Category: Philanthropy

Promoting equity for all peoples of the world

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Brief of an article by Jeff Raike, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:

One of the questions I’m often asked as CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is what issues we invest in and why. To answer, it helps to understand a little about the foundation’s history.

More than a decade ago, Bill and Melinda read a newspaper article about the millions of children dying in poor countries from diseases that most people in the United States don’t have to worry about. One disease in particular—rotavirus—caught their attention, and it was killing half a million children a year. They’d never even heard of rotavirus. They thought it might be a typo.

Rotavirus, they learned, is one of the main causes of diarrhea. When kids in the United States get diarrhea, their doctors give them electrolytes. When kids in the developing world get it, they often die.

Reading this helped Bill and Melinda make two decisions: That they would start a foundation right away and that their giving would focus on solving some of the world’s greatest inequities.

The Gates Foundation is guided by the belief that all lives—no matter where they are being led—have equal value.  Whether a child is born in New York or New Delhi shouldn’t pre-determine their access to health, education, and opportunity. Of course, this belief is simple to say, and much harder to achieve. But our ultimate goal is to reduce the world’s greatest inequities, so every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life.

Read full article

 

Two sides of philanthropy in Africa

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The phrase ‘philanthropy in Africa’ has often tended to conjure up two quite diverse images. On the one hand, there are the well‑intentioned multi‑million dollar budgets of large (often international) foundations. On the other, the well‑established cultures and practice of small grassroots‑contributions and systems of social solidarity at the community level – the significance of which has never really been tapped by the formal development sector.

Across the continent, however, a new generation of local philanthropic institutions is emerging, some seeded with money from outside the continent, others entirely home‑grown – and all seeking to draw on local resources and tap into different forms of wealth, which include cash but also include other, less tangible, forms of social capital such as trust and credibility. These organizations seek to occupy the spaces between large, formal philanthropy and more local level mobilization of communities and their assets, and to build bridges between the two. At the same time they also promote a form of development which is community‑led and community‑owned.

Although the first self‑described ‘community foundations’ may only have been established in Africa in the late 1990s, the idea was not falling on fallow turf but rather offered a more formalized framework for naturally occurring traditions of giving and sharing. Those traditions are well encapsulated in the African philosophy of Ubuntu, defined by Liberian peace activist, Leymah Gbowee, as ‘I am what I am because of who we all are.’ The idea of Ubuntu means that you are known for your generosity. Instead of thinking of ourselves as individuals, separated from one another, we are connected and what anyone does affects the whole world. Generosity spreads outwards in a ripple that benefits the whole of humanity.

Africa is a continent rich with traditions of solidarity and reciprocity. In Kenya, for example, the practice of harambee as a form of local fundraising to cover the costs of funerals, weddings and school fees, was well‑established and drew heavily on a local culture of giving which had a social as well as a financial aspect.6 And in Southern Africa, ilima (coming together to help those without) was a mechanism for the sharing of communal labor for harvesting and house‑building.

A recent report by Jenny Hodgson and Barry Knight, “Mapping a Baseline of African Community Foundations” focuses on this group of institutions. They include community foundations, other types of community philanthropy institutions and local foundations – all operating throughout the African continent.

 

CSR and working for the good guys

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Experts agree: employees want to work for the good guys. And if companies want to attract and keep top talent, corporate social responsibility (CSR) matters.

“For today’s ‘millennials’ entering the workforce engagement in sustainability is a must-have, not a nice-to-have,” says Kellie McElhaney, director at the Center for Responsible Business, Haas School of Business, University of Berkeley. “They don’t want to be told what the company is doing. They want to do it.”

Don’t be surprised to see more CSR projects popping up at offices near you. Employee engagement and CSR is a hot topic, and if you are wondering why, the answer may be in the numbers. In a Society for Human Resources Management study, companies with strong sustainability programs were compared to companies with poor programs. The former had 55% better morale, 43% more efficient businesses processes, 43% stronger public image, and 38% better employee loyalty.

“CSR has proven to be one of top ways to keep people engaged,” says McElhaney. “The top two criteria young people put on job selection today is ‘flexible’ and ‘meaningful,'” she says. “We are looking for purpose. And these kids will go work for a non-profit or some sort of social enterprise to get it.”

Many believe the case for CSR is not just internal, but together with price and quality, it could be the one of the top three qualities needed for a successful company’s brand development. A study from earlier this year by public relations firm Edelman found that 87% of consumers around the world believe corporations should place at least equal weight on business and society.

Polio has not yet been eradicated

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Polio is more than 99% eliminated worldwide, and there are fewer cases than ever before. However,  polio remains endemic in three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In 1988, 125 countries were fighting polio, and more than 350,000 children contracted the disease each year. Today, we have fewer than 200 cases.

This progress did not happen by accident. It happened because the global community launched an unprecedented effort called the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a partnership that includes the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But the last percent is always the toughest, and if we don’t finish the job, polio could return with a vengeance. According to WHO, if we don’t end polio now, more than 10 million children under the age of 5 could be paralyzed by the disease in the next 40 years.

That’s why world leaders came together last month at the United Nations to reaffirm their commitment to ending polio and to issue an urgent call to fill a funding gap that threatens to undo the progress that has been made.

Samsung undertaking solar-powered Internet schools in Africa

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Old shipping containers repurposed into solar-powered classrooms are giving students in the most remote parts of Africa access to education and innovation.

Samsung’s Solar-Powered Internet Schools Initiative brings mobile classrooms filled with gadgets to rural towns. By outfitting a mobile shipping container with desks, a 50-inch electronic board, Internet-enabled solar-powered notebooks, Samsung Galaxy tablet computers and Wi-Fi cameras, children can receive a technology-rich education without traveling far.

“I have this motivation in me. It’s this need to just grow up and become something better in life and help others to become a success so that in South Africa, or in the whole continent of Africa, we can have a better life,” a Secondary School student named Lefa told us in a video by the Samsung Corporate Social Responsibility team.

For her, the computer lab presents an opportunity to “learn all the things” she’s ever wanted to learn.

Each 12-meter portable classroom has space for up to 21 students to learn how to use computers and how to surf the Internet, many for the first time. The pilot program will bring mobile classrooms to K-12 graders in five African countries including South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The project will expand in upcoming years. The technology giant hopes to reach 2.5 million students in Africa by 2015.

 

Spreading corporate social responsibility globally

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It is now essential for U.S. companies that expand overseas to manage their global workforces, and respect other cultures and other workforce environments, and start forming a global profile and consciousness. Part of this connects to corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The rapidly expanding global workplace is driving the implementation of sound corporate human resources practices that should focus on three key areas for CSR to help create a cohesive map for the present and the future. The three main ways to bridge the gap between corporations and their employees are:
• Proactive community relations
• Strong training and development
• A cohesive global HR platform

Ensuring that an organization maximizes the impact of its CSR efforts begins with encouraging community relations. This can be done through your HR department by implementing reward programs and charitable contributions, and encouraging community involvement and practices. What you can do as part of your corporate responsibility plan:

1. Recognize, via corporate email, websites, and newsletters, the social-type work done by employees.
2. Institute a rewards program to promote other employees to join these activities.
3. Recycle paper and bottles in offices and recognize departmental efforts to do so.
4. Collect food and donations for victims of floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters around the globe.
5. Encourage reduced energy consumption – subsidize transit passes, make it easy for employees to carpool, encourage staggered staffing to allow for after rush-hour transit, and permit telecommuting to some degree.
6. Encourage shutting off lights, computers, and printers after hours.
7. Work with the information technology team to switch to laptops over desktop computers. Laptops consume up to 90 percent less power.

8. Increase the use of teleconferencing in addition to on-site meetings and trips.

9. Promote “brown bagging” lunch in the office to help employees stay healthy.

–Shafiq Lokhandwala

Gates Foundation, USAID Award African Women Scientists $19 Million

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African Women in Agricultural Research and Development has announced $19 million in joint funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in support of a fellowship program for women scientists.

Grants of $14 million from the Gates Foundation and up to $5 million from USAID will support the second five-year phase of AWARD’s efforts to bolster the research and leadership skills of female agricultural scientists in eleven sub-Saharan African countries. Since 2008, more than two thousand women have applied for two hundred and fifty fellowships, and more than a thousand are competing for seventy places in the next round, which will be announced in December.

According to a 2008 benchmarking study by AWARD, while the majority of those who produce, process, and market food in Africa are women, only one in four agricultural researchers is a woman and only one in seven holds a leadership position in African agricultural research institutions.

“Cultivating a new generation of African leaders in food and agriculture is strategically important,” said AWARD director Vicki Wilde. “That leadership will be all the more effective when women are highly represented, especially by those technically competent and strategically positioned to generate and promote the innovations needed by rural women and other smallholder farmers.”

Millennials search for career opportunities to create social impact

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Social entrepreneurship is the new black. The idea of not choosing between profit and purpose seems to be gaining traction as America continues to cultivate a new sense of philanthropic virtue.

And the growing emphasis on social good is empowering millennials (ages 16-29) to balance their career goals with karma. One question keeps coming up. Will social entrepreneurship drive a paradigm shift in the hiring procedures of corporate America?

There is a growing trend in business school students searching for opportunities to create social impact. A recent study from the Stanford Graduate School of Business showed that ninety percent of MBAs were willing to sacrifice financial benefits to work for a company that demonstrates a strong commitment to social good (i.e. positive ethics, community reputation etc.)

From the corporate perspective, more potential employees sourced from top learning institutions ask specifically about volunteering and community service, indicating that it is one of the criteria for an “employer of choice.”

It’s clear that in this day and age of blogging and information sharing, companies that don’t consider magnifying their community footprint will be held accountable by future potential employees. With volunteerism and social entrepreneurship becoming a bigger part of college applications, curriculums and media, it seems the trend is here to stay.

Dedicated Funding for Leadership Development

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The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund … believe strongly in the critical importance of unrestricted general operating support because it provides nonprofit leaders with the flexibility to direct spending toward strategic priorities facing their organizations.

However, the Haas, Jr. Fund also believes there are times when general operating support may not be the most effective capacity-building strategy. Over the past seven years of the Haas Leadership Initiative, our experience has been that executive directors are often reluctant to allocate unrestricted funds to strengthening organizational leadership for a variety of reasons:

  • Executive directors almost always find it difficult to prioritize longer-term staff and leadership development work when confronted with short-term programmatic needs and tight budgets.
  • The “selfless” culture of nonprofit leadership discourages leaders from dedicating resources to their own development.
  • Some executive directors fear that choosing to invest general support funds in leadership development could be perceived as a sign of weakness—a sign that a leader, or the board, isn’t up to the task of managing an organization and “needs help.”

John Harvey, Managing Director of Global Philanthropy with the Council on Foundations, recalled his own time as a nonprofit ED and the struggles he went through as he sought to convince himself and his board of the value of investing discretionary funds in leadership development. “A restricted grant would mean that no one—not a frugal board nor a prudent (or un-self-aware) nonprofit leader—could say no to professional development,” Harvey wrote.

The bottom line: many in philanthropy, including the Center for Effective Philanthropy, agree that large, multi-year operating support grants are critically important for nonprofits. But it seems that an increasing number also see that there are times when dedicated funding is an important complementary strategy for strengthening organizational leadership.

Excerpt of article by Linda Wood

The nonprofit outlook on donor fatigue

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To make up for funding gaps, many nonprofit organizations are working harder than ever before to reach donors through Facebook, Twitter and chain emails.

Often, however, the reality is that multiple charities are trying to reach the same donors, creating a potentially annoying situation.

“There’s a lot of great organizations,” said Travis DiNicola, executive director of Indy Reads, a nonprofit that works to improve literacy skills of adults. “But at some point, there’s only so many donors and so many dollars.”

Many leaders of nonprofits say it has allowed them to maximize the resources they have and cut out unnecessary ones. It also has taught them how to weather future economic downturns.

“There’s not a doom-and-gloom. I think that’s wrong,” says one director. “It’s just changed. So you rise up. You move on.”