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.

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But Murray said Thursday at IHME's annual board meeting that the previous report was outdated by the time it was released last year.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

Organizations in Seattle are advancing research into emerging and neglected diseases, but what about neglected threats to public health?

The University of Washington aims to take the lead in shedding light on a fundamental issue for the field of global health -- war.

This week UW will tackle that theme as host of the 8th Annual Western Regional International Health Conference, beginning Friday, which blends academic work with a social change mission.

Beyond direct military casualties, the conference will look at indirect impacts on health, which cause more deaths and illnesses than many major diseases.

Co-sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility, the conference will define preventing war and reducing violence as an emerging area of study and practice for people in the global health field, how students and professionals can promote peace, and how to develop new global health leaders who are focused on that goal.

Speakers include Chris Hedges, author of "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning;"
Alfred McCoy, author of "A Question of Torture;" and Janet Johnson Bryant, the Liberian journalist featured in the film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell."·

Kavita Ramdas, CEO of the Global Fund for Women, has been speaking out on the issue of war and its relationship to health.

At a global philanthropy conference in Seattle recently, Ramdas singled out violence as one of the biggest barriers to women's advancement, a new hurdle beyond the traditional issues of poverty, lack of economic opportunity and access to education.

"What has changed in the last 10 years," she said, "is the additional barrier of growing militarization of their society, the increased presence of arms and weapons in almost every part of every person's life."

The world has seen a surge in conflict and violence in all corners, she said, from ongoing civil strife in the Democratic Republic of Congo to crime on the south side of Chicago.

The effect has been "stunningly high levels of violence against women all over the globe, she said. "The scale of this violence is an epidemic."

Part of the problem is that resources in the U.S. and elsewhere that were once used for education, health and domestic infrastructure have been diverted to military budgets, Ramdas said.

Somewhat related to that is an interesting study about the effects on African-American women of the high incarceration rates of black men.

It must be Seattle if a crowd of 500 finds a talk on development statistics enthralling.

But Hans Rosling isn't just any speaker, and he narrates history like he's announcing a horse race. His colorful bubble charts show the progress of countries over time, measuring factors such as life expectancy and income.

A doctor and international health professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, Rosling created the Trendalyzer software that was acquired by Google three years ago and launched this month as Data Explorer.

Rosling said he was glad to be in a place so focused on global health research and funding. "It's the best invitation you can get," he said, speaking at a dinner for the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute last week, which raised more than $300,000. "When Seattle calls, you come."

Rosling was given an award and a distinctive gift from his Seattle's hosts -- a tie designed with the image of the HIV virus.

He throws a lot of information out quickly, scattering statistics literally all over the map, and delights in busting myths. His students for example, might think of the world as divided between the West -- "we," and poor countries, or "them," he said.

But data shows that description no longer applies.

The largest chunk of the world economy -- 60 percent -- is made up of middle income countries, including China, India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Turkey, Thailand. And countries typically labeled as poor are progressing faster than many people realize.

Sweden looks pretty advanced when compared to Egypt or Bangladesh, but in 1900 Sweden had a higher child mortality than Bangladesh. Over time, child mortality rates have fallen faster in Egypt, Bangladesh and Brazil than they did in Sweden. And the country with the lowest child mortality in the world today is actually not Sweden but Singapore.

But not all health problems are getting adequate attention, Rosling said. Trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is a disease that affects only the poor. In DR Congo, which rivals Zimbabwe for the world's lowest life expectancy and health rates, sleeping sickness has had such a profound impact that people named a city for it.

Of course, the success of his or any data depends on whether people act on it rationally, which is too often not the case.

HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria were known as the "ATMs" in Africa because those diseases captured donor dollars, he said. But diarrhea and pneumonia, which also kill millions, didn't make the list of diseases addressed by the Global Fund.

"Blair and Bush didn't understand it, and Bono didn't have time to explain," he quipped. "The BBB" is his name for Tony Blair, George W. Bush and Bono.

Rosling, the son of a coffee roaster and the first in his family to go to school, emphasized that improvements in health must go hand in hand with economic growth and education. The way out of poverty requires education, infrastructure, information, freedom, and a job.

He noted that the most common cause of death among rural Chinese women is suicide, and the most common method is to drink agricultural chemicals.

"It's not a paradise where you get rid of malaria and everything is good," he said.

From its beginnings as a tiny lab in Issaquah with a staff of five, the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute has grown to more than 300 people and is about to test one of the world's first vaccines for malaria on a group of volunteers.

"It's stunning to me we have been able to come so far so quickly," said Ken Stuart, who founded the private lab in 1976 as Seattle's first global health organization and now heads the largest independent non-profit dedicated to infectious disease research. (The non-profit known as SBRI is now officially acronym-free after re-branding itself Seattle BioMed.)

KEN LAMBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Malaria researcher Stefan Kappe stands in the "warm room" where mosquitoes are raised in the lab at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute.

Advances have come in "small, imperceptible steps," he said, addressing a crowd of more than 500 at the annual Passport to Global Health event last night.

Now the institute is about to embark on a big one. In a few months, volunteers will be bitten by mosquitoes carrying a cloned strain of malaria to test a malaria vaccine candidate developed by Seattle BioMed researcher Stefan Kappe.

The malaria project started in 2000 and now is the sole focus of 100 scientists, Kappe said. The German native who studied at Notre Dame and taught at New York University said he came to Seattle in 2003 with a dream to succeed where others had failed.

A $50,000 grant from private donations helped him sort infected liver cells, and $32.5 million in funding from the Gates Foundation helped him take the concept from mice to humans.

His approach to the vaccine is using genetic engineering to remove two key genes and make the malaria parasites harmless. The first part of the human trials is a safety phase to make sure the vaccine doesn't make anyone sick. The next part involves infecting the vaccinated group with malaria later this year. The trial, to be held at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, involves 26 people. Results will be announced in early 2011.

Later the team will need to test the vaccine in Africa and identify strains that protect for the longest time at the lowest dose, Kappe said.

In the future, inside its South Lake Union building, Seattle BioMed will be able to use its own newly built Malaria Clinical Trials Center (MCTC), one of four facilities in the world that can test new malaria treatments and vaccines in humans. More than 300 people in the Seattle area have already signed up as volunteers for trials of malaria drugs and vaccines, which could begin later this spring or summer.

This year's Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition at the University of Washington had so many promising business plans that picking just two winners proved difficult. So judges did something unusual: they ponied up their own money on the spot to award another $3,000 prize.

The contest, which had 161 entries from 36 countries this year, combines business, non-profit and academic work to encourage creative solutions to global poverty.

The top winning team taking home $10,000 was Nuru Light -- Charles Ishimwe from Adventist University of Central Africa and Max Fraden of the University of Massachusetts Medical School -- who also won the GSEC People's Choice Award and Investor's Choice Award. The team created a clean and affordable alternative to kerosene as a light source in Rwanda. The portable, rechargeable lights are the size and shape of a tape measure and the charger is a portable box with a bicycle-style pedal.

The UW Global Health prize of $5,000 went to ToucHb, a non-invasive finger scanner that measures hemoglobin levels to diagnose anemia. It can be used by low-skilled village health workers in rural India and eliminates the fear and infection risks associated with a needle prick. The team is made up of two doctors from the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences -- Yogesh Patil and Abhishek Sen.

The spontaneous Judges' Choice award of $3,000 went to Malo Traders for their plan to help small-scale rice farmers in Mali earn a better living by providing storage, marketing and other post-harvest services. Team Malo is two brothers who grew up in Africa and are now studying in the U.S. -- Mohamed Ali Niang, a business student at Temple University, and Salif Romano Niang, PhD student in political science at Purdue.

On Friday, the projects were on display at a breakfast hosted by the Seattle International Foundation, where students with ideas talked to executives with funds and experience.

ToucHb got tested by PATH CEO Chris Elias, while Microsoft veterans Rob Short and Will Poole wanted details about Nuru Light's business plan. Check out the video above with winners introducing their projects.

A school that educates girls to become future leaders will celebrate its 10th anniversary by recognizing local women for their contributions to women's health and welfare.

Seattle Girls School is honoring UW Epidemiology Professor Laura Koutsky for her two decades of research that led to the world's first human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, which helps prevent cervical cancer. A great profile of Koutsky can be found here.

Students will also honor Nan Stoops, executive director of the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, for her work over the last 30 years as a trainer, organizer and advocate against violence. Both awards will be given out at a student-hosted lunch Tuesday at the Seattle Sheraton.

BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER/SEATTLE TIMES

Dr. Laura Koutsky is credited with developing the world's first human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine along with Dr. Kathrin Jansen, a yeast expert at Merck Research.

On Wednesday, Melinda Gates is receiving a Global Trailblazer Award from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. for her work promoting social justice.

In Seattle on Thursday, Catherine Bertini, the former director of the United Nations World Food Programme, will speak at RDI's annual International Women's Day lunch focusing on land rights.

A couple of years ago when Bertini first left the World Food Programme and became a senior fellow at the Gates Foundation, I asked her why food aid programs had not been more successful and I remember being surprised by her answer. She told me the main reason is that they had failed to adequately support the role of women in agriculture.

Women produce as much as 80 percent of the world's food, but they own less than 2 percent of the world's land, according to RDI.

Another local organization calling attention to women's rights is the Jolkona Foundation, which has a page dedicated to projects supporting women around the world.

Nothing says more about the challenges they still face than the title of one project: "Free and educate enslaved Nepali girls."

On the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, writer Nicholas Kristof argues for three basic steps to improve lives of women: girls education, better diets and help starting small businesses.

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.

At the Seattle Asian Art Museum on a Saturday morning, traditional culture meets modern fitness -- a group of people splayed out on the marble floor practice yoga in a gallery surrounded by statues of Indian gods.

COURTESY OF RDI

Attorney Renee Giovarelli works to improve rights of women in Kyrgyzstan through the Rural Development Institute.

Later they gather inside the auditorium to hear Seattle attorney Renee Giovarelli describe the status of women's property rights in various parts of Asia, and its connection to hunger and poverty.

The scene represents the kind of engaging community salon that the "Saturday University" aims to create. Local universities, nonprofits and other institutions have deep expertise in Asia, but they don't always have a way to share it with the public.

"It should be a sense of pride for Seattle that those organizations are here," said former Seattle Art Museum director Mimi Gardner Gates, who conceived the series. Through the Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas, she hopes to introduce topics related to Asia, encourage community discussion and do it in a way that is fun.

GREG GILBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

Mimi Gardner Gates returns to her roots in Chinese art with a center focused on Asia at SAAM.

Continuing this month, the lectures explore "Health, Sex and Women's Rights in Contemporary Asia," accompanied by a series of films that were hits in their home countries but relatively unknown outside.

The series, "Guilty Pleasures," includes popular films from India, Japan, the Philippines and China. Each one is introduced by a film expert from the University of Washington.

Tomorrow speakers from the Gates Foundation and PATH will talk about Asia as a frontier in the battle for health equity. Each of the Saturday programs, which are co-sponsored by the World Affairs Council, starts with an optional yoga session by 8 Limbs Yoga.

In the spring, the Saturday University will explore the ways Asian religions are expressed in contemporary society, politics and the arts.

While the programs are held in the museum, the approach "appeals to people who aren't necessarily the art crowd," Gates said. "I love the idea of it being a center for people who are curious about Asia."

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.

Earlier this week I wrote about Paul Allen's involvement in a new PBS series "This Emotional Life," which wrapped up last night (but can still be watched on the Web site).

It takes a fascinating look at the latest research into human emotion, combined with real-life stories of people coping with emotional issues. Based on comments I've received and a look at some of the conversations on Facebook, the topic resonated deeply with a public searching for more meaning in life.

Some suggested it should be a weekly show. At this point there are no plans to re-broadcast the series, but it is available on iTunes and here on the PBS Web site.

Allen said he intended the TV series to be just the starting point of the project. Now a two-year outreach program begins, both online and in communities around the country.

The PBS Web site can be searched by topic or location to find resources such as Meetup groups and other organizations, and anyone can register and contribute new resources to the database.

COURTESY OF THIS EMOTIONAL LIFE

Dr. Michael Maddaus talked about his path from a troubled youth with alcoholic parents, time in jail and little education, to a successful surgeon with a happy family, thanks to a single mentor.

In an unusual effort for a film company, Vulcan Productions is spearheading the project, developing kits to address early attachment for parents, and emotional challenges for members of the military and their families. Both will combine online resources with booklets to be distributed through partner organizations such as Blue Star Families and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

"Early Moments Matter" is aimed at high birthrate hospitals, offices and clinics, targeting expecting and new parents, while "The Family Guide to Military Deployment" will go to government organizations and branches of the armed forces.

Two local researchers were involved in the series, Dr. John Gottman, a psychologist who specializes in conflict resolution and is founder of the Gottman Institute in Seattle, and Dr. Andrew Meltzoff, a psychology professor at the University of Washington who specializes in infant development and connection to parents.

Meltzoff and his team at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences won a $4 million grant from the Life Sciences Discovery Fund. Later this year they plan to set up the first machine that can measure emotional development in babies using a new technology called magnetoecephalography (MEG).

Washington state Rep. Ruth Kagi, who chairs the House Early Learning & Children's Services Committee, said she is studying implications of the science on policy.

If, as Meltzoff's research shows, humans develop the emotional circuitry for their entire lifetimes in the first three years, making the most of that time would seem a critical task not only for parents but for all of society.

Two recent grants and a $10 million investment by the Gates Foundation aim to boost access to education and capital for African agriculture.

A $1 million grant today to Michigan State University will support a pilot project to create a virtual hub of agricultural education material.

The MSU researchers will work with African educators to develop material designed to improve agricultural practices in an 18-month project called AgShare Open Education Resources. The idea is to develop curriculum in the public domain to share freely among agricultural universities, NGOs and farmers around Africa.

DEBBIE DEVOE/CRS

Kenyan farmer Mildred Agola and her husband Patrick Karandi, left, greet partners in a Catholic Relief Services-led project to stem the spread of two diseases affecting the cassava plant. The project was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Michigan State University received a $10.4 million grant from the Gates Foundation last year to train African biosafety regulators on the latest advances in technology. Members of the African Biosafety Network of Expertise are taking classes and working with MSU faculty to learn about biotechnology issues affecting small farmers.

The Gates Foundation is also using newly designated funds for Program-Related Investing to make a $10 million investment in Root Capital, based in Cambridge, Mass.

Root Capital funds grassroots enterprises in developing countries, loaning to small businesses that often fall through the cracks between microcredit and commercial banks.

Root Capital said it will use the Gates funding to expand its operations in sub-Saharan Africa, providing access to credit, financial management training and global market opportunities to small and growing rural businesses. Root Capital also received a $4 million operating grant from the Gates Foundation to support a five-year growth plan to achieve a financially sustainable lending program by 2013.

Speaking of increasing agricultural knowledge, a local technology non-profit called Literacy Bridge has reported successful results from its own pilot program. Founded by Cliff Schmidt, a former U.S. Navy nuclear engineer, Literacy Bridge makes a $10 portable audio computer called the Talking Book. The device (pictured below) is designed to spread knowledge among populations with low literacy rates. It can be used to play and record hours of messages, and recordings can be shared from one book to another.

Working with agriculture, education and health officials in Ghana, Literacy Bridge produced content for Talking Books with such basic advice as when to start clearing farms, how to plant rows and when to start sowing beans.

Literacy Bridge delivered 21 Talking Books to a small village, to be managed by local leaders and shared by residents. After the first year, the program helped achieve a 73 percent increase in crop production and a $45,000 increase in crop value, the non-profit reported last month.

As we await news of what world leaders manage to agree on, if much of anything, in Copenhagen, it's worth taking a look at one organization in Seattle that is training environmental leaders around the globe.

COURTESY OF EARTHCORPS

Roshani Rai of Nepal cuts a log for use on a trail structure in Seattle's Colman Park.

EarthCorps has been around since 1993, but it has taken some time for its efforts to gain traction. That's starting to happen as its 750 alumni disperse and apply their skills to new projects, from an international volunteer program at Lake Baikal in Russia, to a "zero waste" recycling enterprise in India.

The non-profit has brought environmental leaders from more than 60 countries to work on projects in the Puget Sound area. Half of its members are from around the U.S. and half are from countries in the developing world, and they share knowledge and expertise.

Besides the main group of about 50 members, EarthCorps now has 11,000 volunteers in Puget Sound, executive director Steve Dubiel told me. The level of interest has jumped this year, with three to four times as many people coming to activities aimed at local environmental restoration. Its teams have worked to improve 100 parks and green spaces in the region.

About 75 percent of EarthCorps' budget comes from fees it collects for its environmental services, so it has a more sustainable model than nonprofits that rely on donations or endowments alone.

COURTESY OF EARTHCORPS

Roshani Rai of Nepal plants native trees and shrubs along the shoreline of Burien's Seahurst Park. The planting followed a seawall removal project and is an example of Puget Sound shoreline restoration.

One EarthCorps alumnus went home to create a program in India that cleans up the streets and helps marginalized people by employing them to collect, sort and recycle 200 different kinds of garbage. Nothing, not even waste, goes to waste.

EarthCorps also emphasizes training women as future leaders.

"We put chainsaws in the hands of women who aren't used to having power," Dubiel said. "It's life changing."

When he joined the organization 15 years ago, Dubiel said, "I don't think people knew what environmental restoration was. I would say 'invasive plant' and people would give me a strange look. Now tons of people are out doing this work."

One of its projects has been removing ivy from Seward Park, where the group has cleared the plant from 42 of 50 acres of the park's forests.

If problems seem overwhelming, it can be satisfying to "just start somewhere," he said. "Stop talking, pick up a shovel and do something."

EarthCorps members working in far worse circumstances inspire others to persevere.

One EarthCorps member is fighting against the odds to preserve a freshwater dolphin in an area of Pakistan where the Taliban is waging war.

"You could have a more lucrative career," Dubiel said, "but don't we owe it to them to do the best we can?"

For another look at how Washington D.C. can learn from Washington state's approach to environmental solutions, see this post.

The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) received a $500,000 grant from Boeing Charitable Trust toward its fundraising campaign for a new museum on Lake Union, MOHAI Executive Director Leonard Garfield said today.

The museum is moving from its current Montlake building because it will be displaced by an expansion of Washington State Highway 520. It has chosen the historic Naval Reserve Building (Armory) in Lake Union Park as its new location.

MOHAI has raised $17.6 million so far toward is $40 million goal.

Boeing kicked off the community campaign for the original Montlake facility with a five-year $200,000 challenge grant in the 1940s, and the company contributed the aviation wing and restored and hung the B-1 Flying Boat, one of MOHAI's signature artifacts.

"We are deeply grateful for Boeing's financial support for the new museum and for their longstanding leadership in increasing cultural opportunities for the residents of our region," Garfield said.

MOHAI plans to open the new museum in late 2012. Garfield said one of the biggest advantages of the new location is that it makes the museum more visible and more engaged with the community.

Like a rider through a treacherous mountain pass, Greg Mortenson negotiates through seemingly impossible obstacles to find safe passage for his schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, choosing hope over fear and calling his only real enemy "ignorance."

Mortenson visited Seattle Tuesday and Redmond this morning to talk about his new book, "Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan." I spoke with him by phone on Tuesday while he awaited his flight from Portland. The Pacific Northwest is his biggest support network, where his champions hail from public libraries and book clubs to military bases and places of worship. His group Pennies for Peace carries on the work at home through programs for youth, teaching them about the world and how their philanthropy can make a difference. People in the Snohomish School District held a district-wide drive and raised more than $50,000.

The mountain climber and humanitarian founded the nonprofit Central Asia Institute, which has created 131 schools with the goal of advancing girls' education in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan.

COURTESY OF GREG MORTENSON

Greg Mortenson (third from right in back) with tribal chiefs from Urozgan province in southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold where his institute established the first girls high school.

In "Three Cups of Tea," he writes about building schools for girls in the rugged mountains of Pakistan, while his new book focuses on neighboring Afghanistan.

Mortenson, 51, gives the mountains of remote Afghanistan the motto of his native Montana, "The last best place." There he found "a combination of courage, tenacity, hospitality, and grace that leaves me in awe," he writes. Such places often "represent the best of who we are and the finest standard of what we are meant to become."

I asked him how he manages to maintain his safety, let alone build girls schools, in Taliban strongholds:

TARA BISHOP

Author Greg Mortenson, son Khyber and daughter Amira in Gultori war refugee girls' school in Pakistan.

Establishing trust with local leaders is key, he said. "The Pashto word menawatay means the right of refuge. It means you will protect a guest with your life. Your honor in the tribal group is measured on your ability to provide hospitality for your guest. We have to take a lot of precautions, but my kids and wife do go to several places in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

(He was kidnapped and held for eight days in Pakistan in 1996.)

"Primarily we've tried very hard to work with the elders and we've put them in charge. The communities run the schools. When I am passing between two different feuding clans we'll sit there in the middle of nowhere and wait, and a military commander, a commandant, will send his emissaries. We'll have cup of tea and they will pass me off."

"It's absolutely imperative we build relationships..." As Mortenson's voice trailed off, he said he would call right back after passing through airport security in Portland. It took a lot longer than he thought. The U.S. Army veteran, whose advice has been praised by military commanders such as Admiral Mike Mullen and General David Petraeus, was detained again.

"Every time I come back into the country it's really difficult," he said later. "My passport is somehow marked. They ask me where I've been. I have to go into a special room. I don't look forward to coming back here for that reason."

Why choose to work in the remote Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan?

"Our mission is to promote and set up schools, especially for girls, in areas where there is not education, generally in areas of physical isolation, religious extremism, conflict and war or natural disaster. Wakhan is the most remote. I think what really drew me there 10 years ago in 1999 a dozen Kirghiz horseman came over. They traveled six days a week, 16 hours a day on horseback. They were sent by their tribal leader to ask me to build a school in their region, the most isolated area in Afghanistan. You need to go in a jeep four days over rugged mountain and another three to four days by horseback over precipitous trails."

Why is girls' education the answer?

"Educating girls at least to a fifth grade level reduces infant mortality, and where I work about one out of three children dies before the age of 1. It reduces the population explosion. I think of all the problems in the world today -- we have global warming and wars -- I think there's just too many people on the planet. The number one way to reduce people is female literacy.

What I have seen is people coming home from the bazaar and they have vegetables or meat wrapped in newspaper. You'll see the mother very carefully unfolding a newspaper and asking her daughter to read the news to her. It's very empowering for a woman in an isolated area to read the news.

When mothers have an education they are less likely to encourage their sons to get into terrorism or violence. The Taliban's primary recruiting grounds are illiterate and impoverished societies. Most educated women refuse to allow their sons to join the Taliban."

On Afghanistan today:

"In the year 2000 there were 800,000 mostly boys in school, a Unicef figure. Today there are 8.4 million children in school including 2.5 million females. This is the greatest increase in school enrollment in any country in modern history. This is something few Americans are aware of.

Unfortunately the bad news is in the last three years in Afghanistan, the Taliban have bombed, burned or destroyed over 1,000 schools, and 850 schools in Pakistan. Ninety percent of the schools are girls schools. I think the reason they are bombing girls schools is because their greatest fear is not a bullet. It's a pen."

TERU KUWAYAMA

A school in a remote part of Afghanistan created by the Montana-based non-profit Central Asia Institute.

On what he teaches in the schools:

There are 131 schools now, plus another five dozen tent schools in refugee camps, serving 58,000 students (most of them girls): "Reading, writing, arithmetic, social studies. Elders come in twice a week and do storytelling to children...also hygiene, sanitation and nutrition. Since there's no health care, we teach teachers how to screen for vitamin deficiency, polio. We teach five languages by fifth grade, including Arabic and English, Dari in Afghanistan and Urdu in Pakistan and Pashto, and they also speak their tribal tongue. We are required by both countries to teach Islamiat studies, two to three hours a week studying the Koran and Islam. We teach kids to read and understand Arabic -- that's the difference between [our schools] and extremist madrasas. They teach how to read Arabic but not understand it. When you understand the Koran, there's nothing that says girls can't go to school. The two worst sins one can commit are killing someone and committing suicide. The real enemy anywhere is ignorance."

Does he still get threats here?

"I still get hate mail. I get threats. I've had threats all over the country. Our house was smashed by supremacists. People don't like the fact that I'm helping Muslims out. [Other] people don't like that I'm talking to the military. My wife says if people on the extreme right and extreme left don't like you, then you're doing the right thing. Americans are really great people. We're compassionate and courageous. There's too much emphasis on fighting terrorism, based on fear. If we promote peace, it's based on hope."

Did you manage to hear Mortenson's talk last night or read his books? Please share your thoughts.

REI co-founder Mary Anderson seems living proof of the benefits of spending time outdoors and appreciating nature. She celebrated her 100th birthday this week.

In her honor, the non-profit REI Foundation created the Mary Anderson Legacy Grant, a $50,000 annual award to support work to engage young people in learning about nature through hands-on experiences. The foundation plans to award its first grant in mid-2010. I wrote about its efforts to bring more diversity to environmental education here.

COURTESY OF REI

Mary Anderson celebrated her 100th birthday on Monday.

Introducing students to nature was a hallmark of Anderson's life and work as a teacher in the 1930s, according to REI. She was born Mary Gaiser in Yakima Valley in 1909.

In 1938, she and her husband, Lloyd Anderson, founded REI as a co-op with 21 mountaineering friends in Seattle. Those first 23 members contributed $1 each to the co-op to build buying power.

Today REI operates as a consumer cooperative, refunding members a portion of their previous year's purchases, with 3.7 million members, 110 retail stores and close to 10,000 employees.

This story about the Andersons described Mary as stitching tents in their West Seattle home as Lloyd sprayed them with waterproofing. They used the attic as a warehouse and a room off the kitchen as an office. Makes you wonder what they thought about the advent of camp espresso makers and personal planetariums.

The Andersons, who were married for 68 years, received a national leadership award for cooperative business in 1993. Lloyd Anderson, a mountain climber and engineer, passed away in 2000 at age 98. Though she now lives in an assisted home near Seattle, Mary Anderson still visits REI once or twice a year to talk with employees. She spoke at an awards ceremony at the REI headquarters in Kent on Tuesday.

"We are forever grateful to Mary for her passion to introduce people to the wonders of nature," said Sally Jewell, REI president and CEO. "At 100 years young, Mary is an inspiration to me, REI employees and outdoor enthusiasts everywhere."

In honor of her centennial birthday, Gov. Chris Gregoire and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels each proclaimed Dec. 7 as "Mary Anderson Day" across Washington state and the City of Seattle.

It's a massive project taking shape during a steep decline in real estate development and commercial property values.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's new 900,000-square-foot headquarters, comprised initially of two six-story, boomerang-shaped buildings on 12 acres near the Seattle Center, is scheduled to be finished in April 2011 at an estimated cost of $500 million.

Update: The WSJ's Robert Frank asks: Does a charitable foundation need a $500 million complex?

The Gateses said Friday they are making a $350 million payment of personal funds into their foundation's $34 billion endowment for construction costs. The couple made the one-time payment to distinguish money for the campus from money they have given for grants.

The foundation purchased the parcel of land from the City of Seattle for about $50 million.

The construction project has been going on more than a year and is now about 40 percent complete. Here's a view of it from a live Web cam. It will house the foundation's nearly 800 employees, now working in five locations, and an 11,000-square-foot visitor center.

At the heart of the campus is an atrium six stories high that is completely open and enclosed by glass windows.

On the site at 500 Fifth Ave. N., 400 workers are busy welding steel, pouring concrete, operating now three cranes and reinforcing an underground sewer line. The building takes close to 7,000 tons of steel for the structure and more to reinforce the 67,000 yards of concrete. The project is being led by Sellen Construction based on a design by NBBJ architects.

Green building features include a living roof on the parking garage and a million-gallon rainwater storage tank to reduce water use. The project is aiming for a Gold rating in LEED Certification, an environmental building standard.

Taking a look at some other recent developments, the non-profit Mercy Corps completed its new global headquarters in Portland, transforming and expanding a historic downtown building at a cost of $37 million.

For its new headquarters in a building complex now under construction in South Lake Union, Amazon.com signed a deal to lease about 800,000 square feet for about $700 million, with an option to double that.

However, a recent national report predicted that the recession and bank troubles will continue to weigh down the Seattle market next year, with WaMu's collapse and new but mostly unoccupied office towers combining to push the downtown office-vacancy rate above 20 percent.

Northwestern Mutual bought the WaMu Center tower from JPMorgan Chase for $115 million, less than one-third of what it cost to build.

The Gates Foundation's headquarters is the biggest project in Brian Duke's 27 years at Sellen Construction, where he is senior superintendent.

The design and communications effort needed to pull it off is huge, he said.

Cranes operate in close proximity to high-voltage power lines. When winds are above 20 miles per hour, the cranes have to stop, which could slow progress over the winter. In the record heat this summer, temperatures on the steel decking reached 120 degrees.

One challenge was removing contaminated soil -- 600,000 tons of it, load by load. The soil and groundwater were contaminated from decades of fuel storage and vehicle maintenance.

Workers also had to rebuild part of a live sewer main in the middle of the project, he said. First they had to demolish an old brick manhole from the early 1900s, being careful not to damage the line, which runs underneath Republican and serves the South Lake Union neighborhood.

Duke said he draws inspiration from the foundation's charitable aims. "It makes it easier to come to work," he said. "Your job isn't just a construction worker; it has some meaning."

The interesting marriage between online communities and the social sector has produced two more offspring:

One is a project by Global Washington called Blueprint for Action, which asks the public to help set priorities for development by posting their ideas and solutions. Readers can vote on the ideas, and the author with the most votes gets to host a session on that topic at a conference next month in Seattle.

Here's an idea someone submitted to Global Washington called checks and balances:

"We need to have an improved system of communication between people in the rural developing countries and 'bright' planners and analysts working for organizations such as Gates Foundation. Otherwise, we will find again and again that interests are not aligned with increasing the sustainable livelihoods and economic independence of the poor."

JON OSBORNE

Kushal Chakrabarti, co-founder of Vittana, talks with members of the World Affairs Council's Young Professionals International Network in Seattle.

Another example of online media-philanthropy hybrids is a project to solicit audience help in choosing and awarding the best innovators, visionaries and leaders, who are profiled on Huffington Post.

Kushal Chakrabarti, co-founder of Seattle education non-profit Vittana made the Top 10 "Ultimate Game Changers in Philanthropy."

I wrote about Vittana here a few months ago, and the start-up has made some huge strides since then, including bringing student loans to Peru, Paraguay, Nicaragua and Mongolia, and getting its first repayment from students who now have jobs.

In addition, Vittana has received funding from some tech heavyweights, including Mitch Kapor and Mike Murray.

If you like what he's doing, you can vote for him over the next week or so.

The Game Changers awards honor 100 people for using new media to reshape their fields and change the world in politics, entertainment, technology, media, sports, business, style, health, environment and philanthropy.

Another person who made the top 10, the "godfather of social entrepreneurship," Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, will be in Seattle on Nov. 17.

Leadership Tomorrow and CityClub will host a conversation with Drayton, chairman and CEO of Ashoka, moderated by Paul Shoemaker, executive director of Social Venture Partners. I won't have to travel far -- the event is being held in the Seattle Times Auditorium, 1120 John St., starting at 5 p.m.

By Sandi Doughton

Lancet editor Dr. Richard Horton joked that his lecture at the University of Washington Monday night would be "metrics-free," but the outspoken Brit couldn't help making the case for better data to guide global health and development programs.

Many of the current darlings of philanthropy, such as microcredit, have little solid evidence to back them up, Horton said. One recent study in the Philippines concluded that the small loans did not improve community well-being and actually led to contraction of small businesses.

"These fashions that grip us in waves ... when you actually end up looking at the data can often seem to be very, very thin," he said.

When the book "Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There's a Better Way for Africa," argued that $1 trillion in international aid has only increased corruption, war and poverty, the development community had little to offer in rebuttal, Horton told the audience of faculty and students.

"We have badly failed to gather data on what a trillion of aid has done."

UW global health professor Steven Gloyd said he picked Horton to present the Steven Stewart Gloyd endowed lecture partly because of the UK-based Lancet's courage in publishing controversial papers, including one that estimated 650,000 civilians have been killed in the Iraq war, and one by researchers at the UW's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that found many childhood vaccination numbers were inflated.

Horton, who works closely with IHME, is known for poking at the powerful, including the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment. His journal recently published a critique of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's accountability and emphasis on technological solutions to global health problems.

But like everyone else in global health, the Lancet has received money from the giant philanthropy: $200,000 to publish a series on maternal and child mortality.

Horton said he'd like to see universities like the UW provide a forum where data on development and global health can be freely available - and critically evaluated.

The UW can also provide a counterbalance to Seattle's global health giant, the Gates Foundation, Horton said.

"I would hate it if Seattle was only seen as the center of technology in global health. The university can provide that added perspective to what comes out of the Northwestern U.S., and that's absolutely critical."

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.

My story today tells about Jessica Markowitz, who at age 11 began a charity to help girls in Rwanda after she learned about a genocide that wiped out many of their parents.

She sends 22 girls to a rural school and is working on building a library there, using prize money she won for her efforts.

Two things seem to have been lost on some readers -- first that she is working with a local organization in Rwanda (FAWE), supporting them to take on the issue in their own country. That kind of grassroots social change can be much more profound than sending money from overseas.

LORI MARKOWITZ

Jessica spent time teaching English this summer to girls at a rural school she and her classmates are supporting in Rwanda.

And secondly that seeing the way kids live in places like Rwanda actually provides an invaluable of education for an American student. Kids in the U.S may have the kind of material wealth that is unimaginable to people in developing countries. Yet there is also an emptiness that leaves teenagers here sullen and depressed.

To experience what life is like in a poor country different from her own not only opens the eyes of girls like Jessica, it gives them a lifelong understanding of what philanthropy can do, which is worth much more than a $1,500 plane ticket. It creates a citizen who understands and appreciates her country all the more and its potential in the world. Seeing the fruits of her labor taking shape in the form of happier, smarter students trains a future social entrepreneur.

As Jessica said, the project has benefited her and her classmates as much as it has the girls overseas.

"A really nice thing happens when we tell people what we're doing," she said. "They say 'I never knew we could do something like that.' They jump in."

As for Rwanda itself, the country has made incredible strides in recent years, but with a war on its border and the global economic downturn reducing investment, its progress is fragile.

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.

Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and co-author of the book Half the Sky, said the inhuman reality many girls face in the world became crystal clear when he purchased two girls from a brothel in Cambodia for about $200 each, and was given receipts.

"It's no exaggeration to talk about this as truly slavery," he said, speaking to the World Affairs Council tonight at Town Hall.

At the peak of the transatlantic slave trade, about 80,000 people were sold. Today there are 800,000 women and girls being trafficked around the world, he said.

Anywhere from 60 million to 100 million girls have disappeared from the world's population because of female infanticide and inadequate care for girls' health, Kristof said, showing photos of a skeletal child being treated in a feeding center, whose brothers were well fed and healthy.

"Every kid in the feeding center was a girl," Kristof said.

But he argued that even small interventions can transform the situation, and education is the best place to focus resources.

The U.S. has spent $11 billion in aid to Pakistan since 9/11, money which has accomplished "next to nothing," he said. If some of it had gone to education, the impact would be felt by now.

Bangladesh, by contrast, invested in girls education after it split off from Pakistan. Now there are more girls in school than boys, the country is doing relatively well and tackling its remaining problems with home grown solutions such as microcredit.

Supporting local grassroots movements for female education and economic opportunity is one way Americans can encourage change without forcing their cultural values on others, he said.

He finds the rise of social entrepreneurs a revolution that will change the world.

People want to engage in causes larger than themselves because it makes them happy, he said. Asked how he remains hopeful in the face of so much suffering, Kristof said it's because he witnesses so many selfless acts by people working in terrible conditions to save lives.

But when he comes back and sees "people who express their humanity by buying the latest car or having the latest iPod -- that is truly depressing," he said.

He advised young people to travel abroad, go outside their comfort zone, be embedded in the home of a local family.

Some people ask him why we should care about the fate of people in other countries many miles away.

"When you actually see a girl in a Cambodian brothel with her eye gouged out you don't ask that question."

What happened to the girls he bought out of slavery five years ago? Kristoff said he stayed in touch and still visits them. One is married to a good husband who doesn't know her past. The other went back to the brothel temporarily to feed her meth addiction, and later married a police officer. But now the brothel no longer exists. U.S. government pressure on Cambodia to crack down on trafficking made it risky and expensive, so the proprietor turned it into a grocery store.

Philanthropic efforts, when combined with the possibilities of the Internet, are producing interesting hybrids, and crowdsourcing ideas for development is one of them.

The Peace Corps is testing such an approach with Africa Rural Connect (ARC), an online community where creativity and global collaboration are the goals, and the best ideas can win $20,000 in funding. See the current top 10 ideas here. Oct. 15 is the deadline for submitting projects for the current contest.

PEACE CORPS

Molly Mattessich, pictured at right during her Peace Corps service in Mali, with her host, Niama Keita. She now manages an online site to take global ideas and apply them to problems she saw firsthand as a volunteer.

Anyone can submit an idea, endorse existing ideas and suggest improvements to them.

Hosted by the National Peace Corps Association, the site connects over 200,000 current and returned Peace Corps volunteers, African Diaspora, non-profit leaders, technology buffs and anyone else who has a solution for Africa's development challenges.

It uses a software called Wegora, designed to encourage a global exchange of ideas.

"We are excited about the caliber of ideas that have been posted on the site so far and we're really seeing the Wegora technology help foster a whole new way of thinking online about these types of issues," says Molly Mattessich, manager of Africa Rural Connect and a former Peace Corps volunteer in Mali. "The volume of posts from people and groups around the world has steadily increased and we hope to see that trend continue in the coming months."

The University of Washington again led the nation in the number of Peace Corps volunteers last year, with 104. Washington state has had more Peace Corps volunteers (8,087) than any other state except California and New York. A blending of humanitarian idealism with innovative technology seems to characterize perfectly this region's strengths.

Another such experiment with funding charity based on the wisdom of the crowd is Paul Buchheit's Collaborative Charity project.

Buchheit, the lead developer of Google's Gmail and founder of FriendFeed, introduced his project by declaring "I'm going to donate a bunch of money, but I want random people on the Internet to decide where it goes."

So far he has received 18,968 votes on 419 ideas from 3,274 people. Among the most popular ideas was the Talking Book project (with brightly colored Talking Books pictured above) by Seattle-based non-profit Literacy Bridge.

Jeff Raikes, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's chief executive, once said he learned about computer programming at Stanford in order to help his brother, Ron, who was running the family farm in Nebraska.

The two brothers bought an Apple II and programmed it to handle the farm's accounting. Jeff Raikes went on to work at Apple and then spent 27 years at Microsoft, while his older brother Ron remained at home in Nebraska to head a large cattle operation and grow corn, soybeans and wheat.

It was at the family farm where Ron Raikes died in an accident Saturday after getting caught under a piece of farm equipment. His funeral will be held today in Lincoln.

Ron Raikes became a state senator in 1997 and served for 11 years. He earned a doctorate in agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis and taught agricultural economics at Iowa State University before taking over the helm of the farm from his father in the late '70s.

The younger Raikes, who had thought he would return to rural Nebraska but stayed in Seattle, now heads the world's largest private foundation helping shape agricultural development around the world.

Deborah Jacobs went from helping build Seattle's state-of-the-art Central Library to visiting libraries overseas with no heat or running water and budgets as low as $30 a month.

In her first year on the job at the Gates Foundation, she has directed an expanding program called the Global Libraries Initiative, which aims to improve free access to computers and the Internet in public libraries.

Today she is presenting a $1 million prize to a foundation in Medellín, Colombia, for its innovative use of technology in libraries to promote community development.

GREG GILBERT/SEATTLE TIMES

After more than a decade as City Librarian in Seattle, Deborah Jacobs now manages the global libraries program at the Gates Foundation.

In her travels over the past year Jacobs said she has seen "absolute heroism and commitment to what libraries can do," in places where "librarians are having to close the door to go across fields to their house to get warm water or go to the toilet or wash their hands."

"A million dollars feels like a lot of money to a library system," she said.

The Fundación Empresas Públicas de Medellín, or EPM Foundation, won the Gates 2009 Access to Learning Award.

The network of 34 libraries is part of a regional initiative to use technology to increase the transparency of government, create a competitive business environment and improve education. It serves patrons from low-income communities where people have no computers at home.The network includes five library parks throughout the city that serve as cultural centers with educational resources and training programs for how to use computers and the Internet.

The EPM Foundation's efforts have contributed to the revitalization of Colombia's second largest city, Jacobs said, and its work can be a model for other communities.

"As a librarian I really recognize that libraries with computers can open the doors to people, help people feel a sense of inclusion and greater connection with the broader world," she said. It has also made libraries busier than ever.

The number of library visitors in Medellín's network has jumped from 90,000 to more than 500,000 per month, and the program has helped reduce the individual-to-computer ratio from 140:1 in 2005, to 47:1 in 2008, according to the Gates Foundation.

The EPM program will use the Gates award to increase its library network, develop additional training programs and expand its services.

Apart from the annual award, the Gates Foundation has made about $230 million in grants to library programs in 10 countries as part of its Global Development program -- in Chile, Mexico, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Vietnam, Poland, Botswana, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

Unlike other programs where applicants themselves submit requests for grants, the foundation first identifies a country whose library system is suitable for the Gates program, Jacobs said, and then foundation representatives begin contacting government officials. The Gates Foundation targets countries making investments in their public library systems.

"The government has to show generally they are willing to prepare buildings for new technology," she said, which could include putting in new roofs and heating systems, bringing in furniture and providing last-mile Internet connectivity to the building. "We're seeing governments are really beginning to understand the importance of technology in their towns even under bad economic times."

In some cases, the library funding overlaps with other Gates Foundation work, such as financial services, agriculture and health. In Botswana, the global library initiative works in tandem with a comprehensive AIDS program that is also funded by the Gates Foundation, she said. The Botswana libraries offer books and training on HIV prevention and even provide condoms.

COURTESY OF THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION/PATRICIA RINCON

Professor Alejandro Lobo Santamaria helps students practice their computer skills in a library created inside a series of donated train cars. The program received a $1 million award this week from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. .

The Gates global library program has a partnership with Microsoft, which has donated software to all 10 countries where the Gates Foundation has made grants, totaling about $30 million.

After the Gates Foundation makes the grant for computers and training, the country has an option to request a donation of software from Microsoft, said Tom Murphy, public relations director for Corporate Citizenship at Microsoft. All of the libraries have taken the offer of software, made through Microsoft's technology donations program for non-profits, he said.

This post was written by Linda Shaw

Two early-learning efforts -- one in the Seattle area and one in Yakima -- received another $8 million in funding from Thrive by Five Washington and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The White Center Early Learning Initiative and East Yakima's Ready by Five each will receive $4 million over the next year. Those donations follow first-round grants last year of $11.7 million to the White Center initiative, and $5 million to East Yakima.

Both initiatives are working to substantially increase high-quality learning opportunities for children from birth to age 5.

In the past year, the White Center Early Learning Initiative broke ground on an early learning center that will open this winter. It also started the Outreach Doula program, a home-visiting program that supports Somali and Latino families with health, child development, and early learning information.

The Yakima program worked with the Yakima School District to bring kindergartners to school two weeks early to help them get acquainted with their teachers, classmates, routines and expectations. It also started a monthly program to help parents learn more about how to help their children learn.

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.

Can Vittana prove there is a viable commercial market for educational loans outside the U.S.? Amazon.com veterans are betting it can.

The Vittana Foundation is a fledgling non-profit that aims to bring student loans to developing countries through person-to-person micro-lending.

While microcredit has made great strides, says Vittana CEO Kushal Chakrabarti, it hasn't lifted poor entrepreneurs into the middle class. That's usually left to the next generation, so the first chance borrowers get, they send their kids to school. He wants to make that step easier.

KRISTI HEIM

Kim Rachmeler (left) is a former Amazon.com executive who now advises and invests in the educational non-profit Vittana, started by Kushal Chakrabarti (right) and Brett Witt. .

Making small loans to poor entrepreneurs has been so successful (at least financially) that it has spawned microfinance institutions around the world and investment by commercial banks such as Citibank and Deutsche Bank.

Student loans, however, are not common outside the U.S. and Europe.

"There isn't capital flowing in because the model isn't being proven, and the model isn't being proven because capital isn't flowing in," said Chakrabarti, 26, a former Amazon.com engineer.

He and fellow Amazon.com veteran Brett Witt are hoping to use Vittana to show that loaning money to students in developing countries for education is a good investment.

And their former colleagues and managers are backing them.

Kim Rachmeler spent 10 years at Amazon.com as a vice president and senior executive responsible for everything from worldwide customer service to global supply chains.

She has been a big supporter of sites such as DonorsChoose and Kiva. With Vittana she saw a chance to get involved early on as a major backer.

Rachmeler joined Amazon when it had only 500 employees, building the company and striving to prove the online retail model.

Back then "everything we did was betting the company," she said.

After retiring from Amazon.com two years ago, she said "I don't have that shot of adrenaline every day," but backing a non-profit technology venture with big ambitions, "I get to experience a little bit of that again. It's an opportunity to make the world a better place."

The challenge is helping Vittana grow big enough to be self sustaining during the worst recession anyone has experienced.

Former Amazon executive Joel Spiegel is also supporting Vittana, along with his wife, daughter and son, who is one of the non-profit's seven volunteers.

In an art gallery near South Lake Union, several dozen people gathered recently to listen to Chakrabarti pitch the Vittana concept in an effort to raise more funds.

He tells them the story of a student in Peru putting himself through law school by working a year, then studying a year, then working another year to save tuition.

"People find amazing ways of scraping it together," he said. "Some people make it; some people don't."

Vittana offers loans to send a student to school for a year in Peru, Nicaragua or Paraguay for less than $1,000. It works through local microfinance institutions (MFIs) such as Fundacion Paraguaya, to administer the loans. The money cycles from the individual lender to Vittana to the MFI to the student and back. The MFI charges borrowers interest on the loan of about 10 to 15 percent APR to cover its operating costs.

People attending the presentation wanted to know how long it would take to be repaid (in three years lenders get back the loan amount but without interest), and how Vittana can stay in business since it's not taking a cut of the loan. Vittana plans to support its operations through donations, which it will request and handle separately from the loans, similar to Kiva's model.

The non-profit has already drawn interest and investment from Facebook, which chose Vittana to participate in its incubator program.

"People have this image of what a poor person looks like." said Chakrabarti. "They should be wearing rags. They should be living in huts."

That's not always the case, he said. Students Vittana has helped fund have jobs at radio stations, they spend time on the Internet, they study banking and chemistry, and they dream big.

The country is facing a new and painful economic crisis, but "we've been in an education crisis for decades," Bill Gates told a conference of lawmakers today.

Educational performance at every level, from primary school to college, is dropping against the rest of the world, he said. The United States has fallen from No.1 to No.10 among industrialized nations in college graduation rates.

And U.S. high school graduation rates have not improved for 40 years, said Gates, who is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More than 30 percent of all students drop out, including almost half of minority high school students.

MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, is calling on lawmakers to reform education and raise graduation rates.

"Success in this century will depend on how well America does what we have so far done very badly -- give low-income and minority students a world-class education," Gates said in a speech at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Philadelphia.

Difficult times can often spark needed reforms, he added.

He called on lawmakers to use $100 billion in federal stimulus money to change the way schools are run, creating new ways to measure and reward graduation rates instead of enrollment rates, for example, and tracking which colleges prepare students best for the job market.

"Colleges are not entitled to escape scrutiny at a time of a plunging educational performance and permanent fiscal pressure," Gates said.

He also advocated linking financial incentives such as state funding, financial aid and other programs to school performance.

Adding financial incentives for graduation can encourage colleges to offer schedules that make more sense for students who have to work, courses and counseling that guide students toward specific job goals and more innovative use of technology, such as online lectures, Gates said.

Teachers play the most important role in student achievement, so effective teachers should be identified and rewarded.

"We reward teachers for things that do not identify effective teaching -- like seniority and master's degrees," Gates said.

He criticized a law passed last year in New York that bars student test scores from being considered in teacher tenure decisions.

"That was a strategic win for people who oppose reform -- because no real reform will happen until we can evaluate teachers based on their students' achievement."

Gates encouraged lawmakers to support the state-led Common Core State Standards Initiative as a way to create higher standards for students across the country.

Linking common standards to curriculum can unleash creativity in new teaching materials, such as online tools and videos of every required course, he said. Gates said he and his wife have used online videos to help their own children with school work.

"Imagine having the people who create electrifying video games applying their intelligence to online tools that pull kids in and make algebra fun," he said.

The Gates Foundation has focused its U.S. grantmaking program on education, but its initial push for small schools produced mixed results and led to revamping of its strategy.

The foundation recently announced a new post-secondary initiative with a goal of doubling the number of low-income students in the United States who graduate from college or other post high-school programs by 2025. The foundation is funding pilot programs at community colleges and technical schools to help low-income adults with full-time jobs get through college.

Of the $20 billion the Gates Foundation has given away over the past 15 years, about $5.2 billion has gone into U.S. programs, mostly for education.

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.

This post was written by Hal Bernton

In Guangxi Province in southern China, a wealthy businessman who sells motorcycles has organized 20 volunteers who look after children and help clean the homes of the elderly.

It's a good program, said Luo Rixin, vice president of the Guangxi Regional Youth Federation. But it needs to get bigger and serve more people.

GREG BAKER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nike says consumers who buy its products want the corporation to shoulder social responsibility.

Luo is one 18 young Chinese leaders who visited to Oregon recently for an unusual weeklong seminar to find out more about how activists in America and elsewhere innovate for social change.

A new generation of Chinese leaders is looking for creative approaches to address poverty, pollution and other problems unleashed by the fierce juggernaut of growth.

There has been a lot of buzz about social entrepreneurs. But the concept sometimes gets lost in translation.

"This [the United States] is so different from China, which is government taking the lead," said Dong Xia, a deputy secretary general of the All China Youth Federation. Two years ago the group reached out to Portland-based Mercy Corps to organize the seminar.

Paul Dudley Hart, a Mercy Corps senior vice president, noted that America has lessons to learn from China as well. "You have taken more people out of poverty than any other country in history..." he said.

The training was originally scheduled for May of last year, then postponed by the earthquake that ravaged Sichuan Province. The tragedy unleashed a huge wave of volunteers in China as tens of thousands of people donated time and labor to the recovery. Yet the government keeps many civil society groups under strict control.

The seminar explored partnerships between non-profits and governments. The Chinese learned how U.S. organizations sometimes hire lobbyists to gain funding from Congress. Zhou Mi, vice president of the Chongqing Municipal Youth Federation, wanted to know how much that lobbyist costs.

At the end of a day, there was also time set aside for a more familiar activity: shopping. The group received a special invite to the Nike employee store.

Read a longer report about the Chinese efforts to understand social entrepreneurship, with photos from the seminar, here.

Jingjing Zhang works for the first and only non-governmental legal aid organization focused on environmental issues in China. It's her job to go after polluters in court.

Zhang, litigation director for the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, is in Seattle for a few days, where she's giving a lecture at the University of Washington tonight and meeting with local organizations including EarthCorps, Earthjustice, Sightline and RDI. She was invited to UW as the Severyns-Ravenholt lecturer, named for Marjorie Severyns Ravenholt, a UW graduate who chronicled the development of Asia as a foreign correspondent. Zhang was a Yale World Fellow in 2008 and a visiting scholar at the Yale China Law Center.

COURTESY OF JINGJING ZHANG

Jingjing Zhang, one of China's top public interest lawyers, is an outspoken environmental advocate. She argues cases on behalf of pollution victims across the country.

At 39, she has been an outspoken environmental advocate for more than 10 years. She won a landmark legal victory against a company in 2005 when she represented farmers in Fujian Province, where a chemical factory released Chromium and killed their bamboo trees, took away their livelihood and made them sick.

It was the biggest environmental class action lawsuit in the country, representing more than 1,000 people. At every hearing, hundreds of farmers would show up in the courtroom, she said. Some had left their homes in the countryside days before and ridden to the city in a rented van.

The plaintiffs won compensation for damage to their livelihoods but not for their health.
Still it showed the power of the law could be wielded to protect citizens.

"We are facing this environmental disaster," Zhang said. "If you go to Beijing from the plane you see the whole city covered by yellow and brown air. This is our capital city. If you can't see clean air here, how can you expect industrial cities to be?"

Among NGOs in China, environmental groups are the most active, and public support for environmental protection is growing. The center offers free legal aid to the public and a telephone hotline for people suffering effects of pollution.

Chinese environmental law is actually very strong, Zhang said. "The problem is we have laws on paper. We lack implementation and enforcement. We lack action."

Chinese officials think clamping down too hard will sacrifice jobs, she said. Politicians fear losing control and suspect civil society groups of threatening the government. "They misunderstand," she said. "Our role is a bridge between citizens and the government."

Zhang is now pursuing a case against a huge state-owned iron and copper mining company in Guangdong Province, where heavy metal pollution has leached into groundwater and soil, polluting the river, fish and rice crops. The village has seen a surge in cancers of the liver and digestive system. Of 400 residents, 28 have died of such cancers since 1996 and many more have the disease, she said. The problem has likely spread beyond Guangdong, as rice is sold to other towns and provinces.

Taking on such entrenched business and government interests is a risky endeavor, she acknowledged. Her name Jingjing means be careful, the same characters in a Chinese idiom that translates: "When you walk on thin ice, you must be very careful."

It was given to her by her father, who was persecuted in the 1950s after he spoke out against the government.

But defending the environment isn't a task for the meek, and pollution is an issue without boundaries, she said. "Meeting people who share the same concerns, I feel I'm not working alone."

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.