crowd sourcing as creating unexpected but exciting social impact,  especially regarding data collection for international health and disaster recovery. It also discusses some of the challenges and implications of using this new technology to collect data from vulnerable populations. Teacher Quality Counts: EdWeek just launched their 2012 “Quality Counts” report this week, looking at US Education through a global lens. The report, titled The Global Challenge: Education in a Competitive World, includes lots…

• 

  New Voices of Philanthropy

• Looking for a researcher

  Trista Harris

  19 Jan 2012 | 6:06 pm

  I am looking for a graduate student or nonprofit nerd/connoisseur to provide me with research on nonprofit and philanthropy trends. The topics will be provided and I would like the researcher to summarize the trend in 2-3 pages and provide a list of sources. I need between 5-10 hours a month of research time. For every 5 hours of research time that you provide, I will give you one hour of professional development coaching. More information about my coaching areas of expertise are at www.nonprofitrockstar.com.   The researcher can work virtually, so geographic location is not important.

• What Does a Program Officer Do?

  Trista Harris

  9 Jan 2012 | 6:25 am

  In this philanthropy job series I’ll cover that a program officer does. When I was a fundraiser and wanted to work in philanthropy, I thought that program officer’s had 5-10 organizations that they worked with over a number of years. I thought I’d learn about organizations inside and out and help them make the world a better place. What really happened is that I had more than a hundred organizations (current grantees, applicants, former organizations, and organizations doing similar work) that I needed to understand on the most basic level. Most of my time was spent telling…

• New Year, New Philanthropy Job?

  Trista Harris

  3 Jan 2012 | 6:42 pm

  *Note: It is a common misconception that philanthropy jobs look like this, be prepared for piles of paper and no private jet.   I’ve heard from many of my recruiter friends that January is a prime time for organizations to start searches because people often make New Year’s resoultions to get a new job. If you have a resolution to get a job in the philanthropic field, here are a few pieces of advice to help you on your journey: Develop Expertise: Lots of foundations (especially community foundations or unstaffed foundations) need volunteers to help them make grantmaking…

• 2012 Predictions for the Social Sector

  Trista Harris

  31 Dec 2011 | 9:55 am

  Too often in the social sector, our organizations are like rowboats, we are all rowing in the same direction but we are looking backwards as we do it. My personal plan for 2012 is to be more forward thinking, so that I can anticipate what will happen next and prepare for it, rather than being reactive to yesterday’s problem. In that spirit, here are my predictions for the social sector in 2012: 0% processing fee for donations In response to mass protests against the financial services industries, a forward-thinking credit card company decides to demonstrate extreme corporate citizenship…

• EPIP is coming, EPIP is coming!

  Trista Harris

  13 Dec 2011 | 1:27 pm

  It is almost time for the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy Annual Conference! Register here. To get you excited about the great content of the conference, I am reposting a session that I did at the last EPIP Conference called “How to Build your Multi-generational Network from Scratch”. Watch the Video Here 2011 EPIP National Conference Concurrent Workshop: Investing in Influence for Policy Change Conference Track: Philanthropology 4.0 – Generations in Philanthropy Session Designer: Trista Harris, Headwaters Foundation for Justice Synopsis: You’ve heard this many…

• 

  In Search of Sanuk

• How much FUN are we creating together this year?

  Dwight Turner

  20 Jan 2012 | 8:16 pm

  This week I got a call from a woman whose family we’ve been helping. Now I don’t want to seem heartless, but I was a little annoyed when the phone was ringing. I often get calls at random times of the day with random requests. Sometimes it’s the 7am call to say thank you for paying for our rent, a lovely gesture from a few thankful hearts which may drive me INSANE. I work full time and have my share of a social life, but the nature of caring for people is you can’t really pick your hours. So I always leave my phone on and field calls from families saying everything…

• Video Report from Children’s Day 2012 in Bangkok, Thailand

  Dwight Turner

  14 Jan 2012 | 7:14 pm

  Saturday afternoon was a great Children’s Day celebration with the Yommarat community. A pair of awesome volunteers, Pilar and Nicole, organized games and crafts for the kids and about 15 other volunteers who joined. Watch the video below (Or click here: In Search of Sanuk Children’s Day 2012 in the Yommarat Community)   Volunteers got lots of hands on interaction with the community’s kids, parents, grandparents and passerby’s who heard all the fun we were having. The highlight for me was being able to help seven families by giving out gift certificates to a local…

• Kick Starting 2012 with Volunteering and Fundraising

  Dwight Turner

  7 Jan 2012 | 11:54 pm

  Always good to start the year out with some momentum. We’re doing just that next weekend when Thailand celebrates Children’s Day. Every year on the second weekend of January, Thailand celebrates Children’s Day. This year we’re making plans to do some activities in the Yommorat community in Bangkok. [Take a look back at what we've done in the past: Children's Day 2010] Yommarat is a community full of kids. The majority of the kids who attend our Saturday school are from this neighborhood, but there are many more kids in the community who are unable to attend because we…

• Year End Party and Happy Holidays from In Search of Sanuk

  Dwight Turner

  1 Jan 2012 | 12:22 am

  In Search of Sanuk Christmas Party For the second year in a row, we threw a big party for the families we’ve been helping. [You can flashback to last year's Christmas by watching this video: Stealing Back Christmas 2010] The aim of the party is really to provide holiday cheer for families who wouldn’t have much of a celebration otherwise. That meant plenty of food and fun festivities for everyone! Christmas Angels One volunteer bought and had over forty gifts wrapped! Thanks Santa!   [See more photos here: In Search of Sanuk Facebook Page] The party was a great end to a…

• I’m not a Missionary, not a NGO or a Hero

  Dwight Turner

  9 Dec 2011 | 9:43 pm

  I’m NOT a missionary. On the contrary, I don’t have a fraction of the faith the people I’m helping possess. I’m NOT a NGO.  There’s no staff, no backup plan, and without the support of a handful of personal friends—no budget. And I’m definitely not a hero.  Showing up with food, water and help with rent doesn’t mean I have super powers or even make me particularly intuitive. I’m a lot like you.  I don’t fit so easily into people’s boxes and grow tired of explaining why. I love wearing lots of hats, but I’m truthfully…

• 

  The Philanthropic Family

• What’s Next for Me is What’s Next for Philanthropy

  Sharon Schneider

  2 Jan 2012 | 10:31 pm

  I’ve been advising people about their philanthropy for over a decade. In person and through this blog I’ve always encouraged them to go beyond giving money to charity and think about all the assets they can bring to the table, and how they can especially use their power as investors and consumers to bring about the changes they want to see in the world. Philanthropy as we have known it for the past few decades has been about giving money. But as we progress in the 21st century, I believe it will be about spending money: people are becoming more aware every day that we are shaping…

• Respect the Bird This Holiday Season

  Sharon Schneider

  21 Nov 2011 | 10:03 pm

  This week marks the beginning of the traditional holiday shopping season, starting with “Black Friday” the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Black Friday is spilling over onto Thanksgiving, with more stores open at midnight and some even opening for Black Friday on Thanksgiving night! One Target employee, aggravated with his family day of thanks cut short, started a petition on Change.org to pressure Target (and presumably other big national chains) to allow employees to truly have a day off: “A midnight opening robs the hourly and in-store salary workers of time off with…

• Thank You Mount Prospect! (A Love Letter to My Sister on Her 40th Birthday)

  Sharon Schneider

  8 Aug 2011 | 12:15 am

  My big sister Sandra Pinter turns 40 in just a few short days. Since my family made the great leap of faith to move from the east coast to the Chicago area three years ago to be nearer to her and her family, she has become, as my kids would say, “my BFF.” Our kids are little stairsteps in ages–8, 7, 6, 5–and quite the little gaggle. My brother-in-law Bill watches them all after school, and “the cousins,” as they refer to each other, fight like siblings but still run into each other’s arms after an overnight separation so that a stranger would think it…

• Update on the Shopping Cart Brigade

  Sharon Schneider

  8 Jul 2011 | 1:21 pm

  I happy to tell you that the Shopping Cart Brigade was a great success during this year’s Fourth of July parade in Mt. Prospect, IL. We collected 100 bags of food, and $200 in donations during the 2-mile parade. A volunteer fills my cart with canned goods collected from the crowd We had a lot of fun pushing our carts and doing our three choreographed moves following our “drum major” Pat Leniux: Our 2nd choregraphed moved, a "follow the leader" down the two columns Audrey was one of two sweet little girls collecting cash donations, who could resist this?

• The Shopping Cart Brigade

  Sharon Schneider

  30 Jun 2011 | 6:06 pm

  This Monday during the Mt. Prospect, Illinois 4th of July parade, instead of watching from the sidelines and catching candy thrown at us by politicians and police officers, my mother, my daughter and I will be walking in the parade and collecting food from the people we pass. We are part of the St. Raymond’s/St. Mark’s “Shopping Cart Brigade.” My mom and I will be pushing a shopping cart down the street as part of the group, and we’ll be performing simple, choreographed routines with the carts to entertain people. But we’ll also be using the carts to…

• 

  What Do You Stand For?

• Corporate Philanthropy: Looking Beyond the Check

  25 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  While charitable giving is finally back on the rise, so too are the pressures facing nonprofits in appealing to corporate partners. Gone are the days of writing checks to the CEO's favorite "pet" charity, as companies look deeper into the business case for philanthropy. Two new studies released this week demonstrate that employee engagement and ROI from product donations are often key drivers in determining which nonprofit organization to support.  A recent study by Forbes Insights found that 72 percent of the 311 global senior executives surveyed said they primarily donate to…

• Eco-labeling: Is There an App for That?

  19 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  From "Farm Verified Organic" to "USDA Organic," "Processed Chlorine Free" to "Totally Chlorine Free," eco-labels are proliferating and consumers are having a tough time keeping them all straight. Cone's 2011 Green Gap Trend Tracker found 51 percent of Americans are overwhelmed by the amount of environmental messages in the marketplace, and no wonder there are more than 5,000 products currently on the shelves touting green claims and more than 400 green labels in the market.What was once a solution for effective green marketing has become a contested topic among marketing experts and…

• #whatsinyourstuff: Transparency Predictions for 2012

  17 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  Its no secret almost all of the products Americans buy are produced by workers in developing countries; workers who often receive low pay, work long hours and live in questionable conditions.87% of consumers say theyll hold companies accountable for ensuring human rights in their supply chains. Yet, when it comes to our favorite brands, many of us are willing to look the other way. We explored this topic at Cone Communications #whatsinyourstuff event, and, even among a crowd of transparency enthusiasts, the majority admitted they own and would continue to purchase Apple products regardless of…

• Are You Listening?

  12 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  From ponytails to braids, long locks to updo's, Barbie's hair often reflects the trends of the times. But, according to some consumers, there's one style the iconic doll is long overdue for: going bald. A new Facebook page "Beautiful and Bald Barbie: Let's see if we can get it made," has cropped up online, driven by two women affected by cancer. The group, now more than 87,000 "likes" strong, is asking toy maker Mattel to create a bald Barbie to support children with cancer and help them deal with situations when they or loved ones lose their hair. Although Mattel has yet to publicly enter…

• 10 Experts, 10 Predictions, 1 Year

  5 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

  Last month we looked back at the top trends of 2011, but now that the New Year is upon us, it's time to look forward to what 2012 has in store. We've convened the biggest and brightest minds in cause marketing, corporate responsibility, nonprofit marketing and volunteerism to share their top predictions, programs and issues for the New Year.As for our perspective, we say look out for an influx of disruptive campaigns in 2012. The cause industry continues to mature, and with the flood of new campaigns in the market, companies and nonprofits must do more to make sure their cause stands out…

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  Travelanthropist

• Places to Go and Not Go in 2012

  travelanthropist

  10 Jan 2012 | 12:41 am

  Looking for the ultimate travel experience for 2012? Here are a few destinations to add to your list or keep off your list!

• Warmest Holiday Greetings From Travelanthropist

  travelanthropist

  23 Dec 2011 | 11:04 am

   

• How to Find 500,000 Places to Stay in Over 175 Countries

  travelanthropist

  13 Dec 2011 | 8:34 am

  Social travel site Tripping.com, which connects travelers with local people for tips or even homestays in over 175 countries, recently announced the launch of a new search engine that aggregates listings from the world's top vacation and short-term rental sites.

• 10,000 Free Round-Trip Airfares to Japan

  travelanthropist

  11 Oct 2011 | 5:05 pm

  Tourism to Japan has dropped significantly because of concerns about safety and the strong yen. Would a free round-trip airline ticket to Japan entice you to go? In a grand effort to lure foreign travelers back to their country, the Japan Tourism Agency has proposed...

• International Chefs Arrive in S. Africa to Support Hungry Children

  travelanthropist

  7 Sep 2011 | 12:56 pm

  The plight of starving children in South Africa is not going unnoticed. About 250 chefs from 44 countries have gathered in South Africa, along with 700 local chefs, to volunteer their time and expertise to a huge fundraising drive.

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  Change Your Life | The Change Blog

• Why Everybody Should Embrace Their Creative Potential

  Srinivas Rao

  27 Jan 2012 | 6:30 am

  Photo by Eddi van W. By Srinivas Rao In the earliest days of our childhood we spent a good amount of time doing creative things. We were continually building and creating things like lego castles, forts made of household items, and works of art. Somewhere along the way the importance of this takes a backseat and it’s written off as “that’s a good hobby, but not something you do to make a living.” Before long we stop creating and turn into sponges that absorb information that is rarely put to use. We go through the motions, doing what we’re told, and are left scratching our heads as…

• Being Me

  Noch Noch

  25 Jan 2012 | 6:30 am

  Photo by digitalpimp. By Noch Noch I advocate that we be true to ourselves, and be who we really are inside. My personal theme for 2012 is: be me. But, how do I “be me”? In fact, how do I even know who I am inside and who is “me”? I have always had a particular image of myself – I was impatient, generous, versatile, adaptive, kind, friendly, strong… I also created an image for others to see, whether it was in the social or professional world – easy going, efficient, trustworthy, a manager, a leader, a friend… I thrived on these qualities I attributed to myself. Yet I wonder…

• How I Beat Anorexia

  Anne - Sophie Reinhardt

  23 Jan 2012 | 6:30 am

  Photo by Mitya Kuznetsov By Anne - Sophie Reinhardt About a year ago, I made a decision that not only changed, but saved my life. I committed to healing my shattered soul. I have been suffering from anorexia nervosa for 14 years. My childhood had been anything but peaceful. Growing up with a brother who tortured me both mentally and physically every single day of my young life was nothing but hell. Not knowing how to endure this daily struggle, my mind searched for ways of coping. Around the age of ten, I started to obsess over food, calories and exercise. How much I was eating and how many…

• The Importance of Play

  Deborah Fike

  19 Jan 2012 | 6:30 am

  Photo by muha… By Deborah Fike “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson I’ve been reading way too many child-rearing books recently. It’s comes with the territory of being a new mom and wanting to give your child every advantage in life. With all the advice I’ve read, one that strikes me as particularly solid is to foster your child’s creativity and problem-solving skills through free play. No one tells you what to do. You simply use your imagination and the environment around you as inspiration. There are no ribbons to be earned, no goal set…

• Changing Your Life in 2012

  Peter Clemens

  16 Jan 2012 | 8:04 am

  By Peter Clemens It’s the beginning of a new year, and if you are like me, you’ve probably thought about how you want to make changes in your life this year. Maybe you want to finally commit to exercise or getting healthy. Maybe you want to find your passion or purpose in life. Maybe you want to simplify, find self-confidence, or improve a relationship. Maybe you want to do all of these things. What if you had the support of some of the top coaches, counselors, and self-improvement experts to achieve your goals and dreams? What if you had access to their courses, books, videos,and guides…

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  Charitable Gift Giving Blog: Gifts That Help

• Vases to Help Haiti

  steve

  26 Jan 2012 | 10:52 pm

  Macy’s Heart of Haiti Collection has a unique set of handcrafted vases from Haiti, including the Heart of Haiti Charlotte 1 Vase pictured here. If you bought your Bieber fever flowers (and if you didn’t, what are you waiting for?? ), this vase makes a great alternative to the glass vase that 1-800-Flowers gives you, and helps a great cause to boot!

• Music to Help Haiti

  steve

  23 Jan 2012 | 10:29 pm

  Since the first music CD to help Haiti was released a few weeks after the earthquake, a whole bunch of other artists have come together to produce their own albums to help Haiti. There’s one to suit just about every musical taste, and the proceeds are still going to help. Here are some of the more popular ones:  A Symphony Of Hope: The Haiti Project (Classical)   Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti (Family) Are You Listening (Gospel) Everybody Hurts (UK) We Will Lift You Up (FOR Haiti Relief) (Inspirational)

• Jewelry Hanger from Haiti – Birds in a Breadfruit Tree

  steve

  20 Jan 2012 | 10:24 pm

  This Birds in a Breadfruit Tree Jewelry Hanger from the Macy’s Heart of Haiti collection is a great way to support artisans of Haiti while displaying all your hanging jewelry in a beautiful and practical way. Made from recycled steel, this piece has a beautiful design of graceful birds in a breadfruit tree, a tree widely grown and used in Haiti. Your jewelry can serve as “fruit” for the tree; the more you hang the more beautiful it becomes. And of course, your purchase of this item will help the artisans who made it make a living to help rebuild their communities and their…

• Bieber Flowers for Valentine’s Day 2012

  steve

  17 Jan 2012 | 10:23 pm

  Okay, who doesn’t have Bieber Fever these days? Wish the Justin Bieber fan in your life a Happy Valentine’s Day with this Bieber Fever Bouquet. It’s a bouquet of one dozen multicolored roses in a glass vase, along with a teddy bear wearing a Justin Bieber T-Shirt and a free 4-month membership to Justin’s Fan Club. A portion of proceeds will go to Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit organization that is partnering to re-build schools in Haiti.

• Pot Holder and Over Mitts to Help Haiti

  steve

  14 Jan 2012 | 10:46 pm

  This Heart of Haiti Pot Holder and Oven Mitt in Blue is one of several we’ll be featuring this month from Macy’s Heart of Haiti Collection. This successful program was among the first to provide sustainable work for citizens of Haiti after the earthquake that wiped out huge amounts of raw materials and left their already-poor country in insecure and unsanity conditions. Proceeds from the initiative have helped artisans repair their homes, send their kids to school, and clothe their families. All while giving them the dignity and pride of creating these one-of-a-kind, high quality…

• 

  The GiveWell Blog

• What I learned in my first 6 months at GiveWell

  Alexander

  27 Jan 2012 | 10:34 am

  I started work at GiveWell six months ago, just a few weeks after graduating from college. I had been following GiveWell pretty intensely for more than a year, since I had gotten back from my own trip to India. During that time, I had become a little obsessed: I had read the entire history of the blog and got really excited each time GiveWell finally posted the audio from the most recent board meeting. Even as a serious GiveWell fan, though, there were a number of things that I didn’t know about the organization that I should have. These aren’t secrets or titillating stories about…

• Evaluation of American Red Cross Haiti response

  Holden

  27 Jan 2012 | 9:56 am

  We’ve been working on an update of our disaster relief report, and came across an American Red Cross evaluation from December 2010 stating: If you would like to access this report, please get in contact with the ALNAP secretariat. We emailed the ALNAP secretariat, saying: I am writing from GiveWell, an independent, non-profit charity evaluator to request access to the ALNAP report “American Red Cross – Haiti” that is listed on the ALNAP website at http://www.alnap.org/node/7131.aspx. Would it be possible to send us a copy of the report? The secretariat responded that the…

• Trading off upside vs. track record

  Holden

  19 Jan 2012 | 9:41 am

  We previously listed our five chief criteria for GiveWell Labs (a new arm of our research process that will be open to any giving opportunity, no matter what form and what sector). This post further discusses the first two of these criteria - “upside” and “high likelihood of success” - and the tradeoff between them. Upside We use “upside” to refer to the possibility that a philanthropic project will have a huge/outsized impact. While it’s a good thing to fund projects that have this kind of potential - and while a single hugely successful project can…

• How Tax Deductions and Processing Fees Make it Harder to Give Well

  Holden

  13 Jan 2012 | 9:44 am

  We spent a lot of time last month dealing with headaches around tax deductions and processing fees. We thought we’d share our experiences with these headaches, and how they get in the way of donors’ abilities to give as effectively as possible. We’re thinking about how to better deal with these issues in 2012. Tax deductibility shifts the focus from “having impact” to “navigating bureaucracy” Many governments, including the U.S., provide very large benefits for people who support government-recognized charities. These benefits can be the equivalent of…

• Update on GiveWell’s money moved and web traffic in 2011

  Natalie

  5 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pm

  2011 saw strong growth for GiveWell’s web traffic and “money moved” (dollars given based on our recommendations). This is our final quarterly report for the year, and most meaningful since it includes December (when we see the vast majority of our “money moved”). The numbers in this post are preliminary. We continue to learn about additional donations due to our research and will post an updated report when we publish our annual review in the coming weeks. Money moved By “money moved” we mean donations that we can confidently identify as being made on…

• 

  Everyday Giving Blog

• How to Get Involved with Microfinance

  Roger Carr

  26 Jan 2012 | 7:16 pm

  As a form of socially conscious investment, microfinance is an increasingly popular option for people who want to do something good – and there is plenty of scope to get involved. One study by Unitus found that up to 80% of the potential microfinance market had still not been reached, so there is clearly still a lot of work to be done. A lot of this is due to the fact that the key targets of microfinance charity are primarily poor, rural and often hard to reach. So, if you are interested in micro loans as a means of helping some of the world’s most disadvantaged people, how can you get…

• Wacky Ways to Raise Money for Charity

  Roger Carr

  22 Jan 2012 | 10:47 pm

  If there's a charity that's close to your heart, you've probably put at least some thought into raising money for it.  Sadly, in today's economic climate, it's hard to find people willing to donate to good causes.  It's not that people don't want to help - but there's not much in the way of spare money floating around these days, and people are constantly being bombarded with requests to sponsor charity runs, donate to raffles, pledge on someone's JustGiving page, or sign up for a monthly direct debit to donate to a specific cause. If you want to persuade people that your cause is…

• Non Profits Need Online Presence

  Roger Carr

  27 Dec 2011 | 7:00 am

  In order to be competitive nonprofit organizations, just like any other business, must develop and cultivate an online presence. The internet has become an integral part of daily life to almost everyone. Nonprofits now have unprecedented opportunity to recruit supporters and cultivate loyalty to their respective organizations. Because the internet has provided these vast fundraising and marketing opportunities, it’s critical that nonprofit organizations embrace technology and develop a strategic plan for an online presence immediately. New nonprofits should begin developing a strategy…

• Ten Companies That Know How to Give

  Roger Carr

  22 Dec 2011 | 1:03 pm

  10 Biggest Givers in the Corporate World by Kristy Ramirez When it comes to corporate philanthropy, there have been a lot of complaints from the workforces in this country that the highest income earners and corporations aren’t paying their fair share, so to speak. Especially in an unsettled economic climate; are businesses still donating to charities and other philanthropic organisations despite the drop in their overall profit margins? Luckily, the statistics prove that yes, millions- even billions- of dollars are still being given away by community-conscious corporations all over the…

• Changing your lifestyle: 4 Ways to make yourself feel good

  Roger Carr

  17 Nov 2011 | 11:37 am

  Whether it’s a bad day at work, the weathers getting you down or you just feel like you’ve had a pretty bad year, making yourself feel good again is hard work. A nice hot bath and chocolate used to do the trick but nowadays you’re craving something a little bigger. To help you find something that will improve the way you feel on a bigger scale, check out a few ideas below: Treat yourself Whether it’s pampering yourself, new clothes, or indulging in an expensive slap up meal, why not attempt to change your lifestyle all together? From the way that you look to who you hang out with, try…

• 

  Asian American Giving

• A Better Way to Share Annual Reports?

  Dien Yuen

  27 Jan 2012 | 11:50 pm

  Each year, nonprofit organizations spend valuable time and money on pulling together an annual report. The report may be the organizations' one and only 'about us' piece that they give to donors and prospects. It is filled with the usual list of contents, a letter from the chair and/or executive director, several stories of beneficiaries and donors, a donor list and financial statements, and maybe a listing or samples of projects showcasing its accomplishments.  I think annual reports are important because it allows the organization to report back to their donors and the community on how…

• Asian Americans Encouraged to Apply 01/18/2012

  Dien Yuen

  18 Jan 2012 | 3:42 pm

  * Center for Disaster Philanthropy seeking CEO. CDPis an exciting new venture thatwill change the face of emergency-related grant-making, moving it from a reactive and emotion-driven response, to one focused on increasing the effectiveness of the private donor’s dollar for the good of affected communities worldwide. CDP will offer three distinct services to donors: 1) a website and interactive portal; 2) a pooled funding mechanism with a unique preparedness, risk reduction and recovery focus; and 3) custom advisory services. * Korean American Community Foundation is now hiring…

• New Law in California Promotes Social Entrepreneurship

  Dien Yuen

  11 Oct 2011 | 4:57 am

  California passed a new law today that will support social enterprises. The new laws, AB 361 (Benefit Corporations) and SB 201 (Flexible Purpose Corporations) provides two additional forms of legal entities to consider for entrepreneurs wishing to create social enterprises. The laws primarily allows businesses to factor social good into their bottom line and is a definite win for social entrepreneurs in California. Traditionally, entrepreneurs have been limited to two primary corporate vehicles, the corporation and the limited liability corporation.  These forms are not appropriate for…

• Community Foundation Model Broken?

  Dien Yuen

  30 Sep 2011 | 12:12 pm

  The Council on Foundations held their annual community foundations conference in San Francisco last week. The importance and strengthen of community foundations in the philanthropic sector is undeniable. In the U.S., over 700 community foundations administer $31 billion in charitable funds (here is a great map of where they are located). But is the community foundation model broken or working too well in helping donors with their philanthropic interests? Many of us know the model of community foundations - they host, invest and adminster charitable funds that support local charitable…

• Asian Americans Encouraged to Apply 09/27/2011

  Dien Yuen

  27 Sep 2011 | 5:56 pm

  * Global Footprint Network is seeking a Vice President of Operations (Oakland, CA). Global Footprint Network is looking for a seasoned, mission-focused, and process-minded manager with experience executing an organization’s vision and strategy through day-to-day operations. The candidate also must demonstrate the ability to scale an organization, lead a senior management team, and develop a team-oriented culture among a group of diverse, talented individuals. * Cisco Corporate Affairs -- Public Benefit Investment team (PBI) is looking for an experienced and energetic Program Manager (San…

• 

  Elephantbeans

• New Ashtanga Flick: Mysore Magic Film

  admin

  23 Jan 2012 | 8:26 am

  MYSORE MAGIC:  Yoga at the Source Summary: Magic happens at the source of Ashtanga Yoga in Mysore, India. Thousands from across the planet journey here to deepen their practice. Hear what they say, and enjoy an insider’s view into the Mysore experience. *A portion of the proceeds from this film go to the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Charitable Fund. 22 minutes. $4.99 stream rental.  $9.99 download purchase. Websites: http://www.mysoremagicfilm.com/ https://distrify.com/films/983

• Leaping Lanka’s in Ink

  admin

  16 Jan 2012 | 6:01 pm

  While we aren’t sure about this Crossfit hooey pooey, LL is hilarious and now published. From Leaping Lanka: ‘ASHTANGA YOGA: Stories from Beyond the Mat’ IS OUT NOW Friends, ‘Ashtanga Yoga: Stories From Beyond the Mat’ is now on sale at Amazon: http://amzn.to/wQsTsL It’s a collection of stories, essays, sketches, how-tos, and comedy bit-lets, all written during the last 10 years, and all relating to the practice of Ashtanga Yoga. It’s one of the first of its kind in the Ashtanga community: no asana photos or “Intro to Yoga Philosophy 101,”…

• Studies: Ashtanga Yoga and Injuries

  admin

  10 Jan 2012 | 6:42 pm

  INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 18 (2008) 59 A Survey of Musculoskeletal Injury among Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Practitioners Jani Mikkonen, Palle Pedersen, DC, MPhil, DPMSA, Peter William McCarthy, PhD Welsh Institute of Chiropractic, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL, Wales, UK Introduction Recent research on Yoga has concentrated on its health benefits and therapeutic effects.1-4 Although there has been an increasing amount of research on the physical and thera- peutic effects of Yoga posture and breathing practices, it ap- pears that the musculoskeletal risks of Yoga…

• Yoga gives you energy.

  admin

  31 Dec 2011 | 10:16 am

  Apparently this is a real ad.

• Is Yoga a Religion? Kiki says “No way!”

  admin

  29 Dec 2011 | 6:44 am

  The Catholic church thinks it leads to Hinduism, the Hindu American Foundation wants to take it back, but Miss Kiki says leave my yoga alone – it ain’t a religion…

• 

  Kiva Loans

• Sop Cheikh Modou Awa Balla Group : Senegal

  28 Jan 2012 | 2:30 am

  $450 of $775 raised. Started raising funds on Jan 28, 2012 The group Sop Cheikh Modou Awa Balla was created on September 21, 2010, the day of Banc Villageois' first financing. It is made up of 6 members from the same village who are united by blood and neighborhood connections. All the women conduct some small business. Mame Faty is in charge. She is 42 years old, married, the mother of five children, and responsible for two others. She has had a baby clothing business for many years and conducts this business herself. The loan will allow her to buy clothing. Her objective is to increase her…

• Sorateñas Group : Bolivia

  28 Jan 2012 | 12:10 am

  $175 of $3,100 raised. Started raising funds on Jan 27, 2012 The unincorporated association “Sorateñas” will begin their fifth loan cycle with Pro Mujer. Making up the focal point of Los Andes, the group is comprised of eight members and is governed by a board of directors, led by Karina. The members of the communal association engage in a variety of business activities, including selling fruit, underwear, mutton, jackets, baby clothing and woollen jumpers. Karina tells us that this is the second year that she has worked with Pro Mujer, after having been invited to join the group by one…

• Nian : Iraq

  27 Jan 2012 | 9:30 pm

  $1,100 of $1,800 raised. Started raising funds on Jan 27, 2012 Nian is a smiling, shy mother of three small children. With her husband, they live in a modest Iraqi home. Since 2009, Nian has been helping to support the family by working from home on her sewing machine, making small sewing and tailoring works. Initially this was just a nice way to make clothes for the children and other items needed for the household, but it has outgrown the family to meet the needs of others as well. Nian took out a loan of $1800 US from Relief International - Iraq to purchase an over machine, an iron and…

• Angela : Zambia

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pm

  $3,450 of $5,000 raised. Started raising funds on Jan 27, 2012 Angela is a 30 year old divorced mother of two. She runs her own store as a Champion Agent for Mobile Transactions in Solwezi providing money transfer services to her community. She started her business in July 2011 because she has always wanted to have a business of her own and when the opportunity came through Mobile Transactions, she took it. Within a month of starting her business Angela was already doing more than 1000 money transfers a month. Access to financial services in Zambia is both scarce and expensive. Close to 10…

• Aness : Zambia

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pm

  $2,075 of $5,000 raised. Started raising funds on Jan 27, 2012 Aness started her business because of her passion for helping people. It is that same passion that has helped her grow her business from one customer a day to thirty a day. She believes that her mobile money business is vital for her community, which is just learning about the new technology of sending money using cellular phones. Her proudest moment so far when it comes to her business is getting her very first customer who she had to convince to send money using her service; she had to educate the person and will never forget…

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  Pamela Grow's Grantwriting Blog

• The 10 essentials of an ideal thank you letter

  Pamela Grow

  27 Jan 2012 | 6:37 am

  Are you creating partnerships with your donors?  A sense of loyalty and commitment? Blackbaud’s recent Growing Philanthropy in the United States report revealed that nonprofits have made little headway into reducing donor attrition rates.  According to recent data collected by the Association of Fundraising Professionals,”the pattern of retention for cash giving in the U.S.has worsened, with some organizations experiencing upwards of 70 percent attrition between the first and second gift.” Ouch. Your organization’s thank you letter is the important first step in creating loyal,…

• #smNPchat: Are you participating?

  Pamela Grow

  20 Jan 2012 | 12:08 pm

  How does the small, community-focused nonprofit organization “do-it-all?”  After all, you’re not an international charity with a database of 300,000, a development staff of 20 and a team of direct mail consultants at your beck and call. Nope, chances are you’re an executive director or development director who is responsible for writing the grant proposals, maintaining the communications calendar, copywriting, database management, event planning, stewardship and more. #smNPchat on Twitter was created in 2010 with you in mind.  On the first and third Friday of every month, Marc…

• Seven quintessential nonprofit resolutions for 2012…and beyond

  Pamela Grow

  13 Jan 2012 | 6:00 am

  Create a solid plan.  In the words of Yogi Berra:  If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.  How much do you want to raise from grants?  How much do you want to raise from individual donations – from direct mail, online, from your monthly giving program?  It’s not enough to have a plan, you’ve also got to work it! Put your focus on the lifetime value of a donor – and educate your board as well. Use a scalpel and eliminate any trace of nonprofit jargon from your organization’s communication pieces. Thank your donors right the…

• Nonprofit resolutions for 2012 | The experts weigh in

  Pamela Grow

  2 Jan 2012 | 6:28 am

  Welcome to 2012! What resolutions will you be making to advance your organization in 2012?  I asked a few of my friends and colleagues to share their best resolutions for 2012. Nonprofit database expert Robert Weiner said “like many people, my resolutions are often the same year after year.  If you’ve tried and failed to keep your resolutions, keep trying.”  His offers a resolution that every nonprofit should heed:  Be good to your data.  Robert says “I wrote this post two years ago and still stand behind it   I hope nonprofits will resolve to be good to their donor…

• I Heart Sparked!

  Pamela Grow

  14 Dec 2011 | 5:23 am

  A guest post from Mazarine Treyz of Wildwoman Fundraising   Are you that one person fundraising office with no graphic designer? Or do you even have a larger staff, but still people will never approve your budget when it includes graphic design? Do you have to DIYourself graphic design and are you just tearing your hair out? Do you need help with a logo? How about a job description? Does your Twitter background leave something to be desired? I hear you girl! You’ve probably never heard of Sparked.com. So let me tell you about this site. Here’s my hipster cat moment, I found…

• 

  Withism's from Lori

• Awesome example of using technology to keep supporters engaged

  24 Jan 2012 | 11:36 am

  I’m pretty busy and I’m certain you are too. The tidal wave of information coming at me all day long can be overwhelming and paralyzing. So it has to be something pretty darn engaging and interesting to get me to pause and spend more than the cursory 4 seconds on it. This past week I received a virtual "annual report" from charity: water, my favorite environmental charity. It arrived at the end of my workday on Friday, January 20 and so I didn’t actually do anything with it until Saturday morning when I usually spend a little time going through my email inbox. The subject…

• What is the first thing you do when you sit down at the computer?

  23 Jan 2012 | 7:33 pm

  Wisdom and advice from Seth Godin Over the years I’ve worked with literally thousands of organizations and their staff. One of the most often heard comments from development staff is usually, "I don’t have time to get to the relationship building part of this work." I believe it is actually a choice that the important, deeper connecting calls and meetings are not being scheduled into the day. As their coach I ask development staff to commit to make one donor phone call or set one donor meeting each day BEFORE they get pulled into that deep dark black hole of admin tasks never to…

• Six Steps to Exceptional Nonprofit Boards

  17 Jan 2012 | 11:38 am

  It’s more than just asking people to serve.  Board of Directors. Whether you have an advisory board or a full board of directors governing your social profit organization, having an exceptional board can be a hope, and a wish and dream for many.  I work closely with many organizations across the country each year and I often find that the time put into recruiting and orienting new board members is dismally inadequate.  I’ve added to a great list found in the article Recruiting for Board Members. Process? What Process? by colleague Hildy Gottlieb to give you a simple…

• Purposeful Planning: Four questions to assess annual fundraising success

  17 Jan 2012 | 11:19 am

  Taking time to review the year can increase individual donations  My final post on Reynold Levy’s book Yours For The Asking is about the importance of taking time to review your annual fundraising performance. This year I’ve provided a number of Purposeful Planning trainings and webinars to help organizations of all sizes create annual fund development plans. The simple framework I use is posted in the Resources section of my website. It’s an Excel document to help map out your annual plan and donor communication calendar. What may help is to be clear WHAT you are…

• Feeling Good is What Nonprofits Sell

  16 Jan 2012 | 4:13 pm

  I had the great honor to spend a day with Seth Godin last week. At the event I asked a question about how to get board members and entrenched staff to really dive into fundraising. I was looking for advice on how to move some of my clients and members to swing outside their comfort zone to engage others in giving money. My paraphrasing of Seth’s answer: Many CEOs of social profit organizations don’t really know how to give and therefore struggle with the ask. The reality is some CEOs don’t understand what it means to have their work be art and truly give. Transactions pull…

• 

  Happiness Blog for The Seekers of Inner Happiness

• Expand your vision and look at the beautiful life

  14 Jan 2012 | 9:15 am

  A critique once wrote a long letter pointing about all the shortcomings in a Saint and his followers. In the reply, the Saint wrote a short story, “A painter once drew a beautiful painting on a wall. Everyone who looked at the painting from a distance, got delighted and showered a few words of appreciation. At the same time, there were certain ants creeping on the wall trying to look for the holes. Unless the ant gets an expanded vision to look at the whole wall and appreciate the painting, it will continue to look for the holes.” Beauty or ugliness, Good or bad -it's all in your outlook.

• A sincere new year wish

  31 Dec 2011 | 8:39 am

  New-year time – the time of joy andfreshness; the time to celebrate andwelcome the new year with a lots of hope, optimism and enthusiasm; time to be with friends and family; time to makenew resolutions; time to thank God for all the blessings and pray for more.Yes, once again it’s that time of the year which brightens us all. A true seeker of inner happiness alsoremembers that along with the festivities and celebrations, it’s the time forsome calibration – the time to review and grade ourselves against the true goalsof human life – the goal of realizing the Truth; the goal of Self…

• If God created the world, then who created God?

  17 Dec 2011 | 8:26 am

  This question has equally baffled the young and the old; the wise and not so wise; the scientists and the spiritual beings, and even some of my friends. If you are also curious to take a deep dive for exploring the answer, then we have to analyze the question itself. The word "God" is perhaps the most widely perceived word in the language. It has varied meaning depending on the the upbringing, religion, culture and the mindset of the person, who is asking the question. Most of the religious people or I would say the beginners believe in a God with some form of personality (Vishnu, Shiva,…

• A true seeker tries to look for the best in others

  10 Dec 2011 | 9:21 am

  There is nothinggood or bad in the world; only your thinking, your mindset and your outlook makes it so. With anunderstanding of this universal law, a true seeker always try to lookat the virtues of others and shortcomings in himself. While countingthe merits in others, his own life begin to fill with merits. Whilenoticing the pleasing behavior of others, his own behavior becomespleasing. In the beginning if its difficult for you to find virtuesin others, then sing, hear, read or remember the virtues of God inthe company of devotees. The devotees sing praises of God,contemplate at the divine…

• Relation between Soul and the God

  27 Nov 2011 | 9:40 am

  A disciple askedthe Self realized master, “Dear Sir, what is the relation betweenSoul and God?”The master closedhis eyes for a moment and then said in his deep and calm voice, “Son,the relation between soul and the Supreme Soul, the God, is similar tothe relation between the water drop and ocean; relation between thegold ornaments and gold; relation between the body and the nature.”“Respectedmaster, can you please explain it in a little more detail.”“The goldornaments exists in a variety of shape and form; but these ornamentsoriginates from gold and then finally, after years of…

• 

  ApplaUSe For A Cause

• Reece's Rainbows: The Voice of Orphans with Special Needs Throughout the World

  Cynthia Coleman

  15 Jan 2012 | 8:21 pm

  Grab This! There are a lot of sad stories and charities that tug at your heartstrings and purse-strings, but a story featuring  Ukraine Orphans with Down Syndrome being placed in a mental institution with adults at the ages of 4 and 5 really got to me. As much as I'd like to be able to adopt one of these children, I'm not at a place in my life where I can. There are lots of ways to help Reece's Rainbows Adoption Ministry help these children without adopting or giving money on their site, but if you are able there are contacts for that on their website as well. Reece's Rainbow has a…

• Updated: Honor Society to "Rock The Red Kettle" For Salvation Army

  Cynthia Coleman

  3 Jan 2012 | 4:30 pm

  Image via Wikipedia Cover of Jonas Brothers Image via Wikipedia  Honor Society, once a warm up act 2 years ago for The Jonas Brothers, is now joining the Salvation Army for the second time on the "Rock The Red Kettle" tour.    See the link above for more info on the tour. Not only are the band members of Honor Society helping rase awareness for the Salvation Army's Kettle Campaig, but the Salvation Army blog states that they frequently volunteer and make surprise visits at their centers. Volunteering at centers in your area, donating and buying items at the thrift stores,…

• Prince William breaks into dance at charity event - CBS News Video

  Cynthia Coleman

  2 Jan 2012 | 9:11 pm

  Image by Getty Images via @daylife Image via Wikipedia Image by jpangan3 via Flickr Prince William breaks into dance at charity event - CBS News Video   As reported by CBS News, Prince William was seen dancing at a charity event for a homeless shelter. He and his wife Kate had attended the event on December 21st, 2011. Centrepoint had been one of the late Princess Diana's favorite causes and now is among Prince William's favorite causes, as well.  Google+Seed Newsvine Chime.in Related articles Prince William And Kate Middleton Celebrated New Year's Eve In A Teepee (thegloss.com)…

• Real Christmas Giving Articles To Warm Your Heart

  Cynthia Coleman

  24 Dec 2011 | 1:05 pm

  Christian Glitter by www.christianglitter.com Bikes, party spread holiday cheer by Chattanooga Times Free Press A message from God on Christmas Eve  by Naples News-Naples, FL   In Grand Bank, charity becomes year-round tradition by CBC News. Canada Google+ Seed Newsvine Chime.in Related articles 7 Years of Merry Christmas With Love (ccol4him.blogspot.com) Homepage Heroes-A New Search Site for Charity (applause4acause.blogspot.com) Winter Holiday Fireside Moments Interview with Mary Moody (blogcritics.org) Christmas Eve Traditions (girlmeetsbulgaria.com) Christmas Eve, Poem…

• 22 Dec 2011 | 2:36 pm

  Cynthia Coleman

  22 Dec 2011 | 2:36 pm

  Controlling Your Inner Grinch http://ping.fm/uIseU

• 

  The Levity Institute

• Unarmored Living

  levity

  23 Jan 2012 | 1:03 pm

    Imagine this: You are standing in a field, a battle field to be frank. All around you is evidence of the war at hand.  It is a scene of destruction, yet to your credit you are still standing as a mighty warrior. Perhaps you are almost victorious.  But maybe not quite. You still feel the pending danger, the approach of the enemy. It never leaves-this feeling of looking out for the attack-watching vigilantly, sword in hand at the ready.  Even as the victor you still fear the attack. Is it truly a victory if this feeling still remains within? Imagine having this awareness on your…

• The Levity Project featured on This Gives Me Hope

  levity

  15 Jan 2012 | 11:12 pm

  #206 Live life like a party December 2, 2011 They’re getting their groove on in supermarket aisles in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, California, South Dakota, Québec, Maine, Missouri, Maine, Ontario, Illinois, Rhode Island, and New Mexico. They’re dancing with their shopping carts and with each other, as if they really “get” the film’s message to, “Live life like the party you’ve always wanted.” When my friend, Joanne, posted the link to the video below, I watched it with a big grin on my face. I’d never heard of the Levity Institute, but who could resist checking out “a…

• Bubbles of Joy : Our New Micro-movement

  levity

  11 Jan 2012 | 10:34 am

  The Levity Project is asking for your help with our new micro-movement. BLOWING BUBBLES OF JOY  What is it?  A micro-movement is when we at The Levity Project send out a mission to Levity Project Players around the world that you can do in your own town or city with yourself or with friends and family (or strangers!). The idea of The Levity Project is that when we live in our own true joy and radiance it inspires those around us. We believe we are agents of change by who we are not just in what we do.  So we begin within with our own inner levity, and then we enjoy going into a public…

• Happy December!

  levity

  5 Dec 2011 | 9:13 am

  Enjoy these days of this month of December in its busy or quiet ways. We wish for each of us that we notice each moment as it is happening without a story or without wishing it to be a certain way. Instead, may we each be explorers in our lives this month, allowing ourselves to experience wonder in each moment just as it is.  May we marvel at whatever comes our way with open, warm and light hearts. We will return January 3rd with our Cafe Levity offerings and in the meantime, we offer you this sweet video that came out a while ago.

• The Smile-Effect

  levity

  28 Nov 2011 | 9:46 pm

  (Reprinted from July 2010 by request) Part of why I love The Levity Project is not only in bringing amazing people together to do events, but it is the more subtle side of how it affects my life in the days in between the all the big fun we create in public.  The Levity Project all started because of an unexpected     moment which woke me up to the idea I can make a difference simply    by how I choose to see and live each day. And in the middle of the launch of the smile micro-movement video   (July 2010) with The Levity Project Team, I experienced another one      of those moments…

• 

  Shareable - Sharing by design

• Network Provides Global Access To Coworking Spaces

  BethB

  25 Jan 2012 | 5:53 pm

  Create post Coworking spaces provide mobile workers with a laptop-friendly place to network and collaborate. Many coworkers view their local coworking spaces as a refuge from the distractions of a home office or the cramped conditions of a coffee shop. But traveling, a common requirement for remote and freelance professionals, presents a unique problem for coworking regulars. Not only can it be arduous to locate a coworking space in a new city, but drop-in fees can be an unwelcome expense. For years coworkers have longed for a streamlined way to access coworking spaces around the world…

• Can Coworking and City Governments Partner?

  BethB

  25 Jan 2012 | 5:51 pm

  Create post Coworking represents the future of work, and city governments are entrenched in the past. Despite their differences, the two often have similar goals for the larger community, and can sometimes benefit from collaboration. NextSpace, a family of coworking spaces sprinkled throughout California, has had lots of positive experience working with local governments, but they did have a bit of an unfair advantage. "I was the economic development manager for the city of Santa Cruz just before we started NextSpace," says CEO Jeremy Neuner. "One of my co-founders, Ryan…

• Working Together in the City That Works

  Daniel Schugurensky

  25 Jan 2012 | 4:16 pm

  Create post “When people are given enough information and time to deliberate, they generally make sound decisions”  - Joe Moore Joe Moore is the Alderman of Chicago’s 49th Ward. A lawyer by training, he has devoted the last two decades to serve as an elected official in his ward. In 2009, he initiated the first participatory budget in the United States. Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process of deliberation and decision-making that started in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 1989, and is now implemented in over 1,000 cities around the world. In this interview, Joe…

• Embody The Movement: Dancing for Economic Justice

  magalie

  25 Jan 2012 | 12:38 pm

  Create post A day of hard rain and wind could not dampen the spirits of activists representing the 99% as they gathered at Justin Herman Plaza (dubbed Bradley Manning Plaza by locals) in San Francisco on Friday, January 20th, 2012, to mark the dark anniversary of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision with a day of action. Organized by a coalition of over 55 Bay Area organizations and dozens of OccupySF affinity groups, protestors disrupted business as usual with demands that banks end predatory evictions and foreclosures and that corporations lose the rights of personhood. The day was…

• So You Want to Build a Little Free Library?

  Cat Johnson

  24 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pm

  Create post Little Free Libraries are, indeed, popping up all over. Since the first one in Hudson, Wisconsin, the simple, yet profound idea of sharing books via these little structures has spread across the U.S. and into Mexico, Canada, Germany, Ghana and the U.K. More are in the works in France, Afghanistan, Nepal, India and more. The Little Free Library goal is to build more libraries than Andrew Carnegie, who built 2,510. Want to get involved and establish a Little Free Library in your community? Here are some tips and resources to help you get started, along with photos of completed…

• 

  Shareable: CivicSystem

• Working Together in the City That Works

  Daniel Schugurensky

  25 Jan 2012 | 4:16 pm

  Create post “When people are given enough information and time to deliberate, they generally make sound decisions”  - Joe Moore Joe Moore is the Alderman of Chicago’s 49th Ward. A lawyer by training, he has devoted the last two decades to serve as an elected official in his ward. In 2009, he initiated the first participatory budget in the United States. Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process of deliberation and decision-making that started in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 1989, and is now implemented in over 1,000 cities around the world. In this interview, Joe…

• Embody The Movement: Dancing for Economic Justice

  magalie

  25 Jan 2012 | 12:38 pm

  Create post A day of hard rain and wind could not dampen the spirits of activists representing the 99% as they gathered at Justin Herman Plaza (dubbed Bradley Manning Plaza by locals) in San Francisco on Friday, January 20th, 2012, to mark the dark anniversary of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision with a day of action. Organized by a coalition of over 55 Bay Area organizations and dozens of OccupySF affinity groups, protestors disrupted business as usual with demands that banks end predatory evictions and foreclosures and that corporations lose the rights of personhood. The day was…

• The Forever Shareable Martin Luther King

  Neal Gorenflo

  16 Jan 2012 | 10:40 am

  Create post Happy Martin Luther King day. Dr. King was one of the all time sharing superstars. After all, a world that shares is one that shares across all lines of difference. His words are as potent and relevant today as in 1963. Today, it's clear that we can't afford to create separate infrastructure and resource pools for different groups of people. We need to learn how to live close together and share to save our species. The viability of a global civilization depends on developing systems that offer inclusive, shared access the resources people need to provision everyday…

• Composting Anger at Occupy: An Oasis of Calm Amidst the Camp

  Madeleine Lansky

  28 Dec 2011 | 9:21 pm

  Create post “I’m being raped!” screamed Georgia (not her real name) at the top of her lungs. “I’ve BEEN raped...and I’m BEING raped... and I WAS raped--and I’ve murdered people, too!” Georgia is an elderly homeless woman who had been seen mumbling to herself and talking to auditory hallucinations around the Occupy San Francisco camp site. She was one of the attendees of our first Composting Anger meeting at the camp, which had just commenced five minutes prior.  “No!  Not NOW!” barked Georgia, when the class looked at her…

• Time to Occupy the Calendar

  Neal Gorenflo

  28 Dec 2011 | 10:17 am

  Create post As the holidays and year comes to a close, I find myself asking again a long asked question. What kind of holidays should be celebrated by a citizen, sharer, and commons advocate? The need for an answer seems more urgent that ever for what we have is partly rotten and personally speaking, I need something different. As it is, many holidays have been hopelessly co-opted by corporations or they're no longer appropriate for public observance in a pluralistic global society. I've long restrained my participation in certain holidays, but abstaining is no longer enough. I seek a…

• 

  Shareable: Community

• 12 Reasons You'll Hear More About the Commons in 2012

  Jay Walljasper

  4 Jan 2012 | 6:10 pm

  Create post 1. The Commons is Essential to Our Health, Security & Survival The commons comprises valuable assets that belong to all of us. This includes clean air and fresh water; national parks and city streets; the Internet and scientific knowledge; ethnic cuisines and hip-hop rhythms; the U.S. Weather Service and blood banks. But it’s more than just things—it’s also the set of relationship that make those things work. When you stop to think about it, most essential elements of our lives exist outside the realm of private property. 2. Discovery of the Commons Signals a…

• Occupy My Soul

  suresh

  27 Dec 2011 | 1:36 pm

  Create post The only way to describe what has happened to myself and a number of Occupy Vancouver organizers (and I suspect many other occupy organizers across the world) is to realize that we have been occupied by occupy! We have been captured and consumed by something that we don’t understand but that has served to rock our world; and that we know is something deeply important. Fortunately as we transition to Phase II (post encampment phase), we have some time to reflect. On the surface occupy is a political movement. In actual fact it is much more... It represents the crystallization…

• How One Business Collective Works

  Jeremy Adam Smith

  16 Dec 2011 | 1:31 pm

  Create post I was recently a fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, Knight Digital Media Center, which teaches multimedia skills to journalists. There I made this profile of a collectively run and operated business with my colleague Andrea King Collier. Bear in mind this was the first time both Andrea and I had ever tried to make a video--I'm especially aware that the camera work sucks. But, even so, I thought Shareable.net readers might find the topic interesting: a successful business run with shareable values. Cheeseboard Collective from Jeremy Adam Smith on Vimeo. Editor…

• A Home for Occupy

  WishSmith

  15 Dec 2011 | 9:45 am

  Create post The Occupy movement represents not only a stand against the tyranny of finance capitalism, but also a revival of the role of the commons for a vital civic life. People are once again coming together face-to-face and shoulder-to-shoulder to confront their common challenges and craft new ways to meet them. They are exploring what kind of life they can share with which to create a free, just, sustainable society. Occupy demonstrates that to transform society we must change not only the way we understand and organize ourselves, but also the way we physically come together. The…

• Shouldn't Xmas Be the Ultimate Sharing Experience?

  Shabnam

  29 Nov 2011 | 11:46 am

  Create post Neal's account of his donation exchange for Christmas, instead of presents, is not only a great read, but  it makes you (re)think and ask what is Christmas all about. a) Running around like a chicken without a head, trying to buy useless presents? or b) Sharing a special moment with loved ones? Trick question: I know... Sick in bed last year on the 25th, I was listening to the French news radio, when I heard a three year old girl screeching because "Santa Claus didn't bring what I ordered". What struck me was how a little girl had absorbed such a notion as…

• 

  Shareable: EcoSystem

• Car Sharing: The Antidote To Rising GHG Emissions

  BethB

  17 Jan 2012 | 11:11 am

  Create post Car sharing, one of the most quickly growing forms of collaborative consumption, is often hailed as a way to enjoy access to a car when you need one, without the cost and inconvenience of owning one when you don't. With studies showing that most personal vehicles sit idle almost 23 hours out of every day, it's no wonder that many families have actually given up vehicle ownership to take advantage of the money saving benefits of a car sharing program instead. But a recent study by the University of California at Berkeley found that saving money isn't the only compelling…

• Can Atmospheric Trusts Save Us From Climate Change?

  David Bollier

  2 Jan 2012 | 10:05 am

  Create post This article reprinted with permission from Bollier.org. So another climate change summit (Durban, South Africa) has produced no action, even in the face of mounting evidence of the deterioration of the planet's atmosphere. Climate change denial has now moved from the right-wing, wacko fringe to the pinnacles of “respectable” power as top government officials refuse to take serious action in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence (see Mark Hertsgaard's account of the Durban talks in The Nation.)  Meanwhile, despite his 2008 campaign…

• Blazing A Trail For Community-Based Clean Energy

  BethB

  9 Dec 2011 | 10:32 am

  Create post The City of Davis, California, is blessed with two things: an abundance of sunshine and lots of beautiful, mature trees to provide a natural refuge from it. These trees, carefully planted by several generations of Davis' residents, helps to keep energy costs down by protecting homes and businesses from the direct heat of the sun. Unfortunately, the trees present a unique problem for Davis residents who want to utilize the sun with rooftop solar panels. In order for Davis to be a leader in energy efficiency as well as production, they had to find a way to harness the…

• Garbage is a Terrible Thing to Waste: How to Reach Zero Waste

  Shawn Williamson

  16 Nov 2011 | 2:42 pm

  Create post It all started innocently enough. Following the Holidays and New Year of 2007 we emptied out all of our garbage and recycling to clean up for the New Year. Many months later (May 14) it was time to put out our first bag of garbage and it dawned on me that in over four months we had only created a single bag of garbage. I wondered where could we take it to if we really dug in? Well … A few months ago we put out our fourth bag of garbage in more than four years Our most recent bag took 26 months to fill We have reduced our residual waste output (a.k.a. garbage) by 40%, We…

• Meghalaya's Living Bridges

  Paul M. Davis

  21 Oct 2011 | 1:37 pm

  Create post In Meghalaya, India, "the wettest place on Earth", summer monsoons cause floods and rapids that are nearly imposible to cross. Residents have responded by building "living bridges" out of the roots of fig trees. These still-living roots allow bridges that continue to grow and strengthen over the years. No one person can complete a bridge alone, so the practice is passed down from one generation to the next, with the construction of bridges spanning entire lifetimes. This is sustainable architecture in practice, and a stunning testament to the power of…

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  Shareable: Life & Art

• So You Want to Build a Little Free Library?

  Cat Johnson

  24 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pm

  Create post Little Free Libraries are, indeed, popping up all over. Since the first one in Hudson, Wisconsin, the simple, yet profound idea of sharing books via these little structures has spread across the U.S. and into Mexico, Canada, Germany, Ghana and the U.K. More are in the works in France, Afghanistan, Nepal, India and more. The Little Free Library goal is to build more libraries than Andrew Carnegie, who built 2,510. Want to get involved and establish a Little Free Library in your community? Here are some tips and resources to help you get started, along with photos of completed…

• January 21 Is World Swap Day!

  BethB

  20 Jan 2012 | 11:13 am

  Create post Need new clothes, but can't afford them? Pining for a new book, but can't justify the expense when there are dozens gathering dust in your living room? Want to plant a garden this year, but aren't sure if you've got the capital for seeds? Don't worry: swapping is the new shopping, and Saturday January 21st is World Swap Day! According to Earth911, Swap Day was created by Amy Chase and Melissa Massello, The Swapaholics. These two Boston women who turned their shared love of vintage and thrift shopping into a career. In addition to organizing swap events in…

• PDX Lending Library Offers Shareable Wedding Decor

  BethB

  19 Jan 2012 | 12:31 pm

  Create post A recent study by Brides Magazine found that most American couples get engaged during the month of December. That means lot of men and women out there in the beginning stages of wedding planning...and the intermediate stages of realizing that weddings can be a very costly affair. Weddings are becoming more non-traditional by the day, but no matter how "outside the box" you want to be there are some elements that everyone expects: food, flowers, pretty outfits, and delicious libations. And these elements can be expensive, even for family-only affairs. But why should…

• New Communities Support Families Headed by Grandparents

  Cat Johnson

  18 Jan 2012 | 1:17 pm

  Create post In the middle of the Bronx in New York City, a community is redefining what family housing can be. Home to over 150 residents, the PSS/WSF Grandparent Family Apartments provides parenting workshops, after-school programs, counseling, community get-togethers, legal services, job training, summer camp and more. The catch is that you have to be a grandparent raising a grandchild to live here. Families headed by grandparents, or grandfamilies as they are often called, are a growing segment of the population. According to the U.S. Census, nearly 5 million children across the country…

• Crafting Community on a Ride with Strangers

  emilycastor

  18 Jan 2012 | 1:05 pm

  Create post On the afternoon of December 30, I was sitting in the middle of the backseat of a rented black Chevy Impala, sandwiched between two muscular strangers as the car hurtled down the 5 freeway. Up front, two foreigners I had just met took turns at the wheel while the sun set in a pink haze over the desolate expanse of California's Central Valley.  Just then, Luali turned flashing an alabaster grin to offer me a crisp organic apple. I was ridesharing. Choosing to Travel with Strangers The day before, I had made a last-minute decision to travel from San Francisco to LA to spend…

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  Shareable: Science & Tech

• Aggregation, Not Algorithms, Is The Key To Establishing Trust Online

  Kusti

  10 Jan 2012 | 1:27 pm

  Create post The biggest issue the new sharing economy is currently facing is one of trust. After issues like the Airbnb debacle and high-end car sharing service HiGear’s closure due to theft, it's clear that trust issues are the main barrier preventing sharing from becoming mainstream. The answer that everyone seems to be looking for is a some sort of global reputation system. There has been a lot of talk about a single "reputation score" that you could take with you in any new service. At a first glance the idea seems like a winner: with every action you do in the web…

• Think Like the Internet: How to Beat Facebook

  forteller

  5 Jan 2012 | 11:23 am

  Create post The dominance of Facebook is a democratic problem. Our only hope is to use the same tactic the internet used to win against the networks of the time: Open up for collaboration between networks. This is done through federation. Here is how and why it will work, and how you can help. At a recent conference in Norway, Clay Shirky was asked what he thinks of the domination of Facebook. His answer is discouraging. You can see it below, but in short he says that Facebook might now be so big that it’s impossible to challenge its dominance. Facebook has 800 million active users…

• The Top 11 Citizen Science Projects of 2011

  johnohab

  2 Jan 2012 | 7:09 pm

  Create post Drumroll, please! Here are SciStarter’s top 11 citizen science projects from the past year. The list was generated based on the number of visits in our Project Finder. 11. ClimatePrediction.net Climateprediction.net is a distributed computing project that aims to produce predictions of the Earth’s climate up to the year 2300 and to test the accuracy of climate models. To do this, the project needs people around the world to volunteer time on their computers – time when their computers are on but not being used at full capacity. 10. Gravestone Project Help…

• Facebook Poses a Far Greater Threat to the Web than Apple

  Paul M. Davis

  2 Jan 2012 | 3:42 pm

  Create post It's a common refrain: “Apple’s walled garden threatens the open web.” NPR’s Laura Sydell warns that “Apple’s mobile devices more like living in a gated community than being out in an open city.” At BoingBoing, a prominent voice in the crusade against Apple’s supposed hegemony, Rob Beschizza writes “Apple’s taste in UI convention, inoffensiveness and so on is not shared by all. It’s a combination that serves its bottom line: ‘make good apps, devs, but not ones that make us look bad or compete with…

• Ten Ways to Give Old Gadgets a New Lease on Life

  Paul M. Davis

  28 Dec 2011 | 1:12 pm

  Create post Didn’t get the tablet you wanted for the holidays? Kids still begging for an iPod Touch? Or did you get the device you were hoping for, but now you have an old computer or gadget sitting around, awaiting its sad fate? Don’t toss that old device out yet! The computers and gadgets we’ve purchased over the past decade are incredibly sophisticated pieces of technology, and there are plenty of ways to repurpose the old laptops, desktops, and devices gathering dust in the storage closet and get many more years of use from them. Turn an old Xbox, Wii or Mac Mini into a…

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  Shareable: Work & Enterprise

• Network Provides Global Access To Coworking Spaces

  BethB

  25 Jan 2012 | 5:53 pm

  Create post Coworking spaces provide mobile workers with a laptop-friendly place to network and collaborate. Many coworkers view their local coworking spaces as a refuge from the distractions of a home office or the cramped conditions of a coffee shop. But traveling, a common requirement for remote and freelance professionals, presents a unique problem for coworking regulars. Not only can it be arduous to locate a coworking space in a new city, but drop-in fees can be an unwelcome expense. For years coworkers have longed for a streamlined way to access coworking spaces around the world…

• Can Coworking and City Governments Partner?

  BethB

  25 Jan 2012 | 5:51 pm

  Create post Coworking represents the future of work, and city governments are entrenched in the past. Despite their differences, the two often have similar goals for the larger community, and can sometimes benefit from collaboration. NextSpace, a family of coworking spaces sprinkled throughout California, has had lots of positive experience working with local governments, but they did have a bit of an unfair advantage. "I was the economic development manager for the city of Santa Cruz just before we started NextSpace," says CEO Jeremy Neuner. "One of my co-founders, Ryan…

• The Leap from Jelly to Coworking: How to Choose a Space

  NightOwlsPress

  20 Jan 2012 | 4:25 pm

  Create post For a week, from January 16 - 22, indie workers around the world are getting together for Worldwide Jellyweek. A Jelly is the perfect litmus test for freelancers, mobile workers, and startups figuring out whether they’ll enjoy working in collaborative work environments (check out this "Guide to Casual Coworking" for tips on working at a Jelly). But if you’re already hooked on the idea, and want something more structured, the natural next step is to road test a local coworking space. While coworking spaces share the same tenets of community, collaboration,…

• So, I'm getting a PhD in Precarity

  Yelizavetta Kofman

  18 Jan 2012 | 9:10 pm

  Create post I'm getting a PhD in sociology. Why? Because I didn't like my first (and only) job, I'm good at school, and I love sociology. I've come to realize that these are absolutely abysmal reasons to get a PhD. But I'm three years in, so I've decided to roll with it.  On the bright side, I've stumbled on an area of research that I'm pretty fascinated with (which is good because it will be the only thing I think, read, and write about for the several years it takes me to finish a dissertation).  The topic I’m researching is precarious…

• Coworking for Introverts?

  NightOwlsPress

  18 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pm

  Create post In a fascinating new book by Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, two different work styles are pit starkly against each other: on one side, we have the pro-collaboration camp, and on the other the more inward-looking solitude-is-good supporters. This debate on the best type of work style has important implications for various models of coworking. Coworking advocates have always prided themselves on the values of collaboration. It is the movement's mantra. The coworking revolution itself sits at the heart of a general shift…

• 

  Donate a Car to Charity - CharityCar.us blog

• Monster Jam Sponsorship

  admin

  23 Jan 2012 | 12:07 pm

  We had a chance to do a little promotion at the Monster Jam Tour Toronto with our founding member (Standard Auto Wreckers).  This show was so much fun!!!

• Selena Gomez to Sing for Charity

  admin

  5 Jan 2012 | 10:45 am

  Selena Gomez has announced her second annual charity concert for UNICEF. The ‘Hit The Lights’ singer and her band The Scene will perform at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, California on Friday, January 20. Fan club tickets go on sale today (January 5) from 10am PT through her official website, with general public tickets then available from January 6 at 5pm PT through Ticketmaster.  Gomez teased the event on her Twitter account, writing: “Have some surprise guests lined up for the UNICEF charity show… can’t wait to share them with you.” She added in…

• Sir Richard Branson Keeps Giving

  admin

  5 Dec 2011 | 8:41 am

  The Knowledge to Action foundation was first conceived in November 2010 when Greg and I were at The Ubuntu Education Fund’s spectacular gala dinner in New York. With The Dave Matthews band playing and hosted by Chris Rock’s wife, it was an incredible evening with close to 700 people in attendance. The star studded crowd pulled together in the spirit of giving and among them managed to raise over $2 million dollars for this worthy cause. We were both blown away by how much money the evening raised for the charity. That evening really showed us that when people work together big things can…

• Rhythmix – the Band or the Charity?

  admin

  1 Nov 2011 | 5:00 am

  The X Factor girl group Rhythmix are to change their name, following a threat of legal action by a Brighton charity with the same name. The charity uses music to help disadvantaged youngsters and claims Simon Cowell’s production company Syco had initially failed to enter into a discussion about the name clash. It said that having a band with the same name would affect its future work. The X Factor said the girls would announce a new name “in due course”. Producers at X Factor said they knew the charity existed, although the band had originally settled on the name without…

• Nancy Kerrigan Promoted Worthwhile Charity

  admin

  11 Oct 2011 | 9:36 am

  The Buoniconti Fund’s aim find a cure for paralysis resulting from spinal cord injuries. The fund was founded by football legend Nick Buoniconti after his son Marc suffered a spinal cord injury during a college football game. Each year, The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis holds the Great Sports Legends Dinner honoring sports figures and philanthropic heroes in order to bring awareness and support to the fund. This year’s 26th Annual Great Sports Legends Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York raised more than $10 million for paralysis research. One of the standout sports…

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  Charity Car Donation News

• Charity Car Visits Monster Jam Toronto

  jg

  23 Jan 2012 | 12:10 pm

  Our founding member, StandardAutoWreckers.com was a sponsor (and supplier of junk cars) for the Monster Jam Tour – Toronto and we got a little brand promotion ourselves!!!

• Car Recycling Idea

  jg

  3 Jan 2012 | 5:15 pm

  This junk car was turned into a mini playground in Ireland.

• Canadians Slightly More Giving in 2010

  jg

  5 Dec 2011 | 8:39 am

  Canadians gave more to charity in 2010, showing signs that philanthropic giving is rebounding after the last two years of recession. Statistics Canada data released Monday show that tax filers claimed just under $8.3-billion in 2010, up 6.5 per cent from 2009. At the same time, the number of donors increased 2.2 per cent to just over 5.7 million Canadians. While the percentage of Canadians claiming donations has been steadily dropping since 1997, the figure also climbed back slightly to 23.4 per up from the all-time low of 23.1 per cent. The national median donation was $260 in 2010, which…

• Tana Silverland Cycling for Charity

  jg

  31 Oct 2011 | 11:05 pm

  Tana Silverland, a Brit who relocated to Canada in 2010, is cycling to communities across the country to raise awareness sand money for SOS Children’s Villages. She stayed in Goderich the weekend of Oct. 21-22 and headed to Exeter, Sarnia, London on her tricycle. When Tana Silverland landed in Canada in June 2010 from the United Kingdom, she immediately set out on a cross-country odyssey to visit as many Canadian communities as possible. Read the full article here.

• Oh Nelly, She Did the Right Thing!

  jg

  11 Oct 2011 | 9:39 am

  Canadian pop singer Nelly Furtado says she is donating the $1 million she earned to perform for members of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s family to the Free the Children charity. Furtado said in February she would donate the money from a 2007 show in Italy for members of Gadhafi’s family. She made this latest announcement Tuesday at a youth empowerment day organized by Canadian co-founders of Free the Children. Read the full article here.

• 

  Hope Spark | Home

• cordoba guitars

  28 Jan 2012 | 5:41 am

  We were hunting for cordoba guitars, and I stumbled upon this website. Really neat information. A whole lot of neat critical reviews on the best categories of cordoba guitars. Definitely worth trying out.1 Vote(s)

• counter strike

  28 Jan 2012 | 5:37 am

  En hizli buyuyen, en kaliteli ve en hizli forum. Bircok sey hakkinda tartisabileceginiz bir yer.1 Vote(s)

• Batman and Spiderman Halloween costumes

  28 Jan 2012 | 5:34 am

  Since a couple of years the Batman, Spiderman and Superman costumes are considered as best superhero costumes. But now they have become immensely common. Thus you may get some new Halloween costume ideas and you may try them so as to stand ahead of the crowd. This will really help you look great and outstanding.1 Vote(s)

• Vets in Surrey

  28 Jan 2012 | 5:34 am

  We are offering Animal Hospitals, Veterinary, Pet Hospital, Veterinarians Hospital and Vets in Surrey. Our services and facility provide preventive care for young, healthy pets; early detection and treatment of disease and complete medical and surgical care as necessary during his or her lifetime. 1 Vote(s)

• nutrition supplement

  28 Jan 2012 | 5:18 am

  The mission of Hydrolagen, LLC is to provide distinctive, high quality and affordable supplements that benefit the entire body. Affordable Supplements, Bodybuilding Supplements, Protein Supplements. Hydrolyzed Affiliate Login: Hydrolagen is an all-natural supplement for adults looking to ensure their longevity, vitality, and overall good health.1 Vote(s)

• 

  Peter Larson & Blue Design

• The Ant Watcher

  Peter Larson

  27 Jan 2012 | 7:55 am

  Here in the darkness of winter in the Finger Lakes, I like to think of the bright days of summer. There’s an annual summer event at my house which is not memorialized on any calendar, although it means more to me than quite a few of the federal holidays. I wasn’t the one that discovered this event; it was my son Henry, who is watching me in the photo above. Henry is three years old, fascinated with all things that roll or float, and quite a resourceful little guy. I imagine his resourcefulness is a product of having two older and more vocal sisters. Henry is also one of the finest…

• Speaking at the Onondaga Historical Association

  Peter Larson

  21 Jan 2012 | 6:12 am

  Ed McGraw and I will be speaking at the Onondaga Historical Association on Wednesday, January 25 at noon as part of the Onondaga Historical Association’s “Landmarks of New York” lecture series, 321 Montgomery Street in Syracuse. The event is free and open to the public. We will be talking about the ways we connect our future and our past, as well as giving an overview of Blue Design.  Hmmm…talking about the future at a historical association; how ironic! Should be fun; hope to see you there.

• Subjective and Proud of It!

  Peter Larson

  20 Jan 2012 | 12:41 pm

  I experience the world emotionally. Reason may kick in to confirm or change my emotional response, but the emotional response is the first and most permanent reaction. I have matured to trust my emotions. I have a strong emotional reaction to the ways the things we make meet our natural environment. Lately I have been focusing on how trees are treated in urban environments. Take a look the next time you are out walking in the city. You’ll find trees are treated many different ways where they meet the ground. I see each case as a small expression of our relationship to nature. Paving running…

• Rhythms

  Peter Larson

  20 Dec 2011 | 4:08 pm

  Rhythms: The sun’s angle, the weather’s bite, the garden’s cycle. Repeating arcs, long and short. We are rhythmic; internal beats syncopating and disassociating with what surrounds, synergy and discord. Never long at equilibrium; leaning and alive. There is no stasis, no single arrangement to be sustained. There is only our harmonization with the ebb and flow of the systems surrounding us. A relationship is sustained and always in transition, rhythms searching for synchronization. Rhythms move me; I am a passenger in transition. Though I long for my favorite phases in rhythm, I know…

• Evolutions & Applications

  Peter Larson

  7 Dec 2011 | 12:52 pm

  You may have noticed a change in the character of recent posts, and I have some explaining to do. The last three posts especially: Material Matters, Good Design, and Energy Landscapes continue a theme that has been evolving since last summer and break BD away from a rigid structure and toward a topical exploration. There are several sub-themes that have been at work since last spring’s posts about higher purpose. The discussion about our relationship with the earth is always changing, and I feel two main trends are occurring. We are learning to have better non-empirical, non-quantitative…

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  Beth’s Blog

• Peeragogy: Self Organized Peer Learning in Networks

  Beth

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:16 am

  Photo by Aussiegal My dream is to see more robust informal peer learning networks in the nonprofit sector. As a trainer,  I’m intensely interested in creating learning experiences that integrate or about how to use the technology for nonprofits that engage and inspire people to put the ideas into practice.    I’ve been obsessed with peer learning and self-directed learning models in my own learning and the trainings I design and facilitate. The term Peeragogy came fluttering through my network, like a butterfly, and it caught my interest.  It resonated.  When an idea or…

• What Do Facebook’s New Timeline Apps Mean for Nonprofits?

  Beth

  25 Jan 2012 | 11:39 am

  Source: developers.facebook.com via Beth on Pinterest   Remember last September when Facebook announced all those changes to individual profiles, including the timeline?    One of the changes  was that your friends and fans can do more than “Like” or “Comment”  on Facebook. Three new actions were announced at the time, including:  Read, Watch, Listen to  help people better understand what their friends are doing online.     Facebook called it the “Open Graph” and the pr people called “A revolution to the whole meaning of listening to music together or family…

• What Comes First, Content Creation or Curation?

  Beth

  24 Jan 2012 | 10:59 am

  Flickr Photo by Carissa Marie This is definitely not a chicken and egg question!   A debate in content marketing circles is whether or not you should simply focus on creating original content and forget content curation.   Let’s be clear as my fellow content curator, Jan Gordon, says:  There is no curation without original content. I might qualify this a bit by saying, there is no curation with awesomely addictive social content!  And that means creating content – blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates, YouTube Videos – that is valuable and high quality.   Not sure if you…

• The Information Diet: Not Just A Book, A Movement For Conscious Consumption of Information

  Beth

  23 Jan 2012 | 10:51 am

  I’ve been curating resources and teaching workshops on the topic of information coping skills for a couple of years.   I first became interested in the topic after reading  David Shenk’s “Data Smog” in 1998 using the metaphor of environmental problems to talk about the dangers of having too much online information, primarily email.  This was in the era before Facebook and there was far less information available compared today.  (My favorite practical principle from Shenk was “Give A Hoot, Don’t Email Pollute” when talking about the need for…

• Social Media and Cute Dogs Go Mobile And Other Cute Animal and Nonprofit Tales

  Beth

  20 Jan 2012 | 9:37 am

  The Cute Dog Theory or more precisely the Cute Animal Theory states that including cute animals in your social media content inspires more people to share the content.    If don’t believe that is true,  check out this YouTube video from VW of dogs barking the theme from Star Wars as a Superbowl Teaser.   In less than a day, it has over 1 million views.   The cute animal theory has not gone unnoticed by nonprofits, even those that are not animal welfare organizations,  zoos or aquariums are sharing content featuring cute animals on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And now, mobile.

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  The Forgiveness Project

• TFP’s new Supporters’ Programme

  simon

  24 Jan 2012 | 5:54 am

  The Forgiveness Project has been fortunate to attract much recognition and praise over its eight years in existence but fundraising for the organisation isn’t easy, and never more so than in these financially challenging times. Despite this work being hard to quantify and measure, we continue to receive a huge amount of evidence that demonstrates again and again that this work is transformative and changes lives. More than 500 visitors each day go to our website, and over 150,000 people have seen our exhibitions worldwide, all accessing resources that help resolve pain and conflict. Our…

• Healing Agony – outstanding new book on forgiveness

  marina

  14 Jan 2012 | 6:39 am

  There is something mysterious and deeply rewarding about reading a book which perfectly and beautifully sums up an internal dialogue that you’ve been having with yourself for years. As founder and director of The Forgiveness Project, I’ve been exposed to many theories and analyses on the meaning of forgiveness, but nothing has been presented to me with such clarity and eloquence as Healing Agony: Re-Imagining Forgiveness – a refreshing and thorough interpretation of this complex and often most excruciating of subjects by Stephen Cherry.. What I love about this book is that Cherry…

• David Rogers (England)

  simon

  12 Jan 2012 | 6:22 am

  David Rogers with wife Pat and his late son Adam In May 2009, at the age of 24, Adam Rogers moved back to his parents’ home in Blackburn. One Saturday evening, just after his parents had left for a two week holiday in Malta, Adam got punched in the head while protecting his friend from a random attack. He died in intensive care the following day. Just over two years later Adam’s father, David Rogers, met Billy – the 16-year-old who had killed his son. It was six o’clock in the morning when the phone went in Malta. It was Adam’s younger brother Jamie calling from the hospital…

• David Rogers (England)

  simon

  12 Jan 2012 | 6:16 am

  David Rogers with wife Pat and his late son Adam In May 2009, at the age of 24, Adam Rogers moved back to his parents’ home in Blackburn. One Saturday evening, just after his parents had left for a two week holiday in Malta, Adam got punched in the head protecting his friend from a random attack. He died in intensive care the following day. Just over two years later Adam’s father, David Rogers, met Billy – the 16-year-old who had killed his son. It was six o’clock in the morning when the phone went in Malta. It was Adam’s younger brother Jamie calling from the hospital telling…

• Making it easy to Get Involved

  simon

  11 Jan 2012 | 9:16 am

  The Forgiveness Project has made some important changes to the website. Crucially we have redesigned the Get Involved and Donate pages. Please take a moment to take a look around and see how much easier we have made it for you to literally get involved. As well as simply making a donation, you can join our new Supporters’ Programme, sponsor one of our projects or even host an event to raise money. We’ve also added a feature on the Home page where you can keep up to date with the latest prison news and the Director’s blog. Our prison work remains a key part of the work we do at TFP and…

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  Be-Mail

• Embracing Change While Holding Onto the Past

  Just Being Me

  17 Jan 2012 | 5:45 am

  When I was a kid, I shared a room with my two sisters. One thing that we loved doing together was re-arranging our furniture. And we did it often. I’ve never lost that need to re-arrange things in my life. Where there is comfort in routine, there is excitement in change. I need them both. At this moment, I feel as if I’m sitting in the middle of a teeter-totter, where one side is the comfort of the past and the other side is the excitement of the future. You can’t have both. That’s how a teeter-totter works. You have to choose. I’m choosing change. But not…

• Yes. I noticed

  Just Being Me

  27 Dec 2011 | 8:57 pm

  I noticed how your eyes lit up when you saw that your stocking had been filled. I noticed the excitement when you saw that two of the cookies were gone and your confusion that one was still left. I noticed that you loved your Smarties just as much as your ride on vehicle. I noticed that you wished there were more gifts for me. I noticed that you were completely in the moment. I noticed that you hugged your fairies tightly because you loved them so much. I noticed that everything you received, you wanted to share with me. I noticed that you said thank you. I noticed that you placed the…

• Hey! Your Gratitude is Showing!

  Just Being Me

  13 Nov 2011 | 9:16 am

  I caught you on Facebook showing gratitude and now I’m spreading the joy! * Thankful for living in Michigan where we get to enjoy all 4 seasons! Let it snow!!! * It’s been a long commute home this week, going to Indiana each night. But it sure is nice to come home to Mary every day. I do love her! * Yipppeee! We had snowflakes! * Must say my girlfriend is not only beautiful but totally awesome * Getting lunch then off to an overnight trip to Chicago with my wonderful husband * I am thankful for another wonderful nights sleep, coffee with cream, and the sun shining!!! * 6 months…

• Honor on the Roadside

  Just Being Me

  11 Nov 2011 | 6:06 am

  As I was returning from lunch yesterday, I noticed an unkempt man walking along the side of the road. I was stopped at a light so I watched him as he paused and bent over. I wondered what he was doing and observed something very sweet and powerful. On his walk, he noticed a small American flag on a stick lying in the wet grass. He stopped to pick it up, straighten it out and place it back in the ground. He stepped back to make sure it looked ok, then continued on his way. And I was moved. It was such a small gesture, but it made such a big statement. My guess is that he’s probably a…

• Point at Yourself

  Just Being Me

  3 Nov 2011 | 7:50 pm

  Did you do it? No? Do it! Point at yourself. Where did you point? Right in the middle of your chest? Near your heart? I’m pretty certain where you didn’t point….your head. We instinctively know that our sense of “self” comes from our heart, not our head. Our heart is what makes us who we are. When life offers up tough decisions, which it often does, I tend to over-think them. I ask a million questions. I google everything and research it to death. It’s all a waste of time, really, but it makes me feel productive. I usually can get the answer pretty quickly…

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  The Glamorous Life Association » Adtalk

• AdTalk: Home maid tragedy

  Marcy

  19 Jan 2012 | 2:33 pm

  Diane never planned on killing Ms. Downing. But then she insisted on putting her cigarette out in the freshly polished silver.

• AdTalk: In it to pin it.

  Marcy

  14 Jan 2012 | 4:12 pm

    Want more? Please see the entire AdTalk series here.

• AdTalk: Her secret was in the velour blankets

  Marcy

  30 Dec 2011 | 11:42 am

  Dr. Elizabeth was pleased her cloning experiments were going so well.

• AdTalk: Merry Jerkmas

  Marcy

  25 Dec 2011 | 5:35 am

  Ben thought it was time to take the relationship to the next level. He told her she could wash and gas up his Caddy anytime.

• Meanwhile, back with the housewives in suburbia…

  Marcy

  9 Dec 2011 | 12:41 pm

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  Pledging for Change

• The Best Sustainability Programs Offered via Online Colleges

  Pledging for Change

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:04 am

  Degrees that focus on environmentalism and sustainability are increasingly popular these days at both traditional and online colleges. In a world where “going green” is a buzzword and the concept of climate change is a social, scientific, and political issue rolled into one, there is increasing interests in the study of sustainability. This naturally means that an environmental background is appealing to employers in a wide range of industries and fields, among them consulting, engineering, design, and construction. Students who possess a degree in sustainability or a related topic are…

• The Many Benefits Of Simplifying Your Life

  Grace Pamer

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:12 am

  The phrase “simplifying your life” can mean many different things to many different people. On the whole, however, living a simple life entails making changes so that you can feel more alive and get the most out of life. It requires a dedication to looking at all areas of your life and determining how you can make them more enjoyable and enriched. For some, living a simple life can be as extreme as living off the grid and disconnecting from the noise and fast pace of modern society. For others, they merely need to simplify the areas that cause stress and keep them from living life…

• Gotham Greens New York Sustainable Growing

  Guest Author

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:26 pm

    In an industrial section of Boston, on the roof of an abandoned bowling alley, you’ll find a vast, crystalline greenhouse where an absolute abundance of produce is being produced, all under the watchful eye of computers. This facility, called Gotham Greens, claims to be the first commercial hydroponic operation of this type in the US to be operated in an urban setting. The first lettuce seedlings were started back in May 2011, and the operation is expected to have delivered 100 tons of produce by their first anniversary. That may seem just a drop in the bucket when compared to the…

• True Romance Is Organic Wine With Eco Cork

  Grace Pamer

  26 Jan 2012 | 3:35 pm

  What could be more soul warming than spending a romantic evening with your beloved partner? A quiet moment together by a romantic fire in the hearth or a twilight evening spent listening to the waves lap on the shore; these are the moments to treasure for a lifetime. Add a delicious meal and a bottle of wine, and prepare to be in absolute heaven. Although it may not be the top thing on your mind during your romantic evening, considering the environmental impact of both your food and wine might be something you want to think about when planning your lovely evening. With increasing focus on…

• Do Bloggers Need Professional Indemnity Insurance?

  Guest Author

  25 Jan 2012 | 10:11 pm

  As the age of digital media lives on, the ability to work on the go or work from home has never been greater. Citizen journalism has increased by leaps and bounds, and with so much of our world going online, the need for written content is ever-growing. This has paved the way for the professional blogger. A blogger is a writer who pens strictly web-based, short articles. Professional bloggers may work full-time for a single site, or freelance with a number of different companies in order to make their living using their craft. A highly creative endeavor, blogging may also seem at first glance…

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  Raghav's Blog

• 25 turns to be too quick

  raghava

  25 Jan 2012 | 3:41 am

  TweetI wanted this post to hit the blog when I turn 25yrs on 23rd January, but I was not able to finish putting all my thoughts & my feelings. 2011 was overwhelmingly was a great year for me and I was in Mumbai when I celebrated my 24th Birthday. I thought long & hard to post about it, but some how it never materialized in to words. When I started my journey 3yrs in Bangalore I know it is going to be different than the life I lived in Hyderabad, but the life here is so vibrant & colorful it made my challenges look small. I some where read that if you are growing old there is…

• Learning Accepting & Moving

  raghava

  19 Jan 2012 | 3:09 am

  TweetRelearning is one of the toughest things which I find to adapt because for years together we follow a path, idea & a process in our life. If suddenly we are forced to change that process it will be a difficult time for any one & currently I am in that phase of life where I am juggling with the old & the new. Some of my friends even made statements like it will be easy for you to adapt because you already know that some day you will face this day, that is true but did I know that it will be today or it will be tomorrow. I don’t expect to get up in the morning & find…

• Why I write a blog

  raghava

  17 Jan 2012 | 10:17 am

  TweetFrom last few days the thought of why I write a blog has kept me thinking. When I first started this blog I was never serious to write so much personal stuff, I thought to write about technology & some other things. But fortunately or unfortunately this blog has turned into a personal dairy in my life. A dairy which can be read by many & yet personal to me where I pour my thoughts, feelings, ideas etc. I gained a lot of loyal readers & supporters through this blog. I must say this first reader is my Dad, my aunt Meena, my sister sirisha & a lot of others. Did I ever…

• A new beginning & a fresh start

  raghava

  10 Jan 2012 | 4:51 am

  TweetWe stepped into 2012 & this New Year has brought a new beginning & a fresh start into my life. I always wondered how it feels to start everything from scratch and do the same thing in different way. New year ignited that fire to my thoughts and kept me thinking what I really want to do in this year & what I have achieved during last 1yr, where did I fail, what did I learn etc. During the month of jjanuary I decided to think and put all my thoughts onto a document, so that I can revisit, filter & set my goals for this year. As things always doesn’t go as we expect I…

• Time to change

  raghava

  24 Nov 2011 | 7:48 am

  TweetChange is always scary because we always don’t know how to deal with change and yet it comes into our life without any intimation or invitation. I think I finally has to change the way I live my life which I always thought is the most interesting part because I love all the challenges which my visual impairment throws at me and I like fighting with them. But I am tired playing the game where I made the task tough when it can be done easily by just applying some simple methods. I need to change a lot of my habits to make my life easier and need to ease little with my weird ideas of…

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  Hearts Around The World

• Live Your Dreams!

  michele

  25 Jan 2012 | 5:14 pm

  I was listening to Dr Sonia Choquette speak about taking responsibility for your dreams. She said, “The ability to respond to desires in your heart – that’s what taking responsibility means. To take desires and put ownership into them.” We all have dreams. And at times we all have ideas about things we know we want to do and even must do. As I thought more about this it occurred to me: In order to make it happen we need to use our’ability’ to ‘respond.’ The message is already there if we choose to hear it, we just need to take action and take…

• 1st heart of 2012

  michele

  11 Jan 2012 | 11:09 am

  ‘HEAR THE WHISPER” /”TRUST LIFE” #223 I hung this at Ojo Caliente in New Mexico which is North of Santa Fe and West of Taos. This seemed the perfect message and the perfect place to spread a little love. Ojo Caliente is a natural hot springs, spa/resort. It has been a place of healing for thousands of years and continues to bring a peaceful tranquility to those who spend time here. Michele            

• Heart # 207 “You Are A Gift”

  admin

  21 Dec 2011 | 5:26 pm

  A Special Teacher This heart was given to me by a student. I have been the child’s teacher for nearly two years and am very sad to see him leave my program but I have taken him as far as I could. Love often means letting someone go. This heart came to me at the perfect time and I will hold it for a little while and then pass it on. Rockville, Maryland

• Heart Receiver #200 in Connecticut

  admin

  20 Dec 2011 | 7:31 am

  Chris Snieckus received a heart in Connecticut Heart Number: 200 My friend Sara gave me a heart as a Christmas gift, knowing I would love the meaning behind the heart. What a wonderful idea. I plan to enjoy it for awhile and then pass it along for someone else to enjoy. Thank you Michele, for helping to spread  positive messages in the world!

• Wimberly, TX

  admin

  5 Dec 2011 | 9:51 am

  Bell is well placed in Wimberly, Texas! ox, Jill

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  Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In

• Tiny Wisdom: Take a Deep Breath and Remember

  Lori Deschene

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:09 pm

  “Wisdom is the right use of knowledge.” -Charles H. Spurgeon Someone recently asked me in an interview why I choose to revisit ancient wisdom in my writing. I responded that there is very little new wisdom; there are just new ways of understanding and applying what we already know. That’s not always so easy to do. We have an amazing ability to drown out our inner guidance with worries, stresses, fears, and judgments. If you find yourself doing that today, take a deep breath and remember: It’s okay to be down sometimes. Once we accept and understand how we feel, we can discover…

• 8 Guidelines to Get Through Challenging Times

  Sandy East

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:02 pm

  Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Sandy East “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” ~Charles Swindoll I’ve recently dealt with numerous challenges that range from the ridiculous to the life-threatening. I’ve had friends telling me they “can’t bear to hear any more” about illness, financial loss, and an array of physical and emotional accidents that have broken parts of me, but not all. Every aspect of my life is changing: career, relationships, health, and beliefs. I have to make the most of every situation and so I’ve created my own…

• Tiny Wisdom: Be Curious, Be Amazed

  Lori Deschene

  25 Jan 2012 | 10:49 pm

  “Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.” -Bryant H. McGill The other day, as I walking to the activities center in my apartment community to write, I saw a team of men cutting down dead tree branches using truck-mounted lifts. They were tossing them into a wood chipper which shred each one in a matter of seconds. I’m sure this is a common practice, but it was the first time I’d ever seen this, so I decided to sit on the sidewalk and watch, even though I was on a tight schedule. I felt mesmerized by this mass-pruning, preparing the area surrounding me for new life;…

• 3 Ways to Forgive and Create Peace

  Vlad Rapoport

  25 Jan 2012 | 10:44 pm

  Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Vlad Rapoport “Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.” ~Buddha It was a beautiful spring morning when I was terminated from my job. Before it happened, there were rumors, but I refused to believe that something like that could actually happen to me. I felt betrayed by the manner in which the termination occurred. Without any substantiation, my company suggested that my ethics were compromised and I embezzled from the company funds. Soon thereafter I learned that the sole motive for the company was to replace me and my…

• Tiny Wisdom: Take This Moment and Start Anew

  Lori Deschene

  24 Jan 2012 | 10:58 pm

  “Many fine things can be done in a day if you don’t always make that day tomorrow.” -Unknown When I was younger, an adult I was staying with told me, “The diet starts tomorrow. Let’s eat everything we can before midnight.” So we did. We ate grilled cheeses, leftover Chinese food, Twinkies, and anything else that called to us from her cabinets. It was then or never, that was the message, and tomorrow would be different—which of course it wasn’t. For years, I started each morning intending to make healthy choices, and then after failing to meet my perfectionist…

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  Have Impact !

• Start 2012 well!

  Peter

  31 Dec 2011 | 2:32 pm

  Since we kicked off our Kiva microfinance project “Change Starts Here” in November 2008, our Kiva Lending Team has already funded over 1,500 projects, for a total value of US$54,000. Check out our project score card on our Have Impact! blog. In 2011, I had a wide range of sponsors for the blogs I manage. After deducting the running costs for my blogs, I want to invest the left-over funds in our microfinance project “Change Starts Here” . Seems like a good way to start 2012 off on a good footing! So, from January 1 to 15, I will run a promotion campaign for AidJobs, my…

• Horn of Africa: Want to have impact? Help us spreading the message!

  Peter

  24 Aug 2011 | 4:11 pm

  After 17 years in the field, working in front line humanitarian emergency response, of which 15 years in food aid relief, I took a sabbatical break. Taking a distance allowed me to discover an other side of the humanitarian work, something more longer term, but with no less impact: agricultural development. Over the past sabbatical year, I had the opportunity to work with a team at CGIAR, mostly on social media related projects. That work brought me to the field, talking to farmers about ways they adapt (or don’t) to the economic and climatic changes, their needs, their wishes,… I wrote…

• New loans to more than 100 women over the whole world

  Peter

  18 Jun 2011 | 7:13 am

  Gakii Mwenda, one of our Kiva lenders from Kenya Gakii Mwenda lives in the Nkubu area of Central Kenya. She has been a farmer for 13 years. Gakii has been producing french beans, potatoes and milk. She sells her produce on the local market. Gakii has made a loan request to Kiva so she could buy dairy goats and construct a barn on her farm. She intends to expand her dairy goat farming and keep cows in the future. She says she will fully rely on the farming income for the upkeep of her children. When I read Gakii’s request, it made me think of many Kenya’s women I met during my…

• New loans to entrepreneurs in agriculture

  Peter

  25 Feb 2011 | 7:31 am

  Gloria Daliego's team Gloria Daliego lives in the village of Estrella, San Guillermo, in the Philippines. She is 41 years old and the group leader of a 13-member group loan. While each member of the group receives an individual loan, they are all collectively responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members if someone is delinquent or defaults. Gloria is married and has 4 school-aged children. She owns and operates a farming business, planting and harvesting a variety of vegetables for sale. Gloria has been engaged in her business for over 10 years and earns…

• New Kiva loans to women and groups working in agriculture

  Peter

  6 Jan 2011 | 10:42 am

  Sobirahon Ahmadalieva (on the left) with her team Sobirahon Ahmadalieva is 51 years old and divorced. She lives with her four children in Aravan, Kyrgyzstan. The older son works in construction, the second repairs cars, and her two daughters study at the university. With her team, Sobirahon breeds cattle for resale after fattening. In this way she earns about $85 per month. With her microfinance loan of $1,066 she wants to purchase two bull calves for breeding. In the future she wants to increase the number of cattle and save money to celebrate her daughter’s wedding. We funded 10% of her…

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  Bloganthropy

• Do You Need a 501c3?

  Debbie

  3 Jan 2012 | 11:46 am

  I get the opportunity to meet many bloggers who are passionate about social good. One of the most common questions is: “Do I need a 501c3 to get started?” The answer to that question depends on your goals. Do you want to: Raise money for an existing charity. Start your own organization. If you want to raise money for an existing charitable organization, you do not need your own 501c3. If you just want to encourage your readers to donate to a specific charity, it’s easy to link to the charities website or to provide donation information. If you’d like to get more…

• “Little Miss Muffin” Interactive Pop N Flip™ Doll Line will benefit organization’s No Kid Hungry® campaign

  speppel

  4 Dec 2011 | 9:57 pm

  We love to highlight all the great  causes being furthered through social media but when one of our own makes something awesome happen, we have to brag a little. When our co-founder Debbie Bookstaber returned from her role as Cause Marketing panelist at BlogHer 2011, she had the non-profit Share Our Strength on the brain. This non-profit was a donor recipient of session sponsor Jimmy Dean Sausage. Not long after returning home, Debbie started working with Little Miss Muffin, a company who ran television ads www.mylittlemissmuffin.com about their “muffin”dolls which made her think of all…

• Change My World with Gina Otto and Cassandra’s Angel

  speppel

  26 Oct 2011 | 7:25 pm

  Gina Otto is taking the world by storm one child at a time! After writing the children’s book, Cassandra’s Angel, Gina decided to take the book’s vision and message of empowerment across the country. Partnering with visionaries and luminaries across the not-for-profit, business and entertainment worlds, Gina’s Ink, Incorporated has created a platform called the Change My World Now Initiative, which engages, educates and empowers American children, facilitating their ability to reach out and in turn, empower children in countries around the world to move beyond their…

• Support the Diaper Act and Help A Mother Out #HAMO

  Candace

  17 Oct 2011 | 10:16 pm

  With so many people out of work and struggling, it is more important than ever for low-income families to be able to access childcare–and diapers are part of that equation. Help a Mother Out is asking us to support the Diaper Act. This act does not make additional appropriations–that means there is no added cost. This only allows funds that are already allotted fir Child Care Development Funds to be used for diapers to improve child care quality and access. Will you help a mother out? You can blog, tweet, take photos, and sign this petition!

• Bloganthropy Members attend the CGI Event with P&G

  speppel

  2 Oct 2011 | 9:24 pm

  On September 21, 2011, Bloganthropy board members were invited to join P&G for a special event during 6th annual Clinton Global Initiative forum. During the event, P&G Chairman of the Board, President and CEO Bob McDonald shared three aggressive commitments that flow from P&G’s Purpose-inspired Growth Strategy of touching and improving more lives, in more parts of the world, more completely: Pampers: P&G’s Pampers and UNICEF are partnering in a new commitment to eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) by 2015 through the 1 pack = 1 vaccine campaign. Tide…

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  Farnam Street

• Intellectual Flexibility

  admin

  27 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  To change an organization you must first change minds. A. Regard every belief as a hypothesis. The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management’s unexamined beliefs. Music can only be sold on shiny discs? Don’t bet on it. The news has to be delivered on a big piece of flimsy paper? Not necessarily. You have to load programs onto your computer before you can use them? Maybe not. In an age of unprecedented change, it’s important to regard everything you believe about your company’s business model, its competitors and its customers as mere hypotheses, forever…

• Viktor Frankl — Why to believe in others

  admin

  26 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  In this rare clip from 1972, legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning — and the most important gift we can give others. If we take man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take him as he should be, we make him capable of becoming what he can be. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning, is an amazing tale of his struggle to survive Auschwitz. Related: Would you choose to live or die? What’s the one thing that can never be taken from you? Tweet

• Creative Destruction

  admin

  25 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  Joseph Schumpeter applied the term “creative destruction” to the dynamic of the market economy. Not only does the new technology displace the old: the new company displaces the old. Innovation mostly comes from entrepreneurs outside established businesses, engaged in an endless succession of experiments. Most fail, but not all. …The established firm more often responds by using its market and political power to resist change. The tactic failed for music publishers, but does not always fail: see how state-supported dinosaurs have tightened their control of the banking system, or…

• Physical Clutter Negatively Affects Your Ability To Focus & Process Information

  admin

  25 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  When your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus. The clutter also limits your brain’s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to process information as well as you do in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment. The clutter competes for your attention in the same way a toddler might stand next to you annoyingly repeating, “candy, candy, candy, candy, I want candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy …” Even though you might be able to focus a little, you’re still aware that a screaming…

• How Can We Make Better Decisions? Brain science helps redefine decision-making

  admin

  24 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  An excerpt from an interesting article highlighting some of the recent findings of brain science on making better decisions: Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has shown that people do indeed make optimal decisions-but only when their unconscious brain makes the choice. …Roy F. Baumeister, a social psychologist at Florida State University and author of the book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, argues that willpower plays a part in all our decisions and that willpower fluctuates. Ask people to name their…

• 

  Dutiee

• Davos: Ushahidi Grows Its Global Crowd-sourcing Platform, Slams Twitter Censorship

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:44 pm

  Ushahidi, the incredible crowd sourcing platform which came out of Kenya. Starting with just a handful of countries in 2009, it’s main product, Crowdmap, is now used in hundreds of countries

• Meet Mr. Toilet: The Man Trying To Make Commodes A Global Status Symbol

  27 Jan 2012 | 3:37 pm

  Toilets. You might take them for granted, but in a lot of the world, not only do people not have them, they don't even want them.

• Who Is The Most Unreasonable Entrepreneur of Them All, Not the Mirror - You Decide

  27 Jan 2012 | 2:03 am

  Unreasonable Institute, the famous social startup accelerator has picked 46 finalists from the hundreds of applications they received for their batch of 2012 and would now like you to pick the final 25

• Gates Donates $750 Million to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria

  26 Jan 2012 | 4:44 pm

  The Gates Foundation will inject $750 million into the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

• Powered By Caffeine: A New Technology To Extract Energy From Coffee

  25 Jan 2012 | 7:13 pm

  People drink a lot of coffee, and that creates a lot of waste. But if that waste could be converted to power? Then one addiction (coffee) could help get us off our other (oil).

• 

  LoveLivfe

• #75

  LoveLivfe

  24 Jan 2012 | 9:09 am

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• #074 大年初一

  LoveLivfe

  23 Jan 2012 | 3:08 am

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• #073 除夕夜

  LoveLivfe

  22 Jan 2012 | 9:55 am

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• A different Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner with 38 special ones

  LoveLivfe

  21 Jan 2012 | 9:11 am

  Hi guys! I know haven’t been attending much events these days and updating properly~ But recently, thanks to OMY for this really good chance to care about the society’s underprivileged, I had my very first reunion dinner at McDonalds with a total of 38 seniors and 2 volunteers from Lion Befrienders Service Association. A pretty cool experience to accompany [...] Related posts: A Chinese New Year full of… Because my new year starts after 23rd January! Toastbox Special Promotions!

• #72

  LoveLivfe

  21 Jan 2012 | 6:15 am

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• 

  SheToldSecrets.com

• Using Facebook May Lead to Psychological Disorders in Teenagers

  jessica

  3 Jan 2012 | 3:37 am

  Increasing research on social media’s effects on human interaction has revealed the development of antisocial behavior, narcissism and a slew of other character flaws and negative by-products. Overdosing on Facebook may lead to the development of such psychological disorders in teens, according to a recent study conducted by Larry Rosen, a professor of…

• Brain Teaser – Confuse your Depth Perception

  jessica

  3 Jan 2012 | 3:28 am

  Confuse your Depth Perception Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions (3D). Looking at a sight that you have not seen before or entering into a 3d cinema with one eyes closed will alter the way your mind perceives things. This would…

• Solution to Get Rid of Facebook Scam “[VIDEO] Yeahh!! It happens on Live Television!

  jessica

  15 Dec 2011 | 8:37 am

  I must admit I had never heard of Marika Fruscio, when this scam spreading on Facebook was first brought to my attention. But a quick check on Wikipedia revealed that she is a model and Italian TV hostess, whose biggest contribution to popular culture is that she had something…

• How Stress Is Killing You

  jessica

  9 Sep 2011 | 10:56 pm

• 10 Things Men Want From Women Apart From Sex

  jessica

  4 Apr 2011 | 5:21 am

  If you are under the impression that all that men want from you is physical intimacy and sex, then you are sadly mistaken. Yes they do demand it but for a strong, lasting relationship here are some other…

• 

  Lifestyle goods, designed with a conscience | The Holstee Blog

• Guest Post from Buy Positively

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:50 pm

  We had the pleasure of meeting Mike Rome and Muffadal Saylawala during their visit to New York last week. Filled with enthusiasm and purpose, Mike & Muff quit their jobs to follow their passion, starting the blog Buy Positively to push the coversation on conscious consumerism. Mike & Muff's inspiration is infectious--we are thrilled to have met them and so excited to see Buy Positively grow. I asked Mike to share a bit of their story with you:  Yvon Chouinard just called my cell phone. I’m scrambling. My bones are quaking. Nerves are heavy, but I’m…

• Posters Made With Love

  26 Jan 2012 | 1:18 pm

  Our Manifesto Poster is one of the Holstee best sellers. We produce the poster with our friends from Aardvark Letterpress in LA and they work day and night to make sure we meet our high quality standards in production. Check out this wonderful film by Ben Proudfoot about Aardvark Letterpress and learn more about Cary and his family. (Music by Kyle Malkin). For us this film is a solid reminder of how proud we are to work with Aardvark. We are so thankful to them for their part in helping us provide a beautiful poster, made locally with a lot of love and human power. Permalink | Leave a…

• Holstee Now In 30+ Shops Across the World

  25 Jan 2012 | 9:09 am

  I've been running sales the last several months and I'm thrilled to say Holstee is now available in over 30 independent shops from Portland, Oregon to Oslo, Norway :) After spending most of the summer and early fall planting many seeds, it's all starting to pay off and the road ahead is bright. As we make our way across the US and beyond, I'd love to hear what shops you think Holstee would best fit in.  Some cities on our radar are: Berkeley, Austin, Chicago, Boulder, Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans and Baltimore. But there's plenty more places we'd love to establish a home…

• Quote of the Day

  24 Jan 2012 | 9:08 am

  Wisdom from Yvon Chouinard's brilliant book Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman (a must read).  Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Cleaner Look for Holstee Checkout

  24 Jan 2012 | 9:00 am

  When we gave the Holste site a facelift back in November, much of the design changes were inspired by our customers. The new site is a reflection of the consistent feedback we received on what would make for a better online shopping experience. More recently we consolidated feedback on the checkout page and just pushed updates to the site. Here are few of the highlights you can look forward to upon your next checkout: - Contact information is now more accesible - Removed Google checkout because no one was using it - Made it clearer that Paypal was an option and not a requirement - Unified…

• 

  Renjie Butalid

• Embracing Failure

  renjie

  5 Jan 2012 | 9:23 pm

  My friend Ryan Letada gave an incredible talk at the most recent TEDxYouth@Hewitt in New York City in November two months ago. In his talk, Ryan painted a very convincing picture of what failure has meant to him as a social entrepreneur and changemaker when faced with the very real and complex challenges of trying to disrupt the education system in the Philippines with his organization, eKindling. “A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a flame to be kindled” - eKindling What started initially as a dream to bring magical education opportunities to school kids in rural…

• A Better World Is Possible (Part 3) Opportunities in the BOP-Market

  renjie

  26 Dec 2011 | 11:00 pm

  This blog post is Part 3 of a 3-part series based on a talk I delivered at the C3: Connect. Collaborate. Create. conference at Wilfrid Laurier University on November 20, 2011. A Better World is Possible (Part 1) – Lessons Learned can be found here. A Better World is Possible (Part 2) – A Sense of Careful Optimism can be found here.   Having shared personal lessons learned over the years in Part 1, while painting a realistic picture of a world in the midst of chaos in part 2, Part 3 focuses on the art of possibilities and further elaborates on why I share a sense of careful…

• TEDActive 2012 Full Spectrum

  renjie

  20 Dec 2011 | 5:00 pm

  I am SUPER DUPER EXCITED to share that my application was accepted and I will be heading to Palm Springs in California towards the end of February to attend TEDActive 2012 Full Spectrum. I have been a TED fan for a number of years now, and having been involved with planning TEDxWaterloo, TEDxAlAin and TEDxUW held at the University of Waterloo recently, attending TEDActive will prove to be a dream come true as well as a huge opportunity to connect with and learn from the TED speakers, TEDx organizers and TEDActive delegates in attendance. I look forward to bringing the inspiration and passion…

• Humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.

  renjie

  14 Dec 2011 | 8:00 am

  Words are powerful. As the saying goes, the pen is mightier than the sword, with the capacity to influence and change people’s opinions and perspectives, launching revolutions and inspiring generations for years to come. Though the commencement address by Paul Hawken at the University of Portland is from 2009, I decided to re-publish it under the ‘People Who Inspire Me‘ section of my blog and share it with all of you, as I often find myself referring to this speech whenever I look at what is happening in the world today and a part of me begins to lose faith in humanity.

• A Better World Is Possible (Part 2) A Sense of Careful Optimism

  renjie

  11 Dec 2011 | 11:39 pm

  This blog post is Part 2 of a 3-part series based on a talk I delivered at the C3: Connect. Collaborate. Create. conference at Wilfrid Laurier University on November 20, 2011. A Better World is Possible (Part 1) – Lessons Learned can be found here.   A World in Crisis Given the headlines we are seeing in newspapers and publications all over the world, there is no doubt in my mind that the world is going through a monumental shift in the way we operate as humanity, in light of the complexities of the global challenges we face. We only have to look at the Arab Spring Revolution…

• 

  Be Cool. Be Positive.

• BOOK REVIEW: Start Something That Matters

  Steve Gonzalez

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:43 pm

  About a couple of months ago Be Cool. Be Positive. entered the books for bloggers program produced by Toms Shoes. We were excited to find out that we were selected to start a contest on our blog to give out “Start Something that Matters”, a book by the founder of Toms Shoes Blake Mycoskie. If you would like a chance to win the book -> Contest I have always been inspired by how Toms has created success through giving, but after reading this book I have come to truly admire the social good they have created. I have yet to meet Blake but you, like I, will get the feeling through the book…

• Game Day

  Steve Gonzalez

  26 Jan 2012 | 9:41 pm

  February 5 is a pretty special day for millions of Americans each year. If you live in New England or New York, you specifically know why. But it doesn’t take a sports nut to know that the Superbowl is one of those special days where even the most fair-weather fan becomes a part of the festivities. Even if you don’t know who David Gronkowski is, or that Victor Cruz could be the Giants biggest threat, you can still enjoy the game. More over it is an event that brings friends and family together to enjoy a special event that comes but once a year, like Christmas except with cheerleaders and…

• CATCHING YOUR PERFECT WAVE

  Steve Gonzalez

  24 Jan 2012 | 11:04 pm

  CATCHING YOUR PERFECT WAVE   We are all just surfing the waves of life. Some waves we catch and some we don’t. But whether you catch them or not life won’t stop. Picture yourself sitting with your legs wrapped around your board, looking out into the sunset watching as the waves ripple. You’re waiting for the one that looks just perfect. Just as in life, we are all on the look out for just the right opportunity to ride. Here it comes, what seems like just the right wave. You paddle hard to position yourself. You hop up to ride freely. So what happens if you go to catch it and you…

• From a band that’s just Fun.

  Steve Gonzalez

  24 Jan 2012 | 5:11 am

  Pun humor aside, Fun.’s “We are Young” is a catchy, anthem-like song that you might find yourself singing out loud to when you find a twenty in your pocket, get off work early and the sun’s still up–and you just feel young. The song was released in September, but now has a new video with the amazing Janelle Monae, and a food fight naturally. Janelle Monae, often likened to a female reincarnation of James Brown, has a soulful exuberance and now chart-topping singles under her belt. She most recently preformed for President Barack Obama at a Chicago campaign event. She even threw…

• Tasting the Difference

  Steve Gonzalez

  20 Jan 2012 | 5:11 am

  Amidst the deserts of Cabo San Lucas is the beginning of a movement. A region known for luring tourists, from near and far with stunning views and an adventurous spirit, is now taking a second look at how they produce their agriculture.  Sustainability and organic farming is now taking center stage in a field where mass productivity was once the goal. Enrique Silva, is the owner of one of Cabo’s newly rising restaurants and organic farms Los Tamarindos.  As a chef and culinary instructor, he understands the different flavors brought out with organically grown produce. He embodies…

• 

  Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit

• Should News Corp’s Anti-Climate Stance Impact its CSR Rating?

  CSRHUB

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:10 am

  Is corporate activism an accurate - or needed - part of the CSR ratings picture? When companies are active in political issues, such as pursuing a negative stance on climate change, how much is this part of their overall picture of corporate sustainability?

• Where Sustainability Reporting is Headed: A Preview of the E&Y and GreenBiz Survey

  Cindy Mehallow

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:08 am

  While at the GreenBiz12 Forum in New York earlier this week, I got a sneak preview of the findings of the new Ernst & Young and GreenBiz Group survey of trends in sustainability reporting.

• Coal-Fired Closures: More Plants Biting the Dust

  Bill DiBenedetto

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:07 am

  First Energy will close six coal-fired plants this year in another victory for anti-coal groups.

• Is There a Better Way to Stop Global Warming?

  RP Siegel

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:06 am

  Most efforts to slow the impact of global warming have focused on reducing carbon emissions, because it is the largest component and, according to the EPA, the most dominant and the fastest growing greenhouse gas. But CO2 is only one of several greenhouse gases. A team of scientists suggest that an easier and possibly more effective approach, at least in the short term, would be to focus on methane and soot.

• Why Biodiversity Loss Deserves as Much Attention as Climate Change

  Akhila Vijayaraghavan

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:05 am

  Biodiversity loss is probably a challenge that is often ignored as climate change looms. Currently the world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, further, it is currently seeing the sixth mass extinction. The previous mass extinction occured 65 million years ago, and was caused by [...]

• 

  Look who Found the Marbles

• How She Found the Marbles: Asking for Help

  Jessica

  27 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

  In the post below, Tara Ziegmont shares her story of strength, courage and the importance of asking for help. Over the last 18 months, I have struggled in ways I never thought possible. In that short time, I’ve dealt with an unexpected pregnancy, extended bedrest, serious pregnancy complications, a traumatic birth experience, postpartum depression, a colicky and hospitalized infant, and then a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. In retrospect, I don’t know how I survived it all, except that I just did the next most important thing. I never imagined that I’d make a plan to kill…

• Join Us for the Brave Woman Twitter Party!

  Jessica

  26 Jan 2012 | 11:17 pm

  I am honored to be hosting the upcoming Brave Woman Twitter party sponsored by Collective Bias. Please join us for this very important hour as we discuss the strong women we know and how we can help our friends and family members stay strong in their fight against domestic violence.   Here is all the info: When: Thursday, February 2nd at 8:00-9:00 pm EST  (7:00-8:00 CST) Where: On Twitter using the hashtag #BraveWoman. Who: Please follow the hosts, @FoundtheMarbles and @MonicaJohnson as well as @Brave_Woman. Prizes: The prizes are in the form of gift cards and we would love for you to use…

• Thoughtful Thursday Blog Hop! Dreaming Big for Africa

  Jessica

  25 Jan 2012 | 7:13 pm

  Malaria No More has just launched it’s newest campaign called, “Dream Big for Africa”.  Anyone who texts 85944 will donate $10 to help bring an end to malaria and will also be entered to win a trip to Africa with Smash star Katharine McPhee! Want to help? If so, please tweet, like or +1 about Malaria No More’s “Dream Big for Africa” campaign.  You can even copy the following tweet: Text 85944 to donate $10 to @MalariaNoMore and be entered to win a trip to Africa with @NBCSmash star @katharinemcphee. Time to link up!  Add your favorite post and be sure to…

• Tips for Getting It All Done When Your Spouse is Away

  Jessica

  24 Jan 2012 | 11:23 am

  Lately it seems like there are fewer than 24 hours in a day, doesn’t it?  Our time is spread so thin and our brains are in a perpetual state of prioritizing.  We are working, parenting, exercising and organizing, cooking, cleaning, carpooling and more. Thank goodness for texting because we don’t even have time for full-length conversations anymore. When our spouse travels frequently for work, our daily responsibilities increase yet the amount of time we have does not change.  (Last I checked there are still 24 hours in a day.)  Then we must readjust when said spouse is home again. …

• Joe Paterno: Just a Kid from Brooklyn

  Jessica

  22 Jan 2012 | 7:18 pm

  When Joe Paterno was a kid he lived in Brooklyn in a time and place when the Italians, Russians and Jews all lived seamlessly together.  He and his brother loved spending their days outside with the kids from the neighborhood. In his autobiography, Joe explains that during the Jewish Sabbath, he would go to his friends’ homes to do a favor for their mothers. He would light the ovens in their kitchens so that their dinners could be prepared quickly when the Sabbath was over. Fifteen years ago I read Joe Paterno’s autobiography as well as several biographies about him, including the one…

• 

  B Corporation Blog

• American Ingenuity

  B Lab

  18 Jan 2012 | 7:00 am

  By Scott James, Fair Trade Sports This month I spoke with Matt Bogoshian in DC. He is the Senior Policy Counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency. One of the ways I reconcile being apolitical and staying as far away from DC as possible is because I know I have kindred spirits like Matt fighting the [...]

• B Corp Runa Granted High Profile Investment, Representing New Model for Developing Nations to Support Sustainable Business

  B Lab

  11 Jan 2012 | 7:00 am

   BROOKLYN, New York (December 5, 2011) – Runatarpuna Exportadora S.A., the Ecuadorian Subsidiary of Runa LLC – a social enterprise that produces a unique, energizing Amazonian tea – recently received a $500,000 equity investment from the Build Ecuador Fund (CreEcuador”, a socially responsible investment fund created by Ecuador’s Ministry of Production.) Runa is an Amazonian [...]

• Imitation Really is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery

  B Lab

  4 Jan 2012 | 7:00 am

  by Rodney Willett, Impact Makers, Vice President of Business Strategy B Corp Champions Retreat, October 25-27, 2011 Impact Makers is a management and technology consulting company based in Richmond, Virginia.  We are a founding B Corp member with a unique business model: we are a for profit corporation with no shareholders and we give away [...]

• A Social Network for Your Community: Better Know Open Neighborhoods

  B Lab

  28 Dec 2011 | 7:00 am

  When tackling the important task of revitalizing local communities, communication is key. Open Neighborhoods, based in Los Angeles, California, brings the idea of local communication to the digital age. Their unique social media platform for neighborhood engagement brings people together and creates public dialogue. A community space, however, is only as good as its accessibility. [...]

• The Common Good Enterprise—A New Term for an Emerging Sector

  B Lab

  21 Dec 2011 | 7:00 am

  By Jim Epstein and Alicia Epstein Korten As an investment advisor and member of the Gamble family that founded Procter & Gamble, I (Jim) am often asked to sit on nonprofit boards. I have grown uncomfortable with the term not-for-profit to describe these organizations, which often embrace business principles in their operations. For example, DC [...]

• 

  Blog

• Bolivia Update: Impacting for Eternity

  24 Jan 2012 | 10:53 am

  Our ministry in Bolivia continues to grow! Read this week’s Bolivia update about how our volunteers have made a great impact in the community.

• Bolivia Update: "Arco iris" God's promise of hope

  17 Jan 2012 | 9:39 am

  Read this story from Leta of how she was able to comfort a young girl

• Bolivia Update: Felicidades!

  10 Jan 2012 | 9:23 am

  Leta writes us from Bolivia with an update about last month's volunteers, the holidays,

• 2011 Yearly Review

  30 Dec 2011 | 3:22 pm

  2011 Yearly Review Our end of the year update reflecting on all the exciting events of 2011 is now available. 

• You can make a difference in 2012

  29 Dec 2011 | 11:01 am

  You can make a difference in 2012 Dear Hospital of Hope Supporter - Thank you so much for being a part of Hospitals of Hope

• 

  Benevolent Media

• Artist Duo Champions Message of Change at “Capital Canvases”

  Claire Sevigny

  24 Jan 2012 | 6:00 am

    Capital Canvases for a Cause is a monthly event in Washington, D.C., organized by Long & Foster on Capitol Hill, that supports local artists and community-based organizations with wine, hors d’oeuvres and networking. Art sales are split evenly between the featured artists and the nonprofit. Last Friday, the art-focused happy hour continued bringing notoriety to community artists with a gallery show byKris and Keagoe Stith. The 20-year-old twins from Anacostia showed mixed media pieces, including acrylic paintings, charcoal drawings and digital prints. Sales from their…

• Q&A with Greg Jacobs: Louder Than a Bomb

  Erica Schlaikjer

  24 Jan 2012 | 2:00 am

    The uplifting and inspiring documentary film Louder Than a Bomb follows four Chicago high school teams in their journey to compete in the world’s largest teen poetry slam, created by local nonprofit Young Chicago Authors that empowers youth through writing, publication and performance education. The feature film begins at the start of the school year, six months prior to the slam competition. Each team must prepare at least five poems: four solo poems and a four-person group piece. Says one of the young poets featured in the film: “Writing a poem does not change the…

• Q&A with Karl Grobl: Come Along for the Ride

  Erica Schlaikjer

  19 Jan 2012 | 3:00 am

  With his new video series, Karl Grobl invites aspiring humanitarian photojournalists to "come along for the ride" on one of his shoots. Photo by Scot Sargeant.   To ring in the new year, Karl Grobl, a self-described “humanitarian photojournalist,” launched a new video journal, “Come Along for the Ride,”  to provide insights into his work as a visual storyteller for NGOs worldwide. For the past 10 years, the photographer has been documenting the relief efforts and development work of clients like World Vision, World Relief, World Emergency Relief,…

• Jobs of the Week: Design for Social Impact in India

  Erica Schlaikjer

  12 Jan 2012 | 9:48 am

  In July 2012, Design Impact will place its second cohort of “Fellows” at select Indian organizations to work on a design project that improves access to basic needs for resource-poor communities. Projects include designing nutrition-rich meals in Pune slums, teaching paper crafts and life skills to street children, and improving indoor air-quality for users of cooking stoves. Fellowships last about 11 months. Applications must be received by February 29, 2012. Apply now. Other opportunities you may be interested in… Mercer University seeks an innovative media…

• The 7 Types of Video to Leverage Social Change

  Erica Schlaikjer

  9 Jan 2012 | 8:11 pm

  This post is written by special contributor Greg Roth, the founder of Percy Group Communications, who co-presented at last month’s NetSquared talk on “Leveraging Video for Social Change” at Affinity Lab in Washington, D.C. He breaks down the various forms of video that nonprofits, NGOs and small businesses use to advance their mission and accomplish their goals. You can read a detailed re-cap of the session here. This post was originally published on the Percy Group Communications blog. After some research, I decided that there are seven types of video in which people…

• 

  Pitchforks Optional

• Paula Deen–This Lady Has Your Back

  JoyTwesigye

  19 Jan 2012 | 8:56 am

  I love Paula Deen. Poor thing has been through the ringer this week, especially in the comments section on places like CNN. She “came out” and told everybody she has Type 2 Diabetes and people used this as an opportunity … Continue reading →

• Boomers- Disruptive From Birth

  JoyTwesigye

  17 Jan 2012 | 6:45 pm

  Ahh Boomers. As the saying goes—They changed the world in the ‘60s and in their 60s they may do it again. Being itinerant in nature—they view life after 65 differently than other generations. They are not interested in going to … Continue reading →

• Post-Partum Depression, Perinatal Mood Disorders And Anxiety Oh My!

  JoyTwesigye

  10 Jan 2012 | 7:20 am

  Several years ago a friend of mine had a baby while we were both in nurse practitioner school. She had a typical first pregnancy, labor and delivery. I visited the family several times in the hospital and bonding appeared to … Continue reading →

• Beyond The Electronic Pamphlet: Applying Useful Criteria To Mobile Health

  JoyTwesigye

  5 Jan 2012 | 7:00 am

  Remember when the internet was new and an acceptable website was the equivalent of an electronic pamphlet? Well, people have fallen in to the same trap with mobile health. sent text messages ≠ better health outcomes I shared with you … Continue reading →

• Blazing A Trail: Clinician Entrepreneur Makes App for Diabetes–Shares Passion For Health Innovation

  JoyTwesigye

  3 Jan 2012 | 7:07 am

  I already shared with you how much I loved my conversation with Dr. Jennifer Shine Dyer last month when I previewed our chat because I couldn’t keep all the insights to myself. It’s time for you—especially clinicians who think you … Continue reading →