A new breed of activists changing the world with their ideas, technology, and passion. Are you with the program? Visit the blog and take the quiz to find out!
This week, Target announced its newest charitable giving initiative taking place on Facebook, launched for Valentine's Day. Similar to the campaign it launched last May, when the retailer asked its Facebook fans to help decide how it would divvy up $3 million amongst 10 charities, the Valentine's Day campaign asks its Facebook fans to help it divvy up $1 million to organizations, with a focus on educational programs.
2010 has just begun and already we've seen numerous reports that the job market is still looking, well ... bleak.
Guest blogger Ned Breslin is CEO of Water For People, a nonprofit international humanitarian organization that supports the development of sustainable safe drinking water resources and improved sanitation facilities in developing countries. In October 2009, Water For People announced an investment from the Case Foundation to accelerate and expand its efforts to provide innovative, sustainable water solutions in Africa.
The water sector is dominated by pictures of happy children drinking water from a tap. This is of course the goal, but is it the reality? Sadly not.
Alongside the stories of devastation and trauma due to the recent earthquake in Haiti are stories of personal and community strength, compassion and hope. It has been heartening to see the world - including individuals, businesses and institutions, governments, and the nonprofit community - rally to help this country in distress through the rapid pace and significant amount of dollars raised for relief efforts.
In the research we conducted after the first America's Giving Challenge in 2007-2008, we found that a hallmark for many successful efforts was a combination of online and offline outreach to mobilize supporters. It's no surprise that the combination of tactics beyond just online to generate donations was once again successful for many of this year's winners.
This season's issue of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP)'s publication, The Corporate Philanthropist, is out and available online and in PDF. Each issue focuses on different areas of corporate philanthropy, and this current Winter 2010 issue provides different perspectives from industry executives, leaders and experts on the question:
When Jen Pahlka from Code for America (Tim O'Reilly's right hand at the time) came to meet with our CEO, Jean Case, and me, Jean literally could not stay seated because she was so excited about the possibilities of this new effort. Seriously, she got out of her seat and started smiling ear to ear. Although, Jean and I have since had to do some work on our poker faces, we remain incredibly enthusiastic (and are now proud supporters) about this innovative approach, which leverages the skills of talented development and technology professionals to re-engineer and re-imagine the way cities and towns communicate with and serve their citizens.
Guest blogger Katie Whitehouse is a Project Leader at City Year DC.
During his lifetime, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sought to forge the common ground on which people from all walks of life could join together to address important community issues. Working alongside individuals of all ages, races, and backgrounds, Dr. King encouraged Americans to come together in service to strengthen communities, alleviate poverty, and foster dignity and respect for all human beings. Service, he realized, was the great equalizer. Dr. King believed that “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve.”
News from the Case Foundation and what people are talking about this week in the world of giving, tech and everything in between.
As the internet is democratizing we are seeing more and more organizations and individuals trying to build a presence online. What everyone is wondering, of course, is how to effectively measure that presence. The big buzz recently has been around a new product called PostRank Analytics. This new tool is great at measuring statistics of your own website, like Google Analytics does, but also the performance of your brand on the web in general. You name it, they can track it, from blogs to twitter to tumblr and digg.
