Category Archives: charity

Grameen Bank Takeover in Bangladesh: Bad Economics.

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I wrote earlier about the great work of the Grameen Bank and the Grameen Foundation, groups I have supported for many years.  Founder M. Yunus invented the concept of “microloans”, a tactic that has been helping the poor for many years.   In 2006 Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize for this pioneering work.

Unfortunately the Bangladesh Government is now in a power play to take over the bank, jeopardizing the welfare of the millions of women and their families who benefit from the bank.

I’d encourage anybody interested in the well being of poor folks to write the government of Bangladesh here: info@pmo.gov.bd  , urging them to reconsider this bad takeover move.

Here’s the letter I wrote them in June , feel free to copy from it.    I think more important, however, is to write your Congressperson and your Senators to let them know this issue *matters to you*, and that the USA can stand against unwise bureaucratic power plays that will reduce the effectiveness of the Grameen Bank – perhaps even destroy it.

Here are contacts for your Congressperson:   http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Your Senator:  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm/

You don’t need to be Shakespeare here – just let them know you are concerned about the Grameen Bank Takeover and you’d like to know what they are doing about this.

At my son Ben’s commencement address the speaker did a great job of talking about the difference between “first world problems” and “developing world problems”.    Here, we fret over standing in line or the color of our clothes or the price of a fancy restaurant.    There, people worry mostly about feeding their kids, getting them schooling, or surviving   diseases that are virtually unknown in the USA.    Sure we have real problems too.    Health issues, abuse, education, and more.   But on average our challenges are far less than in most of the rest of the world and we can and should support efforts like Grameen that are building viable micro-economies based on free enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit.  These are super low cost, high ROI approaches to poverty and they deserve our support and our political klout.

… Hey, thanks!

Hope for Haiti Concert – Beyonce

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Donate Now: 1-877-99-HAITI in US/Canada, or go to www.hopeforhaitinow.org

http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/474738/beyonce-halo-live.jhtml

The music from this concert was pretty amazing, and if you buy it from iTunes it’ll help Haitians recover from what now appears to be one of the greatest natural disasters in many years.

There’s a lot of political discussion that should center around how to best help developing countries, but I think that should wait until after we address the emergency needs with water, food, medicines, and security. After that I hope we start an international discussion about what it takes to rebuild a failed state into the healthy and vibrant democracy people deserve to live in – the kind of country we in the USA take for granted.

Changing the world, one PR firm at a time

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The CES 2010 pitches are coming in strong now as John and I get ready to cover the year’s biggest technology event over at  Technology Report.

I was so happy today to see one of them signing off saying they were a proud supporter of the Room to Read Project, which is a major effort to work towards world wide literacy and education.   Readers of this blog know I’m a huge fan of that kind of project, and one of the reasons I’m very optimistic about the world’s future is that for I think the first time in history it’s become very, very “fashionable” to support global poverty reduction efforts in even the strongest bastions of capitalism (e.g. big time PR firms).

Now, cynics will suggest – correctly to some extent – that part of the motivation when capitalists support charity is to benefit from the positive buzz.    However I’m fine with that, and furthermore I’m *glad*  to see potential win-win economic relationships develop around charities like this.

Have a Merry Microloan Christmas

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This year I won’t be giving out more than a few tiny token presents to my friends and family, but I will be giving some of the best gifts I have ever given.   The Nobel prize winning efforts of the Grameen Bank have sponsored the poor with small loans to start businesses, and this tactic has proven to be one of the most effective poverty-fighting measures ever developed.

I hope you’ll consider gifts to Grameen or other charities as part of your happy holidays as well.     Grameen’s founder started the project with $27 business loans to poor businesses in India.      These were interest loans but historically have had a nearly 100% repayment rate.    The spectacular success of Grameen has also inspired other charities to approach development with more of an eye to entrepreneurship and small business and less of the “top down” mega project bureaucracies that have run into many problems as locals resisted them.     Small Business, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship is near and dear to the heart of many in the USA and I hope you’ll join me  in supporting Grameen with some green this Christmas.

Think about it –  $27 loans that often will positively reshape the lives of  entire families from this point forward.

More about Grameen.   If you are feeling *sassy*, you also might want to click to the right on the Grameen logo and donate via the Grameen page I just set up for a Christmas Campaign.     Frankly, if I was presented to this by anybody but a  friend I’d be a little concerned that the money would wind up at Grameen – they use a URL that is not easily recognizable as secure and connected to them.    But don’t let that deter you – just give at the Grameen Website in that case.

Acumen Fund’s Novogratz on Charlie Rose. Fighting Poverty with Profits.

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Charlie Rose was rocking today with two superb interviews that enhance and challenge our perceptions of how to think about the world’s most pressing problems of poverty and health in the developing world.  [yes, I realize the global economy is part of this massive problem equation and agree that fixing it is of primary importance to developing world as well as to those of us who live higher on the hog].

Jacqueline Novogratz, a former Wall Street Banker turned Venture Capital Do-Gooder, on her book “The Blue Sweater” and her personal and business adventures using microfinance and entrepreneurial innovations.   Brilliant:   http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/10176

Connecting poor and wealthy to solve pressing problems in developing world: Acumen invests in innovative projects around the world, using the power of entrepreneurial capitalism to solve pressing problems of human need.

These approaches to development and poverty reduction are *so powerful* and *so effective* that it’s painful to watch how many people get bogged down fretting about issues like privitization of water and corporations as evil. We must focus on what *works*, regardless of our ideology.  The best representatives of that approach are folks like Novogratz, Gates, Yunis, and many others who bring their business brilliancies to the challenges of international development.

Rose’s next guest was ethics professor Peter Singer on the ideas from his book “The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty”.   Singer notes the major success of the Gates Foundation and also the fact that  while most Americans tend to say they think “too much” tax money goes to international Aid yet fail to understand how small our contributions are to international development projects, and actually suggest we should send “about 5%” when the real amount is about 1%.     Also makes the case that international development is actually in our own selfish best interest, but for many is not in our *perceived* self interest.   http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10174

Microsoft wins on matching employee donations – way to go MS!

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 This in from Mercury news.   Kudos to Microsoft for this level of generosity, and Google and Yahoo should do *at least* this much!    C’mon Google, you of all companies owe it to the world to help your peeps give back from those fat paychecks and options!

Mercury News Item:

Company giving Microsoft boasts that it provides up to $12,000 in matching funds for employee donations to charity – far surpassing Google, Adobe, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo and eBay. It was the largest corporate giver to United Way Silicon Valley’s last campaign, with $1.2 million in employee and company matching gifts. About 60 percent of its employees donate, far surpassing the usual 20 percent of most valley companies, according to Mark Walker, president of United Way Silicon Valley.

LitLiberation

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LitLiberation is a new idea about raising money for charity.   Because of the “prizes” for top fundraisers I was thrown off a bit but when I saw the list of donation folks, which includes Matt Mullenweg and Marc Andressen, and saw the neat way they are having people help build schools in developing countries I thought I’d help point people to this great cause. 

A bit later…. I’m really warming up to this great idea because it is connecting donors to the recipients and I think that is a key thing that has been somewhat lacking in aid, and is one of the reasons it’s hard for people to support US aid projects and other charities where you don’t generally see the results of your contributions.   There is a practical reason for this – my understanding is that NGOs have to spend valuable resources arranging for visits and such.   However I think connecting donors to recipients is a key part of expanding the global reach of charities.

 I have not set up my own donation page but I just gave to this Vietnam “build a school” project  by the founder of the LitLiberation idea, Tim Ferriss:  http://www.firstgiving.com/timferriss

 From LitLiberation: 
…. 30-percent of rural children in developing countries aren’t enrolled in school. As one project, a group of people can choose to build a school for $17,000. When split among 10 friends, it breaks down to $1,700 each or $850 if 20 people contribute.  Those involved will provide education to tens of thousands of children, have their names forever associated with the school, and also enjoy the opportunity to visit it in the future.  

In conjunction with DonorsChoose.org and RoomToRead, Tim Ferriss formed LitLiberation to raise $1 million in 30 days, and in the process, help educate children around the world.

Described as a scalable education revolution, LitLiberation makes it incredibly simple for anyone to fund a specific project in developing countries or support U.S. public schools. It is the first time that anyone can, in five minutes, sign-up as a fundraiser and compete to raise money, winning world-class prizes in the process

Charity return on investment is important. Thanks World Vision!

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There are a great number of groups doing a lot of good in the world, and I’m concerned that *something* in the way we process information about poverty and health needs in the developing world has made us far too skeptical of how easy it can be to save lives, and far too skeptical of the groups that are doing a good job.

This in part leads to what I’d argue is an immoral state of affairs in the charity world. Most people in the USA give far more to University, Hospital, and Museum endowments than they give to organizations serving the third world that are saving lives for a few bucks rather than simply making our already very comfortable middle class lives a *bit* better. I guess that’s OK but I’ll take the big ROI on my charity investments, thank you.

It feels very good knowing your money is actually saving lives, living because I chose to give to high ROI charities.

The simple story is that it costs very little to save lives in the developing world. Although it’s a little counterintuitive it’s also clear that reduced death rates lead to reduced birth rates and lower population. I’m floored by how poorly this is understood by otherwise intelligent people, and it seems to be the top reason people say they don’t want to give money to extremely poor people. Graft and corruption are major problems in the third world which is why you want to give to “NGOs” or “non-governmental organizations” which tend to be far more effective at making sure the money finds its way to the right people.

So, let’s apply this ROI in real life and give some money in honor of my Mother’s birthday today. I think charities like World Vision do a lot of good but also suffer from the kind of fatigue people show when presented with a lot of “dying children” information. This is unfortunate because World Vision leverages cheap and free expertise to deliver a lot per donated dollar. Here is the campaign mom likes:

Major pharmaceutical companies have recently donated over $174 million in medicines and supplies to World Vision.
But we need your help to distribute them where they’re needed most.

The medicine is Mebendazole and some others that fight worms and intestinal viruses – one of the leading killers in the developing world. World Vision has the meds but needs money to ship them. The “multiplier” in this case is 13x – ie a donation of a mere 7.7 cents delivers – literally – a dollar of medicines.

So, time to stop writing and do some good and give $770 dollars to this campaign for a health impact of just over $10,000!

Donor Name: Joseph Hunkins
Donation Total: $770.00
Donation Date: 27-Sep-2007
Completed Date: 27-Sep-2007
Payment Type: 
Credit Card Type:

Happy Birthday Mom!

World Vision
KIVA
Unicef


Save the Children

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Charlie Rose is hosting Cokie Roberts of ABC news and former Senator Bill First who both are working for children around the world as part of the superb efforts of “Save the Children” which is working for global health, poverty, and education for all children.  Roberts is pointing out the fact that is routinely and tragically overlooked – helping reduce poverty in the developing world will *decrease* births and is thus likely to *increase* standards of living for everybody.     Many fiscal conservatives fail to “do the math” on global development – an excersize that leads you to fund development efforts at very high levels rather than funding military efforts which generally have very dubious returns on the investment.

Frist, when asked why he wasn’t running for President, said he wanted to focus on his work to save children for the next few years.  Bravo to him and to Save the Children for this excellent work.

American Express Members Project – finding and funding a good idea

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IMPORTANT:  This blog is NOT  The Members Project Website.   Go HERE for the official site.

The American Express Members Project is a really neat idea – members will submit and review “good deed” types of projects and American Express will fund the winning project up to 5 million. It’s so great to see that the new corporate standard is to step UP to the plate and do really good, really big things. It’s also (finally) considered very hip and cool to do good things, and that’s …. cool.