The Business of Giving

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August 24, 2010 11:42 AM

Tapping the energy of youth: part 2

Posted by Kristi Heim

Last week's post about Team Up for Nonprofits led several other groups to contact me and share what they're doing to encourage young people to get involved in community service. Each has a different strategy for tapping in to this new demographic.

One local nonprofit is Teens in Public Service (TIPS). TIPS selects teen leaders from local schools and places them as interns in charitable organizations throughout Seattle, matching their interests with the needs of the nonprofit. Nonprofits can request interns, and the teenagers apply in a competitive program to serve at one organization through the summer, earning wages (paid by TIPS) while helping the community.

BEAN is a fast-growing networking and volunteering group for young professionals that started in Seattle in 2002 and has branched out to 10 other chapters and more than 10,000 members.

KEN LAMBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

BEAN members (left to right) George Lamson, Christiaan Pre, Howard Wu and Ona Anicello sort donations at Food Lifeline in Shoreline.

Howard Wu, 31, started BEAN (originally the Business and Engineering Activists Network but now known just by its acronym) to appeal to people in their 20s and 30s. He found no single organization that did all of what he thought would interest them.

"Young professional groups" focus on networking and socializing. While there are many "drink-for-charity" groups, "that's all they do," he said. Networking groups are older, established, exclusive and expensive. Charity groups are very committed to their cause and need their volunteers to be committed.

Established civic groups with youth branches, such as Young Rotarians and Junior Chambers, have another style. "The message these groups conveyed to me is 'Here is a play pen, Junior,'" Wu said. "You can join us adults over here when we think you are ready."

So BEAN set out to reinvent service, or a "Civic Engagement 2.0" model, in Seattle and beyond. It combines volunteering, networking, socializing and giving. There's no cost to join the organization, which is run entirely by volunteers.

Shanghai is by far the biggest success story outside Seattle, Wu said. In less than two years, the chapter has grown to more than 1,500 members, won charity awards and received coverage on the front page of Shanghai Daily.

Other active chapters are San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong.

Now Wu's vision is for BEAN "to take up the spiritual torch of the older Animal Clubs (Lions, Elks)" and to build new leaders. BEAN's volunteer work includes dental education at an orphanage in Shanghai, cleaning a shelter for homeless youth in Seattle and painting rooftops white to reduce energy consumption in New York.

BEAN is hosting a fundraising party tomorrow that kicks off its annual Think Global Act Local campaign. It will auction off dates with members, and proceeds go to local nonprofit Vittana, which supports microloans for aspiring college students. In fact, Vittana co-founder and CEO Kushal Chakrabarti is among the bachelors being auctioned. He pledged to take his date skydiving.

More than 20 years ago, David Battey started Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) "to promote a lifetime ethic of service among young people," he said. In King County, it lists projects for volunteers ages 11 to 18, from the White Center Food Bank to The Nature Consortium.

For those interested in applying their energy to improve society as a budding entrepreneur, Ashoka Youth Venture now has more than 40 Seattle ventures started and led by young people.

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August 19, 2010 3:24 PM

Teaming up to tap the energy of youth

Posted by Kristi Heim

Many nonprofits would like to get young people involved as volunteers and donors, but they're not sure how to reach them.

Ryan Hodgson is using music to open the door. His organization, Team Up for Nonprofits, is hosting its second event in downtown Seattle tonight to benefit Seattle Works. They're getting a boost from local speed skater J.R. Celski. After meeting him through a colleague, Hodgson heard that Celski wanted to do a musical event to give money to a nonprofit and asked him to join forces with Team Up.

Each monthly Gigs4Good event supports a different nonprofit and combines entertainment with raising money and awareness. This time, Rotary is sponsoring the bands, which also helps local Rotary clubs connect to potential new members.

HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES

Speed skater J.R. Celski, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, is appearing at the Gigs4Good concert tonight to benefit Seattle Works. He's combining interests in music and community as an ambassador for Team Up for Nonprofits.

"What we want is to have this active group of younger individuals in the community, and each time they come they get exposed to a new nonprofit," Hodgson said. The goal is to help young people find a cause that resonates and stick with it over time. "We really want to foster philanthropy and make it a lasting opportunity."

Beneficiaries include the arts, environment and social justice, and both large and small nonprofits.

"We're going to try to spread the love," he said.

People in their 20s and 30s may not have the incomes to write big checks yet, but they make up for it in energy, as Hodgson's own all-volunteer organization shows. It's also the mission of Seattle Works to give young people ways to volunteer, donate and lead projects in the community.

Hodgson, 36, now has a day job at Comcast, but before that he took six months off to get Team Up for Nonprofits off the ground, and volunteer board members have been busy spreading the word online. Part of the group's mission is to help train nonprofits to use social media to expand their reach.

Tapping in to new supporters is critical at a time when donations are lagging. A GuideStar study of more than 7,000 nonprofits found that 40 percent of charities reported a decline in giving in the first five months of this year. Yet more than 60 percent of nonprofits reported demand for their services has increased.

Three months after its first event, Team Up is now getting two or three emails a day from nonprofits that want to partner with it, Hodgson said.

The first Gigs4Good was relatively small and raised about $2,000, Hodgson said. Momentum has been building and the group is starting to get more sponsors to offset the costs for the musicians, venue and advertising.

"You have to do the hard work and prove you're going to stick around before people get involved," he said. "We're hoping to raise a lot more than that tonight."

Events are also planned in September and October. September's show at the Triple Door will benefit Bike Works.

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August 18, 2010 5:32 PM

Pakistan relief efforts faltering, local groups say

Posted by Kristi Heim

Local organizations say the scale of disaster in Pakistan is beyond comprehension: one-fifth of Pakistan is under water, 20 million people have been displaced and at least 900,000 homes destroyed.

While the floods have caused more devastation than previous disasters such as the Haiti earthquake or the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, far less money is coming in. Relief agencies say they are running out of resources.

It's harder to raise money for disasters that play out over time rather than hit all at once, aid groups say. Another reason may reflect reluctance on the part of donors, including Pakistani-Americans.

Yet two Northwest organizations that suffered attacks recently in Pakistan have been among the first to rush to its aid.

K.M. CHAUDARY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Villagers in central Pakistan flee their homes last week due to heavy flooding.

Federal Way-based World Vision now has a team in place in Pakistan that is working to provide water, hygiene, shelter and food to 300,000 people in areas hardest hit by the flood. It has opened five emergency health clinics to treat people with waterborne diseases, and hopes to offer cash for work programs and set up safety shelters for women and children.

Mercy Corps, headquartered in Portland, says it is working in the Swat Valley to provide clean water to 25,000 people a day via water tanks, high-volume filtration units and water purification tablets. Its 20-person team is also distributing food kits and tools to help in the clean up. The organization plans to expand relief efforts into Sindh Province.

World Vision and Mercy Corps both suspended operations in the country following attacks earlier this year. Six World Vision Pakistani staff members were killed in March when gunmen stormed their offices in Mansehra, and four Mercy Corps Pakistani workers were abducted in February on the road near Quetta. One was later killed and the other three released.

With a 24-year history in Pakistan, Mercy Corps resumed operations just days before the floods hit, said spokesman Joy Portella. Its aid workers in the Swat Valley led the way, saying
'"We have to respond to this," she said, but getting restarted has been very emotional.

World Vision estimates it will need $20 million to respond to the disaster.

Early on, "it was unclear just how massive the needs were because it was difficult to reach some of the hardest-hit places," said Randy Strash, the group's fundraising expert for disaster response. "Now, we know that millions of children and families need our help."

So far it has raised $478,000 in private donations in the U.S. and is applying for more in government grants, and a total of $2.8 million globally, less than 15 percent of its goal.

World Vision raised 50 times more for Haiti in the first two weeks after the earthquake than it has for Pakistan, Strash said, yet ten times as many people are now affected in Pakistan.

Other groups assisting in Pakistan include Medical Teams International, which is shipping medicines and supplies to the country, and the Jolkona Foundation, which works through a local partner called Barakat. Barakat works primarily in refugee areas with a focus on girls education.

Here is a searchable database with more information on groups working in Pakistan.

Look for a story by Seattle Times reporter Janet Tu later this week on local community efforts to help.

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August 12, 2010 11:49 AM

The inspiration behind the billionaire pledge: Bolder Giving

Posted by Kristi Heim

How much money is enough? Is a system that produces so many billionaires a fair one? Is it a good idea to ask billionaires to contribute their fortunes to charity? If they do, are the results going to be positive?

So far, 40 billionaires have responded to the challenge by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to donate at least half of their money to philanthropy. But "The Giving Pledge" has also inspired some deeper questions about the role of wealth in society.

New research reported by the Wall Street Journal finds that the top 5 percent of Americans by income are responsible for nearly as much consumer spending as the bottom 80 percent.

The U.S. hasn't seen such a high concentration of wealth since the 1920s, with a relatively small number of individuals at the top who have personal control of huge assets.

"It creates an opportunity for people of wealth to think about how much to keep and how much to give," said Jason Franklin, executive director of the group Bolder Giving and a lecturer on public administration at New York University. The new Gilded Age points to both "possibility in philanthropy and an indicator of inequality," he said.

Bolder Giving, founded by the Boston couple Anne and Christopher Ellinger, aims to get people across the economic spectrum to think about how to donate a higher percentage of their assets and how to become effective philanthropists who can inspire and collaborate with others.

Even with economic inequality of nearly historic proportions, average charitable giving in the U.S. has remained between 2 and 3 percent of income, the group says. Our "intense consumer culture urges people to accumulate more and spend more."

At the same time, society is in a period of great flux where a sense of energy and optimism mixes with heightened concern, Franklin said.

"We're in a volatile moment where it seems each time we turn around we're facing major concerns from the oil spill to the economy," he said. "It feels like we're really on the brink of change that could be positive, but we could also be on the brink of things changing negatively."

In early May, the small three-year-old organization got a call from the Gates Foundation "out of the blue" with an offer to support its work. "That's a call every non-profit dreams of," Franklin said. Six weeks later Bolder Giving received a $675,000 grant from the foundation to expand its reach. Melinda Gates has credited the group's work in talking about the impetus for The Giving Pledge.

Reaction to the Giving Pledge in some parts of the world, such as Germany, has been critical. Millionaires there said charity by the rich shouldn't be seen as a replacement for basic functions of government, according to an article by Der Spiegel.

"Forty superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for," said shipping magnate Peter Krämer. "That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state."

Franklin agrees there is a larger question about the implications for civil society and decision making. "Philanthropy is almost always motivated by the desire to help or give back," he said, though "it is giving back on an individual basis rather than collectively."

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August 4, 2010 7:57 AM

List grows to 40 billionaires pledging to give away wealth

Posted by Kristi Heim

Forty billionaires have responded to the challenge by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates six weeks ago to publicly pledge at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.

The growing list of couples or individuals signing The Giving Pledge was updated today with new names, including software mogul Larry Ellison and filmmaker George Lucas. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the only other billionaire from Washington state to take the pledge, added his name last month.

Ellison, who has been criticized in the past for not giving more to philanthropy, said he intended for many years to donate 95 percent of his wealth to charity. He has donated hundreds of millions to medical research and education.

"Until now, I have done this giving quietly - because I have long believed that charitable giving is a personal and private matter," he wrote. "So why am I going public now? Warren Buffett personally asked me to write this letter because he said I would be "setting an example" and "influencing others" to give. I hope he's right."

In their letters, others talked about what they hoped their money could achieve. George B. Kaiser said he is concerned that America is failing its social contract as a land of equal opportunity.

"It is the most fundamental principle in our founding documents and it is what originally distinguished us from the old Europe. Yet, we have failed in achieving that seminal goal; in fact, we have lost ground in recent years," he wrote.

"Another distinctly American principle is a shared partnership between the public and private sectors to foster the public good. So, if the democratically-directed public sector is shirking, to some degree, its responsibility to level the playing field, more of that role must shift to the private sector."

The Gateses also published a letter discussing their motivation to improve global health and U.S. education. They have pledged to donate 95 percent of their wealth to philanthropy.

The richest haven't fit the pattern of the most generous in the past. The Chronicle of Philanthropy found that over the last decade, only 29 people on the Forbes 400 list have ever donated enough in a year to make the list of the 50 most-generous Americans.

Columnist Pablo Eisenberg said the well intentioned effort to boost philanthropy has the potential to exacerbate inequities in the nonprofit world and in society unless steps are taken to "mitigate the potential undemocratic nature of these new mega-foundations" and shift grant-making priorities to help the most disadvantaged people.

The full list is here, along with each of their pledge letters. Their estimated wealth, from a quick tally of this data from Forbes, is about $250 billion, though some have already contributed the bulk of their assets to charity.

"We've really just started, but already we've had a terrific response," said Buffett, pledge co-founder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He said of the people he and Gates approached, about half agreed to sign on.

It was clear from letters written by Buffett and others that donors intend to send a message to future generations, including those around the world, to change the way people view wealth.

"If life happens to bless you with talent or treasure, you have a responsibility to use those gifts as well and as wisely as you possibly can," the Gateses wrote in their letter. "Now we hope to pass this example on to our own children."

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July 21, 2010 10:20 AM

United Way of King County tops nation in fundraising

Posted by Kristi Heim

United Way of King County said it has raised $101.2 million through its annual campaign, making it the leading United Way in the country for fundraising.

Donations were about flat with last year's total of $101.8 million. The organization has consistently ranked number one even as totals have fluctuated with the economy. In 2008, the total raised was $116 million, following a record $121 million in 2007.

The drive ended June 30 with former Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Scott Carson as its chairman. The United Way credited him for helping keep the campaign on track despite "an extremely difficult fundraising climate."

"This hasn't been an easy climate for businesses or non-profits alike," said Jon Fine, the United Way of King County's chief executive.

One change from last year was a decrease in unrestricted funds given directly to United Way. More donors designated funds to specific programs and organizations that United Way supports. Of the total, donors gave United Way $35.5 million in unrestricted funds this year, down from $41.1 million last year.

The United Way wants to keep growing its pool of unrestricted funds, said spokesman Jared Erlandson. Those funds help it respond quickly when new issues arise, such as last year's shortage of emergency food supplies, and coordinate with companies, governments and other nonprofits, he said.

The organization is focusing on volunteers to help people in need and to offset operating costs, which are about 3.2 percent of the organization's budget. This year, for example, more than 600 volunteers prepared 14,000 federal tax returns at no charge for low and middle-income families.

"There is no better way to communicate United Way's impact in the community than to have someone see it first hand as a volunteer," Fine said.

Next year's campaign is being led by Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and SonoSite General Counsel Kathy Surace-Smith, who are married. Contributions from Microsoft, Boeing, Safeco Insurance Foundation and The Seattle Foundation have helped them raise $9 million so far.

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July 15, 2010 7:31 AM

Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

Posted by Kristi Heim

Billionaire Paul Allen has taken his friend Bill Gates up on his challenge to publicly pledge the majority of his wealth to philanthropy.

TED S. WARREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Paul G. Allen, owner of the Seattle Seahawks, attends a Seahawks game in Seattle in December. Allen was undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Allen, who is 57, said today that he plans to leave the majority of his $13 billion estate to philanthropy to continue the work of his foundation and to fund scientific research. It was also a way of marking the 20th anniversary of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, which he started in 1990 with his sister, Jo Lynn Allen, and has since given 3,000 grants totaling about $400 million.

A month ago, Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett began a public campaign to encourage other billionaires to make a "Giving Pledge," and donate at least half of their wealth to charity.

Allen said he has planned to do that for many years, but he had not gone public with his intentions until now.

"He and Bill have talked about this and he thinks it's a good idea to let people know," said David Postman, a spokesman for Allen at Vulcan. "He hopes that maybe it spurs other people to give and he's hoping there will be good things that come of it."

Allen said he wanted to make it clear that his philanthropic efforts "will continue after my lifetime," he said in a statement. "As our philanthropy continues in the years ahead, we will look for new opportunities to make a difference in the lives of future generations."

This year Forbes ranked Allen as the world's 37th richest person with a fortune estimated at $13.5 billion.

His total giving over the years has reached about $1 billion, reflecting eclectic interests in science, the arts and education, including nonprofits he founded: the Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Experience Music Project.

While Gates' charity has become global in size and ambition, Allen's has remained mostly local and personal.

"Since the beginning, our philanthropy has been focused in the Pacific Northwest, where I live and work," Allen said. "I'm proud to have helped fund great work done by non-profit groups throughout the region. But there's always more to do."

Allen has battled non-Hodgkin's lymphoma since his diagnosis last fall. He has finished chemotherapy treatments and has been been doing well, Postman said. Allen traveled to Africa recently, and has been "running businesses as much as he ever has. He stays intimately involved in the things he cares about."

JIM HALLAS/AP PHOTO/EASTSIDE JOURNAL

Microsoft founders and future billionaires Bill Gates, left, and Paul Allen in Bellevue in 1981, when the company employed less than 100 people.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation also announced $3.9 million in funding to 41 nonprofit organizations in the Pacific Northwest, focused largely on arts and culture.

The foundation gave Anniversary grants of $20,000 each to five individual founders of nonprofits, recognized as "change agents who created organizations that continue to deliver high impact programs for local communities."

The recipients are Rachel Bristol, founder and CEO of Oregon Food Bank; Bridget Cooke, founder and executive director of Adelante Mujeres in Forest Grove, Ore.; Jeanne Harmon, founder and executive director of the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession in Tacoma; Myra Platt and Jane Jones, founders of Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle; and Ken Stuart, founder and president of Seattle Biomedical Research Institute.

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July 14, 2010 9:43 AM

The Nature Conservancy holds local fundraiser for Gulf spill work

Posted by Kristi Heim

These days it seems whenever I look at Puget Sound I can't help but think of the Gulf oil spill. A group of organizations will be doing the same thing on Thursday evening during a fundraiser for The Nature Conservancy, held at the 75th-floor Columbia Tower Club.

STEVE RINGMAN/SEATTLE TIMES

Kayakers paddle among pink salmon jumping in the East Waterway off of Elliott Bay. Scientists from the UW and NOAA said Monday that the changing pH of the seas is hitting Puget Sound harder and faster than many other marine waters, threatening the region's shellfish industry.

The Oil Spill Wildlife Rescue will feature Karen Anderson, state director of The Nature Conservancy, presenting an update on the nonprofit's efforts in the gulf. Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound, will also talk about efforts to protect local waters.

"Almost Live!" veteran Pat Cashman will host the event, which includes auction and raffle items and paintings by local artists of scenes from the Gulf area from Art on the Ridge and the Open Arms Campaign.

JUDI BOTTONI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Berms and absorbent materials are used to contain oil following the April 20 spill by BP, the worst in U.S. history.

The benefit is sponsored by Flavor of Seattle, MVMGR Real Estate and Stigmare Couture Marketing. The worst effects are being felt far away, but there's a lot of interest locally. Stigmare CEO Steven Paul Matsumoto says more sponsors contacted him within hours of the event being announced . "It was very heartwarming and a true Northwest response," he said.

Forecasters predict that among other casualties, the oil spill will depress charitable contributions by as much as $600 million in 2011, mainly due to the effects on the Gulf Coast economy, according to PhilanthroDEX, which tracks and predicts charitable giving from sources nationwide. The April 20 explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 workers. Since then anywhere from 35,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil per day have been flowing into the Gulf.

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July 6, 2010 4:07 PM

Seattle organizations suggest ways to revamp U.S. foreign aid

Posted by Kristi Heim

The system of U.S. foreign aid is broken, Seattle experts on development issues say. Now local non-profits, businesses and educational institutions hope to have a direct impact on how it's fixed.

To start, the U.S. needs a national strategy to clarify the goals of foreign aid, trade policy consistent with those goals, an easier process for small businesses to participate and support for international education programs.

KRISTI HEIM/SEATTLE TIMES

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (left) speaks to audience members at a forum on global development at Seattle University.

Those recommendations from Global Washington, a Seattle association of 120 groups working in the field of global development, were released today and discussed by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and others in a forum at Seattle University. The full report is here.

Cantwell said she and Sen. Patty Murray requested the recommendations last fall and will take them to back to Washington D.C. to contribute to the ongoing debate over how the U.S. should change its policy for foreign assistance.

Among the problems: flooding the market with food aid from overseas and causing local crop prices to drop, and trade tariffs that end up costing poor countries much more than the aid they receive.

In 2006, for example, the U.S. gave $120 million in aid to Bangladesh and Cambodia, while at the same time collecting $853 million from them in import duties. This report has further details.

Effective foreign aid can improve economic conditions and help fight terrorism, Cantwell said. Though the U.S. contributes less than 1 percent of its federal budget to foreign aid, polls show spending on aid is unpopular nationally, she said. More accountability of the funding is needed to measure and show results.

Washington is home to about 200 non-profits working on global development issues in 144 countries, according to Global Washington. They include global health, clean water and sanitation, food security, poverty and education.

"These are some of the most basic and life sustaining issues that demand involvement of us as a nation and certainly involve us in Washington state," Cantwell said.

Global Washington recommended that foreign aid be aligned with United Nations Millennium Development Goals, that USAID have autonomy from the departments of State and Defense, and that aid be based on priorities of local recipients and proportionally targeted to countries that are the poorest and most in need.

"We have the technology, we have the people and the passion. We need a structure for coordinating it and measuring the impact," said Yvonne Harrison, assistant professor of non profit leadership at Seattle University, who helped write the recommendations.

Washington is uniquely positioned to comment, Cantwell said, with almost 5 percent of all Peace Corps volunteers, the highest percentage of any state, as well as America's most diverse ZIP code -- 98118 in Rainier Valley, where people who speak 60 different languages now live.

Seattle's impact on the other Washington is already being felt in the number of people with positions in the Obama administration, including former Gates Foundation agricultural development director Rajiv Shah, now head of USAID, former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, now Commerce Secretary, and Travis Sullivan, a former Boeing executive now Locke's chief policy advisor.

Maura O'Neill, Cantwell's former chief of staff, now works under Shah as chief innovation officer at USAID and spoke at the Seattle event.

"My role is to be on the hunt for new breakthrough ideas and put innovative partnerships together," she said.

One of them was a $10 million partnership USAID recently announced with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop mobile banking in Haiti. O'Neill said the project may be expanded globally.

Another is a USAID partnership with Coca-Cola to connect Haiti's mango growers to the drink maker's supply chain to provide juice for drinks under the Odwalla brand, she said.

USAID is working with U.S. companies in Indonesia, the third largest carbon emitter in the world, to develop new business models to reduce deforestation for palm oil production.

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July 1, 2010 2:35 PM

Site connects non profits and social entrepreneurs with pro bono lawyers

Posted by Kristi Heim

A new website connects lawyers who want to volunteer time with non profits and social entrepreneurs looking for free legal services.

TrustLaw Connect is an online service promoting pro bono legal work around the world. It works a bit like Kiva in that people requesting and people donating help are vetted and then matched through the service, which is run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. It's free to both beneficiaries and providers.

More than 60 law firms and 80 non profits have signed up, including Seattle-based Teachers Without Borders. For social entrepreneurs, however, the service doesn't accept unsolicited proposals. Instead it works by referral from organizations such as Ashoka, the Grameen Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and the Skoll Foundation.

Examples of the kind of work it supports are writing legal documents, advice on intellectual property, governance, drafting funding agreements, negotiating contracts and advice on charity laws. Lawyers Without Borders offers a similar service.

TrustLaw says it doesn't help with litigation against individuals, companies or governments, which may limit its impact. Still at a time when nonprofit resources are constrained, getting professional services donated could save valuable funds for programs.

The foundation said its overall aim is to improve access to the rule of law and greater transparency. The site is also devoted to news and information about anti-corruption activities around the world.

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July 1, 2010 9:17 AM

Buffett gift to Gates Foundation worth 30% more this year

Posted by Kristi Heim

Investor Warren Buffett's annual donation to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation rose significantly with the value of Berkshire Hathaway stock this year, meaning the foundation will see a windfall of about $1.62 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

That's a 30 percent increase over last year's donation, which was the smallest amount since Buffett began distributing the gift in 2006.

Four years ago, Buffett pledged most of his fortune to the Gates Foundation, to be distributed in annual installments of Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares.

Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company, owns more than 70 businesses, including insurance companies General Re, National Indemnity and Geico, as well as stakes in Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Procter & Gamble, Burlington Northern and American Express.

The WSJ estimated the total value of Buffett's donation, including future gifts of shares he has pledged, to be about $39 billion as of Wednesday.

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June 30, 2010 12:27 PM

Local organizations weigh in on global summit failures

Posted by Kristi Heim

Next Tuesday Global Washington will release its recommendations for revamping U.S. foreign assistance from a panel of 45 local experts.

It's a good time to talk about strategies for improving aid after last weekend's meeting of G8 leaders, which many non-profit groups say failed to adequately fund basic programs to prevent the deaths of mothers and their newborns.

KIER GILMOUR/MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Protesters demonstrate on stilts while wearing masks portraying G8 leaders in Ontario, Canada, as the summit meetings began.

Humanitarian organizations had urged leaders of the eight wealthiest nations to double their collective spending on maternal and child health to $20 billion over five years, saying the money could save a million children a year and more than 200,000 mothers.

What the group offered was $5 billion over five years, with an additional $2.3 billion from others. The Gates Foundation is picking up most of the private tab with its $1.5 billion pledge, the second largest in its history.

"With economic uncertainty and the massive Gulf oil spill taking a significant toll in the U.S., it's not a shock that President Obama and other leaders shied away from greater commitments at this summit," said Robert Zachritz, director of advocacy for Federal Way-based World Vision. But it's shortsighted, he added. "Investing in global child and maternal health yields a high return for a tiny fraction of the sums spent so far on financial bailouts."

Politicians are absorbed by the world financial crisis and other mounting problems at home, and skepticism about the effectiveness and impact of U.S. foreign assistance has grown.

SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

A highlight of the G8 meeting was the Muskoka Initiative to save 1.3 million children; a low was the funding to do it.

One lesson in all this may be that guilt doesn't work as effectively as self interest. Investments in global health in fact are an economic stimulus, argues Jack Chow, a CMU professor and former U.S. health ambassador under Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The combination of rising diseases and economic uncertainty calls for a new approach that can address both, he said.

"The G-20 leaders should recognize the connection between health and long-term economic security in both developing and developed countries," Chow argues. Healthy workers are more productive and can save more for food and medicines. Sound economies, in turn, permit greater investment in health." And, he might add, eventually buy the products that ailing economies like ours are making.

Chow suggested combining the two aims by promoting a health-jobs package for the poor, supported by alternative funding sources from the reserves of oil-rich and Asian exporting nations.

In Seattle, global health and biotechnology are important sectors that continue to add jobs in spite of the recession and inspire a generation of young people to tackle some of the world's toughest challenges.

One of the main recommendations of Global Washington is for the U.S. government to streamline the process for businesses, especially small businesses, to get involved in public-private projects designed to boost health and development in emerging markets. Trade policy should also be linked to development objectives, the Seattle non-profit argues.

Tueday's discussion will include examples of successful development partnerships in Washington state, with Sen. Maria Cantwell and Dr. Maura O'Neill, chief innovation officer at USAID, participating.

World Vision, whose foundation is faith-based, also uses economic terms to get its point across. It estimates that $15.5 billion in potential productivity is lost each year when mothers and babies die from preventable causes such as malnutrition and lack of basic health care. Each dollar invested in global health would create a $3 gain through extended healthy lifespan and faster economic growth, the organization says.

World Vision estimates it will spend $1.5 billion on child and maternal health over the next five years, making health a greater priority throughout its programs. The organization has an annual income of about $2.6 billion.

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June 18, 2010 9:33 AM

Spending on global health expected to drop by 2013: IHME

Posted by Kristi Heim

By Sandi Doughton

Funding for programs to boost health around the globe has continued to increase over the past few years, despite the economic downturn.

But the growth is unlikely to continue much longer, said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

An earlier analysis by Murray and his colleagues found that spending on global health programs quadrupled between 1990 and 2007, from $5.6 billion to nearly $22 billion.

The upswing was partly fueled by wealthy, private donors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The total includes funding from developed nations, corporations and NGOs.

But Murray said Thursday at IHME's annual board meeting that the previous report was outdated by the time it was released last year.

An update shows that funding climbed to $23.6 billion in 2008. Murray estimates it will hit about $29 billion this year.

Economic modeling predicts that the effects of the global recession will start to be felt in 2013, when total spending will probably dip, he said.

Founded with a $105 million grant from the Gates Foundation, IHME's mission is to bring rigorous statistical analysis to the evaluation of health programs and trends worldwide.

But the institute's work, which has uncovered exaggerated childhood vaccinations rates and undermined UNICEF claims of rapid declines in child death rates, has earned it animosity.

Dr. Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet -- which has published many of IHME's studies -- read the board members a scathing e-mail he received from another global health scientist, angry that Murray and his team were viewed as a "conquering hero," while those who have worked for decades on the front lines of global health are now portrayed as villains.

Horton urged IHME to reach out more to its critics, perhaps by sponsoring an annual conference focusing on global health science.

Ethiopian Health Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a member of IHME's board, said the institute wouldn't be doing its job if there was no controversy about its work. But he suggested IHME make its work more useful to developing nations by tailoring analyses to individual countries.

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June 17, 2010 4:51 PM

Income inequality and philanthropy

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Gates/Buffett billionaire pledge drive provoked some thoughtful analysis as well as barbed commentary. Among the more interesting questions raised was this: why now? Why are wealthy Americans more interested in philanthropy, and if not, why do their peers think they should be? One answer is that they have a lot more money to give away.

The United States has seen a rise in income inequality over the past several decades. The sheer number of billionaires has also increased steeply. Take a look at this chart from Gapminder to watch the yellow billionaire balloon shoot to the top.

The U.S. has one of the best business environments for people like Buffett and Gates to make their fortunes. Yet when you look at wealth per person, several countries are doing better than the U.S. without many billionaires. Norway's GDP per capita, for example, is $49,000 compared to $43,000 for the U.S., and it has 4 billionaires compared to 415 in the U.S.

By the middle of this last decade, the U.S. had one of the highest levels of income inequality of any developed country, measured by something called the Gini coefficient. Since 1975, that number has steadily increased here, from .35 then to .45 today, according to OECD figures. (Click on the map to see more detail)

Arul Menezes, a principal architect at Microsoft Research, grew up in India and came to the United States in 1988. He told me an anecdote about his experience living here that I found striking.

One of the things that drew him to the U.S. initially was the relative equality and meritocracy of the society, education system and economy, he said.

"There wasn't an entrenched elite with all the power and wealth," he said. "It was a society where there was opportunity to almost anyone from almost any background to achieve almost anything."

Houses built 40 years ago were much more modest than the mansions of Medina today. And yet on comparably less, people found the money to pay for infrastructure and community centers, he said.

Of course, Microsoft has helped produced quite a few of those Medina millionaires and several billionaires, but Menezes speaks to a broader trend.

"People didn't have granite counters but they had good roads, good schools and good universities," he said. "Instead we have 6,000 square foot houses -- time will tell whether that was a good choice."

Lack of money for education, a jobless recovery and massive public debt is creating whole new problems for philanthropy to solve. No matter how laudable the personal causes of billionaire philanthropists, the upshot is that too much decision making power is concentrated in the hands of a few.

"A lot of countries have settled into long periods of time into the status quo of an endemic elite and disenfranchised majority with little movement between the two," Menezes said. " I don't think the U.S. is anywhere near there, but I can see the risk."

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June 16, 2010 9:29 AM

Gates and Buffett lobby billionaires to donate most of their wealth to charity

Posted by Kristi Heim

Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are launching a drive to persuade billionaires to give away the majority of their fortunes.

They are asking fellow billionaires to sign a "Giving Pledge," making a public statement to donate most of their wealth to philanthropic causes of their choice.

The pledge isn't legally binding, but they hope the effort will generate more money to address important social problems and set a standard that becomes the norm, former Gates Foundation CEO Patty Stonesifer, who is an adviser to the Gateses, said in an interview today.

SETH WENIG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Investor Warren Buffett, who is ranked as the third richest person in the world, is donating most of his wealth to the Gates Foundation.

Buffett, who pledged to give away more than 99 percent of his $47 billion fortune, was the main driver of the initiative, which has the support of a couple dozen billionaires, Stonesifer said. Buffett was inspired not by the rich but by the generosity of ordinary people who sacrifice more to contribute hard earned dollars to churches, schools and other organizations.

The idea came out of a series of private dinners the Gateses and Buffett held in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area over the past year. They will invite people who take the pledge to meet at an annual event to share ideas.

The potential for philanthropy is huge -- the United States alone has at least 400 billionaires with a net worth Forbes estimates at $1.2 trillion. If those billionaires gave the minimum pledge of half of their fortunes to charity, that would triple the current amount of charitable giving in the U.S.

"That could be transformational," said Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy. "It could have a dramatic effect on some of the toughest social challenges that we face. But people have to do it first."

The Giving Pledge does not involve pooling money or supporting particular causes. But philanthropic efforts have the most impact when different non-profits and foundations unite around the same cause, often bringing in support from businesses and policymakers, Buchanan said.

"There are so many pressing human needs and the temptation is so great to want to address all of them," Buchanan said. "There's going to need to be collaboration among philanthropists to move the needle in significant ways."

Four couples have already signed on to the pledge, Stonesifer said. They are Eli and Edythe Broad, John and Ann Doerr, Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest and John and Tashia Morgridge.

In his pledge letter today, Buffett describes how having too much wealth is a burden.

"Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner," he wrote.
"Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced."

How are some of the country's billionaires reacting to the plan? Forbes has an interesting smattering of answers from Donald Trump and others here.

Washington state is home to six billionaires: Bill Gates, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Amazon.com Chief Executive Jeffrey Bezos, wireless entrepreneur Craig McCaw and Oakley sun glasses creator James Jannard, who lists his residence in the San Juan Islands.

"This is an exciting idea and sets a new standard for charitable giving," said Susan Coliton, vice president of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Allen was out of the country and unavailable for comment. He has been ranked among the top philanthropists for years, Coliton said, adding "I am sure he will be interested in learning more about this challenge from Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates."

Ballmer said in a recent interview that he and his wife preferred to keep their philanthropy private and anonymous. McCaw declined to comment. Bezos and Jannard could not be reached Wednesday.

Leaders of the pledge will have their work cut out for them. It turns out the richest Americans are not all that generous.

"We agree with Andrew Carnegie's wisdom that 'The man who dies rich, dies disgraced,' and we also believe 'he who gives while he lives also knows where it goes,'" the Broads said today in a statement along with their pledge to give 75 percent of their wealth to charity.

Giving may be rewarding, but it's not that easy, they said.

"Philanthropy is much harder than running two Fortune 500 companies."

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June 15, 2010 3:28 PM

Gates Foundation gets low marks in relations with non-profits

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Gates Foundation received lower than average ratings in many aspects of its relations with grantees, CEO Jeff Raikes disclosed in a letter today.

The results were disclosed following a survey of more than 1,500 non-profits who received grants from the Gates Foundation over the last year. Raikes said the foundation worked with the Center for Effective Philanthropy to measure the perceptions of its grantees.

"They say we are inconsistent in our communications, and often unresponsive," he wrote.

The grantee perception report is a standard benchmark in philanthropy and has been used by nearly 200 funding organizations.

While non-profits said the foundation is having a positive effect on knowledge, policy, and practice, "we received lower than typical ratings on many other aspects of the grantee experience," Raikes said.

Staff turnover at the foundation created more work for the non-profits. The foundation was also criticized for not communicating its goals and strategies or its decision-making and grant making processes clearly.

Raikes vowed to make changes, including explaining how the grant proposal and approval process works, giving grantees a point of contact and allowing all of its partners to ask Gates Foundation executives questions.

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June 11, 2010 2:49 PM

New voices help spread the word about global health

Posted by Kristi Heim

There's a point at which a cluster of organizations working on a problem starts to feel like more than the sum of its parts. That kind of multiplier effect fueled Silicon Valley's technology innovation for decades.

Is it also starting to help Seattle gain traction solving problems in world health?

When people in their twenties decide to throw a party to fight rotavirus, and more than 500 guests show up (with 200 more on the waiting list), something new is taking hold.

ARI SHAPIRO/DAUBER ART PHOTOGRAPHY

Hope Randall, program assistant at PATH, demonstrates an oral rehydration kit that can save children from death due to diarrhea.

"We can change the world every day, in everything we do, even partying!" was the optimistic mantra.

Who knew that one event in Seattle could help a country achieve a national health goal? (The event raised $13,000, enough money to fund Kenya's oral rehydration program). Who knew that childhood diarrhea would be the topic of conversation at a cocktail party?

"Diarrhea Happens" was the way one of the hosts, Anne DeMelle, summed it up in a Facebook entry for Party with a Purpose. "It's true - it happens even to the best of us. For a half a million children around the world every year this seemingly benign condition is caused by a preventable virus and kills them. But it doesn't have to."

Lacey Birk, 25, said she and roommate Kristen Eddings knew rotavirus was a good cause. Though they wondered: "Are we really ready to talk about diarrhea with all these people?"

KRISTI HEIM

PATH communication officer Deborah Phillips talks with party guests about rotavirus and other health issues.

The efforts of people working in the field are getting bolstered by students and young professionals, musicians and athletes, who are all mingling, sharing information and learning about problems or diseases they may never have experienced but that plague large parts of the world.

Thomas Hansen, the CEO of Seattle Children's Hospital, enthusiastically explained a low cost mechanical ventilator for children in poor countries to a crowd of young party guests.

"We're really at the tipping point," said Todd Leadens, 22, an intern at at Boeing and engineering student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. "We have the technology to understand the problems and we can do something."

Seattle is also benefiting from the experience of people like Sanna Nyassi, who survived two bouts of malaria growing up in The Gambia, and went on to play professional soccer.

In a lab room at Seattle BioMed, Nyassi sat patiently on a stool while a woman named Diane powdered his face.

"Sanna, I'm not going to tell your teammates about this makeup situation," said Kevin Griffin, director of fan development & community relations for the Sounders FC and Seahawks.

"At least it's not eyeliner," said Diane.

"They save that for Freddie Ljungberg," Griffin quipped, not missing a beat.

"Do you have something to wipe that off later?" Griffin asked the makeup artist.

MARK HARRISON/SEATTLE TIMES

Sanna Nyassi is stepping into the limelight to call attention to malaria.

Nyassi, the soft spoken 21-year-old Sounders FC midfielder, was about to make his debut in front of the camera as a spokesman in a public service announcement for the non-profit. He had just met researcher Stefan Kappe, the man who is leading work on a malaria vaccine, and taken a look at the parasite under his microscope.

Two film crews followed his tour through the building.
"Could you look straight into the camera?" the producer coached Nyassi. "Could you say 'Now that's a great goal?'" The filming seemed tedious but Nyassi didn't complain.

"I can do this again and again," he said. "I feel good my club is part of this."

Libuse Binder, who wrote a book called "Ten Ways to Change the World in Your Twenties," summed up what attracted her to Seattle and why she thinks what's happening here matters.

"There's a surge of educated, intelligent tech-savvy people who want to make a difference and know how to do it," she said. "We can spread the word really quickly and start a movement."

"I think because we have so much access we know what's a stake. We're concerned. We're the ones inheriting the world."

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June 7, 2010 9:00 AM

Gates Foundation commits $1.5 billion for mother and child health

Posted by Kristi Heim

Calling on world health leaders to do more to prevent deaths of mothers and their newborn babies, Melinda Gates said today the Gates Foundation is pledging $1.5 billion over the next five years for family planning, maternal and child health and nutrition in developing countries.

It's the second largest donation in the foundation's history, after a $10 billion pledge over 10 years for vaccine development and delivery made in January, and indicates a new direction for the foundation, which has focused on diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. The foundation announced today initial grants of $94 million in India and $60 million in Ethiopia.

HARAZ N. GHANBARI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon talks with Melinda Gates at the Women Deliver conference in Washington. Ban urged an end to the "silent scandal of women dying in childbirth."

Among the grants for India, Seattle-based PATH received $24.3 million to demonstrate a model for health services that will save lives of newborns and reduce illness and death of mothers.

Gates challenged the idea that "large numbers of maternal and child deaths are inevitable, or even acceptable, in poor countries."

"It is not that the world doesn't know how to save the 350,000 mothers and 3 million newborns who die every year," she said, speaking at a women's health conference in Washington D.C. "It is that we haven't tried hard enough."

Gates said she would make the health of women and children her personal priority as co-chair of the world's largest charitable foundation. The foundation will alter its model from one focused on specialized diseases to a more integrated approach.

Women and children "aren't conditions or procedures or treatment models," she said. "They are human beings."

Over the past 30 years, the overall picture has been improving, Gates said, citing recent studies from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and collaborators in Australia that found the number of women dying from pregnancy-related causes has dropped by more than 35 percent -- from more than 500,000 annually in 1980 to about 343,000 in 2008.

She called the next several months "a critical window of opportunity to secure new global action," as Canada will urge donor countries to endorse a major maternal and child health initiative when it hosts the G8 summit in Ontario later this month.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, also speaking at the conference, said women's health "must be front and center in the push to meet the Millennium Development Goals," and are among the most cost effective investments for future generations.

According to the UW study of maternal mortality in 181 countries, developing nations have made substantial progress, particularly Egypt, China, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

Nearly 80 percent of all maternal deaths are concentrated in 21 countries, and six countries account for more than half of them. Maternal death rates are highest in India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The death rates also rose in a few high-income countries, including the United States, though changes in reporting practices may have contributed to the increase. (Looking at maternal mortality rates globally, the U.S. currently ranks number 39, between Macedonia and Lithuania.)

"We haven't made as much progress as we should have, especially since so many solutions are simple and just need to be available to all women and children," said Steve Gloyd, executive director of Seattle-based nonprofit Health Alliance International.

Gloyd, also a professor and associate chair in UW's Department of Global Health, said the funding should help strengthen the ability of governments to provide "much-needed basic health services."

"Training more health workers in a full package of services for women will be essential" for it to succeed, he said.

Gates said family planning could reduce deaths of mothers by 30 percent and newborns by 20 percent, but more than 200 million women have no access to contraception.

The largest of Gates initial grants, $38.7 million, is going to North Carolina-based Family Health International to develop cost-effective ways to increase access to voluntary contraception in poor urban areas of India.

"As a woman, I can't imagine being denied access to the tools I need to plan," she said. "It is my basic right to be able to choose when to have children."

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May 27, 2010 11:08 AM

Mixing music and philanthropy to support non-profits

Posted by Kristi Heim

Benefit concerts tend to be one-time events, but a Seattle group wants to use performances in a new way to unite music and philanthropy.

MARIANGELA ABEO

Ryan Abeo, a.k.a. Ra Scion of the local hip hop duo Common Market, has a new solo project named for superhero Victor Shade and will perform in the inaugural Gigs4Good show.

Team Up for Nonprofits aims to support Seattle philanthropy by producing "Gigs4Good," a series of concerts, each one benefiting a different non-profit. Producer Ryan Hodgson and a group of friends and colleagues started Team Up last year with the goal of giving people of any age a chance to meet and network with like-minded people, enjoy performances and contribute to a meaningful cause for the cost of a concert ticket.

Team Up for Nonprofits will kick off its fund raising efforts tonight with a concert at the Hard Rock Cafe that will benefit Seattle Against Slavery (SAS), a grassroots group working to fight human trafficking. Tickets are $25 at the door.

Ryan Abeo (Ra Scion) along with Alexei Saba Mohajerjasbi (Sabzi) formed Common Market, a duo that describes its music as "a critical, unapologetic world view that change is not only necessary, it is inevitable, and can only come about through having love for and serving the people."

Tonight Ra Scion headlines as Victor Shade, along with DJ B-Mello, Project Lionheart, Sol and Dice.

Next month, another interesting benefit concert will feature Starbucks General Counsel Paula Boggs, who is also a singer and songwriter, celebrating her debut CD "A Buddha State of Mind." She's donating all proceeds from the June 26 concert at EMP Sky Church to radio station KEXP.

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May 26, 2010 1:49 PM

PATH raises $550,000 aimed at catalyzing health projects

Posted by Kristi Heim

It wasn't the parking garage, but there were plenty of catalytic converters.

For PATH, a Seattle non-profit focused on global health threats such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, Tuesday's annual breakfast to raise money and showcase its work marked a turning point for an organization that had outgrown its Ballard digs and parking garage fundraisers.

Now one of the best funded global health non-profits in the world, PATH brought in more than $550,000 as 776 people attended the event at the Bell Harbor Conference Center turned Africa-themed pavilion. That exceeded last year's total when supporters gathered inside PATH's parking garage and donated more than $525,000.

The event also produced 24 new "Catalyst Circle" members, who pledged at least $1,000 a year for five years, and one new $25,000 donor. The money is used to jump start experimental projects that don't have funding from larger grants.

PATH was the number one recipient of foundation grants in the state in 2008 and the third largest recipient in the country, according to the Foundation Center.

Its growing ambition is evident at the organization's new headquarters inside a gleaming South Lake Union office tower.

"The world is entering a pivotal time," PATH CEO Chris Elias and Chair Molly Joel Coye write in a letter preceding the 2009 annual report. "Never before have we seen such tremendous political and financial support." And along with that support come expectations that are higher than ever, too.

PATH has made big bets on what could be the first malaria vaccine, a redesigned female condom, a fortified pasta called Ultra Rice to boost nutrition and a "one size fits most" diaphragm, among other projects.

About 10,000 children are now enrolled in malaria vaccine trials under PATH's Malaria Vaccine Initiative. The PATH Woman's Condom is also in final regulatory studies to pave the way for FDA approval. Ultra Rice is being introduced into school lunch programs in India and other countries.

And yet some health problems are so challenging they defy any single solution. PATH Kenya program officer June Omollo told the story of her adopted daughter Poline, who died last year at the age of 18.

Poline's mother killed herself when she found out she had HIV. Her father died of AIDS several months later, but not before he raped 12-year-old Poline, infecting her with the virus.

She became an outcast and the virus went undetected until it made her so thin and weak she couldn't lift her shoes. Her teacher contacted Omollo, who took Poline under her wing. With the right medicine she became healthier, attended school and taught a youth group at her church. Despite her incredible progress, she contracted tuberculosis, and her compromised immune system couldn't survive it. She died in the hospital with her school exams on the table, Omollo said.

"I lost a person that inspired me a lot in life," she said. "She made me realize there's so much in life that you can give to someone."

HIV/AIDS and TB are preventable and manageable, so no child should die of them, she said.

For other girls, teenage pregnancy is practically a death sentence. A 15-year-old girl named Eunice who became pregnant was asked to leave school and then forced to leave home. Without job skills or family support, such vulnerable girls often turn to selling their bodies to buy food and eventually contract HIV, Omollo said.

Eunice's parents got in touch with one of PATH's peer support programs, which help families overcome their aversion to talking openly about issues like sex, pregnancy and HIV, and teach problem-solving. Over time, they changed their attitude and asked their daughter to come home, she said.

"We cry with communities, we sing with them, we eat with them and have them reflect on their own situation so they can overcome their own problems," Omollo said.

Many young girls in places like Kenya face an almost impossible burden, one that's very hard to solve if they're abused by their own families and shunned by their schools and communities.

In that broader sense, effective solutions often mean new ideas and approaches that address the cultural, political and economic problems threatening health.

Perhaps this complexity is one reason why speakers at PATH's annual event didn't talk a lot about technology. In fact, I hardly heard the word mentioned. Elias called the group's vision "health within reach through innovation."

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May 24, 2010 4:00 PM

Young generation redefines culture of Microsoft philanthropy

Posted by Kristi Heim

Is Microsoft an incubator for social entrepreneurship?

Over the years, plenty of people have retired from the company to start a second career in philanthropy or to create new enterprises that address social issues.

Microsoft alumni have founded and supported more than 150 non-profit organizations and social ventures working around the world, according to its alumni foundation.

Employee giving and company matching funds totaled almost $90 million last year (employee charitable donations and volunteer time are matched up to $12,000 a year).

Such support has moved well beyond a fringe benefit. To attract the next generation of employees, making a social mission part of the company's DNA has become a vital recruiting tool, said Lisa Brummel, senior vice president for human resources. (She's seated at far left with four employees active in philanthropy)

It's also something she sees as an advantage over competitors.

"There are certain companies that give their employees 20 percent time to spend internally to make the company better," she said, referring to Google. "And there are some companies that give their employees 20 percent time externally to make the world better."

Brummel spoke last week at a first ever Microsoft Accelerator Summit, a round table discussion with media and non-profits focused entirely on corporate citizenship. The participants ranged from an employee of less than two years to CEO Steve Ballmer.

"If you go to employees and say why do you work here.. at the end of the day people buy in and participate in their own mind in our vision and they want to make a difference in society," Ballmer said.

Employees are running non-profits of their own, including the Jolkona Foundation, Givology and CRY America. Xiang Li, a Microsoft product manager and co-founder of education non-profit Givology, said the prospect of making a difference is more important to her than a higher salary.

"The amount of effort I see our employees doing is quite remarkable," Ballmer said. "We want to make sure we enable and support and encourage that."

In fact, the new organizational model that a younger, globally connected workforce demands is one that blends social and commercial goals, and attracts talent with visionary leadership and social mission, Seattle author Rob Salkowitz writes in his book "Young World Rising."

One of the key questions for any company, though, is how to align doing well for society with its business goals.

For Microsoft, areas where the two converge include health, science, education, workforce training and bridging the digital divide, Ballmer said.

In a project called PhotoDNA, for example, Microsoft researchers teamed up with Dartmouth College computer science professor Hany Farid to create a way to identify and filter out known images of child pornography from search engines, based on matching their digital fingerprints provided by law enforcement agencies.

Another project involved deploying 200 sensors throughout the Brazilian rainforest to measure temperature, water vapor and solar radiation, collecting data and designing systems to visualize the effects of climate change.

The Web site Microsoft Hohm helps people calculate their energy use and find ways to conserve, and it's planned in the future as a tool to help manage information about when and where to recharge electric vehicles.

The company's legacy of philanthropy took inspiration from Mary Gates, the mother of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and a leader of United Way. "It spread starting from Bill and his family to the company and it sort of became part of our culture," said Pamela Passman, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel (pictured above).

This year, the company ranked 14 on a list of the 100 best corporate citizens by Corporate Responsibility magazine, which evaluated performance on a range of issues such as environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights and philanthropy. Despite the generally favorable review, CR gave Microsoft a cautionary "yellow card" for its involvement in antitrust cases brought by the European Union and U.S. state governments.

Tim Cranton, associate general counsel who worked on the PhotoDNA project, described what he finds unique about the company's culture.

"Microsoft employees truly believe they can change the world with software, even sometimes in an arrogant way, but there is an abiding belief that we can change the world."

I wanted to understand what Ballmer thinks about the legacy of philanthropy in the company and what he plans to do with his own wealth.

"I don't start with what are we giving away but what are we trying to accomplish and what can we get done," he said.

Partnerships with NGOs around the world are key to that strategy, and they include groups such as NetHope, CARE, TechSoup and Goodwill Industries.

On the question of his own philanthropy, Ballmer said he wants to be anonymous and private. "My own world's my own world, so I continue to treat it that way," he said.

While he supports the kind of giving Microsoft is doing, he sounded more pragmatic than visionary. "If you stack it up next to the world's problems, it's got to be money that ignites action."

So what impact are these efforts having on business and society?

For one thing, by investing in IT training programs for unskilled workers, the company gets a lot more feedback about how its products can be improved, said Akhtar Badshah, senior director of global community affairs.

Microsoft is investing significant resources in a program called Unlimited Potential, which combines technology, education and economic development to improve conditions for the billions of people at the middle and bottom of the global economy.

Like many high-tech heavyweights, the company is providing resources to seed its next markets.

"There is no guarantee that that any one high-tech company will benefit in a direct way," Salkowitz writes. Their investments could end up developing fertile markets for their competitors, but it's not worth the risk of standing by while others gain a foothold, he contends. Either way, the beneficiaries are local consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs.

Nalini Gangadharan, chair of the CAP Foundation, said IT training programs funded by corporate partners have helped raise the marriage age in parts of India where more than half of girls traditionally get married before the age of 15.

"Before, girls were sitting idle and married off," she said. "Today the girls are saying as long as it's safe and secure, they are able to hold jobs and have decision-making status in the family. That is one of best outcomes."

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April 22, 2010 8:34 AM

Volunteer group donates 100th container of pedal power

Posted by Kristi Heim

Ten years ago a group of Northwest volunteers sent their first container of bicycles to Ghana. Now the Village Bicycle Project is preparing to send its 100th container, having delivered 45,000 bikes and 15,000 tools and trained more than 7,000 people how to use them.

The program was started in Ghana after the country removed import duties on bicycles in the mid-90s. The goal is to improve lives of people in rural areas who would otherwise have to walk hours each day.

MARY JAYNE CASSIDY

Women in Ghana learn to ride used bikes donated through the all-volunteer Village Bicycle Project.

The group collects donated bikes from all over the world, but many of its core supporters are in Seattle, including Bike Works. On Saturday, the all-volunteer organization will be loading its next container in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle and is looking for help to collect bikes, take them apart and pack the container.

Village Bicycle Project pays for the cost of shipping by selling bikes that are in good condition through two partners in Accra, said board member Meg Watson. Those partners set aside one-third of the bikes for the training programs in villages and sell the rest wholesale from their storefront shop.

Once bikes are trucked to villages, free training classes are held to maintain and repair bicycles. People who participate the training can then purchase one of the bikes for about $20, half the normal price, Watson said.

"Selling bikes is part of a development model that prevents bikes being horded by the powerful, and makes them more available to those who can best use it to improve their economic circumstances," she said.

The project works with Peace Corps volunteers, who host its programs, and has reached about 60 communities throughout Ghana. It also holds advanced repair workshops to train people to set up small repair businesses.

The next step is increasing the number of women in the program and expanding to Sierra Leone, Watson said. About 30 percent of the participants are women. In Sierra Leone, where volunteer Brittany Richardson recently taught 500 school girls how to ride bikes.

"The people of Sierra Leone were begging for bikes from Brittany, so we are sure an eager market awaits us," Watson said.

Guidelines for how to donate bikes can be found here.

The ARAS Foundation of Sammamish has collected more than 2,500 bikes for the project and has a bicycle drop-off event on May 15. For more information: www.villagebicycleproject.org

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April 15, 2010 2:52 PM

Northwest giving trends not as grim as rest of nation

Posted by Kristi Heim

Last year was the worst year for non-profit fundraising in a decade, and all but 10 percent of non-profits in the U.S. are expecting this year to be as difficult or more so, in terms of demand for services and available resources.

Update: The Foundation Center reported Friday that U.S. charitable foundations cut their 2009 giving by a record 8.4 percent. Grant dollars fell from $46.8 billion to $42.9 billion, the largest decline the center has recorded.

How do such dismal national results compare with the Northwest?

Philanthropy Northwest surveyed more than 100 foundations at different times, replicating a survey done nationally by the Council on Foundations.

In the spring of 2009, the number of foundations predicting their grant-making would decrease more than 10 percent was 44 percent nationally, and 40 percent in the Northwest, said Philanthropy Northwest CEO Carol Lewis.

She is presenting a detailed report on trends in Northwest giving April 22 in a free public program.

In the fall of 2009, Lewis surveyed her members to look ahead to 2010. Almost 60 percent said their grant-making would stay the same, showing a leveling out that "actually seemed encouraging," she said.

"Flat is the new up."

However, almost 20 percent said they will cut their grant making by more than 10 percent.

"There definitely is going to be disruption out there and non-profits that feel the pinch," Lewis said. Arts organizations and environmental groups may be hit hardest, she added, because some funders have diverted resources from those causes to basic services like food and shelter.

Northwest nonprofits received more than $1 billion from foundations in 2008, a high water mark year. Giving increased dramatically between 2004 and 2008, and even faster when the Gates Foundation was excluded from results.

"Philanthropy grew very quickly across the region between 2004 and 2008, more quickly than nationally. In some respects we are operating from a stronger base than the rest of country, and we've seen less of a decline."

Yet the hardship is real for non-profits. "It doesn't take a complete decline to make your life miserable -- you just need to have the one big foundation you rely on go south," Lewis said.

That's why non-profits with loyal individual donors are probably going to be more secure than those that rely on a couple of foundations.

Looking at the national picture, the Association of Fundraising Professional's annual survey released this week found that the economy is still putting a damper on efforts to raise funds, with just 43 percent of charities raising more money in 2009 over 2008, 46 percent raising less money and 11 percent about even.

"These figures represent a low mark in fundraising over the past 10 years and quite possibly since the 1980s," said AFP President Paulette Maehara. "We've never seen so many organizations raise such few funds."

A separate survey by the Nonprofit Finance Fund of more than 1,300 nonprofit leaders nationwide found that almost 90 percent expected 2010 to be as hard or harder than last year; 80 percent expected to see more demand for their services, and 61 percent had less than three months cash on hand (12 percent had no cash). Only 18 percent of organizations expected to end the year in the black.

However the AFP found that the majority of its respondents felt prospects were improving -- more than 60 percent believe they will raise more money in 2010 than in 2009.

The Foundation Center said the decline in giving last year was tempered by increased giving by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and decisions by a significant number of funders to cut expenses and/or dip into their their endowments to bolster their giving.

And the center forecasts that 2010 foundation giving will remain flat, which is a less pessimistic outlook than a year ago.

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April 9, 2010 9:10 AM

Pigott among wealthy Americans asking to pay more taxes

Posted by Kristi Heim

Some rich Americans are leading a tax revolt of sorts -- to pay more, not less.

Judy Pigott, a Seattle author, philanthropist and an heir to the Paccar fortune, is among the group of wealthy individuals calling on Congress to end tax breaks that have enriched people like her.

They have signed a Tax Fairness Pledge to take the money they saved as part of tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush and donate it to groups working to overturn those policies.

The tax cuts were "based on the erroneous assumption that the trickle-down effect would somehow benefit everyone," Pigott said. "What we have now is the greatest wealth disparity since the Great Depression."

She is part of a group called Responsible Wealth, a project of the non-profit United for a Fair Economy. The network of 700 individuals who are among the wealthiest 5 percent in the United States includes Jeffrey Hollender, the co-founder of Seventh Generation natural products, and Eric Schoenberg, an economist at Columbia University and former investment banker.

United for a Fair Economy, which has worked to prevent permanent repeal of the estate tax, is now trying to counteract "Tea Party" protests over higher taxes, and argues that eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans is one solution to the country's deficit.

They want Congress to restore the 39.6 percent and 36 percent rates on the highest income earners (those with household incomes over $200,000) and end special treatment of dividends and capital gains.

"Half the deficit comes from taxes that weren't taken from people who could have afforded to pay those taxes," Pigott said.

She has supported the effort for four years. Last year she donated about $600,000, half of which was savings from tax cuts, she said.

Why not just keep giving the surplus away?

"I think it is the national government that can deal with clean air, water, national transportation systems, education," she said. "l see those things are in trouble on a state level and on a national level because we don't have the money. Yes we can do a lot, but we can't do what the federal government can do."

Pigott, co-founder of Personal Safety Nets, is the daughter of the late Formula One race car driver Pat Pigott and the granddaughter of Paul Pigott, who owned the truck company that is now Paccar. Paccar CEO Mark Pigott is one of her cousins.

Asked whether she has approached members of her family about the tax cuts, Judy Pigott said she has talked to her cousins. "I'll just say we have a large enough family that we cover all points of view and a solid enough family that we can agree to disagree."

Another member of the network is Arul Menezes, who came to the U.S. as a graduate student with $250 and earned his wealth over the past 20 years at Microsoft. Investments made decades ago created the universities and research systems that helped him succeed, he said.

Menezes said that while the tax cuts have saved him more than $20,000 a year, he worries about the long-term impact.

"The tax cut was paid for entirely with borrowing," he said, while funding for schools, roads and research was cut. With a deficit of $1.5 trillion this year, "that's just robbing the bank," he said.

Menezes said has stepped up his charitable giving as a result of the tax savings. But that won't have the same effect as reworking the tax system, he said.

Menezes said that while he paid 15 percent in capital gains tax, a person making $30,000 to $80,000 would pay 40.3 percent for federal income tax plus Social Security and Medicare.

"It's grotesquely unjust," he said. "It embarrasses me to go into a grocery store and know that the person at the checkout stand is paying a higher tax rate than I am."

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March 11, 2010 5:38 PM

Camp Korey sells $20 million farm to supporter, gets it back for a song

Posted by Kristi Heim

Camp Korey, a non-profit that operates free camps for children with serious illnesses, has sold its farm to the foundation created by the founders of Carnation Milk.

The foundation then granted Camp Korey a 30-year lease on the 818-acre farm for a nominal fee, freeing up money for the non-profit to expand its programs to more people.

The Elbridge and Debra Stuart Family Foundation said it completed the sale of the Carnation Farm on Wednesday for an undisclosed sum.

CAMP KOREY

Camp Korey in Carnation was created as a refuge for children struggling with serious illnesses.

The camp was started in 2005 by Tim and Donna Rose, who lost their teenage son Korey to cancer. They were inspired by actor Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Camps, places where children fighting cancer and other life threatening illnesses could go for recreation.

Tim Rose, a senior vice president at Costco, knew about those camps through his relationship with Newman's Own food products. Paul Newman visited Carnation in 2007 to announce the sale of the farm to Camp Korey.

Owning the farm had become a financial burden for the camp, said Camp Korey spokeswoman Eva Conner. Nestle acquired the property in 1985 when it purchased the Carnation Company, and sold it to Camp Korey in 2008 for about $20 million, Conner said. That value included eventual interest over the life of the mortgage. The non-profit had about $5.7 million in revenue in 2008, and almost 60 percent of its expenses were going toward costs related to purchasing the farm.

Elbridge (Bridge) Stuart III, the great-grandson of Carnation Founder E.A. Stuart, said the farm has been a part of the family's history for a century.

"Re-acquiring it lets us support the good work of Camp Korey and preserve a part of King County and Washington State history while honoring our connection to the property," he said in a statement. "It is all of us working together for a single purpose."

Stuart and Ann Stuart Lucas, the granddaughter of E.A. Stuart, are on Camp Korey's board of directors.

Without a mortgage obligation, Conner said, the camp can use its resources to expand its capacity. It's holding seven week-long camp sessions this year, along with weekends and other recreation programs for children ages 7 through 16 dealing with cancer, epilepsy, Crohn's and colitis, heart disease and other conditions. The camp is supported by donations and is free for families and children.

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March 8, 2010 12:01 PM

ISB gets gift of $6 million from anonymous donor

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Institute for Systems Biology said it has received a $6 million donation from a California venture capitalist and philanthropist who wished to remain anonymous.

The gift was designated over five years to help ISB move into a new building to double its space, recruit additional faculty, and fund research in medicine, biofuels and global health.

The 10-year-old non-profit research institute was co-founded by Alan Aderem, Ruedi Aebersold and Leroy Hood and pioneers an integrated approach to medicine with scientists collaborating across different disciplines. The award announced today is important because it provides unrestricted funding, ISB said.

"This outstanding philanthropic leadership provides critical support for truly revolutionary advances in science," said Hood, ISB's president.

"Government funding and industry collaborations succeed in advancing science, to be sure," he said, "but that funding is often restricted to the support of highly prescribed research programs focused on incremental advances."

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February 22, 2010 1:01 PM

Olympic athletes and sponsors get behind philanthropy

Posted by Kristi Heim

JOHN LOK/SEATTLE TIMES

USA's Nicole Joraanstad, bottom, and teammate Natalie Nicholson, compete against Germany at a curling match during the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

VANCOUVER -- U.S. Olympic curler Nicole Joraanstad presented a $10,000 check to the Kent School District today, as one of five athletes supporting their hometowns through a partnership with Crest.

Joraanstad grew up in Kent and practiced at the Granite Curling Club, the only such club in Washington state. A 1999 graduate of Kentridge High School, she moved to Wisconsin when she was 18 to pursue curling. "I had a hunch it would get me in the Olympics someday," she said.

Joraanstad is co-captain of the U.S. Women's Curling Team and has a sponsorship deal with P&G, the maker of Crest toothpaste. The Kent district will receive the company's $10,000 donation for its health and physical education program.

It's one example of philanthropy happening at the Olympics, as athletes use their voices and resources to support various causes of their own and to help fellow athletes.

The gold medal for giving probably would go to snowboarder Hannah Teter, who is giving all of her prize and sponsorship money to charity, supporting work in Haiti, Kenya and Darfur.

After winning the gold medal in halfpipe at the Turin Olympics in 2006, she created a maple syrup called Hannah's Gold and has used proceeds to help fund charitable causes.

Teter has a partnership with the Christian charity World Vision, and has raised $185,000 so far for a project helping a community in Kenya with clean water and sanitation. About $130,000 of that comes from her contest winnings and another sizable chunk from Hannah's Gold.

Samsung, one of her sponsors, matches sales of her maple syrup dollar for dollar, and as part of its marketing deal gave $30,000 to her foundation last week.

Giving back is one of the main characteristics Samsung looks for in choosing athletes to sponsor, said Jose Cardona, communications manager for Samsung North America.

Teter also takes philanthropy where it's never gone before in "Panties with a Purpose." She created a line of underwear called Sweet Cheeks that gives $5 from every pair to a charitable cause -- this version helps Doctors Without Borders.

Scott Macartney, the ski racer and U.S. Ski Team member from Redmond I wrote about today in a story on sponsorships, has been supporting the World Cup Dreams Foundation, started by former team members Bryon Friedman and Erik Schlopy in 2005. The foundation gives members of the U.S. National Alpine Ski Team the chance to compete at the highest level by providing financial support and disability insurance coverage.

It makes sense that Macartney would choose to help others -- the two-time Olympian was raised by parents who volunteered in the ski patrol.

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February 8, 2010 3:44 PM

The richest Americans are not all that generous

Posted by Kristi Heim

Only 4 percent of the 400 wealthiest Americans listed by Forbes magazine were among the top 50 donors in the country, according to a tally of the nation's leading philanthropists in 2009.

Those top 50 donors gave a total of $4.1 billion to charity in 2009, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which compiles the list every year.

While it's separate from the Forbes richest list, said the Chronicle's Cynthia Powell, "when we cross compared that with who has the most money, we were just struck by the fact that of the 400 richest Americans, only 17 are giving a lot of money away."

The other most generous Americans were not wealthy enough to make the Forbes list but showed a greater ambition to use their money toward solving social problems, along with a more creative approach, she said.

Here is the Chronicle's list of the top 50 donors.

One obvious question is where are the other 383 richest Americans, the remaining 96 percent, when it comes to philanthropy? Here is the Forbes richest list.

Generosity took a hit along with diminished portfolios in the recession. In 2009, the top donors gave only about a quarter of the money they gave in the previous year. In 2008, the top 50 gifts totaled $15.5 billion.

The top 10 donors in 2009 were:

1. Stanley and Fiona Druckenmiller $705 million to the Druckenmiller Foundation
2. John M. Templeton (Bequest) $573 million to the Templeton Foundation
3. Bill and Melinda Gates, $350 million to the Gates Foundation
4. Michael R. Bloomberg, $254 million to 1,358 groups
5. Louise Nippert, $185 million to the Greenacres Foundation
6. George Soros, $150 million for Fund for Policy Reform and Central Europe Univ
7. Eli and Edythe L. Broad, $105.2 million to the Broad Foundations
8. J. Ronald and Frances Terwilliger, $102 million to Habitat for Humanity and others
9. William P. Clements Jr., $100 million to Southwestern Medical Foundation
10. Pierre and Pam Omidyar, $92 million to Hawaii Community Foundation and others

(Paul Allen was #11 with $85 million, the only other local donor I could find on the list).

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February 3, 2010 4:07 PM

Gates Foundation ramps up tobacco control efforts in Africa

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is stepping up the fight against tobacco with a $7 million grant to the American Cancer Society announced today. That follows a $10 million grant to the World Health Organization in December.

Both are aimed at curbing the tobacco industry's inroads in Africa, where cancer is emerging as a serious public health threat in addition to diseases such as malaria, AIDS and TB.

The $7 million, five-year grant to the American Cancer Society (ACS), which has taken on a more global role recently, will go toward managing a health coalition called the African Tobacco Control Consortium.

Consortium members include the ACS, Africa Tobacco Control Regional Initiative, Africa Tobacco Control Alliance, Framework Convention Alliance, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

JENNIFER ROTENIZER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Piles of what global health organizations don't want in Africa.

The consortium will work in 46 countries of sub-Saharan Africa to reduce tobacco use by
helping implement policies such as advertising bans, tobacco tax increases, graphic
warning labels and promoting smoke free environments, in line with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world's first public health treaty;

The World Health Organization started a new tobacco control effort in Africa with the help of a $10 million grant from the Gates Foundation late last year. Its goal is to prevent tobacco use from becoming as prevalent in Africa as it is in other parts of the world.

If tobacco use continues to grow at its current rate, it will kill more than 8 million people a year in 20 years, and more than 80 percent of them will be in developing countries, WHO predicts.

"Tobacco breeds poverty, killing people in their most productive years," said Dr. Ala Alwan, WHO assistant director-general for noncommunicable diseases and mental health. It consumes family and health-care budgets, and where resources are already scarce, "money spent on tobacco products is money not spent on such essentials as education, food and medicine."

For a detailed look at tobacco control in Africa, see Philippe Boucher's bilingual blog here.

I wrote about the Gates Foundation's challenges in fighting tobacco use in China here.

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February 3, 2010 1:34 PM

Washington Women's Foundation keeps funding level in 2010

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Washington Women's Foundation will award $475,000 in large grants to local nonprofit organizations in 2010, maintaining the same funding level as last year.

WASHINGTON WOMEN'S FOUNDATION

Carla E. Lewis, president of the Washington Women's Foundation.

Sustaining its membership and funding in 2010 shows the commitment of its members and the value of its collective giving model, foundation president Carla Lewis said. "As public funding for essential services declines, the foundation's ability to provide meaningful support to community programs has never been more important," she said.

Grants of up to $100,000 each will be awarded in five areas: arts and culture, education, environment, health and human services. Members pool their dollars and collectively vote on beneficiaries. Last year's winners were the Northwest African American Museum, College Access Now, Cascade Land Conservancy, King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, and The Mockingbird Society. This year's winners will be announced in June.

In addition, the foundation's 500 members will make individual grants totaling about $475,000 this year to the nonprofits of their choice as part of their annual membership contributions. Combined, the foundation will give out nearly $1 million in 2010.

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February 3, 2010 9:40 AM

RDI receives largest individual gift from philanthropist in Asia

Posted by Kristi Heim

Seattle's Rural Development Institute received a $2.1 million donation, the largest gift it has ever received from an individual donor, for its work in rural China and in support of women's land rights.

The three-year grant came from a philanthropist based in Asia who wished to remain anonymous, said RDI President Tim Hanstad.

"Such a significant grant from an individual donor demonstrates the growing awareness of the value of secure, long-term land rights as an innovative solution to rural poverty," he said.

The money will allow RDI to continue field research, policy work and program implementation in China and will help expand RDI's new Global Center for Women's Land Rights.

RDI has worked in China since 1987 and now serves as a key adviser to the central government on rural land issues. RDI has helped advance legal rights of farmers, which has encouraged them to make long-term investments and helped them obtain better compensation if their land is used by the local government for development.

This story talks about RDI's efforts and history in more detail.

RDI Founder Roy Prosterman will speak and take questions about RDI's work in China and implications for the future on Feb. 10 at The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR). More information about the event and background on the topic can be found here.

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February 1, 2010 9:28 AM

Haitian diaspora thousands of miles away lie awake, grieving

Posted by Kristi Heim

Martine Pierre-Louis hasn't been getting much sleep, and she suspects that other members of the Haitian diaspora are having the same problem.

She moved to the United States as a teenager 35 years ago but left a large extended family behind in Haiti. After the earthquake, her emotions traveled back in an instant to her loved ones and her childhood home.

"Literally we are traumatized thousands of miles away," she said.

She was fortunate that her family survived, but the immensity of the tragedy haunts her.

"What I keep saying to myself is that one lifetime is not going to be enough to grieve," she said. "I know that no matter when I die I'll still be grieving this."

Now director of interpreter services and community house calls at Harborview Medical Center, Pierre-Louis has been thinking about the about longer-term challenges of putting the country back together.

"The interest and energy and willingness to give that's present right now -- how can we harness that in the long run once all of the bodies have been cleared and all of the people who can be saved have been saved?"

People in Haiti have a kind of dignity that makes it difficult to accept so much outside help, she said.

ANGEL VALENTIN/GETTY IMAGES

Parishioners during Sunday Mass in Miami's Little Haiti pray in support of the earthquake victims.

"There's a sense of self that we feel, at least I feel, is lost. In everything that is going on there's a sense of loss that is so great we feel we're losing ourselves. It's a fear.

Pierre-Louis received an email from a Seattle friend who had moved to Haiti to do relief work before the disaster. She read the letter to me.

"Today we don't ask where do you live, it is more likely name of the street, or public place where you are sleeping. We don't say anymore so and so is dead; instead, so and so is lucky to be alive. I ran into a man who used to work for us. He lost nine members of his family, but he said he is lucky.
I met a couple who lost an 18 year-old daughter, yet open up their yard to the quake victims.
I have a co-worker who is still waiting for his wife to come back home from downtown. She went to run an errand and never made it back.
How can we ever be OK? But we must move ahead.
Haiti is a country made of people, and those who are still standing must do everything to continue."

Then she told me about a childhood friend who made it through the first earthquake unscathed and went in search of food for her family. She was struck in the leg by an object that fell in one of the many aftershocks, and her crushed leg was immediately amputated.

"People's nerves are frayed, and they are really, really traumatized," Pierre-Louis said. "There's great need for psychological support."

Pierre-Louis is working with a team in Seattle to prepare information and services to help survivors of psychological trauma, translating it into Creole and making it suitable for Haitian culture. She has been a Haitian Creole and French interpreter for over a decade, and is a founding member and past board member of the Society of Medical Interpreters and the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care. She also sings Haitian lullabies.

"Haiti will need all of the good energy and resources and time that donors can give," she said.

At Harborview she works with people from all over the world, "people who have experienced their own national tragedies," she said. Recently her colleagues have begun to share more about their own stories of living through war and disasters.

"I work with these colleagues daily, but for them to let me know that they also have had the experience of devastating loss and that is something we share. For me it's just one example of the amazing kindness I've experienced."

She's also been finding that there are more Haitians in the local community than she ever thought. "People are getting in touch with each other. The week of the earthquake, she got a call from a nurse who works in the King County tuberculosis clinic. She said 'I'm from Haiti. I'm a nurse. Can we talk?' When she came over she gave me a hug that lasted such a long time."

People like Pierre-Louis, who have medical expertise as well as an ability to bridge language and cultural gaps, will be needed more than ever before.

"What I would like to provide support with is in caring for the community I can care for right now -- the local Haitian American community," she said. Because in the future, she adds, "We will each be needed to step up in one way or another to serve Haiti."

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January 29, 2010 3:04 PM

Seattleites returning from Haiti will speak at Town Hall benefit

Posted by Kristi Heim

By Hal Bernton

A Seattle couple who survived the Haitian earthquake and then worked to help treat the wounded will speak Sunday at Town Hall in a benefit for the relief effort.

SCOTT COHEN

Sarah Wilhelm and Jesse Hagopian.

Jesse Hagopian and his wife, Sarah Wilhelm, whose experiences splinting bones were chronicled in this Seattle Times article, will be joined by Rep. Jim McDermott, King County Councilmember Larry Gossett and other speakers in a forum that will run from 4 to 6 p.m. There will be a dinner break and then a benefit concert that begins at 7 p.m. at the Great Hall.

The suggested donation is $20, and the proceeds will go to Partners in Health and the International Training and Education Center for Health, a University of Washington-based organization that operates in Haiti.

A roundup of some of the other Haiti-related activities is here.

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January 29, 2010 10:17 AM

$10 billion vaccine pledge shows Gates power to set global agenda

Posted by Kristi Heim

The $10 billion pledge for vaccines that Bill and Melinda Gates made today in Davos may be worth much more than that in the long run.

The couple announced that their foundation will commit $10 billion over the next decade for vaccines for the world's poorest countries. The world's largest private foundation is already spending more than half a billion dollars a year on vaccines, so this new commitment represents at least a doubling of its current efforts.

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Gates Foundation co-chairs Bill and Melinda Gates get set for a press conference on vaccines at the World Economic Forum.

As seen in the past, the actions of the Gates Foundation tend to have a huge ripple effect on the world and effectively set the global agenda. Money from the Gates Foundation single-handedly revitalized research on malaria, which had largely been abandoned by the developing world.

The Gateses also helped make the battle against malaria a cause celebre by working with stars like Bono and others, an effort that has helped inspire scores of organizations that tap corporations and individual citizens for money to buy bed nets for African communities. Soon after the Gateses commitment to malaria studies, the U.S. government followed suit with a presidential initiative to distribute bed nets and anti-malarial drugs.

The flood of email to reporters this morning shows the Gates move was a highly coordinated campaign, involving organizations such as the World Health Organization, International Vaccine Access Center and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization).

"The Gates Foundation's commitment to vaccines is unprecedented, but needs to be matched by unprecedented action," said Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. "It's absolutely crucial that both governments and the private sector step up efforts to provide life-saving vaccines to children who need them most."

Julian Lob-Levyt, CEO of the GAVI Alliance, who accompanied the Gateses for the news announcement in Davos, said GAVI would not exist if not for Bill & Melinda. Now it gets funding from 17 nations, and the WHO estimates the expanded vaccinations have saved five million lives.

"The Gates Foundation cannot achieve the full promise of vaccines on its own," said Orin Levine, executive director of IVAC. "Manufacturers must increase their investments in vaccine research and development, donor countries must mobilize to help fund new vaccines, and developing countries must make the investments and take the steps necessary for delivering life-saving vaccines to their children."

Will this new high-profile pledge compel donor nations to allocate more of their budgets to vaccines (or risk being slammed in public forums before world media)? And if so, will that come at the expense of something else?

Results of a study on rotavirus vaccines yesterday pointed to a whole range of other factors critical for their success, including clean water, proper sanitation, oral rehydration therapies, breastfeeding and vitamin supplements. It also pointed out problems in the cold chain --- distributing vaccines to far the reaches of poor countries while trying to maintain them at a constant temperature to keep from spoiling.

In his annual letter, Gates warned that increased spending by governments on climate change could jeopardize funding for vaccines.

The new emphasis on vaccines is one indication of the influence Bill Gates has had on the foundation in his first year on the job full-time. Watching Gates interviewed by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," (granted the segment was only six minutes) it was striking that he mentioned just two things about the foundation's work outside of the U.S. -- vaccines and better seeds.

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January 28, 2010 8:45 AM

Update on Haiti donations and events

Posted by Kristi Heim

Local fund-raising events, volunteer drives, non-profit campaigns and other efforts to help Haiti continued this week.

Tonight Seattle Greendrinks, SeaMo, ReVision Labs and Global Washington will jointly host a benefit for Fonkoze, a microfinance and development organization in Haiti working on emergency relief and long term reconstruction. A suggested donation of $20 includes live music, 6 to 9 p.m. at the Pike Brewery. Details are here.

Fonkoze board member Melanie Howard, Charlene Balick of the Grameen Foundation and a volunteer recently returned from Haiti will talk about the current situation and ongoing relief efforts. The brewery is donating 25 percent of its receipts from food and drink to Fonkoze.

Seattle non-profit InterConnection is looking for donations of used laptops with Pentium 3 or Pentium 4 chips and accepting them by mail or drop off (shipping is free for donors). InterConnection is working with World Concern to get the equipment into schools, hospitals and NGOs in Haiti that have lost hard drives and laptops and have no resources to replace them.

ELSA/GETTY IMAGES

Wide receiver Pierre Garcon of the Indianapolis Colts celebrates with the Haitian flag after the Colts defeated the New York Jets.

The non-profit NetHope managed to bring Internet connections to NGOs working on the ground in Haiti this week through a long-distance WiFi network it set up in Port-au-Prince. Frank Schott, NetHope's global program director, operated a kind of command center from his home in Bellevue to coordinate efforts. NetHope is now providing Internet access through a shared hub to CARE, Save the Children, Concern and Catholic Relief Services, among others. The group is made up of 28 of the world's largest humanitarian organizations.

Brown Paper Tickets, a company based in Fremont that donates five percent of its profits to charities, added a microfinance partner in Haiti to its list of beneficiaries. Ticket buyers can direct part of the ticketing fee to one of three categories, and FINCA, which operates village banking in Haiti, will receive a portion of the proceeds.

The Mobile Giving Foundation announced that mobile donations have surpassed $33 million. The foundation has continued to add non-profits to its platform and now enables mobile phone users to send donations to 25 different organizations in the U.S. and Canada that are working on relief to Haiti.

Corporate donations surpassed $122 million two weeks after the earthquake, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Business Civic Leadership Center. About 300 companies have contributed to relief efforts, and 49 of them have donated $1 million or more.

Today the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that more than $528 million has been raised in total for U.S.-based non-profits. Here's a list of relief groups and the amounts they've received.

Mercy Corps created a new way for people to raise money with personal fund-raising pages, designed by donors with personal messages and photos and used by schools, companies and other groups to give together. Mercy Corps said it has raised more than $500,000 from the pages so far.

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January 26, 2010 8:10 PM

Allen Foundation directs latest grants at economic stability

Posted by Kristi Heim

A microenterprise program that mentors Latina women to become successful food vendors in local farmers markets was among the 66 non-profits awarded a total of $4.6 million in grants by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation today.

The Hacienda Community Development Corporation in Portland received $200,000 to expand its Micro Mercantes program. In Seattle, the White Center Community Development Association also received a $200,000 grant to develop a green jobs initiative. That program aims to use federal stimulus funding to train young adults in home weatherization and related skills. It even has its own hip hop video Got Green?

The latest grants reflect a focus on strengthening the social safety net for people living on the financial edge and supporting longer-term programs for people with low incomes to build economic stability, the foundation said.

"During one of the most dramatic economic downturns in history, we remain committed to helping our nonprofit partners and the communities they support respond and adapt to these growing challenges," said Susan M. Coliton, the foundation's vice president.

Other grants included $400,000 to the Washington State STEM Education Foundation in Kennewick. That grant helps fund professional development for teachers at Delta High School, a new high school focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the Tri-Cities region.

Local arts grants included $25,000 to the Seattle Chamber Music Festival for marketing initiatives to increase ticket sales and expand its 2010 Summer Festival audience, and $50,000 to the Northwest African American Museum to develop a marketing and outreach program to promote the museum.

Food from vendors in the Micro Mercantes program is getting good reviews in Portland. Maybe it will be expanded to Seattle's numerous farmers markets if it's not already in the works.

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January 25, 2010 10:35 AM

A conversation with Bill Gates

Posted by Kristi Heim

Bill Gates is embracing a much more public persona these days with his annual letter coming out today, appearances on TV shows, a voice on Twitter and his new personal Web site, Gates Notes. He told me he hopes that using the latest social media will encourage interest in global health and give him some real-time feedback, both good and bad. Below is an edited Q&A from a conversation this morning.

Q: Besides your letter, I see you're at Sundance, on Twitter and now blogging. What is the impact you hope to have by taking your message to a much wider public audience?

A: Well, I think it's important to take young peoples' interest in what's going on in these poor countries and help them learn about it, help them get involved. I think I'll learn a lot about the reaction I get. Here we've got a format where people can say what they agree with and what they disagree with.

Q: Regarding energy and the environment, what kinds of ventures are you investing in that address climate change?

A: The foundation is always going to be looking out for the needs of the poorest, so we'll look at where we can play a role. Clearly looking at better seeds, you can deal with adaptation as climate change is likely to get worse, and the importance of those productive seeds is even greater. When you think of global health and development, over half of what foundation does comes into that area. Global development and global health as the top priority are pretty squarely focused on sustainability and decent lifestyles.

CHUCK BURTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Bill Gates said he's using social media tools to share his enthusiasm for global health with young people and to get feedback from the public on his work.

Q: And commercial ventures?

A: Vinod Khosla has a good size fund I've invested in. I put over $20 million into that particular fund. I get to talk with the entrepreneurs he's funding and learn from them. TerraPower, a spin out of Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures, is pursuing nuclear power design. If everything worked it would provide cheap energy with no CO2 emission. We need hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs to try new approaches... all we need is an approach that works.

Q: Looking at health efforts in Africa, such as HIV prevention and treatment, are you concerned about the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill, and have you spoken to anyone there about it?

A: The spread of AIDS is a huge problem and obviously we're very involved. I talk in my letter about the great success with this male circumcision effort, and preventative drug trials. There's a tendency to think in the U.S. just because a law says something that it's a big deal. In Africa if you want to talk about how to save lives, it's not just laws that count. There's a stigma no matter what that law says, for sex workers, men having sex with men, that's always been a problem for AIDS. It relates to groups that aren't that visible. AIDS itself is subject to incredible stigma. Open involvement is a helpful thing. I wouldn't overly focus on that. In terms of how many people are dying in Africa, it's not about the law on the books; it's about getting the message out and the new tools.

Q: We've seen a huge outpouring of support for Haiti -- do you think the foundation will play a bigger role in relief aid, or what role do you think the foundation can play there?

A: If you go back and look when there's been an emergency we're always giving gifts very rapidly to some key partners... A lot of giving we do is way before the crisis takes place. A lot of the big impact comes from the gifts that are given before. Haiti was the poorest country in the region before this. I've been down several times. There's a lot to be done there. I hope this is not just a one time thing. The generosity is great to see - it's almost half of American families. It's great to see the response that's taking place. Haiti was a place that is going to need long-term investment, and so the foundation's been involved.

Q: The foundation has grown to almost 1,000 people and is moving into a $500 million new campus. How can you ensure that it doesn't become too bureaucratic and top-down in its decision-making so you are encouraging innovation inside the organization?

A: The real innovators are the people we fund and the key to the foundation is to be very open-minded to unusual ideas and approaches. Grand Challenges is an example of that. We open it up to just anybody. When people review those grants they don't even know what fancy title applicants may have. We'll need to use novel approaches to make sure we're not just getting the best work of the top universities, though we expect to see a lot of innovation coming from the universities themselves. For these Grand Challenges research grants we track the grant applications, and what percentage is being granted to developing countries. We actually give them a boost...

We need to keep reinventing ourselves and being smart. My annual letter lets me talk about mistakes. My being out on the Internet will let us know what people think and what they agree or don't agree with.

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January 19, 2010 4:40 PM

Update from Trilogy: five employees killed in Haiti

Posted by Kristi Heim

Initial relief turned to grief for Trilogy International Partners as it learned that five members of its wireless subsidiary in Haiti were killed in the earthquake or its aftermath.

The largest U.S. company in Haiti, Bellevue-based Trilogy provides mobile phone service through its Voilà subsidiary, which has about 575 employees.

Company executives initially thought the local workforce in Haiti had escaped without casualties. An inspection by its head of security following the earthquake found that all five of its buildings in Port-au-Prince remained intact, and the earthquake happened before the office closed for the day. Many employees returned to work Wednesday.

Yet a few days later Trilogy learned that five employees had died and about 35 others remain missing, said Carol Wilson, Trilogy's international compliance director.

Dozens of employees lost immediate family members and about 95 are without homes. The company's offices were filled with people camping out on the floor, Wilson said. The company is posting regular updates on the situation in Haiti here.

Trilogy engineers managed to get its network back up last Wednesday and it remains the only operational cellphone service in Port-au-Prince, but "the issue is congestion," Wilson said. Huge volumes of traffic are straining the network.

The company set up the non-profit Voilà Foundation to direct donations to relief efforts. Trilogy Chairman John Stanton and his wife, Theresa Gillespie, have pledged at least $1 million, and Trilogy International Partners has pledged $3 million.

A group of structural engineers flew from Seattle to Haiti today to go through the buildings to check further for structural damage.

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January 19, 2010 10:07 AM

Local benefits get under way for Haiti relief

Posted by Kristi Heim

Groups from soccer fans to music lovers and microfinance supporters are organizing events around Puget Sound to raise money for Haiti relief efforts.

On Thursday, Jan. 21, Casuelitas Caribbean Cafe in Belltown will serve Caribbean snacks and Haitian rum punch from 6-10 p.m. Proceeds go to to earthquake relief in Haiti through the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas (FAVACA), a nonprofit helping people in the region for more than 25 years. Benefit includes sale of Haitian steel oil drums and a raffle. Details are here.

On Saturday, Jan. 23, Sounders FC fan club Gorilla FC will host a fund-raising event at the George & Dragon pub in Fremont with midfielder Steve Zakuani and defender James Riley as a benefit for Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund. Details are here.

On Sunday, Jan. 24, Seattle restaurants are teaming up to hold a dine around Seattle event to raise money for NetHope and other relief organizations. More details are here.

On Thursday, Jan. 28, Seattle Greendrinks, SeaMo, ReVision Labs and Global Washington will jointly host a benefit for Fonkoze, a microfinance and development organization in Haiti working on emergency relief and long term reconstruction. Suggested donation of $20 includes live music, 6 to 9 p.m. at the Pike Brewery. Details are here.

On Thursday, Jan. 28, a benefit concert and auction called "Seattle Helping Haiti" will be held at the Moore Theater with proceeds going to the American Red Cross. Details are here.

I'll be updating this post as I learn of other events.

Do you have a story to share about Haiti? We're putting together a collection of first person accounts here.

_____________________________________________________________________

Previous events

On Monday, Jan. 18, the Nectar Lounge will host a benefit party, "Haiti We Stand," for Convoy of Hope.

On Tuesday, Jan. 19, Seattle-based World Concern and radio stations SPIRIT 105.3 and PRAISE 106.7 are holding a drive and looking for volunteers to take calls from the broadcast studios in Shoreline. Training will be provided. Contact Jacinta Tegman at World Concern (206) 546-7524 or jacintat@worldconcern.org

On Wednesday, Jan. 20, Re-Bar will present "One World: A Benefit for the Victims of the Earthquake in Haiti," to benefit the American Red Cross and Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti. More details are here.

On Wednesday, Jan. 20, Lucid Live Jazz Lounge and other venues along University Avenue in the U District will hold a benefit with live music to support the efforts of Lucid owner David Pierre-Louis. With help from Seattle's jazz community, Pierre-Louis traveled to Haiti last Thursday to locate his mother in Port-au-Prince and bring emergency supplies. He's expected to be at the Seattle benefit to raise more funds for relief efforts. Details are here.

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January 15, 2010 4:14 PM

Northwest companies among top donors to Haiti relief

Posted by Kristi Heim

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported today that corporate donations to Haiti relief efforts have grown to $60 million. So far more than 120 companies have contributed to the cause, and 22 of them donated more than $1 million each.

Combined with record giving from individuals using social media and technology, and contributions by non-profits, help to Haiti is on track to be one of the largest relief efforts ever.

InterAction, the leading alliance of U.S. humanitarian and development groups, said today that organizations have committed and raised a combined total of $100 million to support the relief work.

Microsoft pledged at least $1.25 million in cash and in-kind donations to relief efforts in Haiti today as its disaster response team is reaching out to help relief agencies. Microsoft encouraged its 55,000 U.S. employees to make donations, which the company matches up to $12,000 per employee.

Akhtar Badshah, senior director of global community affairs, said Microsoft was also working through the organization NetHope, a network of large relief agencies and technology companies, supporting efforts to restore power and communications in Haiti.

So far, 1,600 Microsoft employees have contributed more than $280,000 to 100 non-profits working in Haiti, which are matched by the company.

California-based biotech Amgen, which has a research center with several hundred employees on Elliott Bay, said it will donate $2 million toward relief efforts. The Amgen Foundation will also use a disaster relief web site for staff around the globe to contribute funds to designated organizations, and the foundation will match them dollar for dollar.

"It is amazing to see how many companies have responded to the urgency of this tragedy," said Stephen Jordan, executive director of Business Civic Leadership Center at the U.S. Chamber. "We are encouraged by the early outpouring of support but we are well aware that this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint."

Other leading donors were:

--Digicel ($5 million) Digicel is the largest wireless service provider in Haiti (the other is Bellevue's Trilogy) and Digicel lost two of its employees in the earthquake.
--Trilogy International Partners ($3 million, plus $1 million from Chairman John Stanton and his wife, Theresa Gillespie).
--Deutsche Bank ($4 million)
--General Electric ($2.5 million)
--Citigroup ($2 million)
--Credit Agricole S.A. ($1.45 million)

The full list is here.

On Monday Starbucks announced a $1 million donation from The Starbucks Foundation to the American Red Cross for Haiti.

The non-profit Mobile Giving Foundation is now supporting text message donations for at least 17 different humanitarian organizations helping Haiti. Donations of $5 and $10 made by text message have now surpassed $20 million. A list of the organizations accepting mobile donations is here.

Eliminating the usual processing time for mobile donations, Verizon Wireless today said it transmitted almost $3 million to the American Red Cross for Haiti relief efforts, which represents the dollars pledged by its customers via text message donations so far.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air set up a program for frequent flier members to donate their miles to charitable groups involved in the relief effort in Haiti. Between now and Feb. 15, up to 5 million miles donated to the program will be matched one-for-one by the airlines.

The RealNetworks Foundation is donating $50,000 to Medical Teams International (MTI) for earthquake relief in Haiti. Nordstrom donated $50,000 to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund.

PCC Natural Markets (PCC) made a $25,000 donation to the American Red Cross.

The Hunger Site and GreaterGood.org sent $125,045 to Partners in Health today, a combination of online donations received through GreaterGood.org and contributions given by The Hunger Site and GreaterGood Network stores.

Amazon.com has a box on its homepage for contributions to Mercy Corps' Haiti relief efforts, which had helped channel close to $500,000 from customers by Friday afternoon. The Gap Foundation donated $150,000 and offered to match employee contributions, Best Buy contributed $100,000, Western Union $50,000 and Nike $25,000.

Bellevue-based wireless service company Trilogy International Partners, which operates in Haiti through its Voilà subsidiary, is providing the Mercy Corps team with a base of operations in Port-au-Prince.

In partnership with ITT, Mercy Corps will deploy five high-capacity water filtration units to provide much needed clean water in Haiti, and ITT is contributing a $100,000 donation, plus a double match for employee gifts.

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January 15, 2010 11:25 AM

Haiti: tips for safer and more effective donating

Posted by Kristi Heim

Donations to U.S. groups' relief efforts in Haiti have reached $78 million and climbing, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

For people thinking of contributing, here are a few resources with tips for safer and more effective giving.

Charity Navigator has put out a list of organizations working in Haiti, their history of work there, what they are providing and their charity rating. Clicking on the name of the organization provides details such as a financial report and how much the top executive is paid.

Another good resource is the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance, which lists charities working in Haiti that meet its standards, and has a special section with advice on giving by text message.

In our region Philanthropy Northwest and Global Washington are both updating their Web sites with news about local donations and local organizations working in Haiti.

The FBI warned on Thursday that scam requests for donations are likely, reminding Internet users who receive appeals for money in the aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti to apply a critical eye and do their homework. The FBI advised:

--Don't respond to unsolicited emails
--Be skeptical of anyone representing themselves as a survivor needing help through email or social networking
--Verify non-profits through independent Internet searching rather than following links
--Make contributions directly to known organizations
--Don't give out personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions

How did you choose which organization to support?

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January 14, 2010 1:39 PM

Gates Foundation makes first Haiti relief grant

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is making its first grant in response to the earthquake in Haiti -- $1 million to Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to aid its initial relief efforts, including immediate food, shelter, water, sanitation, health and other needs of people affected by Tuesday's earthquake.

UPDATE: On Friday, the foundation made a second grant -- $500,000 to Partners in Health (PIH) for immediate- and medium-term medical care through its existing 10 health facilities and temporary mobile clinics. The grant will also help pay for medical supplies, tents, blankets, water, and other essential items. Partners in Health has worked in Haiti for more than 20 years to bring medical care to poor communities.

CRS "has experienced personnel and a stock of emergency supplies in Haiti," the Gates Foundation said in a statement today. Catholic Relief Services personnel in Haiti were struggling to make sure that their 300 staff members are safe and accounted for, as well as beginning relief operations by preparing food supplies to be brought in Friday from the Dominican Republic. The CRS blog has some details about the situation on the ground.

"The humanitarian conditions are catastrophic, and much more will need to be done to address the immediate situation, as well as support the sustained recovery efforts in the weeks and months ahead so that people can rebuild their lives," the Gates Foundation statement said. "The foundation is continuing to monitor the situation and exploring additional opportunities to provide support for the relief efforts."

The largest private charitable foundation says it approaches emergency relief by trying to assist organizations that deliver food and clean water, improve sanitation, provide medical attention and shelter, and prevent or minimize outbreaks of disease.

It listed 10 relief groups actively working in Haiti for people looking for organizations to support.

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January 13, 2010 11:41 AM

Haiti humanitarian efforts linked by mobile connections

Posted by Kristi Heim

It was clear the earthquake wrought devastation on a massive scale. Time saved meant lives saved. Two wireless companies in Bellevue went straight to work, one to repair its mobile network in Haiti and the other to channel funds to relief workers using text messaging.

In a country where traditional landline service is almost non-existent, more than a million Haitians rely on the mobile service Voilà for communications. That service is provided by Bellevue-based Trilogy International Partners, which received an award this year from the U.S. State Department for its decade of work in the impoverished country.

THONY BELIZAIRE/APF/GETTY IMAGES

Haitians carry injured in Port-au-Prince, as planeloads of rescuers and relief supplies headed there in a massive relief operation.

Trilogy said members of its crisis task force were one of the first aircraft to land this morning at the Port-au-Prince airport to assist on-the-ground efforts.The earthquake wiped out much of the infrastructure in the most densely populated part of the country. Its local team could travel only by foot because roads were so heavily damaged.

Senior management of Trilogy, its Haitian wireless operation (Voilà) and its Dominican Republic operation (Trilogy Dominicana/Viva) began a disaster recovery plan and formed a special task force to secure the safety of its 500 local employees and assess damages, the company said in a post today on its Web site. Within hours the team determined its buildings were intact and its staff located.

"Voilà's network continued to operate for several hours through the aftershocks before we were forced to shut down the switch to maintain its integrity until our generators and cooling systems were back online," the company said in its post. "We have restarted our generators at the main switch and are in the process of bringing our network back up. Once this has occurred, we will be focused on managing traffic and adding capacity as rapidly as possible to aid the humanitarian efforts in Haiti."

TRACIE MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Trilogy Chairman John Stanton was given a global citizenship award from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for his company's work in Haiti, including a micro-enterprise that helps local entrepreneurs earn money and a partnership with musician Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti foundation to support education.

In Bellevue, Jim Manis at the Mobile Giving Foundation quickly worked to roll out text message- based fundraising efforts. Manis founded the non-profit to help other non-profit organizations receive donations through text messaging campaigns. I profiled the foundation here.

People can text a keyword to a designated short code and make a donation of $5 or $10 to any of several organizations working to help Haiti. Every penny of the donation goes to the charity, and the amount appears later as a charge on the donor's mobile phone bill.

The Mobile Giving Foundation said it has already raised about $375,000 today, through the following campaigns:

Text the word "Yele" to 501501 to donate $5 to the Yele Foundation, the leading contributor to rebuilding Haiti founded by Wyclef Jean.

Text the word "Haiti" to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee

Text the word "Haiti" to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross.

Text the word "Haiti" to 45678 (In Canada Only) to assist the Salvation Army in Canada.

Amazon.com established a box on its homepage today where customers can contribute to Mercy Corps' relief efforts.

Other groups engaged in ongoing relief efforts in Haiti include:

Partners In Health, Boston, www.pih.org
Mercy Corps, Portland, 800-852-2100 or www.mercycorps.org
Medical Teams International, Portland, 800-959-4325 or www.nwmedicalteams.org
American Red Cross, 800-733-2767 or www.redcross.org
World Concern, Seattle, 800-755-5022 or www.worldconcern.org
World Vision, Federal Way, 888-511-6548 or www.worldvision.org

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January 13, 2010 12:27 AM

Gates Foundation makes $38 million in grants to spur savings

Posted by Kristi Heim

With the success of microcredit, poor people have access to more loans than ever before. But many are still stashing savings in a lock box, storing it with a "money guard" or pooling it in an informal savings club because they have no other options.

Many banks and other institutions don't make savings accounts available to the poorest borrowers.

Today the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is contributing $38 million in grants in a push to help leading microfinance institutions (MFIs) offer clients safe and affordable places to save money.

"We see it as a major step to drive change and help broaden the microfinance business model to include savings," said Bob Christen, the foundation's director of Financial Services for the Poor.

GRAMEEN FOUNDATION

Members do banking at ACSI, a microfinance institution in Ethiopia's Amhara region, which depends largely on agriculture. ACSI provides savings accounts for more than 586,000 people.

Six grants will help 18 institutions expand their portfolios and make savings accounts available to 11 million people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America over the next five years. The challenge of finding ways to reach poor savers is being met with the help of motorcycles, PDAs, mobile phones and even soap operas.

The largest grant, $9.8 million, will go to the Grameen Foundation to begin a Microsavings Initiative with partners in Ethiopia, India and the Philippines to test and fine tune models for savings for people at the bottom of the economic ladder -- those living on about $1.25 per day.

Even at that level, people are putting away small amounts -- often pennies at a time -- and using sophisticated balancing acts to stretch their capability. But the informal savings methods often lead to financial losses.

Many of the poorest people live far from cities, so the cost of traveling to a bank is too high. It's also expensive for banks to create branches in remote areas where the number of clients is limited and their deposits small.

A $5.8 million grant to ACCION International will focus on agent banking, mobile banks, and access to savings accounts over mobile phones. A $3.3 million grant to World Vision will help it offer savings accounts to rural farmers and poor people in Ethiopia through mobile technologies, including equipping savings offers with PDAs and motorbikes to travel to clients in outlying communities.

Collecting more savings deposits from local customers could help the microfinance institutions reduce their reliance on external funding from commercial banks, becoming more like community banks in the United States, said Kate Druschel Griffin, director of the solutions for the poorest initiative at the Grameen Foundation.

GRAMEEN FOUNDATION

The microfinance institution ACSI holds a meeting for clients in Ethiopia's rural Amhara region.

"For us it's how do we make sure we are enabling the poor households to have tools they need to work their way out of poverty," she said. Grameen's initiative aims to reach 1.45 million new savers over three years. Besides a safer place to store assets, clients can earn interest -- ACSI, Grameen's partner in Ethiopia, provides 5 percent interest on regular savings accounts, and between 5.25 and 5.5 percent on time deposits.

The Grameen Foundation has begun using a tool called the "progress out of poverty index" to measure the impact of credit and savings programs on borrowers. The index measures a range of non financial indicators, such as housing type and sanitation type to see whether living conditions improve.

An $8.5 million grant will go to Women's World Banking (WWB), a network of leading microfinance institutions and banks dedicated to the economic empowerment of women.

The grant will help WWB to create new savings products and services for nearly seven million low-income people in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

WWB will use the money to support its network members invest in market research, product design, marketing and sales and service delivery methods. The members are Banco ADOPEM in the Dominican Republic, WWB Colombia, Kenya Women Finance Trust, and Kashf Microfinance Bank in Pakistan.

"As the microfinance industry matures, we are seeing the beginning of a major shift from a focus on credit to an emphasis on savings," said WWB president and CEO Mary Ellen Iskenderian, adding that demand for savings among the poor is increasing.

WWB found that poor people save between 10 to 15 percent of their monthly household income, using it to pay for childrens' education, health emergencies, housing and marriage.

Since women tend to be the savers in a poor household, designing savings products for them is critical, WWB said.

Using a creative approach, WWB will launch a TV soap opera in the Dominican Republic, part of a financial literacy campaign to bring attention to the benefits of savings. WWB said it seeks to change cultural attitudes and behaviors related to money and will work with Puntos de Encuentro, a Nicaraguan NGO that has used TV serial drama to successfully affect social change.

"Loans or credit were the model for the first 30 years of microfinance," said Iskenderian. "Savings is the future."

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January 12, 2010 1:02 PM

Should Wall Street execs be required to donate to charity?

Posted by Kristi Heim

You know things are out of whack when an investment bank is considering forcing its employees to donate to charity.

That plan is reportedly in the works at Goldman Sachs, with bonuses, some as high as eight figures, being paid to bankers this week.

Expected bonuses at Goldman Sachs average about $595,000 per employee, while employees of JPMorgan Chase average about $463,000.

Big banks are undoubtedly taking preemptive measures to ward off further public rage following the massive taxpayer bailout, and this is a year when non-profits could certainly use all the help they can get.

RON EDMONDS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

JP Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, left, and Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, leave the White House in Washington, after a meeting with President Barack Obama.

But rather than channel more money into pet causes for image repair, a more fundamental issue needs addressing.

That is the enormous disparity between the rich and poor, which by some measures is now the widest since just before the Great Depression. In this new Gilded Age, reducing that gap could do a lot more good than contributions to charity.

It benefits society in fundamental ways by improving health and raising life expectancy, while reducing crime, suicide, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and mental illness, British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue in their new book "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger."

An interesting and thorough review of the book is here.

In the U.S., the recession has widened the income gap because income declined most for middle-class and poor Americans, and poverty soared.

This week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission will hold its first public hearings with top bank executives to begin dissecting the causes of the economic crisis. Meanwhile a campaign is taking aim at big banks by encouraging people to move their money out of them and into community banks and credit unions.

Bankers who perform well should be rewarded -- after all, the wealth they create often does help shareholders and the economy. But as they debate what to do with all the bonuses, evidence suggests that giving back isn't as powerful as taking less.

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December 30, 2009 12:45 PM

Tax deduction appeals from non-profits as 2009 comes to a close

Posted by Kristi Heim

If the flood of email this week is any indication, non-profits are working hard to capture any donations in the last few days of the year from people seeking a 2009 tax deduction.

In fact, Dec. 31 is the busiest time of the year for online giving, according to this story in the New York Times, based on data from Convio. In 2008 it found that charities raised 22.5 times more money on the last day of the year than on an average day, and the gift size was 57 percent larger in the last week than the average week.

Locally, Gov. Chris Gregoire sent out an appeal for donations to food banks, including
Second Harvest Inland Northwest, which provides more than 1 million pounds of donated food a month to neighborhood food banks in Eastern Washington; Northwest Harvest, which serves more than 300 food programs across the state; and Food Lifeline, which served more than 675,000 hungry people across Western Washington last year.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul appealed for year-end donations, citing a doubling of demand at its Food Bank and a 53 percent increase in demand for general assistance.

Some companies transformed the holiday parties of the past into end-of-year charity drives. PricewaterhouseCoopers in Seattle invited people from three charities into its office for a reception with more than 75 of the firm's employees, and gave each non-profit a $10,000 check. PricewaterhouseCoopers partners and staff chose Childhaven, Northwest Harvest and Treehouse as the recipients of their holiday giving campaign.

Olive Crest, which serves abused and at-risk children, said it received a last minute gift from the federal government of $500,000, which represents 13 percent of its total annual budget. The appropriations funds will go toward supporting programs in Washington State focusing on child abuse prevention and training for young teens and adults to live and work on their own and transition out of the child welfare system.

Some non-profits are making year-end donating go even further. The global health organization PATH said every donation to its Catalyst Fund will be matched up to a total of $116,000, thanks to support from the McKinstry Charitable Foundation and an anonymous donor.

Radio station KEXP challenged listeners to help with its year-end fundraising by pairing donations with a pledge from its Volunteer Leadership Boards. The board members committed an additional $85,000 if donors can raise $130,000 by Dec. 31.

For people evaluating charities as they consider donating, GreatNonprofits CEO Perla Ni had a few tips:

1. Don't look at the proportion of the budget that goes to programs. Ni considers focusing on overhead the worst way to pick a charity. "They tell you nothing about the impact that the charity has, and actually encourage charities to make decisions that make them less effective," she said.

2. Look for opinions and information from people who have had direct experience with the charity. GreatNonprofits.org and GuideStar are two sources.

3. Listen to what experts have to say about the charity. Philanthropedia provides access to opinions of experts who evaluate charities.

4. Find direct evidence of impact. Ask the charity how it evaluates the effectiveness of its programs. GiveWell has reviews on hundreds of charities based on impact.

5. See for yourself. Take a donor tour or sign up to volunteer and experience firsthand what the nonprofit does.

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December 11, 2009 3:33 PM

Q&A with TisBest founder on charity gift cards

Posted by Kristi Heim

More for charity and less for the landfill, says TisBest founder Erik Marks. I talked with him about the trend of charity gift cards, which his non-profit issues, and recent criticisms from consumer advocates. Marks, a member of Social Venture Partners, started TisBest Philanthropy in 2007.

Even as TisBest has grown, Marks has kept his day job as general counsel at EDG Commercial Real Estate in Seattle and operates TisBest with three employees. Previously he worked at law firms Cairncross & Hempelmann and at Perkins Coie. He studied philosophy as an undergrad and has a law degree from Harvard.

Q: How are you different from other charity card issuers?
A: The array of charity gift card issuers has become broader with eight or nine now, but the largest are TisBest, Charity Gift Certificates, JustGive, and the Good Card.
Only TisBest and Charity Gift Certificates are single-purpose portals -- the only thing you see are gift cards. I like to believe the single-purpose approach is better. When the recipient gets a card, the Web site speaks only to the gift in hand, not six other things.
We've got the best Web site for a lot of reasons, and the uploadable image feature is probably the feature people get most excited about. That customization makes our cards particularly valuable for businesses.

Q: You have less than 300 charities to choose from, not thousands or a million -- why?
A: One advantage is browsing. When someone gets a gift card, most people have a few charities in mind but not one they're dead set on. When you get to the charities tab, it's broken down in categories.
We've consciously chosen 125 organizations that are major recognized brand names. Under homelessness for example, you will find recognizable names like Habitat for Humanity. But people also see smaller organizations they don't recognize, then they browse around and they learn. People talk about choosing a charity as a challenge and a challenge they like.
Another advantage is accessibility. If you put YMCA into the Network for Good search box, it will turn up about 200 organizations. At TisBest you turn up just one.

Q: How do you find organizations to list?
A: We spent some time when we started out in 2007 building that list, doing research, basically hard work. Now we source organizations through user recommendations. We receive emails four or five times a day nominating new organizations. We go over those and pick 20 new organizations a year. We will remove 20 that aren't receiving donations.

TISBEST PHILANTHROPY

TisBest is appealing to businesses by making customized gift cards.

Q: What is the $1.95 transaction fee for?
A: It covers our overhead for operating the organization and Web site.
We are a social enterprise model. We offer a valuable and self-sustaining social service on a nonprofit basis.
The idea is we offer charity gift cards in a format that isn't profitable but that does produce enough revenue that our organization can operate and grow. We ask people on receipts to request matching donations from their companies, and that too helps cover our overhead.

Q: Why are gift cards any better than direct donations?
A: It's the difference between charitable giving and charitable gifting. In giving, I take my own money and give it to a cause I support. I love the beach, I love to surf, so Surfrider Foundation might be something I support with my money. But let's say I'm buying you a holiday gift. That might not be your first choice for a charity. There are a lot of different ideas about what the right thing is to do to create change in the world.

We give each other gifts to build relationships. It's a great way to connect human to human. It's the connection that matters, not the thing... When a person who receives the card spends it, the person who gave it learns the charity that was chosen. That's a great opportunity to build a relationship.

Q: How much have you raised for charity?
A: Over $1 million. This is our third holiday season.

Q: How can charity gift card issuers avoid the problems of retail gift cards?
A: One thing to keep in mind is that I really don't think there are many problems with gift cards in the marketplace... it's just a fringe. Gift cards came out around the year 2000. Everyone was figuring out how they worked. Now almost all states regulate gift cards, including Washington.

(Marks also cited the book Scroogenomics, which argues that holiday presents are inefficient and unsatisfying, but gift cards, especially to charity, are not).

Q: Why transfer funds quarterly -- are you holding money to earn interest?
A: That's a red herring. We had to make a decision. Every transfer has a cost. If we made transfers on weekly or monthly basis it would be unreasonably expensive. At the current interest rates of maybe about 1 percent a year. if you hold for a calendar quarter instead of a week, you're not getting a lot of extra interest, and that tiny amount is earned by a philanthropy trying to do good in the world.

Q: Why did you start TisBest?
A: I'm an attorney and I still practice part time -- that's how I pay the bills. I made a conscious decision to change. I wanted to work in something that made the world better, and to some degree I was bored. Partly it was a response to personal frustration. I was scratching my head around the holidays. I needed to give gifts and I didn't know what to get. I don't want to buy people stuff they don't want. I think the world would be better if people focused on how to make it better rather than how to get more stuff.
Today in running TisBest I get to see what people write about giving and receiving charity gift cards, and see the true joy that comes there; and then when I leave work and walk around and see stores with heaping baskets of stuff they're trying to sell, it is a disconnect. The stuff just doesn't create joy in the same way as sharing with others.

Q: How are commercial products like gift cards changing philanthropy?
A: It's the democratization of philanthropy. It's making philanthropy more fun and more accessible for more people. It captures additional dollars from consumers. If you look at how a normal consumer lives, they have a certain income and they allocate it out. One of those wallets is gifts. We're taking dollars out of the gifts wallet and turning them into charity dollars. We're not diverting any funds from charity. Charities have always focused on the big donors, but no one becomes a big donor without becoming a little one first. We are an entry point for accessing those little ones.

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December 10, 2009 12:58 PM

Consumer report clashes with charity gift card vendors

Posted by Kristi Heim

Charity gift cards are springing up as a new way to give a gift and let the recipient pass it on to the non-profit of his or her choice.

The cards have been growing in popularity as people combine holiday shopping and philanthropy on tight budgets. But the non-profit Consumer Reports warned last month that charity cards are saddled with some of the same issues as gift cards in general -- including added fees and expiration dates.

TONY AVELAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Spending on regular gift cards is expected to drop this year, according to the National Retail Federation. But charity gift cards are becoming a popular tool for some non-profits.

The card issuer generally charges about $5 to purchase the card and may charge another 3 percent when the recipient redeems the card to make a donation, according to the report. The tax deduction goes to the purchaser, not the recipient. And card issuers sometimes take up to four months to forward the donation.

Three of the top charity gift card producers took issue with the report and complained that "Consumer Reports is driving money away from charities at a time they need it most." The cards serve a useful purpose by redirecting "money that was being spent on unneeded and unwanted stuff" to charity.

Seattle's Paul Shoemaker, founder of Social Venture Partners, also weighed in with support for the charity cards.

"In our experience, charity gift cards introduce many potential donors to charitable organizations that they otherwise would not connect with," he said. "That is a good thing at a time when so many non-profit organizations are struggling to survive."

CharityChoice, JustGive and TisBest, which are all non-profits themselves, say they have repeat users who have been happy with the experience and terms. They point out that donors would pay the same 3 percent processing fee for any online donation.

Seattle-based TisBest was created to provide "non-material options available in a world of many, many material choices," said Executive Director Jon Siegel.

The American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog, recommended people give to charities directly. "Why hand over a chunk of your contribution to a third party web site when you can give directly through a charity's own site?" it asks.

The institute also frowns on the practice of earning interest on donations by delaying their transmission to the charity. "If the site allows you to give to hundreds of thousands of charities, your $25 donation may sit in its bank account for awhile," it said.

Consumer Reports advised people to consider giving directly to the charitable group in someone's name and cut out the middleman.

But obviously that takes away the option of letting the recipient choose where to give, which may be worth a few extra dollars. Either way, the blending of commercial tools and charitable goals seems like an unstoppable trend, and one that will benefit from good watchdogs. If done right, it has the potential to get many more people involved in giving than traditional philanthropy.

Before giving any card, it's a good idea to check out its terms and conditions, which are usually listed on its Web site under FAQs.

Retail gift card sales are expected to decline this year as people hunt for bargains and try to steer clear of expiration dates, added fees, lost cards or stores that may go out of business, according to a recent survey. Still gift cards will account for almost $25 billion this year, according to the National Retail Federation. That's a significant market for charities to try to tap.

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December 2, 2009 11:22 AM

Help a non-profit every time you search the Internet

Posted by Kristi Heim

New ways of blending charity causes with online behavior continue to grow -- hastened by the need to find creative ways to raise funds in a down economy.

The latest is GlobalMojo, a Web browser that channels money to nonprofits when its users search, shop or book travel.

It has agreements with Yahoo, with online retailers and with travel companies, which give ad revenue to GlobalMojo for directing users to their sites. Users generate money even if they just browse. The company also customizes its browsers for individual nonprofits.

GoodSearch is another Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half of its revenue to charities and schools designated by its users.

This month GlobalMojo will be donating 100 percent of its revenue to non-profits and schools chosen by its users. After that it will give half of the revenues to charity and use the other half for its operating costs.

The company is based in San Francisco but with an equal number of staff in its Seattle office, where one of its investors and advisers is McCaw Cellular veteran Dan Kranzler.

GlobalMojo Creative Director Chris Wilson says the browser helps nonprofits address two of their most pressing needs: a new, ongoing revenue stream to help with fund raising and a way to stay in front of their constituents on a daily basis. The site has 1.5 million nonprofits and schools in its database, and 100 non-profits and schools are actively using the tool.

Right now users are generating between $10 and $15 a year for the non-profits they support, Wilson said.

Local groups participating include At Work, Northwest Harvest, People for Puget Sound, Seeds of Compassion, Seattle Humane Society and Whatcom Middle School.

The historic Whatcom Middle School was gutted last month by a three-alarm fire. Two of its students happened to be the nieces of GlobalMojo's Vice President Emily Hine. She created a special school-themed Internet browser to help raise funds.

I've written about other tech tools such as mobile applications that facilitate donations by SMS, granting money to nonprofits chosen by online voting and other hybrids. I've also heard about companies that have people fill out marketing surveys and donate a portion to charity.

Maybe this is all just part of our multitasking-obsessed world.

"Many people find it difficult to help others in need while dealing with constraints in their own lives," says GlobalMojo's material.

But an interesting debate is also going on here -- whether such services make it too easy, giving us the illusion we're doing community service when in fact we have no real connection to the cause and we're simply buying more stuff or getting lost in our gadgets.

That was the charge leveled against "micro-volunteering" company The Extraordinaries, which has an iPhone app to let people volunteer a few minutes during the day to tag photos or something similar.

"We consider ourselves to be philanthropic," says Wilson. "We are not in this to make a pile of money."

With the Internet, something that has become such a fundamental part of daily life, trying to put it to better use makes sense, he said.

"Everything you do is online."

If anyone has been trying these tools and has thoughts about their usefulness, I'd be interested to hear your opinions.

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December 1, 2009 10:56 AM

Gates Foundation grants $3.4 million for library Internet connections

Posted by Kristi Heim

Today the Gates Foundation made nearly $3.4 million in grants to bolster Internet connections in libraries in five states.

Public libraries received grants for plans to improve and maintain Internet connections in Arkansas ($735,207), Kansas ($363,099), Massachusetts ($367,789), New York ($947,517), and Virginia ($977,468). The states were selected because they had a high number of libraries without high-speed Internet access that were struggling to increase their bandwidth for patrons.

Even in tech-savvy Seattle, I have gone into public libraries and found there's a waiting list to get online using library computers, which patrons with library cards can use for 90 minutes per day.

The Gates Foundation said it is giving technical and consulting assistance to 14 other states, including Washington, to help their libraries develop broadband proposals to compete for federal broadband stimulus funds.

For about 40 percent of Americans who have no Internet access at home, library connections provide the only way they can check their email, search for jobs and get all kinds of basic information that is increasingly available in digital form only. Sadly the country where the Internet was invented has fallen behind the rest of the industrialized world in broadband deployment.

Libraries are hard pressed to keep up with growing demand, especially for higher bandwidth.

A study by the American Library Association found that 60 percent of all libraries say their current Internet speed is insufficient.

Nationwide broadband is the longer term solution. The Gates Foundation provided an analysis to the FCC in October that estimated the cost of installing fiber optic networks across 80 percent of schools, hospitals and other large institutions at $5 billion to $10 billion.

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November 30, 2009 10:16 AM

Help starts to pour in for families of slain Lakewood Police officers

Posted by Kristi Heim

Efforts are under way to help the families of the four Lakewood Police officers killed on Sunday.

The Lakewood Police Independent Guild, the union for Lakewood Police officers and sergeants, has established a fund and is taking online donations here.

Forza Coffee Company has put donation boxes at all 22 of its locations, including one near University Village in Seattle, and is also accepting online donations here. The officers were ambushed at the Forza Coffee House on Steele Street in Parkland.

"Yesterday it was just shocking. Today it's starting to set in," said Brad Carpenter, founder and CEO of Forza Coffee and a retired police officer himself.

Though emotions are still raw, people saw helping the families as one way they could do something constructive, he said.

"Everybody is searching for the answer -- what can we do to help nine children who lost a parent? Whatever we can do to ease the burden at this stage."

Carpenter said the shooting "hits extremely close to home to me." The slain officers were regulars at the cafe, which was "supposed to be safe haven for everybody," he said.

At the Police Guild, President Brian Wurts said he will personally ensure each donation gets to the families. Checks should be made out to the LPIG Benevolent Fund and sent to P.O. Box 99579, Lakewood, WA 98499.

"We will make sure your families are taken care of and do everything in our power to give your children a college education," Wurts wrote today.

Besides donations, people were visiting the Facebook pages of the Lakewood Guild and Forza Coffee to express condolences. The memorial page is here.

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November 27, 2009 11:23 AM

Huskies vs. Cougars competition for charity at Apple Cup

Posted by Kristi Heim

Football fans have to bundle up to keep warm during games. For homeless people it's a daily struggle against the elements.

CHRIS JOSEPH TAYLOR/SEATTLE TIMES

Can the Cougars out-donate the Huskies?

A non-profit serving homeless and needy populations is taking advantage of the rivalry between UW and WSU to stage a "Competition for Caring" during tomorrow's Apple Cup.

JIM BATES/SEATTLE TIMES

Husky fans get in the holiday spirit.

The competition, sponsored by St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle/King County, will challenge Washington Husky and Washington State Cougar fans to see who can bring the most blankets and coats for donation.

Tomorrow between noon and 3:30 p.m. at Husky Stadium the charity will have a Cougar Bin and Husky Bin for fans to fill up in name of their favorite team.

About 100 community volunteers will also be going around the perimeter of Husky Stadium to collect donations. The winning team will be announced later on Twitter.

People not attending the game can drop off blankets and coats through Monday at St. Vincent de Paul thrift stores in Seattle, Burien, Renton, Kenmore, Kent, Everett, Lynnwood, Monroe and at its Food Bank in Georgetown.

The items will be given out at no cost to low-income and homeless people by the charity and through its partners in King and Snohomish counties.

UPDATE: Husky fans scored with 682 items; Cougar fans scored with 268 items. Cash donations are still being counted.

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November 25, 2009 11:09 AM

What will Boeing consolidation mean for local philanthropy?

Posted by Kristi Heim

Boeing has a long tradition of philanthropy in the Puget Sound region. Its total giving reaches almost $50 million a year, including its Employees Community Fund (ECF) of Puget Sound, which has given out well over half a billion dollars in its 58-year history.

At a time when many companies have cut matching gift programs, Boeing still matches employee charitable donations dollar for dollar up to a maximum of $6,000 per year.

Boeing people are involved in non-profit boards and community service projects of all kinds. This year Scott Carson, recently retired as CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is chairman of the United Way of King County's 2009-10 fund-raising drive.

"I think Boeing has played a phenomenal role as a philanthropic leader in the community," said Carol Lewis, CEO of Philanthropy Northwest. "They have a wonderful legacy."

Is that about to change?

Last week Boeing altered its management to combine two units responsible for local government relations and corporate philanthropy into one position and shift authority over both to an executive in St. Louis.

What impact does it have if the local area loses a vice president in charge of corporate giving and government relations? In the short term, maybe not much. This year the level of donations from Boeing remains constant at around $48 million.

"Titles and location aside, if we are giving the same amount of money to great causes in our community then what has changed? said Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi. "Nothing has changed in that realm at all."

Companies tend to give and get involved where their employees and operations are based. In the longer term, as those workers, managers and markets shift to new areas and are diffused all over the world, it's hard to see them remaining loyal to one geography.

The vice president may have had the ear of company executives around the board room, but much of the work investing in local organizations is done by a small group of Boeing staff here who specialize in areas such as arts and culture, early learning, environment, health and human services and primary and secondary education.

Whether that staff remains (and how many) is one test of the company's commitment.

Boeing hasn't said what it expects for next year's giving. The prediction for 2010 is that it will be even more difficult than 2009 for non-profits because needs are greater while assets are down. Many grants are planned in advance (based on assets of the previous year) so the fallout from losses during the recession takes longer to play out.

To comprehend how fast the pace of change is, read this profile just two years ago of Bob Watt, the man who used to be in charge of state and local government relations and global corporate citizenship and who hired Fred Kiga. In 2007 Boeing had 72,000 employees in Washington state, it paid tuition and books for any employee to pursue higher education, and things were looking brighter.

"I stand in awe of how beautifully Seattle supports its nonprofit world," Watt said. "We are blessed and we are thriving."

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November 20, 2009 11:48 AM

Tweeting for $10: new appeals for holiday giving in tough times

Posted by Kristi Heim

Despite the lingering economic woes that most Americans are still feeling, only one in five plans to reduce donations to charity this holiday season, the American Red Cross found in a new survey. More Americans will cut back on travel, decorations, parties and gifts.

ELAINE THOMPSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Volunteers Ken Newman, right, and Caren Shepsky heft a 50-pound bag of rice at the Cherry Street Food Bank, run by Northwest Harvest. As hunger has worsened, Northwest Harvest's pantry is seeing more than 2,500 visitors on busy days this year, up from a peak of 1,800 visitors last year.

The results tell a somewhat different story than a recent Harris Interactive survey that showed charities will probably see a decrease in generosity this season. Some large charities are preparing for lower holiday giving.

Regardless of how they interpret the data, charities are downsizing their appeals and targeting smaller donations. They're also making the most of free social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and asking supporters to help them spread the word.

The United Way of King County recently launched its Give 10/Tell 10 campaign, which asks for $10 contributions to help struggling families hit by the recession avoid falling into homelessness. After making a gift on the site, donors have the option to pass on a message emailed to 10 friends, encouraging them give, too. The charity is also using Twitter and Facebook to network, post links and share facts, such as "$25 = a week of food for a homeless person in Washington."

"We really wanted to do something different to get the word out to people that the needs are so great right now and provide a low barrier way for them to get involved," said United Way spokesman Jared Erlandson. "The thought was what if we could get people to tweet not just about what they are doing tonight, but about how they just helped someone stay in their home for the holidays then we could really have an effective vehicle to get our message out."

Mercy Corps is getting creative around Thanksgiving with a new online tool that allows families and groups of friends to make donations together. The global charity is calling on people to match the amount they spend on their own Thanksgiving Day meal with a donation that fights global hunger. The average American family spent $45 on Thanksgiving dinner in 2008, Mercy Corps said.

Other interesting new twists include gift cards with a $5 donation to charity built in. The recipient can choose where to direct the $5 gift from among more than 5,000 charities.

Getting donor fatigue? Another option is to vote for your favorite charity and have a large bank pick up the tab. Chase is donating $5 million -- $25,000 each to the top 100 charities on Dec. 15, one $1 million and five $100,000 grants to others in February, and another $1 million chosen by an advisory board of active philanthropists.

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November 5, 2009 9:49 AM

Land-rights group RDI gets $9 million from Omidyar Network

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Rural Development Institute said today it received the largest grant in its history -- $9 million over three years -- from the Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment group started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam.

Omidyar has taken an active role in the Seattle-based non-profit over the past couple of years, investing $4.3 million in 2008 to help RDI and local governments provide land to women in rural India.

RDI said today that Omidyar Network Managing Partner Matt Bannick will join RDI's board of directors.

That RDI's pioneering work is getting noticed and supported on such a scale is significant. While microcredit has grabbed the spotlight and billions of dollars in investments, micro-ownership in the form of land has received relatively little notice.

Small loans have helped entrepreneurs make money from their tiny shops and businesses, but building wealth is difficult without access to property rights, especially for women.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

Renee Giovarelli (center, in white), founding director of RDI's Global Center for Women's Land Rights, talks with people in Kyrgyzstan about their land rights. In 2008 Kyrgyzstan had a per capita GDP of $2,200, the same as Sudan, and less than Yemen or Kosovo.

Over the past three decades, RDI has been changing the equation by working with governments to give poor rural people secure ownership of small plots of land.

Omidyar shook up the field of microcredit when he began investing and backing its transformation to a commercial, profit-making approach. His views have clashed with those of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning banker from Bangladesh who developed the concept of microcredit.

Omidyar's increasing involvement in land rights may also signal dramatic shifts. In fact, Bannick made the comparison to microfinance himself. (Microfinance includes credit and other financial services.)

"RDI is at the forefront of a high-impact movement designed to create economic opportunity for the world's poorest people through land rights--just as microfinance has done through credit," Bannick said. "RDI is the cornerstone of our work in the sector because their approach has produced sustainable change for millions. Partnering with RDI, we plan to raise the awareness of property rights as a means to transform economies through individual opportunity."

Omidyar's involvement means RDI will be beefing up its local and overseas staff, which now is composed mainly of attorneys specializing in international land rights. RDI says it will be hiring "experts in advocacy, communications, and development for its headquarters and experienced local leaders for its field offices."

RDI will use the new grant to expand existing programs in India, China and sub-Saharan Africa, and launch new projects through its Global Center for Women's Land Rights.

The investment will help RDI increase its impact, said Tim Hanstad, RDI's president and CEO. "With this grant, RDI will begin implementing an ambitious three-year plan to bring secure land rights to 9 million families living in poverty," he said. "These rights can bring about transformative economic and social benefits that improve well-being and restore dignity."

RDI was founded by Roy Prosterman, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Washington and himself a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who is still active in RDI's work. I wrote a profile of Prosterman here.

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November 3, 2009 10:55 AM

Seattle Foundation CEO Norm Rice starts to make his mark

Posted by Kristi Heim

Norm Rice has only been on the job at the Seattle Foundation since July, but he aims to broaden the foundation's base from hundreds of wealthy donors to more than a million people in King County.

"Everybody can give, whether it's $5 or $5 million," he said.

BARBARA KINNEY

Norman Rice, former Seattle mayor and current CEO of the Seattle Foundation.

The Seattle Foundation is one of the largest community foundations in the country and the fifth largest foundation in Washington state, according to the Foundation Center, with assets of about $570 million.

With a staff of 26, the foundation has 1,200 funds under its umbrella, ranging in size from $30,000 to many millions of dollars. They include bequests from people who have made gifts to charity in their wills, and active "donor-advised funds," which help philanthropists invest their assets and make grants to charitable causes without the time and expense of running their own foundations. The foundation charges fees averaging 1 percent of the fund's balance.

Rice said he wants to get more people involved, with or without a fund. It's part of a sea change in philanthropy, a shift from passive donations to a new model shaped by a younger generation eager to see results and be personally engaged.

To broaden its appeal, the Seattle Foundation is revamping its Web site to offer detailed profiles and reviews of the non-profits and programs it funds, and allow online donations for the first time. The new Web site, expected to be launched early next year, will also have an Amazon.com-style recommendations feature to help people find programs related to their interests.

His goal is to reach as many as 1.5 million people over the next several years, getting them involved in some way with the foundation's programs. He'd also like to increase the number of donor-advised funds the foundation manages from the current 750.

Even without a lot of money to give, he thinks people can help support its long-term strategy to improve the community by working in seven areas: basic needs, the environment, the economy, education, arts and culture, neighborhoods and communities, and health and wellness.

Rice said he wants to focus particular attention on workforce development and early childhood learning.

Speaking to the Seattle Philanthropic Advisors Network (SPAN), the former Seattle mayor said he thinks "foundations are in an enviable place to be change agents" and show governments new ways to solve problems.

The foundation's assets, down 27 percent last year, have bounced back somewhat this year, growing 17 percent from January through the third quarter. While it has had to make significant cuts in its operating budget, Rice said he doesn't expect the foundation to reduce its grant making.

After taking a financial blow in the past year, non-profits have been forced to work with fewer resources. More than ever, it makes sense for them to consolidate, Rice said.

He suggested a "non profit mergers and acquisitions fund," where "those who come together get the dollars. I just believe some things we're funding are doing too many things that are alike."

"Every organization needs to look at themselves to see what they do best," he said. If someone else is doing it better, they should partner or concentrate on something else.

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October 27, 2009 11:10 AM

Bill and Melinda Gates make unusual personal appeal for U.S. global health funding

Posted by Kristi Heim

Calling themselves "impatient optimists," Bill and Melinda Gates plan to talk directly to lawmakers and others in Washington D.C. tonight to push for continuing U.S. funding for global health.

CHUCK BURTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Gates will tout the success of foreign aid, including contributiosn to the GAVI Alliance, a global initiative to immunize children in poor countries, which has prevented an estimated 3.4 million deaths over the last decade.

"In our visits to developing countries, Bill and I have met countless people who are alive, healthy, and productive as a result of U.S. global health programs," Melinda Gates said today. "We want Americans to know how much their generosity is accomplishing, and how much it's appreciated."

U.S. spending on global health has increased steadily, but it still makes up less than one percent of the federal budget. It was close to $8 billion this year, up from $1.5 billion in 2001.

The U.S. has started some ambitious development projects, even though the country's top post on foreign aid remains unfilled, and many pressing issues are vying for resources and attention.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has become an increasingly important and active player in global health and development. Its annual budget is more than $3.5 billion, and about half of that goes toward global health. The United Nation's annual budget is just under $4.2 billion.

The couple started a project called Living Proof to promote the success such funding has achieved in developing countries. Positive stories about foreign aid aren't getting told, they say.

The Gates Foundation has spent about $12 billion on global health since 1994.

Their aim is to cut the number of child deaths in half worldwide by 2025. Preventable deaths of children under five have declined worldwide to about 9 million in 2007 from 12.6 million in 1990, despite population growth, according to this report.

The presentation will be webcast live at www.livingproofproject.org at 4 p.m. Pacific.

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October 24, 2009 12:22 PM

Brain cancer mapping project launches with Swedish Neuroscience and Allen Institute

Posted by Kristi Heim

Catherine Ivy lost her husband, Ben, to brain cancer just four months after he was diagnosed.

Now a unique project funded by the couple's foundation is bringing Seattle's technology expertise to bear on the problem to help scientists better understand how to fight it.

The Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment at Swedish Medical Center and the Allen Institute for Brain Science are teaming up to work on the new $4.4 million Ivy Glioblastoma Atlas Project. Initial funding comes from the Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation, based in Palo Alto, Ca.

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common type of brain tumor, and also one of the most malignant forms of cancer, fast spreading, difficult to remove or treat and almost always fatal. Ben Ivy, a native of Everett, passed away from glioblastoma in 2005, and the cancer claimed the life of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy in August.

JOHN LOK/SEATTLE TIMES

Dr. Greg Foltz peers into a magnifier during surgery recently to remove a patient's brain tumor at Swedish Medical Center Cherry Hill.

Dr. Greg Foltz, a scientist and surgeon with the Swedish Neuroscience Institute, heads the Ivy Foundation project. Foltz is working with a coalition of local research centers and biotech firms to apply cutting-edge tools to treat patients and fight the disease.

Foltz and his colleagues genetically map each patient's tumor and examine its genes to determine their pattern, as this profile describes. The Allen Institute, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, provides genetic maps of healthy brain tissue for comparison. The genetic information can help Foltz predict how the cancer will behave and respond to various treatments and extend the lives of his patients.

Previously published brain cancer gene data has contained anatomic information from whole tumor samples, but little or no information about the gene activity.

For the atlas project, tumor tissue samples will be collected at Swedish and then sent to the Allen Institute for studying the target genes. Very thin strips will be digitally photographed and the cells and genes plotted on a 3-D map.

Research on the atlas project is scheduled to be completed in 2013. The information it produces will be made available online for free use by medical and scientific communities around the world.

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October 20, 2009 4:00 PM

A taste for bold ideas -- chewing gum to detect malaria?

Posted by Kristi Heim

Add two new weapons to the potential arsenal against malaria -- chewing gum and chocolate.

They are among dozens of unconventional approaches to global health problems that won backing today from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation is giving out 76 grants of $100,000 each to researchers in 16 countries.

The awards known as Grand Challenges Explorations, smaller and riskier bets the foundation is making to encourage creativity among scientists around the world, include people in areas such as chemistry, engineering, statistics and business who have never focused on health before.

The third round of projects explore new low-cost ways to diagnose diseases, fight malaria and HIV, and find more effective vaccines. Among the winners:

Andrew Fung of the University of California, Los Angeles, aims to develop chewing gum that can detect the presence of malaria in a person's saliva. Fung calls his diagnostic tool "MALiVA." During chewing, particles in the gum will react with malaria proteins, which can be detected and characterized when the gum is scanned with a magnet.

Kate Edwards at the University of San Diego will study whether a brief bout of exercise can make a pneumonia vaccine work better.

Steven Maranz of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York will test a compound contained in chocolate to find out whether providing children high levels of flavanols, found in chocolate, green tea and nuts, deprives malaria parasites of lipids needed to survive, keeping the infection at levels low enough to elicit a strong immune response and build lifelong immunity.

Ranjan Nanda of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology in India will attempt to create a handheld "electronic nose" that gathers and analyzes breath samples to diagnose tuberculosis.

Margaret Njoroge of Med Biotech Laboratories in Uganda will develop a nasal vaccine for mothers, designed to induce antibodies against malaria in breast milk and pass that immunity on to their babies.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley are attempting to marry a microscope with a cell phone to capture high-contrast fluorescent images of malaria parasites, with software on the phone that can count the parasites and wirelessly transmit the results to clinics.

The foundation is currently considering applications for the fourth round of funding, which closes on Nov. 2, and it's adding a new topic this time around -- new technologies for birth control.

Seeking novel solutions to an old problem, the foundation notes that family planning is one of the most cost effective ways to reduce deaths among mothers and children, but 200 million women in developing countries lack effective contraception.

So far, 262 researchers from 30 countries have been awarded grants through the Grand Challenges program, a five-year, $100 million initiative to promote innovation in global health.

Since the projects are so experimental, I'll be interested to see how the first ones have fared a year after their initial funding, and whether any of them are going on to the next stage in November. Successful projects can compete for a follow-on grant of $1 million or more, but no such grants have been awarded yet.

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October 17, 2009 11:07 AM

Gates Foundation pours $115 million into new malaria drugs

Posted by Kristi Heim

By Sandi Doughton

Health experts around the globe were chilled earlier this year by the discovery that malaria in Cambodia has evolved resistance to the most promising drug in medicine's arsenal.

With the effectiveness of artemisinin under threat, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is stepping up its investment in new malaria drugs with a $115 million grant to the Geneva-based Medicines for Malaria Venture. The grant brings the foundation's total funding for the group to $317 million.

Malaria has long been a top priority for the Gateses, who in 2007 took the controversial step of calling for eradication of the disease. Many experts question whether that will ever be possible, but foundation CEO Jeff Raikes recently said the world's biggest philanthropy is refocusing its malaria programs with the goal of eradication in mind.

The "E-word," which some malaria scientists utter with trepidation based on past failures, is repeated three times in MMV's four-paragraph press release on the new grant.

In February, MMV and drugmaker Novartis introduced a sweet-tasting version of the combination malaria drug Coartem for African children. The group is funding work on more than 50 drug candidates, ten of which are in clinical development.

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October 16, 2009 2:00 PM

A real sister city

Posted by Kristi Heim

Last night Nicholas Kristof told the story of a boy on a beach who collected starfish washed onto the sand and threw them back into the ocean one by one. A man came along and told him he'd never make a difference, but the boy replied "It sure made a difference to that one."

What if there were thousands, or even millions of boys and girls on the beach, an entire clean up crew, and each one saved at least one starfish?

That is the possibility in cities like Seattle.

A city where each citizen is linked to another citizen of a city somewhere in the world that needs our help.

We have sister city programs where delegations of bureaucrats go visit each other and talk about expanding ties. That's the old paradigm. So here's my idea: take Seattle's enormous talents, compassion and global perspective, and scale it up.

Time for the younger generation to redefine this civic pillar and make it really meaningful.

Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is, in the words of Dylan. A whole generation is looking at the world in a new way and is hungry to change it. These are the students who pack auditoriums and line up for hours to meet their rock stars - the Paul Farmers and Kavita Ramdases and Nicholas Kristofs of the world.

Three years ago an 11-year-old girl, Jessica Markowitz, decided to help educate girls in Rwanda. She traveled back and forth, raised more than $30,000, and now she's expanding her partnership to high schools in Seattle and Kigali. At Bellevue High School Brett Mennella helped start a microfinance club, which raised more than $130,000 for a local non-profit helping poor entrepreneurs, and now five other high schools have followed his lead. There are countless other examples here and in cities across the U.S.

Everyone knows the wealth system today is unequal. As Kristof said, we who won the birth lottery buy lattes and iPods while kids overseas starve. But we as individuals have the power to change it ourselves right now, and even the technology.

The Kiva model has shown the possibilities for transformation when one person uses the Internet to send one tiny bit of her resources to one other person.

Joe Mallahan would like it, from what I hear about his ideas to use mobile phones for social business. Mike McGinn would like it, from what I hear about his enthusiasm for grassroots environmental movements.

Someone in Edmonds liked the idea, because he made sure every one of its 43,000 residents could give $1 to help Carol Schillios save girls in Mali.

Kristof also told us about a $10,000 bank mistake that saved a school in China that was able to waive $13 in school fees for each of the girls, who became accountants and sent money back to their town, which got a road built and attracted more investment, which made life better for everyone. A virtuous cycle.

What if we could change a whole town in a place like Cambodia or Cameroon, and create a new sister cities model for others? Take soft power right down to the local level.

We have 602,000 residents in Seattle, and most of them can afford a latte. Some school in some town with a poor girl who can't afford an education is just waiting for us to notice.

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October 14, 2009 11:10 AM

Turning beggars into businesswomen

Posted by Kristi Heim

Begging is a way of life for many women and girls in Africa. Carol Schillios wants to turn them into businesswomen.

Her Fabric of Life store in Edmonds is part of a non-profit that trains young women and girls in Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world. The shop, run entirely by volunteers, then sells the products made by the women -- woven fabrics with traditional patterns, bags and multicolored beaded jewelry.

Schillios funds a school called the Here je Center in Mali's capital that teaches job skills, along with health and nutrition, family planning, AIDS prevention and literacy. The students are paid $20 a week to help support their families while they are studying.

The idea is to reach girls who are begging and get them off the streets before they turn to prostitution. They continue being paid that stipend as artisans after graduation. On an annual basis, it's more than double the average income for a person in Mali.

Schillios decided to focus on Mali after working there as a consultant and meeting Kaaba Soumare, the CEO of a small microfinance institution, who eventually became her local partner.

The shop provides a critical link -- market access to American buyers.

"We're always going to be consumers," but there's a difference she said, holding up a mustard colored place mat. "When you eat on it you know you helped save someone from starving."

A consultant to credit unions and microfinance groups, Schillios says she takes no salary from her non-profit, the Schillios Development Foundation, and relies on volunteers rather than employees.

For the past three months Schillios, 56, has been living in a tent on the roof above her shop, accompanied by her 22-year-old cat Elliette.

She vowed not to come down until 1 million people each donated $1 to her foundation and shared how they are making a difference in the world. So far she's raised $66,000.

The blue tarp covered tent is visible from along Main Street in downtown Edmonds, where she gets stares, waves and donations of coffee and food. Extension cords linked to the shop bring electricity for her laptop, lights and a device that helps her breathe at night. There are bottles of Ibuprofen for achy joints. She's hung a Tibetan prayer flag and a Halloween skeleton for decoration.

One night everything went wrong. The tent leaked. The roof of the makeshift bathroom collapsed in on her. She was so frustrated she took off her clothes and danced on the roof in the rain at 3 a.m.

Eventually she realized her goal of raising $1 million might be too ambitious, so she plans to come down before Christmas. Still she's happy with all the attention drawn to the cause.

One supporter agreed to match donations up to $43,000, $1 dollar for every resident of Edmonds.

Revenue from the Fabric of Life shop has steadily grown since its opening last November, enabling Schillios to channel about $30,000 into grants to the school in Bamako. About 20 women have graduated so far. Not all of them make it-- one of the students died of malaria a few weeks ago.

"We didn't find out the extent of her illness until it was too late," Schillios said. Two others left the program after they became pregnant. Still, she is hopeful she can fund a third class of students this year.

"My dream is we create an industry for the whole country," she said.

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October 7, 2009 2:58 PM

Young entrepreneurs make social change their business

Posted by Kristi Heim

Seattle is building a reputation for using business to serve humanity. That kind of work used to be called "giving back." But for many young entrepreneurs, it's essential to their careers from the beginning.

Last year Nandie Oosthuizen, 19, founded Hand & Heart, a non-profit that funds an orphanage for kids affected by AIDS in her native South Africa. Before that she started a campaign at Bishop Blanchet High School to raise money and awareness about the crisis in Darfur. Now studying business and sociology at the University of Washington, she calls herself a change maker, social entrepreneur and youth philanthropist.

Oosthuizen is one of dozens of young entrepreneurs supported by Youth Venture, an organization that encourages people as young as 12 to use their creativity and passion to take on important social issues.

Since its start in Seattle in late 2007, Youth Venture Seattle has helped more than 30 student teams get up and running, some for more than a year now. They have each created projects around solving some kind of problem, from lack of clean water to sex trafficking to a community center focused on science and technology. Started by Ashoka, the global network for social entrepreneurs, Youth Venture helps the teams form a business plan, raise seed funds and launch their own enterprise.

COURTESY OF YOUTH VENTURE

Members of a group called American Youth for Equal Educational Opportunities in Bellevue collect school supplies for needy students with the help of Youth Venture.

Both Hand & Heart and Youth Venture will be represented tomorrow evening, along with the Vittana and Jolkona foundations, at a forum on social entrepreneurship sponsored by the World Affairs Council's Young Professionals International Network (YPIN). The forum starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Microsoft Auditorium in the Seattle Central Library.

Participants, including Jolkona co-founders Adnan Mahmud and Nadia Eleza Khawaja and Vittana co-founder and CEO Kushal Chakrabarti, will share stories about what inspired them, the challenges they have faced and advice for others interested in starting a social enterprise.

Says Jack Knellinger, director of Youth Venture in Seattle:
"Having a room full of young people share their experiences and what they see in the world in terms of what they want to accomplish... opens up the minds of all of our youth."

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October 5, 2009 8:01 AM

Would you help a stranger save money?

Posted by Kristi Heim

The founders of a new Seattle non-profit called SaveTogether think so.

They are pairing low-wage workers in the U.S., many of them working moms, with people willing to help them save small amounts at a time to reach their goals of education, home ownership or opening a small business.

A saver starts with $25, a donor chips in $25 and a non-profit matches that with another $25, tripling the saver's original amount. So savers can earn two more dollars for every dollar they save.

Sandra is one of the clients of SaveTogether, saving $120 a month to expand her hair salon business in San Francisco.

The non-profit operates a Kiva-like online model, relying on the generosity of strangers to help people profiled on the site realize their dreams. Other Seattle-based efforts that build on Kiva's success with peer to peer online philanthropy include Vittana, a non-profit started by former Amazon employees that helps fund educational loans, and Jolkona and See Your Impact, which help young people get involved in philanthropy by making small donations and tracking their progress.

SaveTogether co-founder and CEO Dylan Higgins likens it to a 401(k) match for low-wage workers.

Convincing donors to help people they don't know save money could be a challenge, Higgins acknowledged. But it's about encouraging responsibility, he said.

"These people have already taken steps to better themselves and you are helping speed the process."

After law school at the University of Washington, Higgins worked as a fellow for microlending Web site Kiva in Ghana, where he got the inspiration for the project.

The Spokane native remembers being struck by the number of borrowers who had trouble finding a way to save, while at the same time he saw the economy in the U.S. on the verge of collapse because of an overindulgence in credit.

"I was amazed how these two apparently different worlds were reacting in a similar way," he said. "They both needed savings to come to the forefront again. It was an amazing epiphany for me. I studied economics as an undergrad and was always frustrated that Americans were poor savers."

SaveTogether aims to build on the success of Individual Development Accounts, matched savings accounts for working poor who are trying to buy their first home, pay for college or start a small business. IDAs are supported by organizations such as the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) and are funded by government and private sources. Seed funding for SaveTogether came from CFED.

Caroline is a nursing student saving to complete her studies at a university in Boston. She arrived in the U.S. from Uganda last year.

Recently I have been writing about new programs by the Gates Foundation and others that recognize savings as an essential part of financial well being and help people build assets. One study showed that low-income Americans who participated in matched savings programs weathered the recession relatively well. Almost none of them lost their homes.

The same study, while giving Washington state good marks overall, said the state could improve its low rates of micro enterprise and small business ownership by making capital more widely available through micro loan programs, restoring funding for Individual Development Accounts and training more entrepreneurs.

The non-profit is helping people such as Sandra, a single mother of five in San Francisco who runs her own salon and is saving to expand it; Andria, a 20-year-old who is the main breadwinner in her family and is saving for college tuition; and Raymond, a Native American father of two in Spokane who is saving to open a business.

Dylan Higgins is CEO of SaveTogether.

Robert Friedman, CFED's founder and chairman, said he has witnessed matched savings programs change the lives of poor working families for almost 20 years. He now supports several of SaveTogether's featured savers. They are screened and selected by the partners, including Neighborhood Assets of Spokane and Opportunity Fund of San Francisco.

SaveTogether has tried to build in a kind of fraud-protection system. It collects the matched funds from donors, holding them until the saver reaches his or her goal. SaveTogether then disburses the funds to the local non-profit partner and they release the funds directly to the vendor. For example, the organization writes the check to the university, not the student, or to the mortgage company, not the home buyer. This ensures that the saver uses the matching funds for the specified purpose, Higgins said.

Higgins and his partners were looking to work with a non-profit in Seattle, such as Washington CASH, but the United Way of King County no longer administers the individual development account programs and has transferred the operation to the YMCA to help foster youth save.

"For all those other uses of matched savings for business, homeownership and education, it remains to be seen what kind of market we will have in King County," Higgins said.

For now SaveTogether is working with organizations in Spokane, Boston and the Bay Area and hopes to expand around the country and eventually overseas.

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September 25, 2009 10:42 AM

Economic indicators miss toll on local poor

Posted by Kristi Heim

Economists may say we're coming out of the recession, but that doesn't ring true to local non-profits and people without work.

"Everybody's hearing about the leading economic indicators -- everything's getting better economically," says Richard Bray, who directs donor and community relations at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Seattle/King County. "We're not seeing that when it comes to the average person."

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY

Tom Kobayashi (right), who is 93, walks at the Friends of the Poor Walk last year, with Paul and Nicki Tran at left.

Calls for assistance last month were up 60 percent over last year, hitting an all time record of 411 calls on Sept 14, he said. The 2-1-1 community information line has referred 18,000 calls to the charity so far this year. The number of people seeking food at the Georgetown food bank doubled from last year, to 8,000 each month.

Another troubling trend has emerged -- the charity has noticed a jump in domestic violence cases -- only 1 percent of the cases it manages in a long range assistance program were related to domestic violence a year ago, but in the last month that number has grown to 10 percent.

The problem stems from economic difficulties, Bray said. "People are out of work, they're stressing out and unfortunately taking it out on some of the ones closest to them."

Joining the ranks of the poor now are former professionals who worked all their lives and were doing well before the recession, he said.

To raise money and awareness about local people in need, the charity will host its second annual "Friends of the Poor Walk" tomorrow from 9 to noon at John F. Kennedy High School in Burien. Other walks are planned in 150 cities nationwide, including Tacoma, Everett and Sequim. Details are here.

"The theme is walk a mile in my shoes, to reflect and think about someone who's going through hard times," Bray said.

Last year, one participant covered 50 laps on the school track, but the standout was Tom Kobayashi, who participated at age 92, and plans to walk again this year.

Kobayashi, of Seattle, is the longest serving St. Vincent de Paul volunteer in the nation. A Japanese American who was forced into an internment camp as a child during World War II, Kobayashi has spent the last 73 years as a member and leader of the charity, making weekly home visits to people who are struggling.

"If he can do it, anyone can," Bray said.

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September 20, 2009 5:19 PM

Gates Foundation tests charitable investments and loans

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing more with its money than giving it away. It has been moving into investments, loans and loan guarantees aimed at furthering its programs.

The $30 billion foundation has made several investments so far and others are in the works, as I reported in this story today.

Program related investments or PRIs are one way the Gates Foundation can increase its impact beyond the $3.5 billion a year it makes in grants. The approach also imposes financial discipline on recipients so they operate more like businesses.

What will be most interesting to watch is to what extent the foundation uses its $30 billion endowment towards its charitable goals. It plans to carve off a portion of the endowment to invest in ventures related to its programs, but has not released details about how that will work..

That step could mark a shift from the strategy of the past several years in which it invested its endowment, or asset trust, solely with the goal of maximizing profit.

The next PRI could be a loan guarantee towards U.S. education.

PRIs are set up to further the charitable mission of a nonprofit, not to make money. They are risky and the default risk rises in a bad economy, but they can also be very profitable. The investor can also call in the loan if the recipient is not adhering to the stated mission.

Examples could be a low interest or no interest loan to needy students, an investment in a low-income housing project or a loan to a for-profit pharmaceutical company. In fact a new designation called an L3C, or a low-profit limited liability company, has been created to facilitate such program investments.

The Gates Foundation has made least three program-related investments in the area of global development: $20 million to Africa ProCredit Holding to increase access to banking services for micro entrepreneurs, small businesses and low income groups; $20 million to ASA International Holdings to scale up a proven microfinance model in several countries in Africa and Asia; and $10 million to Opportunity Transformation Investments to create or expand commercial banks for the poor across five African countries.

They are not the same as mission-related investments, which align investment of assets with a charity's mission, and include actions by shareholders to affect the behavior of companies, said Lance Lindblom, chief executive of the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

The Gates Foundation came under fire in 2007 following a report that it was investing in companies contributing to health problems and other human suffering the foundation was working to alleviate through its grants. At the time, the Gates Foundation said it would not alter its approach to investing its endowment.

When screening companies for behavior contrary to a foundation's mission, sorting out responsibility can be difficult, Lindblom said. He advocates that foundations exercise their proxy votes to persuade companies they invest in to act more responsibly.

The current investments of the Gates Foundation's endowment trust can be found here.

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September 9, 2009 12:58 PM

Volunteer events planned in Seattle on first National Day of Service

Posted by Kristi Heim

Friday marks the first National Day of Service and Remembrance, a way to honor the anniversary of September 11 by volunteering to help the community.

In Seattle, hundreds of volunteers will connect with people who are homeless or facing poverty in a day-long event at Quest Field. About 90 organizations are offering free services, from haircuts and dental work to help applying for jobs, housing, food stamps and veterans benefits.

CURT NAKON

People get free haircuts during United Way's Community Resource Exchange, a day when dozens of local non-profits gather to provide free services for homeless people. .

The United Way of King County decided to hold its biannual Community Resource Exchange on the first National Day of Service, meant to encourage more volunteering and support for non-profits. Hundreds of projects are planned throughout King County on Friday, and more than 8,000 people have volunteered to work on them. Details can be found here.

The Community Resource Exchange, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Quest Field, gives people a central place to find help, relax, eat and socialize with others, said United Way spokesman Jared Erlandson. The non-profit expects to serve at least 1,000 needy people at the event, which is open to the public.

"Instead of having to navigate the gauntlet of services -- when they're spending so much time just trying to survive -- finding them all in one place is really valuable," he said.

The national day was established earlier this year as part of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. People can get ideas and share their own volunteer plans at this site.

On any given night in King County about 8,500 people are currently homeless, and over the course of a year, about 24,000 people have been homeless for some period of time, according to the United Way.

In another volunteer event Friday, the Jubilee Women's Center is getting a vegetable garden built by 25 Microsoft employees. The center provides low-cost housing for homeless women trying to get back on their feet. I visited the center a few months ago and met one of the residents, a woman who had fled an abusive husband and was working her way through law school.

They regularly receive canned food, but the garden will fill a big void in fresh produce. Local businesses donated the soil, seeds and building materials.

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August 25, 2009 8:37 AM

Jolkona Foundation extends micro-giving to Seattle

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Jolkona Foundation has added Seattle education and microfinance projects to its Web site, allowing people to reach local programs with targeted small donations.

The non-profit created by husband and wife team Adnan Mahmud and Nadia Eleza Khawaja launched its Web site in June, aiming at younger donors. I profiled their venture here.

Now Jolkona is partnering with the Technology Access Foundation (TAF) and the Washington Community Alliance for Self Help (CASH).

The two TAF projects aim to reduce educational disparities between students of different racial backgrounds in the Pacific Northwest. Donors can fund after-school programs for students of color in underprivileged neighborhoods in Seattle and Federal Way. For $50, donors can sponsor snacks and field trips for TAF's TechStart program, or sponsor student council activity and books at TAF Academy. Donors receive photos from students and lists of the books purchased.

The project with Washington CASH provides money for business training to micro-loan borrowers in Washington, where 26 percent of the population is considered "working poor." Donors can fund business training for borrowers for $30, or sponsor a client to attend the non-profit's eight-week Business Development Training course for $375.

"We love Seattle and we are glad that we can utilize our platform to assist TAF and Washington CASH in addressing some of the biggest needs in our hometown," said Mahmud. "We believe poverty and lack of education are not only problems in remote villages of Africa and Asia but also close to home."

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August 18, 2009 12:00 PM

PATH to use Hilton Humanitarian Prize for $25 million innovation fund

Posted by Kristi Heim

Seattle-based PATH announced today it has won the world's largest humanitarian award, the $1.5 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, for its work creating effective health technologies for the developing world.

Hilton Foundation Chief Executive Steven M. Hilton, who introduced the award during a press conference this morning, said PATH's work helping to develop 85 technologies, along with its commitment to sharing ideas and making sure products are sold at affordable prices, have had a profound impact on alleviating human suffering. More coverage of the award is here.

COURTESY OF PATH/PATRICK MCKERN

PATH CEO Christopher Elias (left) and Conrad N. Hilton Foundation CEO Steven M. Hilton (right) tour PATH's Seattle headquarters following the announcement that PATH has won the 2009 Hilton Humanitarian Prize.

The prestigious award is well deserved recognition for the long-term efforts of its staff, who often work years before seeing the results, PATH Chief Executive Chris Elias said. PATH now has 850 employees working in 20 countries.

Its Seattle headquarters near the base of the Ballard Bridge buzzed with excitement as the news was announced this morning.

The award "will open many doors" for future goals, Elias said, and PATH plans to capitalize on the recognition to expand its partnerships around the world.

PATH will use the $1.5 million in prize money to seed an innovation fund aimed at investing in new technology and health interventions, he said. PATH will begin a five-year drive aimed at raising a total of $25 million for the innovation fund.

The non-profit has an annual budget of $250 million, 65 percent from foundations, 30 percent from governments, and 5 percent from global organizations. Only a small percent of the contributions are unrestricted, a portion Elias calls "innovation capital."

Through the innovation fund, Elias aims to raise the amount of flexible capital from about 3 percent to about 10 percent of PATH's budget.

PATH has used such capital in the past to set up an office in South Africa, which could then begin applying for grants and offering programs that had been successful in East Africa to address similar health problems. Five years later the South Africa office, focused on improving maternal and newborn health, has grown to one of PATH's largest, with a staff of more than 30 people.

"Innovation capital can respond to emerging needs and opportunities," he said.

One goal of the fund is to invest in taking technology innovations that come from 21st century scientific discoveries, such as new diagnostic tools, and applying them to affordable products for the developing world, he said.

The fund will also be used to increase the usage of essential health products PATH has developed and to expand its field presence, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Elias said.

The Hilton Foundation will present the award to PATH formally at a Sept. 21 ceremony in Washington D.C with keynote speaker Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate, founder of the Grameen Bank, and former Hilton Prize juror. PATH, which had been nominated for the Hilton award in the past, was the winner this year among about 200 nominees.

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August 17, 2009 3:30 PM

PATH to receive $1.5 million Hilton Humanitarian Prize

Posted by Kristi Heim

Seattle-based non-profit PATH has been chosen to receive the 2009 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the largest humanitarian award in the world.

Hilton Foundation leaders are in town to talk about the award with PATH during a morning press conference tomorrow that includes speakers from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Seattle Rotary.

The $1.5 million prize "acknowledges one outstanding nonprofit, charitable, or non-governmental organization that has made significant contributions toward alleviating human suffering anywhere in the world," according to the Hilton Foundation's Web site.

It's also one of the largest monetary prizes -- about equal to the Nobel Prize. Previous winners have included BRAC, a Bangladeshi group that focuses on helping poor rural women using microfinance, Women for Women International, which helps survivors of war, and Partners in Health, which pioneered a comprehensive, community-based approach to improving health.

COURTESY OF PATH

A kiosk where women in a Nairobi slum sell water purified using a process developed by PATH.

PATH has been developing innovative health solutions for the past three decades, from vial monitors that indicate when vaccine is spoiled, to water purification programs, to an initiative to produce the world's first malaria vaccine. Its work has helped make Seattle a global health powerhouse.

Most recently, PATH scientists and collaborators developed methods that protect hepatitis B vaccine from heat and freeze damage, particularly important in parts of the world without proper refrigeration.

The Hilton Foundation, established by the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain, has awarded more than $800 million in grants and reported assets of $3.4 billion. More than half of the grants go to supporting international projects.

The foundation's international prize jury includes Catherine Bertini, senior fellow in agricultural development at the Gates Foundation, who is former director of the United Nations World Food Programme.

Steven M. Hilton, president and chief executive of the Hilton Foundation and the grandson of Conrad N. Hilton, will be speaking at PATH.

I'll report on more details from the press conference tomorrow.

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August 13, 2009 4:33 PM

Creativity thrives in approaches to local giving

Posted by Kristi Heim

Rohan Paramesh, 16, combined his interest in mountaineering with his desire to help charitable causes during his summer break from school.

He just finished climbing Mount Rainier and used the trip to raise about $15,000 from friends and family members supporting his twin goals.

At a time when funds are tight but needs are great, creative approaches to fundraising and charitable giving are flourishing. Local groups are holding new kinds of events to raise money while sharing knowledge about what they do. Individuals are reaching out to personal networks, and businesses are identifying worthy customers to help during the recession.

COURTESY OF ROHAN PARAMESH

Lakeside School senior Rohan Paramesh climbed Mount Rainier to raise money for Seattle Children's Hospital and for a children's education project in India.

Following a passion for mountain climbing, Paramesh planned to try to summit Rainier this year. When he found out he had secured a spot in early August, he realized the training would make it hard to spend a lot of time volunteering for non-profits.

So he decided to turn his trip into a fund raiser for schools in India, where he spent time volunteering the summer before, and for Seattle Children's Hospital, which had helped his brother with bouts of severe allergies.

"I know it's more than if I went around to peoples' houses and asked for donations or sold key chains," he said.

"It was a unique thing to do -- an adventure I would tell people about. Climbing a mountain itself represents surmounting some huge obstacle. That is also representative of what I'm trying to help others do."

His conclusion? "One lesson was clear to me -- even a small, sustained effort can matter."
_______________________________________________________________

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center started the Innovators Network just over a year ago to recruit donors under the age of 45.

Tonight it's holding an event to review its progress, where prospective donors can meet and talk with leading researchers.

"This generation does things a little bit differently," said Christi Ball Loso, the center's media relations manager. "They're more hands-on. They want to be able to interact with the researchers, and they ask really good questions. They're interested in the science."

Earlier this year the non-profit eliminated 83 jobs, or about 3 percent of its workforce, as part of budget cuts in response to a drop in charitable donations. It's looking to establish a larger pool of younger donors now to fund cutting-edge research and get started early on philanthropy aimed at fighting cancer.

The program helps young donors increase their knowledge of scientific innovation and share the information about research with their own social and professional networks. Individuals make annual gifts of $1,000 or more to support some of the Hutch's most cutting-edge, high-risk, high-reward research projects, Loso said.

UPDATE: The group raised a $306,000 in its first year and 131 charter members were recruited, surpassing the original goal of 100 first-year members in the Innovators Network.

_____________________________________________________________

Project Treehouse, a Seattle nonprofit that supports foster children with clothing donations, education fees and summer camps, used the demand for back-to-school clothes in a year of tight budgets to stage a unique fashion show on Wednesday.

Project Treehouse, wanted to highlight the needs of foster children while adding some clothes to their wardrobes.

People attending the event brought clothing and toured The Wearhouse, a supply store that provides free items such as clothing, shoes, school supplies, books, toys and bikes to 2,800 foster kids every year. Volunteers and foster families accompanied them to talk about their experiences.

The fashion show featured 14 foster kids modeling donated clothes as Seattle Seahawks' SeaGals cheered them down the runway. Guest received shopping bags to take home and fill up with needed items. Five local clothing boutiques listed on the Web site are still taking drop-off donations.

__________________________________________________________________

Mywedding.com founder Rob Johnsen thought of a way to help couples during the difficult economy by holding a "wedding wish contest" monthly through the end of the year.

The contest's first recipients were a Bellingham couple, Megan Larama and Robert Ziesing, who were struggling to afford their wedding when unexpected costs arose from the adoption of a foster child. Larama said she was impressed by Ziesing's bighearted nature. The 30-year-old teacher had a house full of children and was on his way to adopting a third child.

The bride-to-be wrote a letter to the Seattle-based company explaining the situation. Johnsen worked with local vendors, who chipped in $2,500 worth of services, including a wedding cake, tux, transportation and a stay in a downtown Seattle hotel.

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August 11, 2009 8:40 AM

WSU's Ripple Effect pushes frontier of education philanthropy

Posted by Kristi Heim

Washington State University is known for its agricultural expertise, knowledge that it spreads around the world through a dozen international development projects. Now it's linking those programs with online giving in a new initiative called Ripple Effect.

The idea is to give donors a direct way to support WSU's mission and improve the livelihoods of people in the countries where it operates. The Ripple Effect Web site features concrete items such as trees, treadle pumps, stoves, seeds for crops, goats or honey bees, which donors can purchase for rural communities where WSU works. The cost ranges from as little as $16 for a seeds kit to $1,024 for a full share of a honey bee kit.

The program, owned and operated by the WSU Foundation, gives students, alumni and others a chance to engage in philanthropy at a level they can afford and way they can understand, said Scott Garrepy WSU development director for international programs. He thinks WSU may be the first major university in the U.S. to try online '"retail philanthropy."

Each gift fits into a system connected with various aspects of village life and with WSU's larger goals of sustainable development, he said.

WSU's goals include improving the sustainable management of natural resources through tree planting and reduced wood consumption, increasing farm productivity to strengthen food security and nutrition, and improving health standards through safe water and sanitation.

WSU has worked in Malawi, since 1986, planting trees, creating conservation agriculture programs and building primary schools, fuel efficient stoves and small scale irrigation, through Total Land Care, a Malawian non-governmental organization it helped set up.

"WSU's efforts to help people help themselves in developing nations rank among our most important, and least recognized, initiatives," said WSU President Elson Floyd. "Ripple Effect allows every contributor to see who they are helping and how they are making a very real difference in the lives of struggling people half a world away."

Ripple Effect has a lot in common with other online philanthropy start-ups I've written about such as Jolkona Foundation and See Your Impact. The program takes the popular concept of online micro-giving and applies it to education.

Garrepy said the university is also using Twitter to spread the word, and its RippleEffectWSU profile page now has more than 1,500 followers.

"With budget crunch issues, we've had to be creative about how to raise awareness of the site," he said. "Social media is a very important and effective tool for us."

Gifts are received by WSU Foundation and transferred to the university's International Research and Development Department. WSU staff on the ground secure the items and services and deliver them to families and villages in Malawi.

"If one goat kit and two tree seedling kits are purchased through the Ripple Effect Web site, then one goat kit and two tree seedling kits will go exactly where they are most needed in Malawi," said Garrepy.

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August 5, 2009 4:35 PM

Gates Foundation endowment grows nearly $3 billion

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's endowment grew $2.7 billion in the last quarter, according to new figures posted on the foundation's Web site today.

The world's largest private foundation had $30.2 billion in its asset trust endowment as of June 30, up from $27.5 billion. It also added 21 new employees for a total of 781.

The fourth and most recent installment of Warren Buffett's gift, $1.25 billion, was recorded on July 1. The gift comes in the form of Berkshire Hathaway B shares. This year, the value of those shares was about 30 percent less than last year's, owing to the decline in stock prices during the recession. Buffett has given the foundation a total of $6.41 billion so far.

The Gates Foundation's endowment, including Buffett's annual installments, is held in an asset trust, which funds the foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust is managed by a team of outside investment managers. In addition to selling Berkshire Hathaway shares, they have been buying shares in U.K. sportswear retailer JJB Sports. Here is a look at Michael Larson, the man who runs it.

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August 4, 2009 10:01 AM

Winning with a social conscience

Posted by Kristi Heim

Give up millions of dollars a year by declining a commercial logo on the chests of its celebrated players? It sounded like a bad idea to FC Barcelona's marketing department. Manchester United, which wore the AIG logo on its uniforms until January, made about $25 million a year from the deal.

But the decision to wear the Unicef logo instead, and pay Unicef almost $2 million a year for the privilege, was made by President Joan Laporta, and three years later, it has paid off well, says Marta Segu, executive director of the FC Barcelona Foundation.

"Now the marketing people have said this is one of the most important decisions we have taken," she said. The result is a unique global identity.

The team is promoting the fight against malaria on its jerseys (pictured at right) during its current U.S. tour. Tomorrow FC Barcelona visits Seattle to play against the Seattle Sounders FC.

"Before we had the same value as other clubs like Real Madrid or Chelsea. We have been winners, we make money," Segu said. "Now everybody knows that Barça has another value -- solidarity, social responsibility."

The club gives Unicef 1.5 million euros a year, and 0.7 percent of its revenue goes toward humanitarian causes. The budget of the club's charitable foundation, which was created in 1994 but basically languished for a decade without any real plan, tripled over the last six years to $6 million.

"In 2005 we started making new programs and projects," Segu said. "We decided not only will it be an increase of the brand, the brand will increase all over the world toward our humanitarian dimension."

FC Barcelona's humanitarian work includes a new partnership with United Against Malaria, a coalition supported by the Gates Foundation that I wrote about today (thanks to everyone for the Tweets!) That partnership includes Seattle-based global health non-profit PATH. For Seattle's global health community, so much is riding on success fighting malaria, from SBRI's research toward a vaccine to the Gates Foundation's grand ambitions to wipe out a disease that kills a million people a year.

In Los Angeles, the campaign picked up the support of Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber and the Galaxy's Landon Donovan, the best scoring American player (pictured with ball above).

FC Barcelona player Seydou Keita returned to his native Mali earlier this year to distribute bed nets to families there.

"To be able to travel back to Mali and to talk to my people about the importance of fighting malaria was a wonderful experience," he said.

"We're very lucky to have such dedicated fans--and one of the ways that we can thank them for that dedication is to help raise awareness. Since so much of the world pays attention to soccer, we have the opportunity to focus that attention on malaria as well."

DEAN RUTZ/SEATTLE TIMES

After surviving two bouts of malaria, Sanna Nyassi helped raise funds and awareness about disease for Nothing But Nets.

FC Barcelona became the first team to support the UN Millennium Development Goals and now has three partnerships with the UN -- with Unicef to help vulnerable children, including those affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa, with UNESCO to fight racism in sports, and with the UNHCR to provide sports and health programs in refugee camps.

Throughout Africa and in Mexico and India, the foundation set up centers for children that offer hot meals, help with homework, health care and sports and promote gender equality.

For Seattle Sounders FC player Sanna Nyassi, his most recent case of malaria back home in his native Gambia was so serious that he and his mother both worried he might not survive. But he got treated and pulled through, and ended up playing professional soccer for the Sounders the next year. Nyassi said he was a fan of FC Barcelona before, but after hearing about the club's work to help fight the disease, "I liked them more," he said.

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August 3, 2009 7:25 AM

Hopelink opens new food bank designed like a grocery store

Posted by Kristi Heim

Hopelink will open the doors to a new food bank today that uses the model of a grocery store to let people make their own choices and shop at their convenience.

Where traditional food banks hand out food items in a line at a set time and date, Hopelink's new Kirkland center mirrors a grocery store where people can choose their own canned goods, baked goods, produce, meat and dairy items from cases and shelves. The store has both daytime and evening hours.

To use the food bank, people have to first qualify and register at Hopelink, where they are matched with services aimed to help them move toward self-sufficiency. The grocery store uses a point system to provide people with a food budget based on family size.

Since many of Hopelink's clients have jobs and children in school, a food bank offering flexible hours is an advantage. Food banks all over the region have seen a surge in demand during the economic downturn.

The supermarket-style model was first developed by the University District Food Bank (a separate non-profit from Food Lifeline) in 2007. Food Lifeline then recognized University District Food Bank with an award a year later for exemplary approaches to ending hunger.

In addition to food, the new Hopelink center will offer a one-stop-shop for other services, including adult education, emergency financial assistance, a jobs program and help for families with children.

Hopelink's new center replaces two of its other centers in Kirkland and Bothell and is located at 11011 120th Avenue N.E. in the Totem Lake area. For more information call 425-889-7880.

Update: Just learned about AmpleHarvest, a nationwide effort to link local food pantries with surplus produce from neighborhood gardens. It invites local pantries to list themselves and gardeners to visit the site, and "reach into their backyard instead of their back pocket."

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July 27, 2009 8:33 AM

Donate by text message: Bellevue non-profit makes it easy

Posted by Kristi Heim

Add philanthropy to the growing list of applications for mobile phones. One of the newest and most interesting innovations to combine philanthropy and technology is mobile giving.

Donating by text message is a new phenomenon, one that a Bellevue non-profit is pioneering by providing the platform to link donors to charities, as a story I wrote describes in detail today.

Mobile phone users can text a word such as HOPE (American Cancer Society), RIGHTS (Amnesty International), NET (Malaria No More), MEALS (Food Lifeline) or many others to a designated short code and contribute $5 or $10 to a cause. The Bellevue-based Mobile Giving Foundation acts as a clearinghouse for donations, helping non-profits set up codes and settling the billing between carriers and charities. The charges appear on donors' cell phone bills.

Mobile Giving Foundation CEO Jim Manis, a wireless industry veteran, got started helping set up a system for people to send donations for emergency relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami.

GREG GILBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Jim Manis is working to expand mobile giving.

The system gave people a way to take action immediately in response to a need. Manis also saw it as a way to reach younger donors.

He persuaded U.S. mobile carriers to agree to process the donations free of charge (though they do earn something from text messaging charges). The foundation also works with a dozen service providers that create mobile fund raising campaigns for non-profits.

Text donation campaigns have been gaining momentum since the Super Bowl in 2008, which featured a commercial to text $5 to help a United Way youth fitness program.

Political campaigns have made extensive use of mobile phones and the Internet, and earlier this year the U.S. government started a drive to adopt new media in support of foreign policy by calling on Americans to text pledges to people in Pakistan through the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

In the future, there may be a way to text $5 directly to the phone of someone you want to help.

Mobile giving is just starting to catch on, but considering there are more than 270 million mobile subscribers in the U.S alone (and more than 4 billion worldwide), it has the potential for power in numbers.

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July 22, 2009 11:27 AM

InfoSpace launches new philanthropic search engine

Posted by Kristi Heim

InfoSpace is introducing a search engine that supports charitable causes called Do Great Good.

As users search on Do Great Good, half of the net revenue generated on the Web site is donated by InfoSpace to various charities, the Bellevue-based company said today. The site is an expansion of InfoSpace's Dogpile search engine.

It's similar to GoodSearch, a search engine started in 2005 by other dot-com veterans. GoodSearch donates 50 percent of its revenues to charities and schools designated by users. Users can choose from more than 80,000 non-profits on this site.

GoodSearch, based in Los Angeles, said it hopes to take advantage of the $8 billion generated annually by search engine advertisers to capture a portion for philanthropic causes.

GoodSearch is powered by Yahoo, while Do Great Good is powered by metasearch technology that combines results from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.

Both services are free to users. They make money from companies paying to show display ads when visitors click on those ads within the search results.

"Many people would like to donate to charities and nonprofits, but the tough economic hardships facing our country today make it difficult," said John Rodkin, InfoSpace general manager of search. "Do Great Good users make a positive difference in others' lives without having to open their wallets -- simply by searching the Web."

Do Great Good does not have a feature that allows users to choose their own charity. Instead, it pools the funds and distributes them to charities at the end of each quarter. The site supports 20 charities that serve pets in need, including Petfinder.com Foundation, Animal Charities of America and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and has donated over $50,000 so far.

The program is expanding to include health services, education, and the environment, InfoSpace said.

Americans conducted 14 billion searches in June, according to comScore. Google led the market 65 percent of the searches, followed by Yahoo with almost 20 percent, and Microsoft with a little over 8 percent. InfoSpace had less than 1 percent of the search market.

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July 17, 2009 12:00 PM

Making positive yardage despite a tough economy

Posted by Kristi Heim

Some fundraising campaigns have done surprisingly well even in the face of recession.

Led by Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke, the Seahawks helped United Way of King County raise more money this year than any other United Way in the country.

The local United Way announced yesterday it had raised a total of $100.3 million in its 2008-2009 campaign ended June 30. It's the third consecutive year the organization has broken the $100 million mark.

United Way raised about $116 million in 2007-2008, according to its annual report.

Seeing the effects of the plummeting economy on poor families, United Way announced a Response for Basic Needs in November. It has raised $3.7 million for that program, supporting 6 million additional pounds of food into emergency food banks and signing up more than 1,000 people for food stamps.

Earlier this month, United Way held a Climb for the Community. Leiweke, Fine, Seahawks coach Jim Mora, United Way Chairwoman Molly Nordstrom and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell climbed Mt. Rainier to raise money and awareness for the basic needs campaign. The event raised an additional $380,000.

"The Northwest is a special place," Leiweke said.

Current and former Seahawks were involved last month in an event focused on global humanitarian work. Medical Teams International raised about $1.7 million at its 10th Annual Field of Dreams Dinner and Auction at Safeco Field. The event drew 820 guests, the largest turnout in its decade-long history.

Seahawks Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and his wife Sarah and Horizon Air CEO Jeff Pinneo and his wife Janey co-chaired the event, with former Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren as honorary chairman.

Fund raising in such a difficult economy takes direct personal involvement and proof of financial efficiency, organizers said.

"The people and businesses here are incredibly generous, but they are also savvy," said Leiweke. They want to know that they're making a smart investment, so it helps that 96 cents of every dollar to United Way go to the community assistance programs.

With Medical Teams International, nearly 97 percent of all proceeds go directly to providing medicines and urgent care to people affected by disaster, conflict and poverty.

Organizers turned Safeco Field into a recreated orphanage in Romania with a flashing light bulb signifying a child dying every three seconds, and attendees walked over cardboard and garbage in recreated "dumps" of Mexico, where entire families live and dig through the rubbish to survive. There were also make-shift medical tents with IV's hanging from tree-branches.

Holmgren's wife, Kathy, a nurse, knows those situations well. As a volunteer with Medical Teams International, she worked in Uganda earlier this year with their daughter, Calla, a doctor, helping families forced from their homes by ongoing fighting in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Three years ago, Kathy Holmgren was on a medical mission in DRC while her husband coached in the Super Bowl.

The non-profit humanitarian relief and development agency has deployed more than 1,900 volunteer teams and shipped over $1.2 billion in antibiotics, surgical kits and medicines to 35 million people in 100 countries. In the Pacific Northwest, Medical Teams runs a mobile dental program for more than 16,000 patients a year with the help of 900 dental professionals who donate their time.

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July 15, 2009 1:12 PM

JPMorgan Chase will maintain local giving but change the mix, says CEO

Posted by Kristi Heim

Fireworks shows are out, but grants to non-profits will continue.

JPMorgan Chase will maintain its level of charitable giving in Washington state, though the mix will change, CEO Jamie Dimon said today in an interview with the Seattle Times' Drew DeSilver and other local reporters.

PAUL SAKUMA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

Chase's decision to drop sponsorship of the Independence Day fireworks show at Lake Union sparked concerns the New York-based bank, which took over Washington Mutual last September, was scaling back from WaMu's level of corporate philanthropy.

WaMu gave about $2.6 million in the state in 2008, and had sponsored the fireworks show since 2002. After Chase picked up WaMu, it said it would continue WaMu's level of corporate giving this year and agreed to pick up most of the $500,000 cost for this month's fireworks show.

JPMorgan Chase made a profit of $2.1 billion in the last quarter ended in March.

But Chase's charitable giving typically takes the form of grants to nonprofits rather than sponsorships, said Dimon and Phyllis Campbell, Chase's head of Northwest operations.

"Sponsorships really aren't in the sweet spot for us," Campbell said. Campbell joined the bank earlier this year after six years leading the Seattle Foundation, and her priorities are likely to shape what Chase funds.

Going forward, Dimon said Chase's philanthropy in Washington "will continue probably around that ($2.6 million) level" but added that "obviously there are going to be changes -- some things are going to go down, some will go up."

On a related subject, Dimon and Campbell said Chase was still sorting out what to do with WaMu's extensive collection of art and artifacts. Some likely will join Chase's collection in New York -- a collection that dates back to when the Rockefeller family ran one of the company's predecessor banks -- while other items will be donated to the Museum of History and Industry or other local institutions, Campbell said.

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July 6, 2009 1:39 PM

World Vision lays off more than 4 percent of U.S. staff

Posted by Kristi Heim

World Vision has laid off about 50 employees, between 4 and 5 percent of its U.S. workforce, saying a decrease in cash donations in the first half of 2009 has forced it to make some painful cost cuts.

Some of the layoffs were at the Christian relief organization's Federal Way headquarters, where about 800 employees work. Employees were notified of the layoffs last week. World Vision will cut 2 to 3 percent more jobs by eliminating 25 open positions.

World Vision said its private cash donations have fallen this year, dropping about 3 percent from January through March, and about 18 percent in the most recent quarter.

The non-profit's cash shortfall is expected to be $39 million for fiscal year 2009, which ends Sept. 30.

"We can no longer avoid the painful cost reduction steps that many organizations have already implemented," World Vision President Richard Stearns said in a statement. "The efforts of our faithful employees and donors have allowed us to swim against the tide longer than almost any other non-profit."

Other cost-cutting moves include reducing the organization's contributions to retirement plans by 50 percent, increasing employee premiums for health benefits and canceling annual merit raises for the second year.

Stearns received annual compensation of $336,000, and Lawrence Probus, senior vice president of strategic solutions, received $197,000, according to World Vision's 2008 tax filing.

Its five highest paid employees are Atul Tandon, vice president of donor engagement ($213,000); William Randolph, vice president of information technology ($160,000); George Ward, senior vice president of international programming ($157,000); Martin Lonsdale, vice president of channel management ($155,000), and Michael Veitenhans, senior vice president ($150,000), according to the filing.

Stearns talked about the role of faith-based organizations and federal funding in an interview earlier this year.

World Vision is coming up shorter in cash contributions from major donors and individuals, but income from current and new child sponsors is expected to rise about 4 percent in 2009, to about $333 million. Sponsors regularly donate $30 to $35 per month.

"The overwhelming majority of our child sponsors remain loyal, despite the harsh economic conditions many of them are facing," Stearns said. "These unsung heroes have been the foundation of our ministry for decades, and we are grateful for their faithfulness."

In-kind gifts of products such as pharmaceuticals are up more than 30 percent this year, he said, to top a record of $390 million.

Globally, World Vision International said its cash income likely will drop from a projected $1.9 billion to $1.6 billion in the fiscal year. World Vision International has about 40,000 employees in 100 countries.

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July 2, 2009 1:53 PM

Buffett grant to Gates Foundation 30 percent less this year

Posted by Kristi Heim

Investor Warren Buffett made his annual gift of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Wednesday. At $1.25 billion, the value of the gift is 30 percent less than last year's contribution of $1.8 billion.

Buffett donated 428,688 shares of Class B Common Stock to the Gates Foundation in 2009 as part of his lifetime pledge, described here.

Under Buffett's plan to transfer the majority of his wealth to the Gates Foundation, the timing of the annual gift and the amount of shares are predetermined. But the value fluctuates.

According to the schedule, the number of shares donated diminishes by 5 percent each year. Buffett had expected the value of his shares to increase by an amount that more than compensates for their smaller number. And for the first two years, they did. CNBC's coverage has a chart of the annual gifts here.

But even shrewd investors have not escaped the wrath of the global recession, and Berkshire Hathaway has seen the price of its Class B shares decline by about 26 percent over the past year. Those shares closed at $2,924 a share on Wednesday.

Forbes estimated Buffett's net worth at $37 billion this year, ranking him second only to Bill Gates (whose worth was estimated at $40 billion) in the list of the richest people in the world.

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June 24, 2009 2:06 PM

TV's latest hero: a philanthropist

Posted by Kristi Heim

It's got it all ... money, sex, power, exotic locations and... philanthropy?

The Philanthropist, the first prime time TV show about a "billionaire playboy-turned-vigilante philanthropist" airs tonight, a testament to the way newfound benevolence has tapped into the imagination of mainstream popular culture.

NBC PHOTO: KELLY WALSH

Actor James Purefoy is the star of the new NBC show The Philanthropist.

Can a show about a globe-trotting "rebel with a cause" succeed?

"I'm hoping it makes philanthropy sexy," said Trevor Neilson, president of Global Philanthropy Group, a Seattle firm that advises celebrities, foundations and others on philanthropy.

As entertainment, it's not bad, according to reviews like this one.

Here's how NBC describes the compassionate but flawed main character:
"Teddy is spontaneous and impulsive and quickly decides to channel his passion, power and money into helping those in need."

The billionaire finds new meaning in his life traveling the world on weekly humanitarian adventures from Africa to Kashmir and Kosovo.

The Council on Foundations had this comparison: "The Philanthropist is to charitable giving as The Pink Panther is to police work."

Steve Gunderson, president of Council on Foundations, says he wishes philanthropy "was really that fun and that easy."

"It's great entertainment. His life is exciting. His solutions arrive in sixty minutes. And he always succeeds," Gunderson said.

"While some elements may ring true, very little of the first episode conveys the realities of philanthropy."

The American public knows little about the work of philanthropy, in part because too much of what is reported is "transactional in nature -- dehumanized stories about who made grants to whom, when, and for how much," according to Edith Asibey and David Brotherton. ..."these stories do little to spark the public's interest or truly raise awareness."

The show could being doing a great service if it pushes staid organizations to "be more aggressive, and artful, in telling their own stories and connecting with the American public," Asibey and Brotherton write.

Some issues do lend themselves to drama, said Neilson.

"The issues that philanthropists are seeking to address are life or death issues," he said. "It's not surprising that a good television drama can come from this kind of work."

Neilson knows because he helped create a program chronicling efforts of elite philanthropists called "Giving."

Now in its second season, Neilson says "Giving" has become the most popular show on Plum TV, a cable network targeting affluent audiences and broadcasting exclusively in resort communities such as The Hamptons, Aspen and Miami Beach.

"There's a hunger for meaning in peoples' lives," Neilson said. "Shows like "The Philanthropist or "Giving" fill a gap that a lot of people feel."

Beyond Brangelina and Billanthropy, could this show offer something inspiring for a mass audience?

"If a show like this can make philanthropy sexy, the odds improve that more people will want to be philanthropists, including more people in Seattle," he said.

Or maybe it's just an updated version of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

If you happen to tune in, let me know what you think.

Update: After watching the show, I did sympathize with Teddy Rist's desire to do good and find meaning in his life. But what a flawed notion of philanthropy: He's got money, bravado and good intentions, so he'll just fly in and solve all the problems that locals are too poor, corrupt and incompetent to solve on their own, and everything will turn out well in the end. The key line by the Nigerian doctor to Rist summed it up well: "This isn't about me. It's about you." That said, I am still tuning in next week.

And what about all those Bing product placement ads? I couldn't tell whether I was watching a commercial for Bing or the show itself. Good for the product, bad for the show.

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June 19, 2009 8:23 AM

Drop by drop, a current of young philanthropy grows

Posted by Kristi Heim

Adnan Mahmud's inspiration to create a new kind of charity started when he passed a stranger at a cemetery.

He was in Bangladesh visiting his grandfather's grave when he saw a man who clearly didn't have money for his own son's funeral.

The man was carrying his dead son, dressed only in a pair of shorts. He couldn't afford the traditional white cloth used to shroud the dead for a proper Muslim burial.

"There were vendors selling cloth for 50 cents or a dollar," Mahmud said. "I could have helped him, but by the time I came to the realization I was already back home."

MIKE SIEGEL/SEATTLE TIMES

Adnan Mahmud and Nadia Khawaja are founders of Jolkona, a non-profit designed to encourage young philanthropists.

Even a small amount of money can make a huge difference in the life of another person, he thought, but the problem was how to connect them.

"I couldn't have saved his son, but I could have at least helped ease the pain a little bit," he said.

Mahmud, 31, a program manager at Microsoft Research, thought about the many young professionals he knew who want to do some good but don't have the resources of Bill Gates.

"They'll all tell you 'I want to make a difference, but I don't know what I can do,'" he said.

The solution was to create an online space for people to get excited about philanthropy with just a couple hundred dollars a year.

So in 2007 he and his wife, Nadia Khawaja, created the non-profit Jolkona Foundation. Jolkona is a Bengali word meaning "a drop of water."

"Small drops of money can add up and make a ripple of changing the world," said Khawaja, 26. She was drawn to social service after a stint as a volunteer math tutor in South Central Los Angeles during college. "I don't want to just work in the corporate world, not feeling like I'm making a difference when there's so many problems going on."

After six months of testing, their Web site went live this month. Similar to Kiva and Global Giving, it lets people channel funds to specific people and causes. It also gives them new tools for monitoring their impact. Mahmud said he was put off by large conventional charities because it was hard to choose specific programs or know exactly how contributions were used.

"It goes into this black hole," he said. "I don't know what happens to it."

Jolkona's founders are part of a growing number of young people demanding more control of their philanthropy. A generation used to connecting around the world through Facebook now wants a face and a direct connection to someone they're helping.

Donors can pinpoint countries where they want to contribute and choose from five categories: cultural identity, education, empowerment, environment and public health. Projects can be filtered by the amount of dollars needed, going down to as little as $5, and the duration, from less than a month to six years.

"For young professionals, you're so busy it's hard to do research," Khawaja said. "You just get lazy. It's on your list to do, but it just doesn't get done."

"Our goal was to use technology to engage youth and make it as simple as possible to donate," Mahmud said.

The site also offers what it calls "tangible proofs for every gift."
"If you give $50 to buy library books, you'll actually know what books they bought with your donation," Mahmud said.

A person's donations are broken down into charts and graphs that look as detailed as a 401K portfolio, pages that Mahmud calls "a resume of good."

Mahmud opens up his account and sees an update on a project he's been supporting in India, helping a pregnant woman in a Calcutta slum. "Look, on the 20th she had her baby," he said. "Adopting" a mother and her baby costs $235, and donors can follow their progress for three and a half years.

In Afghanistan there's a school for girls, where $40 provides 10 months of educational expenses. Donors can see the name of a girl and "at the end of 10 months you'll see the report card," Mahmud said. For $30 you can buy seeds, tools and training for women farmers in Sudan.

Some non-profits might loathe such micro-management by donors. Mahmud acknowledges that the model isn't for every one. But for small non-profits without budgets for IT departments, it's a way to supplement other funding and reach a new generation of donors. So far they've found 19 partners and 39 projects.

Jolkona has raised $3,000 from 50 friends in six months of testing. The couple has funded the non-profit themselves, with help from volunteers and one paid software developer. Since all donations go to the charities, they created a separate button for donations to offset operating costs.

Mahmud says the next step is to get more people involved, using online tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. A small group of volunteers will be traveling to different countries and blogging about their experiences on the Jolkona site, hoping to inform and inspire others.

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June 18, 2009 3:00 PM

As global health funding surges, balance of power shifts

Posted by Kristi Heim

Global health funding has quadrupled in less than two decades to almost $22 billion, boosted by U.S. public funding, corporate donations and giving from private foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But imbalances remain in directing the money to best combat a range of diseases around the world, according to researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Well-heeled donors like Gates, corporations and ordinary people donating to their favorite charities are changing the landscape of global health funding, the UW researchers and colleagues from Harvard University reported in a study published today in the medical journal The Lancet. The study represents the first comprehensive picture of funding for global health projects, the authors said.

Besides pouring in more money, the Gates Foundation has changed the balance of power in global health, said Christopher Murray, director of the UW institute and one of the authors. The institute was founded with a $105 million donation from the Gates Foundation to do the type of rigorous analyses of health spending and programs that no one else was doing.

ERIKA SCHULTZ/SEATTLE TIMES

Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at UW, in his office.

"I think their influence on the field and as a catalyst for other groups to engage has been very strong," Murray said. "The net effect is to bring more groups, more focus on global health and more viewpoints at the table."

The study tracked assistance to low and middle-income countries from 1990 to 2007. The money isn't always getting where it's needed most. "Twelve of the 30 countries with the highest disease burden aren't receiving as much aid as healthier, and, in some cases, wealthier countries," the study found.

For example, Nicaragua and Turkmenistan have roughly the same burden of disease, but Nicaragua receives 33 times as much health funding as the former Soviet republic. Ethiopia, which ranks second in health assistance funding after India, ranks 9th in terms of the level of disease and disability.

The Gates Foundation provides the largest source of private funding, increasing its global health commitments substantially since 2004, to nearly $2 billion in both 2006 and 2007. Private sources of global health funding grew from 19 percent of the total in 1998 to nearly 27 percent in 2007, corresponding to the Gates Foundation's emergence in the field.

Newer Gates-supported organizations such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) now have a central role in mobilizing and channeling global health funds, while funding through institutions such as United Nations and development banks declined, according to the study.

Though international organizations like the World Health Organization and UNICEF have long been criticized for rigid bureaucracies that stifled innovation, their declining role may harm efforts to improve health around the world, the researchers say.

When those organizations are forced to compete for funding, they lose their status as "trusted neutral brokers between the scientific and technical communities on the one hand, and governments of developing countries on the other hand."

Of U.S.-based non-governmental organizations, the Federal Way-based Christian relief group World Vision was the fourth leading provider of overseas health funds, spending $826 million from 2002 to 2006. PATH, the Seattle based non-profit focused on health technology and solutions for the developing world, also made the list as the 15th largest global health funder with $389 million in expenditures.

In recent years, by far the biggest share of money has gone to AIDS/HIV programs. In 2007, $5.1 billion of assistance funding was devoted to AID/HIV. Slightly less than $1 billion was spent on bolstering health systems in developing nations. Malaria programs received $800 million, while efforts to combat tuberculosis received $700 million in 2007.

Murray said it was challenging putting the numbers together because of the difficulty tracing U.S. government funds.

"It's easy to get the budgeted amounts but to get the amount actually spent, the U.S. is not very good about reporting that," he said. "The U.S. needs to be more forthcoming on the details of where their funds go, and relating expenditures to what's achieved."

Data from U.S. based non-profits was easier to find because they are required to report it on their tax returns, he said.

A Lancet commentary on the analysis faulted it for failing to include money spent on water and sanitation programs. "The provision of clean water and sanitation would probably do as much to facilitate good health as dose the assistance provided to direct medical care," wrote Peter S. Heller of Johns Hopkins University.

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June 17, 2009 10:21 AM

Environmental movement needs diversity, local groups say

Posted by Kristi Heim

Low income neighborhoods and communities of color often experience more direct negative effects of a polluted world, but they are not well represented in the environmental movement.

Only 18 percent of people of color who live in King County say the environmental quality in their neighborhood is excellent, compared with 40 percent of whites, according to a survey by Elway Research.

Restoring a healthy environment in the Puget Sound area means "we must expand the environmental movement and include people from diverse backgrounds and cultures," the Seattle Foundation said in its report on priorities for 2009 and beyond.

Various efforts are underway to bridge the gap, including an urban farm providing vegetables to communities in South Seattle and a project funded by the REI Foundation and the National Audubon Society to create nature programs tailored to the needs and interests of culturally diverse communities.

AUDUBON STAFF

Kyle Patch (left) and his father Rodney Patch (center), who are Native Americans, help with habitat restoration in Seward Park as part of an Audubon program to bring more diversity into environmental programs. The program is funded by the REI Foundation.

A $110,000 grant from the REI Foundation announced this week will help Audubon build on the success of Latino-focused nature programs at three urban Audubon Centers, including Seward Park Environmental and Audubon Center in Seattle and centers in Los Angeles and Phoenix.

Many nature-oriented organizations in the country lack the cultural insights, language skills and community connections to effectively involve Latinos in conservation and experiencing nature, the groups said.

The REI Foundation's mission is to increase diversity among outdoor enthusiasts and conservation stewards, with a particular focus on young people.

Former REI CEO Dennis Madsen started YOLF the Youth Outdoors Legacy Fund, to encourage more kids to get involved with the nature, making grants around the country and focusing on urban and low-income neighborhoods.

Another local example is Marra Farm, a four-acre community farm in Seattle's South Park neighborhood. Its goals are to practicing sustainable agriculture and education and enhance local food security. Farmers grow more than 13,000 pounds of organic produce each year on Marra Farm. Local residents grow food for their families, and produce is also distributed in donations through the Providence Regina House Food Bank, Mien senior citizens, and Concord Elementary Schools. Some produce is also sold at the University District Farmer's Market through an employment program for at-risk youth run by Seattle Youth Garden Works.

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June 11, 2009 11:02 AM

Seattle Foundation names Norm Rice as new CEO

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Seattle Foundation today named former Seattle Mayor Norman B. Rice as its new president and chief executive. He starts on July 6.

Rice, 66, replaces Phyllis Campbell, who left in March to become chairman of JPMorgan Chase's Pacific Northwest business. Rice served two terms as Seattle mayor, from 1990 to 1997. Following that he was CEO of Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle until 2005.

SEATTLE FOUNDATION

Norm Rice first joined the Seattle City Council in 1978.

Rice is chairman of Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing non-profit, and chaired the United Way of King County campaign in 2006 with his wife, Constance Rice. He is also distinguished visiting practitioner in the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.

Rice said the stars aligned to find a job that fit his personal passions and experience so well, though he had not done work directly with the Seattle Foundation.

He said he aims to bring a creative approach, expanding the foundation with new partnerships and using the Internet to reach younger donors. "My job is to raise the bar and see how we can make it to the next level."

Rice has served on boards of many local non-profits, including the United Way, the 5th Avenue Theater, Northwest African American Museum and the YMCA.

"This job was made for Norm," said Bill Lewis, CEO of Seattle construction firm Lease Lewis Crutcher and chairman of the foundation's board of trustees. More than 100 people from around the country applied for the position. Lewis said the foundation wanted someone with a deep connection and commitment to the quality of life in King County, as well as strong leadership and financial management skills.

At Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle, Rice created programs to help low and moderate income buyers. But his tenure there ended amid problems. The bank paid him more than $427,000 when he stepped down as chief executive.

Rice left after the bank was placed under stricter regulatory scrutiny. Its problems stemmed from an expansion into buying mortgages from its member banks.

Rice said his broad connections will help the foundation reach out to many different groups, from the U.S. Conference on Mayors to Congress and the Obama Administration.

The foundation sees an unprecedented need in the community, Lewis said, while it also faces financial pressures caused by the economic downturn and fall in stock prices. The foundation's total assets declined to about $507 million in 2008, from $676 million at the end of 2007.

Created in 1946, the Seattle Foundation is one of the largest community foundations in the country. It works by pooling funds from 1,200 donors to support non-profits in King County. The foundation gave grants to about 2,000 non profits last year.

It makes grants to non-profits working in seven areas: basic needs such as housing and food, health and wellness, education, economy, arts and culture, neighborhoods, and environmental protection.

Rice said he recognizes the shift in philanthropy from an old model of passive donations to new model in which a younger generation wants to be more personally involved and see quicker results.

He said the Seattle Foundation aims to reach younger donors using social networking and other online tools, welcoming smaller donations and giving more real-time information.

"I think we've got the capacity to get to those people," he said. "The first thing is that we recognize it's different."

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June 10, 2009 4:42 PM

As U.S. charitable giving declines, Seattle sets roadmap

Posted by Kristi Heim

Charitable giving in the U.S. fell 2 percent in 2008 to about $307 billion, but the decline was not as sharp as expected, considering the economic downturn, according to the Giving Institute. The results were part of an annual report on philanthropy that the institute released today.

The last time the U.S. saw a drop in overall giving was in 1987.

Among the findings:

Philanthropy accounted for 2.2 percent of the the U.S. GDP, and individual donors accounted for 75 percent of all charitable giving.

Giving to religion increased 5.5. percent, and religion received the largest share of contributions (35 percent).

Giving to public-society benefit organizations rose 5.4 percent, a category that includes the United Way and groups engaged in voter registration.

Giving to international affairs organizations rose 0.6 percent, slowing considerably from the 16.1 percent increase in 2007.

The largest decline in giving (12.7 percent) was in human services, yet 54 percent of human service organizations saw an increase in demand.

Foundation grant-making increased 3 percent, while giving from corporations and corporate foundations fell 4.5 percent (the largest decline among categories of donors).

What should Seattle do to make sure philanthropy here is as effective as possible? The Seattle Foundation came out with its own (very long) report last week that sets out a kind of road map for the region.

The person leading that drive will be named tomorrow when the foundation will announce a new CEO to replace Phyllis Campbell, who left in March to become chairman of JPMorgan Chase's Pacific Northwest business.

The foundation has identified strategies for a healthy community, from increasing affordable housing to restoring Puget Sound to supporting low-income entrepreneurs.

The report lists specific goals, ways people can help and more than a dozen local organizations working in each category. It also profiles people and organizations doing interesting work.

In real estate, for example, Windermere 's CoHo Team donates one-third of their commissions to support community development and affordable housing.

In South Seattle, the Got Green project and the Moontown Foundation are organizing young people of color to help weatherize low-income homes in the city.

In a forum at City Club, Crosscut publisher David Brewster seemed to put his finger on the pulse of Seattle philanthropy when he suggested that adding some "entrepreneurial garage culture" to non-profits could release their creativity.

Blending "Seattle's entrepreneurial genius and its humanitarian civic-mindedness creates an interesting chemical reaction," he said.

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June 9, 2009 2:21 PM

Gates Foundation endowment drops $2 billion

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's endowment has dropped $2 billion since January. The foundation's asset trust endowment fell to $27.5 billion from $29.5 billion at the end of 2008.

The new figure was reported quietly on a fact sheet on the foundation's Web site last month.

In the Gates Foundation 2008 annual report, released last week, it reported endowment assets of $29.5 billion. That figure reflected a 20 percent decrease in the endowment portfolio's value in 2008 as a result of the economic downturn.

It's a challenging time for all non-profits, even the world's largest private foundation.

"We're all digging deeper into our pockets and coming out with less money," Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes wrote in an open letter accompanying the report. "Our endowments are down, so even if we draw a higher percentage than we did last year, we don't have as much to give away."

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June 8, 2009 11:39 AM

Climbing to elevate local charity in downturn

Posted by Kristi Heim

Seattle Seahawks head coach Jim Mora sounds like an energetic guy. The Northwest native who's fond of running up Tiger Mountain is planning to climb Mount Rainier next month, along with Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke and United Way of King County CEO Jon Fine, to raise money for the charity.

JOHN LOK/SEATTLE TIMES

Seahawks head coach Jim Mora.

The July 5 "Climb for the Community" will be led by veteran climbers Ed Viesturs and Peter Whittaker. Both have climbed Rainier more than 200 times.

Other climbers include NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Molly Nordstrom, the United Way's incoming board chair, Boeing vice president Fred Kiga, Costco vice president John Thelan and Wells Fargo regional managing director Greg Bronstein.

It's part of a drive by United Way to raise more funds for basic needs to help people struggling in the recession. Programs support housing, food banks and access to public benefits such as tax credits and food stamps.

Last year the Seahawks and United Way partnered to raise awareness about family homelessness. This time, the non-profit is hoping to reach Seahawks fans to participate in the fund raising drive.

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June 4, 2009 10:39 AM

Measuring progress in relations between Muslims and non-Muslims

Posted by Kristi Heim

George F. Russell, Jr., makes a point of informally surveying 100 people on a regular basis to gauge perceptions of Muslims in the United States. Those perceptions have been improving lately, he said.

ERIKA SCHULTZ/SEATTLE TIMES

George F. Russell, Jr., talks with friends at a dinner where he received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service.

"I think it's getting a little better," he said Wednesday evening in Seattle at a reception honoring him for his contributions to public service. Russell was given the award by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. One of his priorities is bridging the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims, which he has done through founding the non-profit collaborative One Nation.

Russell said the idea behind One Nation was to address American misunderstanding and fear of Muslims and Islam in the aftermath of 9/11. "Fifty percent of Americans felt that Muslims were bad people," Russell said. He concluded "If we're not able to change that perception, we'll end up with a 100-year war."

Russell called President Obama's efforts to repair relations with the Muslim world "a good thing."

"Reaching out and talking to the other side is really constructive," he said. "The old habit of distrust doesn't get you anywhere."

Besides One Nation, Russell chairs the Russell Family Foundation, the East-West Institute, the National Bureau of Asian Research, Nuclear Fuel Cell Technologies Inc. and the Business Humanitarian Forum.

He is best known in the world of finance, building the Frank Russell Company started by his grandfather into one of the world's leading investment advisory firms.

Russell said simple principles helped him succeed in life, such as valuing integrity, taking risks, being creative, hiring people smarter than himself, recognizing luck, sharing the credit and having fun.

"These are the ground rules that will help you do the right thing in the eyes of your grandparents," he said. Quoting Woodrow Wilson, he added: "You are here to enrich the world... you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."

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June 2, 2009 9:28 AM

George Russell Jr. and Bruce McCaw to be honored

Posted by Kristi Heim

George F. Russell, Jr., who built the Frank Russell Company over 40 years from a single part-time employee to one of the world's top investment advisory firms, is one of two local philanthropists receiving an award this year from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, part of the Smithsonian Institution.

George Russell Jr., chairman emeritus of Russell Investment Group, headquartered in Tacoma.

Now, among the diverse causes that Russell advocates are bridging the divide between Muslims and non-Muslims in the U.S. and the destruction of nuclear waste. He is chairman of the East West Institute, One Nation and The National Bureau of Asian Research. The Russell Family Foundation, which he started with his late wife, Jane, is the eighth largest foundation in the state, according to the Foundation Center. The Russells helped fund the Museum of Glass in Tacoma.

Bruce R. McCaw, co-chair of the Apex Foundation, is one of the founders of McCaw Cable Television, which became McCaw Cellular Communications and later AT&T Wireless. He co-founded Horizon Air, which was later sold to Alaska Airlines. McCaw also worked in the aircraft industry and has been a pilot for more than 40 years.

McCaw and his wife, Jolene, are co-chairs of Apex, which focuses on helping people in poverty or with disabilities. It is the seventh largest foundation in the state, according to the Foundation Center. The Talaris Institute, a non-profit based in Seattle, focuses on early childhood development.

COURTESY OF SEATTLE CENTER FOUNDATION

Bruce McCaw, at far left, stands with his family members (left to right) brother Keith McCaw, mother Marion McCaw Garrison, and brothers Craig McCaw and John McCaw.

Russell will receive the award for public service, and McCaw will receive the award for corporate citizenship during a dinner tomorrow in Seattle.

The award winners were chosen by the Wilson Center's board, made up of nine private citizens, appointed by the president, and seven currently serving federal government officials.

The private board members were nominated by George W. Bush, including Barry S. Jackson, the former assistant to the president in charge of Strategic Initiatives; former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez; and Susan Hutchison, a former KIRO-TV news anchor who now directs the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences.

The public board members are all from the Obama Administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Board meetings must be lively, to say the least.

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May 20, 2009 3:32 PM

What really happened at the billionaires' private confab

Posted by Kristi Heim

Yes, it's true. A dozen of the richest people in the world met for an unprecedented private gathering at the invitation of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to talk about giving away money.

The May 5 meeting at Rockefeller University included Gates, Buffett, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner, among others. The meeting came to light only this week when it was reported by the Web site IrishCentral.

DAVE WEAVER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett led a private philanthropy discussion in a year of diminished portfolios even among top givers.

"It really was a group of friends and colleagues who share a commitment to philanthropy discussing ideas in a round table," said former Gates Foundation Chief Executive Patty Stonesifer, who attended the gathering.

In a phone interview today, Stonesifer sought to dispel notions and reports on the Web that the meeting was somehow veiled in secrecy.

"It wasn't secret," she said. "It was meant to be a gathering among friends and colleagues. It was something folks have been discussing for a long time. Bill and Warren hoped to do this occasionally. They sent out an invite and people came."

"This was about philanthropy and this group sharing their passions their interests," said Stonesifer, who is chairwoman of the Smithsonian Institution. "They each learned from each other about what could really make a difference."

But the Manhattan philanthropy salon raised interest for its uniqueness, and the fact that so many on the Forbes world's wealthiest list were able to meet almost completely under the radar. Other reports about the meeting came out here and here.

"As far as anything we've ever seen before, this group of philanthropists that are so high powered in the same room... I think it's unprecedented," said Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer, who has been covering philanthropy for 20 years.

The members of the meeting have donated more than $72 billion to charity since 1996, according to The Chronicle.

"Given how serious these economic times are, I don't think it's surprising these philanthropists came together," Palmer said. "They don't typically get together and ask each other for advice."

There was no agenda, and the topics were as diverse as the group, Stonesifer said: "everything from U.S. education to efforts of the U.N. to emergency response in [Hurricane] Katrina and many international issues."

The three hosts [Gates, Buffett and David Rockefeller] "wanted to have a private gathering to discuss with others what motivated their giving, the areas of focus, lessons learned and thoughts on how they might increase giving going forward," Stonesifer said.

The elite group met from 3 p.m. through dinner in the President's House on the university campus. There were no 15-minute speeches, and very little of the conversation focused on the economy, Stonesifer said.

The meeting also didn't produce a clear result. "There was lots of shared information that may lead to more things," she said. "There was no action plan associated with it."

One theme critics of the Gates Foundation have seized upon is a lack of transparency, which a wealthy private confab may not help.

"Now they're in a tricky public perception problem," said Palmer. "This is not just for Gates but Soros or any philanthropists that have as much money to spend as small governments."

"It just gives the impression they were trying to coordinate in some way, which makes some people uncomfortable," she said.

"This is a group of people that are in the spotlight," Stonesifer responded. "They use that spotlight for good to draw attention to these issues. The only reason it wasn't more public was that it was a private and informal gathering to discuss these issues."

And there may be more such forums in the future. "I'm sure these folks will convene in one form or another," Stonesifer said. "This area of giving requires people to collaborate and learn lessons from each other."

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May 20, 2009 10:47 AM

Philanthropists plot world strategy... in secret

Posted by Kristi Heim

Bill Gates and some of the country's other top billionaires met in secret in New York earlier this month to discuss the economy and philanthropy, according to IrishCentral.com.

The May 5 meeting at Rockefeller University included Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner, among others on the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people.

The IrishCentral post says the letter of invitation came from Gates, Buffett and Rockefeller and cited the worldwide recession and the urgent need to plan for the future. "They wanted to hear the views of a broad range of key leaders in the financial and philanthropic fields," according to the post.

Apparently they're not sharing any details. According the New York Times blog, participants are refusing to talk about the content, citing an agreement to keep the meeting confidential.

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May 19, 2009 1:14 PM

A parking garage reveals the simple PATH to health solutions

Posted by Kristi Heim

It seems appropriate that PATH held its biggest event of the year not in a downtown hotel or restaurant but in a Ballard parking garage.

About 750 people packed into PATH's spiffed-up garage this morning for an annual fund raising breakfast, consisting of simple quinoa pudding, empanadas and flat breads.

The global health non-profit displayed some of the ways it channels its money into low tech but effective methods of improving health around the world, from a delivery kit for hygienic home births to a new female condom.

COURTESY OF PATH

A stream in the Korogocho slum of Nairobi is the only water source for thousands of people.

One of its most interesting new creations is called an "electro-chlorinator," which PATH developed with the help of Seattle-based outdoor gear maker Cascade Designs.

Disease persists in many parts of the world where garbage and sewage pollute water that people use for drinking, cooking and cleaning.

PATH CEO Chris Elias described such conditions in the Korogocho slum near Nairobi, where more than 100,000 people live in less than one square mile.

COURTESY OF PATH

A kiosk where local women in a Nairobi slum are selling purified water.

A year and a half ago, PATH used $20,000 from donors marked for "innovation funding," to create a new solution in Korogocho. Those funds are set aside to try riskier but potentially successful new ventures.

The goal was to find a way to provide safe, clean water to a community within the slum, Elias said. The two partners came up with a device that runs on little more than salt, water and electricity from a car battery.

It works by producing a chlorine solution that kills dangerous microbes, making the water safe to drink, he said.

PATH hired a local contractor to build a building with electrical power and a water tank, and a kiosk where the water and chlorine solution could be sold. Three local health workers were trained to operate the electro-chlorinator and six local women to dispense the chlorine solution and instructions.

In December, "the first customer bought ten jerry cans of the treated water, at a price of one Kenyan shilling per liter," he said. "That's a little more than a penny apiece--affordable even in Korogocho."

Elias said he hopes to test the prototype in other locations and expand the model to many parts of the world lacking water treatment systems.

COURTESY OF PATH

An electrochlorinator device made by Seattle-based Cascade Designs with the global health non-profit PATH as a cheap water purifier.

Another of the non-profit's milestones was helping distribute mosquito bednets to two-thirds of homes in Zambia. PATH expects to reach the whole population within the next two years, he said, making Zambia the first country in Africa to meet the global targets for malaria control.

As a result, malaria prevalence in children has gone down by more than half, and the number of children dying of malaria in Zambia has been cut by a third, Elias said.

Looking at health care from another angle, PATH Nicaragua country manager Margarita Quintanilla talked about programs for adolescent girls and boys aimed at reducing violence against women in a country where one out of three women is abused.

PATH also focuses on heavily on vaccines, such as a new meningitis vaccine for sub-Saharan Africa, where about 450 million people -- more than the populations of the U.S. and Canada -- are at risk from the disease each year.

The first wave of young people will get the vaccine by the end of this year, Elias said, adding "It's the beginning of the end for a disease that has devastated Africa's poorest communities for more than a century."

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May 18, 2009 3:32 PM

Gates gives $1 million global health award to London school

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving its annual million dollar award for global health to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The school was created more than a century ago to treat far-flung British citizens dying of tropical diseases that were new to colonial doctors.

Now, as Britain's national school of public health, it's being honored for cutting-edge research and a commitment to training health workers in poor countries and post-conflict situations.

It's the first academic institution to win, and it plans to use the money to train more people around the world to work in public health.

Interesting that one of the experts it trained was David McCoy, the main author of the recent article in The Lancet critical of the Gates Foundation. He received his Ph.D. from the school.

The award to the London School will be presented May 28 during the Global Health Council's annual conference in Washington, D.C.

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May 13, 2009 8:04 AM

Local women propel funding campaign to historic highs

Posted by Kristi Heim

A global campaign to get women to donate $1 million each toward non-profits that help women and girls surpassed its ambitious targets, thanks in part to a handful of Seattle philanthropists.

As the Women Moving Millions campaign came to a close even in the midst of a bleak economy, organizers called it "an historic moment in the world of women's philanthropy."
The event raised $177 million from individual women donors, more than its $150 million goal.

SEATTLE TIMES

Nancy Nordhoff says she was inspired toward volunteering and donating at Mount Holyoke College. She founded Hedgebrook, a retreat on Whidbey for women writers, and helped found CityClub in Seattle.

The Seattle-based Women's Funding Alliance, the local organization participating in the drive, received three $1 million donations from local women. The largest gift the alliance had received previously was $100,000.

"This is an amazing, bold step these donors have taken to support women and girls in our region," said LeAnne Moss, executive director of the Women's Funding Alliance.

Turns out Seattle was among the top cities around the world for contributions. It started with Nancy Nordhoff, a 76-year-old donor on Whidbey Island. Her efforts encouraged two younger women from Microsoft to kick in a million dollars each.

Nordhoff said she was cautious at first but decided the time to act is now.

"You live 70 years and you see a lot, and I began to know what's going on in families' lives," said Nordhoff, a Seattle native who has three children and seven grandchildren. "You've got a working parent and they lose their job and there isn't any housing.The community statistics are a clear picture of the need. You don't have to touch people to feel for them."

Donna Bellew worked 10 years at Microsoft before leaving in 1999 to be a full-time mother and community volunteer.

"I thought gee whiz if I can do it, I better step forth," she said. "Those of us who have the resources have to respond to the need."

Families run on the backs of women, she added, so helping them can strengthen families and communities.

Her gift helped inspire Rebecca Norlander and Donna and Matthew Bellew, longtime supporters of the alliance, to contribute more than they have before.

The alliance is a public foundation supporting 140 non-profits such as the Refugee Women's Alliance, Washington CASH, Jubilee Women's Center, Northwest Women's Law Center and others. Moss said the organization will use at least half of the funds toward economic programs for women in Puget Sound. The alliance will also be able to "dramatically increase" the amount of money it gives out, including multi-year grants, to groups that work to improve women's lives, Moss said.

Bellew, 42, said she's been following women's status in the workplace and was struck by their over representation in low wage and part-time jobs. "These economic situations seemed to exacerbate the problem," she said.

Rebecca Norlander, a software executive who manages online advertising, has supported the Women's Funding Alliance since 1993, two years after she joined Microsoft.

She remembered a study the alliance did a year ago on issues affecting women and girls. Washington state had a huge wage gap, ranking 42nd in gender wage equity. "That was sort of surprising. In many ways you think of Washington as a pretty progressive state." Another statistic stood out: women in King County are seven times more likely to live in poverty than men.

She was determined to use her money in conjunction with the other donors to change things. Her husband, Matthew, also wanted to make a statement in support of that cause.

"This was a really big stretch gift," she said. "We had to have several conversations about how do we make this happen, what do we have to change to do this now? It had to be something both of us believed in."

It was also important for their school children: two daughters and a son.

"I have this one life, and I have a vision for the world, one that includes women and girls being at the table in an equal way," Bellew said.

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May 7, 2009 4:23 PM

Lancet questions Gates Foundation's health spending priorities

Posted by Kristi Heim

(This post was co-written by Sandi Doughton)

Low-key grumbling from critics for some time has suggested that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation lacks sufficient transparency and accountability and places too much emphasis on high-tech solutions.

Now one of the world's premier medical journals is drawing some of the same conclusions after an analysis of the foundation's health spending over 10 years.

"The foundation's emphasis on technology... can detract attention" from the basic causes of health problems and can skew the health spending priorities of poor countries, the main author, David McCoy, writes in one of a series of articles coming out Friday in the medical journal The Lancet. McCoy is senior clinical associate at University College London.

As the largest private foundation in the world, the Gates Foundation itself defies precedent in its ability to influence global health. The foundation's spending on global health was nearly equal to the World Health Organization's annual budget in 2007.

Yet the Gates Foundation is not held accountable, nor is it open about the way it sets priorities and awards grants, according to the Lancet analysis.

"What are the foundation's future plans?" asks an editorial. "It's hard to know for sure."

The world's biggest philanthropy is upfront about being "driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family," but that's a "whimsical" way to exert such enormous power on the world stage, says an editorial accompanying the analysis.

"We think it's important that he (Bill Gates) hears some of the perspectives from others," said Robert E. Black, chairman of the department of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the lead author of a commentary published along with the Lancet analysis. "He can choose to ignore it, if he wants, but honestly, I think he cares about doing things that really matter."

Black is in Seattle this week, attending a Gates-funded program on stillbirths and premature births, and said he hopes the Gates Foundation won't react defensively.

"I hope they take it in the constructive way in which it was meant," he said.

The analysis finds that more than half of the philanthropy's $9 billion in spending went to just 20 organizations. Among universities, about 60 percent of the foundation's research funding went to eight institutions in the U.S. and the U.K.

As a result those organizations and universities now have "privileged status" and are able to exert huge influence over global health policies worldwide, the articles say.

Gates Foundation spokeswoman Karen Lowry Miller said the foundation welcomed the article and its findings.

"We're totally open to this and will take all of this into consideration," she said. "Our strategy is constantly evolving."

Tadataka "Tachi" Yamada, president of the foundation's global health program, plans to meet with McCoy in the future, she said. The foundation is also preparing to publish more information on its Web site about its approach to grants, decision-making process and strategy, Miller said.

Over the past decade, more than a third of the funding went to research and development or basic sciences, "a technological bias that reflects the priorities of Bill Gates himself," McCoy writes.

Most childhood deaths result from a lack of access to basic needs such as food, housing, water and safe employment. Rather than looking for a clinical solution, "a better approach might be to view it as a public health problem that needs a social, economic or political intervention to ensure universal access to clean water and sanitation," McCoy writes.

"We think we have a strong global health strategy that really gets to the problems of the developing world," Miller responded. "We're not trying to be everything. We're trying to be where we can have the most value."

Black, of Johns Hopkins, has received Gates funding. And though he joked that he may not receive anymore, he said he's convinced that Bill and Melinda Gates are committed to improving health around the world.

"I know their motivations are good, and I hope their responsiveness is, too," Black said.

In his commentary, he said the foundation's emphasis on future solutions, like new vaccines and drugs, ignores the fact that treatments and health strategies that are known to work are not being implemented.

By promoting new vaccines, for example, the foundation puts pressure on developing nations to adopt those vaccines -- even though they may be expensive. As a result, countries may neglect things like basic treatment for pneumonia or promotion for breastfeeding.

The foundation could see a quicker payoff if it would instead focus on research on ways to improve delivery of health care, and the best ways to get people to take simple steps that boost health, like breast feeding their babies, he said.

"Two-thirds of global child deaths could be prevented if existing interventions were fully implemented," the commentary says.

The journal was not without praise.

"The Gates Foundation has added renewed dynamism, credibility and attractiveness to global health," the Lancet said in an editorial.

But McCoy's analysis concludes that grant making by the Gates Foundation seems to be largely managed through an informal system of personal networks and relationships rather than by a more transparent process based on independent and technical peer review.

The article singles out Seattle-based PATH, which was awarded nearly $1 billion, saying the amount "raises the question as to whether some organizations might be better characterized as agents of the foundation rather than as independent grantees."

It also brought up the question of accountability in grants to the International Finance Corp. and World Bank.

"The promotion of the private sector, including for-profit companies, raises a more fundamental question about the mandate and role of a foundation in promoting and shaping policies on core health systems issues... to whom is the Gates Foundation accountable for the promotion of such policies?"

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May 7, 2009 12:15 PM

Dambisa Moyo ignites debate over aid to Africa

Posted by Kristi Heim

How to help Africa, an important endeavor for so many of Seattle's non-profits, is the subject of heated debate these days, thanks in part to a provocative book by Dambisa Moyo.

Rich countries have poured more than $1 trillion in development aid into Africa over the past five decades, and all that money has made Africans even worse off, she argues in "Dead Aid."

Moyo, a native of Zambia who has a PhD in economics from Oxford University, worked for investment bank Goldman Sachs and consulted for the World Bank. Instead of charity, she proposes market-based alternatives such as trade with China, accessing capital markets and microfinance. A substantive review of the book is here.

Whether the current approach is working seems a fair question, one that more people have begun asking. For countries like Zambia that are doing all the right things according to economists' prescriptions, where is the Western investment? Why is it that people are willing to invest billions in disease eradication or humanitarian aid but not a dollar in African business?

Foreign aid props up corrupt regimes with cash and propagates the aid industry, built on "orchestrated worldwide pity," Moyo writes.

"I think she's a change agent," said Eliza Kelly, director of global communications for Unitus, a Redmond non-profit that supports microfinance. "She's bringing out something we've long suspected but nobody wanted to say."

With 560 million people, or about 73 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's population, living on less than $2 a day, poverty remains chronic.

DAVE HOGAN/GETTY IMAGES

Bono has been an outspoken advocate of debt forgiveness and aid to Africa. Moyo argues that Western celebrities have become the spokesmen for the African continent.

But others say Moyo goes too far.

"Her suggestion to simply cut off all foreign aid over the next five years would do incalculable damage to the lives of ordinary people living in developing countries," said David Scheiman, senior director of Africa programs for World Vision, the Christian humanitarian agency headquartered in Federal Way.

Moyo calls aid "an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world."

"That simply isn't true," said Scheiman. Foreign aid has also saved countless lives, particularly in conflicts and disasters.

Like Moyo, many Seattle non-profits see a huge potential to alleviate poverty in entrepreneurship.

Unitus is trying to expand the availability of micro loans in Africa, where it's setting up a branch office in Nairobi, hiring local employees and starting a leadership development program for CEOs of local microfinance institutions. Regulations have improved there making it easier to do business in a relatively stable environment, Kelly said.

Borrowers there don't want a hand out, she said, they want a job opportunity.

While economic development is important, progress can't be measured by raw economic growth alone. And it's hard to keep civil strife and disease from spilling across national borders and infecting countries that are faring well themselves.

Having more African voices contribute to the debate is valuable. Maybe just as important is some experience with extreme poverty, which Moyo lacks, says Scheiman. "I think she would have a different perspective if she was one of the millions who has benefited from and is alive today because of appropriate aid over the last several years," he said.

I'm looking forward to hearing her talk at UW's Kane Hall tonight at 7 p.m., and the questions sure to follow.

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May 4, 2009 2:10 PM

Bill Gates Sr. on Bill Gates, family and philanthropy

Posted by Kristi Heim

Bill Gates Sr., lawyer, philanthropist and father of the richest man in the world, grew up in fear of being poor. He still eats at Burgermaster, and he turns the lights off every time he leaves a room, a lesson from the Great Depression. Gates has just published a memoir of the values and experiences that shaped his 83 years, called "Showing up for Life," which he discusses in this recent interview.

Q: You sum up your book's main point as "we are in this life together and we need each other." Is this a world view?

A: It's a world view. It's easy to have this sharing of responsibility among people, particularly among neighborhoods. We've clearly gotten to the point where there's a sense of sharing 7,000 miles away. There's really nothing complicated about it. A simple business of recognizing to start with we are all so interdependent. There's just no getting around it. We have to be helpful to each other or it would be an impossible world. This is not only good religion but very practical for economy and humanity.

Q: You described part of your childhood in the Depression, when your father walked home and collected chunks of coal by the side of the road for heat. What lasting effect did that have on you?

A: It's there. I never leave a room empty without turning the lights out. That is absolutely a habit learned from my father. I'm very surprised at the number of people today that don't turn out the lights when they leave, including relatives of mine. To some extent that's a product of this basic sense that comfort and a good life are always at risk, and there is another thing that happens to people called poverty. My children really don't have any notion of that.

KEN LAMBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Q: What has moved you the most in your travels?

A: A couple months ago I was in India with Bill and we went back into this slum area to see a little girl, Hashmin, who had contracted polio. It was a terrible thing against this worldwide very muscular effort going on to rid the world of polio. It was very affecting to see this little girl, but at the same time very energizing to continue the pressure on this subject.

I can remember as a father thinking about the possibility of my children getting polio. No parent thinks about that anymore because it doesn't happen.... The trip in India was the first time I'd been on an overseas (foundation) trip with Bill. It was something he organized and we had his two sisters along as well.

Q: You've spent more than 10 years working at the Gates Foundation, where you're one of three co-chairs. What do you think have been its most successful and least successful efforts?

A: Set aside all the things in progress. We don't have any grade for them up or down. Some things we are doing are so long term. A vaccine for AIDS ... we've got a good many years ahead of us before we have the answer if it's a useful exercise or a waste of time.

I do think the delivery of vaccines in the poor world ... couldn't be left out of the list of positive results of the foundation's work. Literally millions of kids are receiving the vaccines. Without putting figures on it, at least thousands of kids who had the benefit of a good regimen of vaccines are not going to get sick and die prematurely.

The work we're doing in education, while it's been very good and delivered a lot of value to kids is something we've decided the strategy we were using ... wasn't a bit clear [whether] it was ever going to go to scale, and we needed to look at other factors than the size of high schools ... and think about things that were a bit more fundamental, like the quality of teaching and the standards we've applied to judge our own success.

Q: What is the biggest change since your son started working at the foundation full time?

A: There's nothing very big in terms of fundamental changes. He and Melinda continue to be the ultimate deciders in the most important issues that come along. The change I notice is he and she, particularly he, are there more often and as a result participate more in understanding the new projects and status of old projects. They're just more involved.

Q: Do you ever get veto power?

A: No.

Q: In your philanthropy work with your son, are there any areas where you didn't see eye to eye on an issue?

A: He and I have a different view about the duration of a life of a foundation. He is of the school that believes they should not be perpetual and they should end, and I am a believer in the perpetual foundation. I don't know that it's actually a major difference of opinion. This foundation is going to end at a precisely defined time. People like Rockefeller [Foundation] are going to go on until who knows.

Q: Why do you believe in perpetual foundations?

A: It's bad to spend all the money when you have a large corpus working and earning funds. I think when you finally spend it all it's a wonderful gift to someone or something... 10 or 20 times the size of grants you've been making up to that point, so that's good stuff. But then it's over and all the things that are under way and good things that might be [are not funded] because it's gone.

Q: What do you think about the criticism that the foundation is too heavily focused on technology solutions?

A: Actually I don't think there's any validity to that. It seems to me kind of nonsense. It's a question of what works. We've got so many lessons over the past decade about technology contributing to efficiency, accomplishing things that otherwise would be impossible. To be honest I don't understand what technology the critics are talking about. If they mean vaccines, it's sheer nonsense. There's isn't any question of the value of creating a vaccine that would rid the world of malaria.

Q: What about the criticism that the foundation has too much influence because of its enormous assets, yet only a small number of people making decisions -- three co-chairs and three trustees.

A: We try to ameliorate that in the case of three major program advisory groups with knowledgeable, mature experienced people who get together and review the programs. Getting their input and advice is a fairly significant safeguard against the potential for bad decisions with such a very few minds working on it.

Another thing that wouldn't be obvious is the whole business of mature, experienced personnel that have everything to do with what we do and decide to do. We have people in global health who know as much about global health as there is to know. The decisions of what we're doing go though that mechanism to start with.

There's a lot of safeguards against it both in additional outside advice and internal expertise. But I go on to say in a hurry, notwithstanding, that we very likely will miss one somewhere here or there. I would just offer the same thing is true with foundations that have 50-person boards or 15-person boards.

Q: Getting back to raising Bill Gates, I read about the famous water-throwing incident at the table. At some point you realized you could not control him.

A: I couldn't control myself was the problem. Nobody can really control their kids -- it's just [a] natural universal phenomenon. Kids get to the point they begin to feel their selfness, their worthiness and that naturally generates a resistance to somebody imposing their will on them. That was the garden variety problem we were dealing with. It started at a bit younger age because he started thinking very independently and thoughtfully at an earlier age than at most kids.

Q: What are the values you imparted to him?

A: I guess I would think about what values he has and go on and say we played some part in all of that, but incidentally not a controlling part -- his curiosity, his energy, getting answers to things, his sense of the appropriateness of hard work. Being a hard worker, which he clearly is and was, he had some examples of around his own household, although I would say not solely credited to us. But his sense of the interdependency of humanity, of him and others in the world, is something he got at least some confirmation of around the dinner table at home.

Q: And what characteristics of his surprise you ... that you don't recognize in yourself?

A: I suppose his well known proclivity for being argumentative and even ... quite challenging of the suggestions and ideas that other people are expressing. It's wonderful to sit around the table with him when people are talking about what makes sense and what doesn't make sense but he comes into those discussions very strongly. It's an indication of his immense self confidence. It's a characteristic I'm not going to be able to explain where it came from.

Q: In your book you talk about attending church, and your wife quoted a passage from the Bible at your son's wedding. Do you think faith in any way motivates your son's philanthropy now?

A: I think I'll stay away from that. You can ask him that question someday.

Update: Gates will discuss his book May 19 at the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Legends & Leaders program.

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April 24, 2009 11:27 AM

Amazon.com's surging profit -- time for giving back?

Posted by Kristi Heim

It's a question being asked more often of the online retail giant, a 15-year-old company that reached a recession-defying jump in profit last quarter to $177 million. Amazon's quarterly sales rose to nearly $5 billion. Annual profit was $645 million last year. The company's share price of $85 today is up 74 percent since October, with a market capitalization 30 percent higher than Boeing's.

Good news for shareholders. Maybe it's enough to reward them with robust earnings and employees with good jobs. But at a time when social service organizations are struggling, some critics are asking why isn't Amazon donating more? Any thoughts from readers on this topic are welcome.

It may be useful to take a look at some of Amazon's peers. Many retailers said they are planning to increase their giving to charity despite sales declines, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Here is Amazon.com's Giving page, which shows the retailer donating about $35 million to disaster relief programs through the years, and supporting various programs for authors and publishers.

A recent Taproot survey of business professionals attempted to measure the mood around corporate philanthropy during the recession. About 75 percent of the 4,000 business people surveyed said they would be proud of their company if it gave time and money to charity right now, and they also called on executives to give more of their own personal time and money.

In an interview last year with Portfolio, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos hinted that he is at least thinking about the question of philanthropy. Here's what he said:

Q: You've become a very wealthy man. What are you going to do with your money?
A: Good question. I don't know. My parents are running the Bezos Family Foundation, and they're focused on education. I'm still focused on Amazon, but I have some ideas. I'll keep them to myself for now.

Q: So you won't tell us?
A: No.

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April 21, 2009 10:27 AM

Stephen Colbert teams with Gates, protects children from bears

Posted by Kristi Heim

DonorsChoose.org, one of a growing number of online charities that solicit help directly from the public, received a boost today from the Gates Foundation.

A $4.1 million Gates Foundation grant will help DonorsChoose fund half the cost of classroom projects developed by teachers to help students in low income families get ready for college.

Using an online model similar to Kiva.org, DonorsChoose lets teachers describe their projects, and individuals browsing the site can decide whether to support them. DonorsChoose then distributes the supplies to the schools.

TV personality Stephen Colbert was around to "moderate" the event, keeping the potentially vehement charity announcement from becoming too extreme.

JASON DECROW / ASSOCIATED PRESS

TV personality Stephen Colbert serves on the board of DonorsChoose.org when he's not running for president, making ice cream or warding off marauding animals.

"As I endeavor to protect our children from bears, DonorsChoose.org is protecting public school kids from classrooms that lack the materials necessary to rigorously prepare them for college," Colbert said. He's a board member of DonorsChoose.org. But considering the organization has 13 other board members and 26 advisers, he's really not that special.

Schools in the Seattle area are using the online tool to raise money for specific projects.

A class in South Seattle raised $561 from 24 donors on the site after requesting donations for "science books and videos about electricity and Benjamin Franklin, as well as an electricity poster and DC-volt meter for 30 young scientists."

The teacher said she aims to integrate science and social studies using a science kit and lessons about Franklin and literacy, describing her 4th grade class in a school with high poverty rates where "many of us are new to the United States and almost all of us are new to science."

Donors, teachers and students interact in forums on the Web site. A donor named Sara wrote: "I gave to this project because I grew up going to school in south Seattle. I know it isn't the most perfect place, but I love the diversity there."

Under the "Double Your Impact" initiative funded by Gates, requests that promote college-readiness will be eligible for 50 percent funding from DonorsChoose. Projects would include things like student trips to college campuses, classroom books and SAT/ACT preparation materials.

So far, 88,000 public and charter school teachers have used DonorsChoose to raise more than $30 million for books, art supplies, technology and other materials.

Vicki Phillips, director of education at the Gates Foundation, said she hopes the partnership will give individual donors an added incentive to support projects to see them fully funded.

Colbert had one burning question for Phillips: "Does Bill Gates ever talk about me?"

UPDATE: The project mentioned above, at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, received 12 donations in the last 24 hours and is now fully funded.

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April 20, 2009 11:26 AM

Two-thirds of U.S. foundations cutting grants this year

Posted by Kristi Heim

It comes as no surprise, but two-thirds of U.S. foundations expect to reduce the number and/or size of the grants they award this year, according to new research by the Foundation Center. The recession's hit to their finances is causing them to try to give in other ways.

The report is based on surveys of more than 1,200 U.S. foundations in January. Many said they will turn to other activities such as seeking out partnerships and collaboration, advocating on issues and providing technical assistance.

"Foundations can do so much more than simply make grants," said Bradford K. Smith, Foundation Center president. "The important thing is for them to remain true to their values and causes and to stand by their nonprofit partners."

In lieu of cash, non-profits can get a "valuable form of currency" in professional services such as pro bono work or skilled volunteering, says consulting firm Deloitte.

Deloitte is doing work free of charge with groups such as the YWCA to help struggling women with interviewing skills and resume writing. Deloitte Seattle increased its collective employee donations by 6 percent this year in spite of the business downturn.

Comcast is sponsoring an event in Seattle April 25 with media and tech experts in the state volunteering to provide one-on-one help for non-profits to learn how to use social media to get their message out.

In fact, while today might be the most challenging time for corporate philanthropy in history, the Taproot Foundation finds support for increased giving among business people throughout the country. Many of them say companies should not back off from charitable grants and community service, even if they are struggling, receiving government bailouts or laying off employees, though helping employees should come first.

Executives especially should be giving more of their personal time and money to charity right now, those responding to the Taproot survey said.

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March 19, 2009 12:46 PM

Sounders FC to support global health partnership

Posted by Kristi Heim

Today is game day for the Seattle Sounders FC, and I'm eager to see how the team integrates philanthropic messages into its ads and announcements at Quest Field. The team supports four charities: Seattle SCORES, Boys & Girls Clubs of King County, Washington Youth Soccer and Save the Children.

KEN LAMBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Seattle Sounders FC forward Nate Jaqua (left) stands with SPU coach Cliff McCrath, co-founder of Soccer Saves (center), and Charles MacCormack, president of Save the Children.

Non-profits are coming up with creative ways to market their messages using popular culture and commercial partners. The question is how do you distinguish between those campaigns that serve their humanitarian causes well and those that simply use the cause to polish the image of a corporate brand. Or is it possible (and ethical) to achieve both at the same time? Either way, the trend to merge brand and cause is growing.

I did a short interview with Sounders forward Nate Jaqua, which my story about Soccer Saves yesterday didn't have the space to include. Jaqua, a native of Eugene, is friends with Diego Gutierrez, who asked him to be a spokesman for Nothing But Nets in Los Angeles. (Nothing But Nets is the campaign to raise money for bednets in malaria prone countries). Jaqua was traded from the Galaxy before he got started, but he told me he was very interested in ways Major League Soccer might help impoverished kids.

Pop culture events such as American Idol or World Cup soccer do grab the attention of people who might not otherwise notice problems outside their own backyard.

"Probably the single greatest common denominator in the world that cuts across every culture and language is sports, and the greatest global events are the Olympics and the World Cup," said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children. "Those are probably the one time where 3 or 4 billion people are all thinking about the same thing."

Gary Wright, who oversees business operations for the Sounders, summed it up like this:
"Kids are going to listen to an athlete, sometimes more than they might even their parents. That's not to say that's right. That's kind of reality."

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March 16, 2009 5:13 PM

Bill Gates Sr. writes memoir as handbook for life

Posted by Kristi Heim

It's quite a swing to go from a Depression-era child to father of the richest man in the world. Bill Gates Sr. has written a book called "Showing Up for Life," described as a narrative of the experiences that shaped his world view and moral compass. The book comes out next month.

Gates, 83, applies some lessons from the Great Depression. But he also reflects more personally on his famous son, his two daughters, his late wife and his current wife. I haven't read it yet, but if the book lives up to its description, it could offer glimpses inside the family that has become so influential in this region and the world.

Gates' friends and peers profiled in the book include Roy Prosterman, founder of RDI, Bill Foege, Suzanne Cluett and former Washington Gov. Dan Evans. Gates talks about their common values, including "hard work, getting along, honoring a confidence and speaking out."

In an email to the Gates Foundation staff in late 2007, Gates explains why he decided to do the memoir. "I never imagined that I'd be working this late in life or enjoying it so much," he begins. "I'm also deeply aware of how unfair this world can be - and how much needs to be done."

He notes that he worked with Mary Ann Mackin, a speech writer he has known for 20 years, who persuaded him that his ideas "might actually encourage a broader discussion of what it means to be a responsible citizen in today's increasingly interconnected world."

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March 9, 2009 10:32 AM

Kiva and Grameen inspire creative start-ups to fund education

Posted by Kristi Heim

Microsoft product manager Xiang Li received a "blessing and gift" from her parents that she's now hoping to pass on to others. Li's family immigrated from China when she was 4 years old, in a large part to make sure she had a well-rounded education in the U.S.

"Ever since elementary school, my parents have always stressed the importance of education and its fundamental role in success and self-advancement," she said.

Inspired by Kiva's model of person-to-person micro loans, she and classmates at the University of Pennsylvania formed Givology. The three friends studying business and international studies also had common interests in international development and rural education.

"We wanted to become the Kiva in the worldwide education space through online peer-to-peer education grants and donations to students and communities struggling to access quality education," Li said.

XIANG LI

Givology Vice President Xiang Li is at right, with CEO Joyce Meng at center and President Jennifer Chen at left

Donors can view profiles of students and education projects on Givology's Web site and contribute any amount. Once a student or project is fully funded, the money is channeled to local partners in China, India, Uganda and Ecuador and then distributed to individual students or projects. A U.S. non-profit, Givology has partnerships in China, India, Uganda and Ecuador.

Li is building Givology's Seattle chapter, along with Kiley Williams, another Microsoft employee who is volunteering time to improve the organization's Web site. Givology is staffed entirely by volunteers.

Microsoft's volunteer connection program, which donates $17 per hour of employee volunteer time to a non-profit, has helped Li generate about $2,700 for Givology's operating costs.

Another site with similar roots, Qifang (meaning bloom), shows how philanthropy and social enterprise are becoming global. It involves another group of three friends on the other side of the Pacific.

Qifang CEO Calvin Chin was born in the U.S. but moved to China in 2004 to explore his parents' roots and develop his career.

He hopes to give people in the most populous and education-obsessed country a way to pay for college. He launched the Shanghai-based company as "China's online student loan community."

Chin also took his inspiration from Grameen Bank, Kiva and the U.S. personal loaning site Prosper. "Doing good while creating a strong, profitable, self-sustaining business, is part of our philosophy," he said.

China needs direct personal lending to reach the growing base of Internet users and help relieve the burden of high education costs. People in China spend more money on education than on anything else besides food, he said.

Education in China used to be free, but more recent efforts to privatize costs have left students with a heavier financial burden. Student loans aren't common, and only about 10 percent of students borrow from credit cooperatives, banks or government programs. That's where Qifang hopes to fill the gap.

Both Li and Chin see education as a means to break the cycle of poverty, and they want to give less fortunate kids the opportunity their parents gave them.

Li said while she admires Kiva's model of microlending, what she hopes to provide through Givology is something more fundamental: the knowledge to become successful.
For more information contact Li at xiang.li@givology.org

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March 6, 2009 1:02 PM

Trusty over trendy, the world's biggest Rotary turns 100

Posted by Kristi Heim

Bill Gates Sr. stood on stage last night and told the crowd of 1,000 that he had something to get off his chest.

"There was a time when I was somebody in this town," he began. "In those days when someone said 'Bill Gates' they were talking about me."

KEN LAMBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Bill Gates Sr. has helped guide his son's giving.

The audience -- peppered with graying Rotarians -- erupted in laughter.

"I was a hot, maybe warm, ticket," said the former lawyer. "Now look at me. I've become just 'Senior' -- a suffix. Nobody reports to me. I report to my son."

Gates may have been eclipsed by his world-famous philanthropist son, but the ethic of community service started with the earlier generation.

"You and mom taught me the meaning of service by the countless examples you set," the younger Gates said.

In fact, Seattle's philanthropy can trace its roots back to the Rotary club, which has become the largest rotary in the world and celebrates its centennial this year. Rotary International has 1.2 million members and 32,000 clubs in nearly 200 countries.

The Seattle club's 700 members focused on "service before self" have taken on ambitious projects, from selling $1 million in war bonds in a single day during World War II, to building a new center for 5,000 homeless families this year, to helping eradicate polio in the future. Seattle Rotary made a $4.2 million donation to build the Rotary Support Center for Families as its centennial project.

The club has endured through two world wars and the Great Depression. Members said one key to their success is an emphasis on regular attendance at weekly meetings.
Don Kraft, a former advertising executive who joined the club when he was 21, hasn't missed a meeting for 60 years.

Don Kraft has perfect attendance in his 60 years in Seattle Rotary.

"I just showed up a week at a time," Kraft said. "I have met incredible friends. I just kept thinking I might as well go one more time."

Kraft said one of the highlights was leading a Rotary Youth Foundation effort to build a Boys Club downtown that became a safe gathering place for kids in the Central District and is still thriving today.

In the early days, Rotary was "500 old white guys," Kraft said. Women weren't admitted until 1987, and current Rotary president Nancy Sclater is only the fourth woman to head the club.

The big challenge now is to push for eradicating polio worldwide and help the community get through the worst economic downturn since the Depression.

The Gates Foundation gave a $255 million grant to Rotary International to help that effort, and Rotary promised to raise another $100 million in matching funds. Another $280 million then came from the governments of England and Germany.

One Seattle Rotarian, Ezra Teshome, has led volunteers to his native Ethiopia every year for 12 years to vaccinate children against polio.

The younger Gates said the Gates Foundation will announce a new strategy later this month to fight family homelessness involving "dozens of local partners to extend our investment on this key issue over the next decade."

"Growing up here, with parents like mine, I saw the impact service can have," Gates said. "That's why I'm so optimistic that our society can solve its toughest problems."

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March 4, 2009 8:26 AM

More perspectives on taxes and charitable contributions

Posted by Kristi Heim

Update: Looks like the White House may reconsider the plan, writes the Wall Street Journal. Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley summed it up this way: "I'd like to think that people give out of the goodness of their heart, but that tax deduction helps to loosen up the heartstrings."

Will wealthy donors contribute less to charity under the Obama budget proposal that would reduce their tax savings?

Some foundations, non-profits and fundraising professionals are speaking out against the plan. But others, including tax experts, say the question is more nuanced and the impact unlikely to be so drastic.

Clinton Stretch, a principal in the Washington office of Deloitte & Touche, advises clients on the federal budget and tax issues. The concern for nonprofit groups "is real, but it's not absolute," he told Bloomberg News. "There are multiple ways people go about giving, and multiple reasons people go about deciding to do it."

Obama's plan is expected to generate an additional $318 billion over 10 years by reducing tax deductions for top earners, including deductions for charity.

The proposal limits the value of itemized tax deductions to 28 percent for about 2.6 million U.S. households that fall into the top two income tax brackets, beginning in 2011. Currently they can deduct up to 35 percent of charitable contributions.

While applauding the overall budget, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) oppose the proposal, saying it "sends the wrong message at the wrong time to those who support charitable causes."

The plan "would effectively devalue charitable gifts made by the very people who are in a position to make substantial donations at a time when they are sorely needed," the association said.

Independent Sector, a coalition of 600 nonprofit groups, opposes the measure as a "disincentive" to giving in challenging economic times.

Council on Foundations CEO Steve Gunderson said he is still reviewing the implications, but "we are opposed to proposals which will significantly depress incentives for charitable giving."

While some may look at the increased cost of making charitable contributions and reduce their giving accordingly, "I find it hard to imagine that this will occur on any significant scale," says Jane Searing, CPA at Clark Nuber in Bellevue, who provides tax services to private foundations and public charities.

For one thing, they would have to pay tax advisers for their time.

"By the time the taxpayer pays the adviser to figure out how much to reduce their contribution to get to the same after tax position, they could have just made the charitable contribution that seems appropriate based upon other factors," Searing says.

The charitable contribution deduction is meant to be a more efficient means of getting money directly to organizations that serve the public good rather than paying more taxes and having the federal government distribute funds to charitable organizations.

For married people filing jointly or head of household taxpayers, the proposal applies to people with taxable income slightly more than $200,000, according to Searing.

"I am not convinced that the reason these folks give is to get a tax deduction," Searing says.

Besides, she notes, many households in the top income brackets already have the value of their deductions reduced to 28 percent by the alternative minimum tax, which is designed to limit the use of deductions and exemptions by the wealthy.

The stimulus package authors are betting that people in these higher income levels will give as they normally have and take the tax hit.

One case in point is Lauren Bricker, co-founder of the Two Herons Foundation in Seattle.
"Speaking from personal experience, if we had been looking solely at maximizing our tax break we might have reduce our giving," she said.

"However, we also took into account the amount we needed to contribute to start our own foundation, rather than donating money through a community foundation, such as the Seattle Foundation. If the 28 percent deduction was close but not quite enough to make starting our own foundation cost effective, we would have donated more than we could deduct anyway."

At least if recent history is any judge, caps on deductions didn't stifle the growth of giving.

Between 1990 and 2001, a period when the minimum tax was increasingly limiting deductions for six-figure income households, deductions for charitable giving actually grew more than 8 percent a year, according to a Bloomberg story that cites an Internal Revenue Service study.

But of course the U.S economy today looks very different from what it was in the 1990s.

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February 27, 2009 10:01 AM

Will lowering tax deductions for charity discourage donors?

Posted by Kristi Heim

A controversy is brewing over the Obama administration's proposal to limit tax deductions for charitable gifts in the new budget to Congress.

Whether people are giving for the sake of giving or to reduce their tax burden doesn't matter -- charities will feel the impact, some contend.

Under the proposal, taxpayers earning more than $250,000 will have potential deductions for charitable contributions reduced to 28 percent from 35 percent now, according to an analysis in this New York Times story. That means a 28-cent deduction for every dollar donated.

How this affects donors here in the "Compassion Corridor" remains to be seen. If you have any thoughts, please share them.

While several studies show donors are not greatly affected by tax changes in terms of their giving, "in these times, every dollar given to a non-profit, just like a small business, is key to their survival," notes Jule Meyer, principal at Parkman Foundation Services, which helps people start and manage foundations.

One survey by Bank of America, for example, found that half of donors would continue giving the same amount to charity even if deductions were essentially eliminated. But nearly 40 percent said their giving would decline.

"If we dis-incentivize any stimulus to our economy (such as penalizing generosity among higher donors), it can't be good for the non-profit community," says Meyer. "In this community, solutions that deliver are rewarded by donors--so I don't consider it good economics to take from the fragile non-profit community via donors. Non-profits are for the most part, improving our world, not damaging it."

The change could apply to families selling businesses, since they can often save capital gains taxes by starting a private family foundation.

"This is a line item in the Stimulus Package that I would certainly reconsider," says William Pearsall, a Bellevue intermediary who connects businesses for sale with buyers.
In fact, he suggests the deduction should be 40 percent "to reduce reliance on the government to fund some small but critical social service programs."

Philanthropy Northwest CEO Carol Lewis said she had not heard yet from local charities and guessed "our members will divide up around this based on whether or not they are Obama supporters generally."

"I think they have larger questions beyond the question of charitable incentive that will dictate their response," she said. "My members are generally giving because they believe in giving."

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February 24, 2009 7:40 AM

When hard times demand generosity, some companies step up

Posted by Kristi Heim

Losses, layoffs and budget cuts make headlines, but Northwest businesses "are still giving back to their communities in meaningful, even life-changing ways," says Carol Lewis, CEO of Philanthropy Northwest. Lewis has a background in business (Coinstar) non-profits (Pacific Northwest Ballet) and government (Seattle's deputy mayor).

Carol Lewis of Philanthropy Northwest

Despite the downturn, Microsoft employees gave away a record-breaking $87.7 million to charitable organizations in 2008 through the giving campaign, company matching gift program and volunteering, exceeding the previous year by $3.6 million, she noted. Almost 60 percent of employees donate, and the company matches their gifts up to $12,000.

Corporate grants (a separate category from employee giving) total more than $100 million dollars a year in the Northwest, Lewis said. The top donors include Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Safeco Insurance Foundation, Weyerhaeuser and Regence. (Comparing figures, it's interesting to see that Microsoft employees donate more money than many large corporations.)

But even companies you might expect to back away from philanthropy are still giving, Lewis said. For example, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon pledged that the bank will continue Washington Mutual's long-standing commitment to give more than $2.5 million dollars to local nonprofits each year. (Laid off WaMu employees might be the ones needing some of those dollars. And Dimon himself was paid a salary of $41 million in 2006 and $30 million in 2007).

On April 16, Philanthropy Northwest will hold its annual Corporate Philanthropy Institute, where local companies will share their strategies for hard times.

ALAN BERNER/SEATTLE TIMES

Former Slate editor Michael Kinsley talked with Gates, Warren Buffett and critics of "Creative Capitalism" for his new book.

"We should thank them and ask them to keep up the good work," Lewis said. "We need their help now more than ever."

Later today I'll talk with Michael Kinsley about "Creative Capitalism" and whether that's different from corporate philanthropy or better than job-creating, profit-maximizing capitalism. The concept unleashed by Bill Gates has spawned books, blogs and much long-winded debate.

Are companies willing to go beyond public relations triumphs to use their business for the greater good, or has the question itself become a luxury at a time when many are focused on survival?

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February 23, 2009 9:42 AM

Does Hollywood spotlight risk slumsploitation?

Posted by Kristi Heim

Following the success of "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Oscars Sunday night, the media spotlight is even more intense, yet not everyone is thrilled about that.

Several people have written to protest what they see as Western glorification of poverty in India.

Western non-profits such as World Vision and the OneWorld Health are using the movie to highlight the problems of poverty and disease and raise money for their work.

The Institute for OneWorld Health, a U.S.-based non-profit pharmaceutical company that develops drugs for neglected diseases, launched its campaign this morning, saying it's using the movie to "raise awareness about neglected diseases afflicting the world's poor," and take advantage of "America's heightened interest in the developing world."

Yet some say the portrait of slums in Dharavi shouldn't be the whole picture the world sees. A fascinating portrait of how Mumbai's rich and poor worlds coexist on the eve of the film's Indian premiere is here.

"To most self respecting Indians it seems as if people with vested Interest need more Slums so they can milk people who want to buy their place in Heaven," one reader wrote today.

"Unfortunately, the Hollywood spotlight is going to add fuel to this form of exploitation,'" writes another reader, Samuel Sunderaraj.

"Yes, India does have poverty and yes, there are slums in India; however these are the only images we see of the country. At the same time there is a lot of development going on in India, and firms like Google, MS, Intel, Cisco, to name a few, have established a presence there for that very reason."

Sunderaraj also took issue with the comparison between Atul Tandon's rags-to-riches story and poor slum dwellers in India, saying it's "exploiting the American 'ignorance' about India to raise funds."

"Mr Tandon had a typical middle class upbringing in India and quite simply should not be compared to the folks of the Dharavi Slum in Mumbai," he writes. "Mr Tandon had access to a good education from one of the top schools in New Delhi... In India that's a middle class/upper middle class living. My dad in the 1950s, much like Mr Tandon, lived on $1/day or less but does not consider himself as someone who made it ... because he now has a graduate degree from Princeton."

Films like "Slumdog Millionaire" raise sensitive topics that often produce a powerful backlash at home, as the film received last month.

Other films include "Born into Brothels" in India, "Tsotsi" in South Africa and "City of God" in Brazil.

While the film "City of God" was extremely popular, in Brazil "it didn't change the situation of the slums, even though the people who were in the film became famous," said Margaret Willson, international director of Bahia Street.

For non-profits, the movie tie could be lucrative. "World Vision could make big bucks off of it," Willson said. "People will think, oh this is what the slums in India look like. They can use it effectively as a marketing tool."

But in terms of changing the lives of those involved, "I don't think it particularly helps," she said. For one, taking kids out of the slum does nothing to change conditions, and for another what goes on in Dharavi is so much more complex than outsiders realize.

Finally, there is yet another idea that involves giving away money more directly.

Rumors are circulating of a "Secret Slumdog Millionaire" reality TV show, where disguised wealthy people infiltrate slums and select recipients to hand out money.

Here's a post with complex reaction to the film by Marla Smith-Nilson, who has seen the problems of slums up close.

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February 20, 2009 7:53 PM

World Vision's "Slumdog" vice president

Posted by Kristi Heim

As all eyes are on the hit film "Slumdog Millionaire" for Sunday's Academy Awards, the aid agency World Vision has a simple message: the reality is worse.

More children live in India's slums than the combined populations of Los Angeles and Chigago. Those 26 million kids include Pooja, 5, at left in the photo, sitting in front of her house in the slums of Mumbai with her brother and friend.

After 50 years in India, World Vision is taking advantage of the Hollywood spotlight to point out a few things the film misses: HIV / AIDS and the terrible stigma they carry, the recent food and economic crises pushing more poor into misery, the persistent low standing of girls and their path into early, unwanted marriage. In India, 42 percent of the population lives below the $1.25 a day poverty line, according to the World Bank.

But there is at least one Slumdog who got out, went on to college, worked his way up to head the global branch system at Citibank and achieved success and riches he could never have imagined.

Atul Tandon spent the first two decades of his life existing on about $1 a day. Since 2000 he has worked at World Vision, where he's senior vice president for donor engagement.

"I have been in all the places the movie was shot," he said. "It really was a flashback. The stations where they met -- I walked those places thousands of times."

"What you saw is the best of poverty. It's worse as you leave urban India. The further away you get, the worse it is... not having water and food."

Tandon remembers getting sick as a teenager, far away from any hospital. "We were living in a remote part of India. I fell ill and my mom put me in the back of a bus and it took two days. I still remember like yesterday. My body was on fire with fever and she was sitting there there weeping for two days. That is the reality of life."

His mother sold her jewelry to put him through school. "She is the one person I can look to and say I'm here because of you. It is moms in the lives of most of these kids. I can see the story repeated in many parts of the world."

He hopes the film doesn't just entertain but convinces people to do something.

"I hope when people leave the theater they leave inspired," he says. "It is about the poor, but it is also that the average American can say I'm going to change someone's life. It doesn't take much. That would be the most exciting thing that could happen."

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February 19, 2009 5:43 PM

Images tell the story of homelessness, AIDS and more

Posted by Kristi Heim

While most non-profits can't afford high-end photography, multimedia and social media are becoming powerful tools for spreading humanitarian messages.

Such photography in support of non-profits is getting a boost from Getty Images, which is starting a project called Grants for Good. Details can be found here. The project will award two photographers $15,000 each this year for costs associated with creating images to raise awareness about the work of a charitable organization, plus support from the company's creative teams and promotion on its Web site. If the photographer and non-profit agree to license the work, they can request 100 percent of the royalties earned be paid directly to the non-profit.

Jonathan Ferrey of Getty Images shot the first photo above of a homeless family in Portland, working with the Portland-based non-profit Dinner & A Movie. Oregon has about 2,500 homeless youth, the highest population per capita in the United States. Most of them are are victims of sexual and physical abuse, and 'meth' and heroin have fueled drug addiction, along with diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV.

This second photo was taken by Brent Stirton of Getty Images, capturing an elderly woman now taking care of her grandchild after the child's parents died of AIDS in rural Kenya, where HIV among women has soared. Stirton worked with a Global Business Coalition project, which is ongoing.

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February 13, 2009 10:00 AM

Food Lifeline becomes major food buyer with new fund

Posted by Kristi Heim

In a tough economy, finding creative ways to stretch resources has its rewards.

Trying to fulfill increasing demand from the local food banks it serves, Food Lifeline has turned to a new model -- a kind of bank account that lets it take advantage of "opportunity buys" and cut out the middleman.

"We're now going to develop as a line of business an entire program where you can reliably expect a number of different products," says Chief Executive Linda Nageotte.

The non-profit's Shoreline warehouse holds the first of such bulk purchases -- 44,000 pounds of Great Northern beans.

MARK HARRISON/SEATTLE TIMES

Volunteers Susan O'Callaghan, left, and Karen Sullivan pour beans from 100-pound bags into bins for repackaging.

Food Lifeline's nascent revolving food purchase program, funded with grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, lets the organization buy food directly from growers and vendors, cutting costs and passing the savings on to 300 food banks in Western Washington.

In this case, the beans are good nutrition for 28 cents a pound, says Jerrimi Hofman, the program's coordinator. About 90 percent of the food at Food Lifeline is donated, but donations aren't predictable or continuous. When food banks need something they aren't getting from Food Lifeline donors, they have to go out to a wholesale store to buy it.

"They need more and we want to give more and do it in an absolutely cost effective way," Hofman said.

Since bargain food comes by the truckload, Food Lifeline relies on volunteers to repackage it into smaller sizes for distribution. On a recent Friday, the volunteer bean counters were Stuart Despain, Nikita Shvachko and their team of 12 Microsoft program managers.

Despain can relate personally to people who need help. After he graduated from Evergreen State College in the 1980s, during a different recession, he used a food bank himself.

"I had a heck of a time finding a job," he said. "The choice for me was whether to pay the rent or pay for groceries." A food bank in the University District helped him get by.
"Those are the things you don't forget," Despain said.

Working throughout the day, the Microsoft team packaged about two tons of food into family-sized servings. At a time when some companies are considering cutting employee volunteer time or matching gift programs, it was a reminder how much those benefits matter.

The team's general manager, Eric Wilfrid, who heads the Macintosh Business Unit, is a supporter of the program and let the team spend a day there as a morale-building event.

Despain calls it a "2 for 1 special -- socializing and having fun together and at the same time doing good things for the community," he said.
"We're going to do this as often as possible."

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February 12, 2009 1:07 PM

Thirsty birds meet for charity

Posted by Kristi Heim

Twestival is a hybrid online / in-person event taking place in 175 cities around the world today, including one in Seattle tonight at Spitfire.

It's an experiment in using social media to advance charitable giving. The beneficiary is New York based charity:water, which builds wells to provide clean drinking water in developing countries.

Supporters are using microblogging tool Twitter to spread the word. This site makes it possible to watch live feeds from any of the locations.

Organizers are using Twitter to nudge companies and Seattle's tech elite to contribute to the cause, sending messages to their Twitter accounts which are posted publicly.

But the Seattle tweets recently show that even a cutting-edge fundraising method is encountering a challenging local economy.

"I wish @waggeneredstrom had decided to sponsor Twestival Seattle. I guess times are tough. Hope they help out the PDX event," organizers wrote Tuesday.

"I'm Close to giving up on local corp. sponsors for Twestival Seattle. Everyone business appears to be in budget / risk lockdown. So sad."

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February 11, 2009 2:34 PM

Literacy Bridge gets first Talking Books pilot program off the ground

Posted by Kristi Heim

Think Kindle is exciting? Take a look at this book that talks, was developed entirely by volunteers and costs less than $10.

Seattle-based non-profit Literacy Bridge launched its pilot program today to test dozens of its Talking Books in Ghana. The digital audio player and recorder is designed as a tool to teach literacy when used with textbooks, and help rural people who can't read get access to information.

In the current usability test, Literacy Bridge volunteers want to find out how people use the device and what content is most popular. They are working with local health and agricultural officials to help disseminate information, such as disease prevention and best farming practices, and with local schools to build lesson plans using the device.

The man behind the project is Cliff Schmidt, a former Microsoft program manager who studied artificial intelligence and thought a lot about how literacy can play a role in moving people out of poverty. He left Microsoft to form Literacy Bridge.

In a place like Ghana, Schmidt thinks having spoken information at hand will help people avoid lengthy trips to visit clinics or other offices. He also designed a function for users to record their own messages, and a way for such content to be distributed within local networks through the device-to-device copying capability.

Next he hopes to use the Talking Books to reach women in Afghanistan (90% of whom are illiterate), but ideally the device could be used anywhere in the world.

Here's a detailed Q&A with Schmidt, and a profile of Literacy Bridge.

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February 2, 2009 6:01 PM

Madoff exposure hurts Seattle foundations

Posted by Kristi Heim

The damage from Bernard Madoff's investment scam just keeps piling up. This time it has hit two Seattle area foundations hard. Both are relatively small foundations involved in conservation and education.

The Patrice and Kevin Auld Foundation of Seattle and the Kaleidoscope Foundation of Bellevue relied on Madoff for their investments. In its last tax filing, for the year ended in August 2007, the Auld Foundation reported holding $1.67 million in Madoff security investments, while listing its total assets as $1.75 million. The Kaleidoscope Foundation reported holding $3.16 million in Madoff investments, with total assets of $12.6 million at the end of 2007.

The foundations were first listed in a preliminary estimate of Madoff exposure among private foundations, compiled by Benefit Technology for the New York Times. The list included foundations across the U.S. based on data from tax returns.

Patrice Auld, a New York native who heads her family foundation, said the loss was devastating. "This is somebody we all felt we could trust."

The Auld Foundation has been a supporter of Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based organization working to protect biodiversity around the world. Its other recent beneficiaries include the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Lakeside School, Seattle Academy, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

"This is a real blow," said Carol Lewis, chief executive of Philanthropy Northwest. "When you have foundations like the Auld Foundation, which has done so much that is positive for the community, it just makes me very sad for the impact on them and on the organizations they support."

The Kaleidoscope Foundation of Bellevue is headed by co-presidents Richard Leeds and Anne Kroeker, who have supported wildlife preservation and were given a lifetime award by the Cascade Land Conservancy in 2006 for protecting open space.

Reached by phone today, Leeds said the Madoff issue is an ongoing legal matter for the foundation and he could not comment until it's resolved.

Leeds' parents, Gerard and Lilo Leeds of New York, built the company CMP Media, listed on the Nasdaq in 1997 and later sold to a British publishing firm, after arriving in the United States in 1939 as refugees from Hitler's Germany, according to information from the University of Colorado at Boulder. A $35 million commitment from the Leeds family endowed the university's business school. Richard Leeds is a graduate of the university. Among CMP Media's publications are InformationWeek and Computerworld.

The Kaleidoscope Foundation's major grantees include the Grays Harbor Audubon Society, Audubon Washington, Columbia Land Trust in Vancouver, Hoh River Trust, Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Bellevue Schools Foundation, and Bainbridge Graduate Institute.

The Kaleidoscope Foundation reported more than $235,000 in income from Madoff securities in 2007 and listed shares in dozens of blue chip companies in its Madoff account that were held only one or two months and sold, most of them for a short-term gain but quite a few for a loss.

The Auld Foundation reported $200,000 in gains through Madoff investment securities in 2007 and $150,000 in gains in 2006.

Now both foundations' losses are among the carnage of an alleged $50 billion fraud. The damage has already forced several charities to close (JEHT Foundation, Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation and the Chais Family Foundation), and others may be next. JEHT's closure has already hurt funding to address racial disparity in the justice system.

Auld said she hoped to be able to continue her foundation's work. "We're going to do the best we can," she said. "I care very much about these causes."

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January 21, 2009 11:29 AM

Donations to PCC Farmland Trust up 110 percent despite economy

Posted by Kristi Heim

Donations to a trust that secures local farmland for organic food production rose 110 percent over the past year.

PCC Farmland Trust, an independent non-profit formed by PCC Natural Markets, said thousands of donors helped it surpass its fundraising goals for 2008 despite the sour economy.

Its annual campaign raised $128,000, topping its goal of $80,000. The non-profit also completed a six-month challenge to its donors to match $150,000 in grants from the Washington Women's Foundation and an anonymous donor.

The combined $300,000 will go into the trust's Future Farm Fund to purchase conservation easements on local farmland and restrict development on the land.

News about food and environmental issues over the past year has driven public interest in safe, local food, making farmland preservation a priority, says Kelly Sanderbeck, development and communications director.

"I think it's just in people's minds," she said. "It's personal as well as global. We're worried about food safety and looking for what's really going to help this planet."

The trust works to secure and preserve threatened farmland in the Northwest. Since 1999, the trust has saved three Washington state farms, in Sequim, Walla Walla and Carnation. It's considering using the fund to secure three additional farms in Pierce, Thurston and Kittitas counties.

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January 14, 2009 11:21 AM

Companies axing matching-gift programs? Not exactly

Posted by Kristi Heim

Matching-gift programs boost the power of individual donations and have been linked to employee satisfaction and retention, not to mention tax benefits and image enhancement. Some companies contribute five times what an employee donates, and even pay non-profits for employee volunteer time.

But a story in The Wall Street Journal today made me wonder how many of them may fall victim to cost cutting as companies adjust to tough times.

Turns out many more companies added these programs in the last year than dropped them, according to HEP Development Services, which tracks gifts at nearly 17,000 companies throughout the country, including their divisions and subsidiaries.

Continue reading this post ...

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January 7, 2009 2:24 PM

Global online charity thriving

Posted by Kristi Heim

GlobalGiving is bucking the trend of falling donations. In spite of the economic downturn, the non-profit "online marketplace for philanthropy" says its revenue increased 200 percent in 2008 over the previous year. Donors gave $8.75 million to grassroots projects around the world through GlobalGiving's Web site.

And some leading U.S. donors have said the collapse of the financial markets will not affect their charitable contributions, says this story in a fundraising journal.

Some foundations have lost up to 30 percent of their assets in the stock market crash. The Ford Foundation, for example, declared that it will increase its donations by 10 percent and protect its critical programs from cuts even as its parent company awaits a government bailout.

Locally, one positive sign from new WaMu owner JP Morgan Chase is its pledge to keep up WaMu corporate giving levels, at least in 2009.

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January 6, 2009 4:41 PM

A skeptical view of business as a force for good

Posted by Kristi Heim

The Economix blog has a thought-provoking article today discussing the viability of business achieving altruistic aims, or the kind of creative capitalism described by Bill Gates.

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