Young donors access non-profit sites via Smartphones

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To reach people in their 20s and early 30s, the most important thing nonprofits can do is to make sure their Web sites are easy to read on a mobile device and not overly cluttered, says a survey of more than 6,500 young people released today.

About 65 percent of respondents said they liked to learn about a nonprofit through its Web site, compared with 55 percent who said they turned to social networks, e-mail newsletters (47 percent), print (18 percent), and face-to-face conversations (17 percent).

When young adults turn to a Web site, the “about us” section draws their attention most. Nearly nine in 10 young people said that’s where they go to seek information, according to the survey, conducted by two consulting companies, Achieve and Johnson, Grossnickle, and Associates.

Other information young people want on a Web site:
• 43 percent said they look for proof about the ways their donations make a difference.
• 41 percent seek volunteer opportunities.
• 41 percent look for an events calendar.
• 30 percent gravitate to videos and photos.

Beyond the information on a Web site, young people also scrutinize the design. “Even if you are a small, scrappy nonprofit, your Web site should look professional,” said one young person quoted anonymously in a report on the survey results. “I judge the character of the organization with its presence on the Web.”

Among the study’s other findings:
• Two-thirds of young people said they interacted with a nonprofit on Facebook, and 92 percent of those respondents “liked” at least one nonprofit’s Facebook page. Three-fourths of people said they would be willing to share an interesting nonprofit event on Facebook.
• About 28 percent of young people said they have interacted with a nonprofit on Twitter. Focus-group members said Twitter is especially useful when nonprofit leaders have their own personal accounts and share their views.

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.

What the US election means for a Pakistani living with drones

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Today the United States votes to elect its next president. For Americans, the choice is about which candidate will improve the economy, healthcare, the employment rate and ensure better living standards.

However, for Pakistani citizens living in the country’s northwest, especially for the 800,000 people in the tribal region of Waziristan, the American election is a question of life and death.

Malik Jalal Khan is an elder of the Mada Khel tribe. He told [the interviewer] that more than 200 people from his tribe have been killed through the CIA-run clandestine drone program in the last seven years. Just like America’s presidential candidates, Malik Jalal is also responsible for the wellbeing of his people. He has to ensure that his tribe’s young have stable jobs, children can go to school and sick people are treated in the best possible way.

When it came to matters concerning Malik Jalal and his tribe’s people, … both Obama and Romney if elected promised to continue with drone warfare that has targeted northwest Pakistan. This means that Malik Jalal still has to live with the fear that any of his tribe’s women, children or men like him are all potential targets, as reports suggest the CIA considers every male of able military age a potential terrorist in North Waziristan. It means his 9-year-old will still not go to school due to fear that his school might be targeted by a drone. It means people will still not attend funerals, have large weddings or conduct their fruit export or mining businesses openly.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, more than 3,300 people have been killed in more than 350 drone strikes during the last nine years.

So far, according to our estimates, these strikes have only killed 41 of the Al Qaeda-linked individuals who were meant to be the real targets of the drone program.

These killings help extremists recruit more discontented youth. A person in tribal society who has lost his family members in this manner is bound by the Pashtun honor code — Pashtunwali — to retaliate and opt for “badal” (revenge or justice). There is growing anti-American sentiment in regions affected by drone attacks and some people are tempted to resort to illegal means when the system does not deliver justice to them. This discontent is spreading among Muslims.

[The above consists of excerpts of an article by Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a legal fellow in Pakistan, director and founder of the Foundation for Fundamental Rights, and a practicing human rights lawyer]

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.

 

Music telethon raises $23 million for Hurricane Sandy relief

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Friday’s Hurricane Sandy telethon, presented by the Red Cross and NBC Universal, and featuring performances by Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Christina Aguilera and others, raised $23 million to support victims impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

“We are incredibly grateful and humbled by this outpouring of support for those who are suffering as a result of Superstorm Sandy,” American Red Cross Chief Marketing Officer Peggy Dyer said in a statement. “Our preliminary results of nearly $23 million raised are an extraordinary example of how the American people pull together in times of disaster. Their generous donations will go directly to those in need, and we urge the public to continue to give.”

Hosted by Today show anchor Matt Lauer, the telethon also featured performances by Billy Joel, Sting, Aerosmith and Mary J. Blige. Kevin Bacon, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Stewart, Brian Williams and Danny DeVito dropped by to lend support.

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.”