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Channel: Philanthropy – Your Mark On The World

Rotary CEO Says Rotary Will End Polio And Do So Much More

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Rotary General Secretary John Hewko was recently given the additional title of Chief Executive Officer, which didn’t change his job description so much as it gives clarity to his role, especially for those outside the organization.

John is passionate about ending polio—and not just because that’s his job. For the past eight years, he has traveled to Tuscon, Arizona to participate in a 106-mile bike ride known as El Tour De Tuscon. Over the years, he and other Rotarians have raised over $50 million for the fight.

From his desk, John has a view of Rotary International that is uniquely broad and all-encompassing. No one knows more about the wide-ranging work Rotary does from local park projects around the world to international projects undertaken collaboratively among clubs from different parts of the world to address critical problems like clean water and maternal and child health.

Rotary is also working, he says, to create a new membership model that will allow people to join Rotary International without joining a local club. Tune in to the full interview to get more from John’s perspective.

Interview with John Hewko, the General Secretary of Rotary International.

The following is the pre-interview with John Hewko. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.

What is your personal or professional connection to polio?

Polio eradication has been Rotary’s top philanthropic goal for more than 30 years, and with our partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), we’ve made tremendous progress by reducing instances of the disease by 99.9 percent. Eradicating polio will be one of the greatest public health achievements in history, and polio will be only the second human disease in history to be eradicated (the first was smallpox).

Where are you presently focused?

Rotary and its partners are focused on pushing steadily towards our goal of a polio-free world. We must sustain our progress to date as well as ensure our efforts have the political and financial support necessary to ending polio for good.

Rotary does this in part through the recognition of annual milestone moments in time such as World Polio Day and El Tour de Tucson, a cycling event we participate in to fundraise for polio eradication. This year, I’m looking forward to riding in my eighth El Tour with fellow Rotary members and colleagues and to honoring our GPEI partner, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for their ongoing support. Thanks in part to the Gates Foundation’s funding support, Rotary has contributed $2 billion to polio eradication efforts to date, and we are close to bringing polio to extinction.

How do we get from where we are to total polio eradication?

It is crucial that we remain optimistic about the future and continue raising the funds and awareness necessary to support an end to polio. I encourage you to visit endpolio.org to find out how you can make an impact.

More about Rotary International:

Twitter: @Rotary @EndPolioNow

Facebook: facebook.com/rotary

Instagram: @rotaryinternational

Website: rotary.org endpolio.org

Rotary brings together people of action from all continents and cultures who deliver real, long-term solutions to the world’s most persistent issues. Each year, Rotary members contribute millions of dollars and volunteer hours to promote health, peace and prosperity in communities across the globe. Rotary is the driving force behind efforts to eradicate polio. With its partners, they have achieved a 99.9 percent reduction in polio, with less than 35 cases reported in 2018 compared with 350,000 a year three decades ago. 

John Hewko. Photo Credit: Rotary International

John Hewko’s bio:

Twitter: @JohnHewko

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/johnhewko

John Hewko has served as Rotary International’s general secretary since 2011. A charter member of the Rotary Club of Kyiv, Ukraine, Hewko lives out Rotary’s mission, whether inside or outside the office. He’s immunized children against polio in India, represented Rotary at the World Economic Forum, and bicycled 104 miles (167 km) with Rotary members in Arizona, USA, to help raise over $13 million for polio eradication. “It’s an honor to go the extra mile in serving this great organization. I see Rotary as the original social network formed to exchange ideas and resources so we can transform lives. We’re a bold NGO that believed it could end a disease, and we’ve stuck to the cause for over three decades. That thought inspires me every morning.”


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Social Equity Activist Launches Incubator For Cannabis Entrepreneurs And Victims Of The War On Drugs

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This post was originally produced for Forbes.

The landscape for marijuana sales is shifting so rapidly it is difficult for those who aren’t actively keeping track of state laws across the United States to know where it is legal.

Marijuana is fully illegal like it was in the 1970s in the whole country in only nine states. Most states have either legalized it, legalized medical marijuana or have decriminalized marijuana use. State policies will sometimes surprise you. Even in conservative Utah where I live, medical marijuana use is legal (though highly regulated). Eleven states and the District of Columbia have fully legalized marijuana.

The shifting sands have a tragic even if ironic outcome. In many places where marijuana is now legal, people are serving time or have served time in prison for activities that are now legal. Their records could haunt them forever.

Rashaan Everett, 24, is a cannabis entrepreneur who successfully launched a production and distribution business in California called Good Tree. In under two years, the business has generated $3.5 million, $2.2 so far this year, and he says the business is profitable.

Rashaan Everett CREDIT: GOOD TREE

Recently, he spun out the technology he uses in the Good Tree business to allow other cannabis entrepreneurs to license it as well. The new business is called Growing Talent. The new business will also operate an incubator to train the licensees.

Some of those entrepreneurs will receive training at a deep discount. Instead, the “equity partners” will get their training in exchange for equity in their respective businesses. To qualify for the program, the entrepreneurs must be people of color who were adversely impacted by the war on drugs for committing—or being closely related to someone who committed—then criminal acts related to marijuana.

Growing Talent is now raising money on Republic.co, a FINRA-registered crowdfunding portal. Under Regulation Crowdfunding, the startup can raise up to $1,070,000 from ordinary investors anywhere in the country. The offering has garnered over $100,000 in support in just a few weeks. Investors don’t need to be “accredited” under SEC standards of wealth to participate in the offering.

Everett says, “As more and more states legalize cannabis, there is a huge opportunity to cultivate and train entrepreneurs of color, especially those affected by the war on drugs, so they can begin to sell, manage, analyze, and expand their businesses under a nationally recognized brand.”

The cannabis issue again leapt to the nation’s consciousness in recent weeks, when former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he opposed full federal legalization of marijuana and Senator Cory Booker famously quipped to Biden, “I thought you must have been high when you said it.”

Earlier this week, the FDA updated its official position on cannabidiol or CBD, the marijuana extract that contains virtually no THC, the chemical that creates the high that recreational users seek. Products containing CBD have proliferated in recent years and are now big business. The update includes the dire language, “CBD has the potential to harm you, and harm can happen even before you become aware of it.”

Everett says, “It’s slightly disingenuous of the agency to use such an alarming tone which startled the public (markets) without the emergence of new facts. Still, transparency around risks, manufacturing, and distribution is the only real solution moving forward. The FDA’s statement reveals the need for proper research, clinical trials, and most importantly – regulation.”

“We need to deschedule so that we can learn more,” he adds, referring to removing marijuana from the Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of Schedule I controlled substances, those with no “currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” that also includes heroin and LSD.

The crazy quilt, state-by-state approach to marijuana regulation in conflict with Federal law has odd effects. For instance, Good Tree, Everett’s marijuana production and distribution business can’t avail itself of Regulation Crowdfunding because Federal law still outlaws marijuana sales. But Everett believes, and Republic.co apparently agrees, that Growing Talent can.

One of the key issues the country must address, is how to treat people whose experience with the criminal justice system was related to their use or distribution of marijuana, something that is now legal in a dozen places. Everett is tackling this head on with his incubator program designed for them.

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This Mom Has Raised $175 Million To Fight Cancer In Honor Of Her Daughter

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Alex Scott never remembered a time she didn’t have cancer, having been diagnosed before her first birthday. She died at age eight. During her lifetime, Alex led efforts to raise over $1 million to fight childhood cancer. 

Her mother, Liz Scott, has continued the effort inspired by her daughter. The organization she inspired has now raised $175 million to fight cancer, about $25 million this year. 

As we approach the end of the run of the Your Mark on the World Show, I invited Liz to return to the show to provide an update as her inspiring story remains one of my favorites.

Interview with Liz Scott, the Co-Executive Director of Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.

The following is the pre-interview with Liz Scott. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.

For-profit/Nonprofit: 501(c)3 Nonprofit

Revenue model:

ALSF generates revenue through supporter donations, partnerships with local and national businesses and by hosting special events.

Scale:

ALSF now has more than 50 employees and generates about $25 million annually

What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it?

ALSF’s goal is to find a cure for cancer. In the meantime, ALSF is funding research to help provide better, less toxic treatments to children with cancer.

More about Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation:

Twitter: @alexslemonade

Facebook: facebook.com/alexslemonade

Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/alex’s-lemonade-stand-foundation/

Website: www.alexslemonade.org

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) is changing the lives of children with cancer by funding impactful research, raising awareness, supporting families and empowering everyone to help cure childhood cancer. Founder Alexandra “Alex” Scott (1996-2004) was diagnosed with neuroblastoma just before her first birthday. When she was going through treatment at the age of 4, she decided she wanted to host a lemonade stand to raise money for other children fighting cancer. Word spread, and that first front-yard stand raised $2,000. Inspired even more, Alex thought that if everyone hosted a lemonade stand, together they could raise $1 million. Shortly before she passed away at the age of 8, she found out the $1 million mark was reached. Her parents, Liz and Jay Scott, decided to continue the efforts by making ALSF a non-profit. Today, ALSF is a leading national non-profit and has raised more than $175 million for childhood cancer research and funded more than 1,000 grants at 135 institutions in the U.S. and Canada. 

Liz Scott. Photo Credit: ALSF

Liz Scott’s bio:

Liz Scott is the Co-Executive Director of Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, but she is most proud of her title of “Mom” to three sons, Patrick, Eddie, and Joey, and daughter Alex. ALSF emerged from the front yard lemonade stand of Liz’s daughter, Alexandra “Alex” Scott (1996-2004). In 2000, 4-year-old Alex announced that she wanted to hold a lemonade stand to raise money to help find a cure for other children with cancer. In her lifetime, Alex would raise over $1 million before she passed away in 2004 at the age of 8. Since then, Liz and her husband Jay have worked alongside thousands of supporters across the country to carry on her legacy of hope. To date, ALSF has raised more than $175 million toward fulfilling Alex’s dream of finding a cure, funding over 1,000 pediatric cancer research projects nationally.  In addition to serving as the Co-Executive Director of ALSF, Liz also serves on the National Cancer Institute Pediatric Solid Tumor Steering Committee as well as the Editorial Advisory Board of Cancer Today.


The post This Mom Has Raised $175 Million To Fight Cancer In Honor Of Her Daughter appeared first on Your Mark On The World.

Gratitude Isn’t Just For Family And Friends

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This post was originally produced for Forbes.

In what has become the most universally observed holiday in America, the vast majority of us will sit down with family and friends today to celebrate Thanksgiving. In anticipation, I reached out to some of the most impactful business leaders in I know to get their take on gratitude as a business principle.

“Today, in particular, there are many options for people in terms of where to spend their time, talent and treasure,” says Tamra Ryan, CEO of the Women’s Bean Project, a nonprofit packaged food company in Denver that exclusively employs vulnerable women. “I believe we should be grateful when someone decides to spend any of those precious resources on or with us.”

Tamra Ryan CREDIT: WOMEN’S BEAN PROJECT

“I have learned that gratitude is a two-way street. The women we hire at the Bean Project are usually extremely grateful for the job and the opportunity to change their lives. And we are also grateful they have decided to take a leap of faith and make the commitment to us (and themselves) by coming to work every day and taking the steps toward change,” she says.

I believe we should be grateful when someone decides to spend any of their precious resources on or with us.

 – Tamra Ryan

She credits a spirit of mutual respect and thanksgiving for the fundamental success of the program. “The alchemy of mutual gratitude creates amazing results. Women realize they are worthy of a better life.”

The power of gratitude in business isn’t limited to nonprofits.

Sara Hanks is the founder and CEO of CrowdCheck, a securities compliance technology company that helps issuers comply with the SEC’s Regulation Crowdfunding. She serves on the Crowdfunding Professional Association board with me.

Sara Hanks CREDIT: CROWDCHECK

“Knowing that a client or customer appreciates what you are doing strengthens the bond between you and makes it more likely that you will go the extra mile for them,” she says.

Knowing that a client or customer appreciates what you are doing strengthens the bond between you and makes it more likely that you will go the extra mile for them.

 – Sara Hanks

She shared a remarkable anecdote to make the point.

‘Years ago, as a partner in BigLaw, I was having a difficult time dealing with the lawyers on the ‘other side.’ Late at night, at the printers, my client came back from the baseball game with a small Yankees teddy bear and placed it in front of me. He appreciated my team’s work—gratitude on both sides. I still have the bear, although the client company is long gone.”

Felicity Conrad, another lawyer who made the leap to entrepreneur as the CEO and co-founder of Paladin, a tech platform that facilitates pro bono legal work, suggests that gratitude isn’t just something to be expressed after the fact.

Felicity Conrad CREDIT: PALADIN

“I believe that gratitude is a precondition for making authentic business decisions,” she says. “Gratitude is nothing more than having a healthy appreciation for the broader context you operate in—without that, I really don’t think a business can connect with its audience or achieve its desired impact.”

I believe that gratitude is a precondition for making authentic business decisions.

 – Felicity Conrad

Marcus Bullock has become a successful entrepreneur following his incarceration. President Trump recognized him at an event at the White House earlier this year. He is the founder of Flikshop, a mobile platform that allows users to snap a photo and instantly create a postcard to be sent to an incarcerated friend or family member—Instagram for a population with no connection to the internet.

Marcus Bullock CREDIT: KK OTTESEN

“We have to be intentional about showing gratitude to our customers for trusting us with their photos, as well as to our team members who give so much of their lives to our company’s purpose,” he says.

We have to be intentional about showing gratitude to our customers for trusting us with their photos, as well as to our team members who give so much of their lives to our company’s purpose.

 – Marcus Bullock

“Our users are experiencing some of the hardest times of their lives while a loved one is incarcerated. When someone goes to jail or prison the entire family goes to prison,” He continues. “We want to help show that there is some form of humanity while they go through this…even if it’s just to donate a few Flikshop credits to their children.”

Aria Finger is the CEO of the nonprofit DoSomething.org that activates young people through social media to do something good for the world.

Aria Finger CREDIT: DOSOMETHING.ORG

“When I think of gratitude, I think of gratitude in the context of my incredible employees! I run a non-profit so I might not be able to make them rich, but I can thank them for their incredible work. I probably don’t do it enough but a simple, heartfelt ‘thank you’ can go so far in letting people know how much you value them.”

A simple, heartfelt ‘thank you’ can go so far in letting people know how much you value them.

 – Aria Finger

She uses an example from her home life to make the point that people need to experience gratitude at work, too.

“When you’re at home and you do the dishes, you don’t expect anything but if you get a “thank you” from your husband, you are so much more likely to do them again the next day and feel good about it,” she says. “Why should business be any different? We’re all humans and we all want to be recognized for our hard work!”

Carrie Romano is one of the most successful nonprofit CEO’s in Utah, having raised millions of dollars for two different nonprofits, the YWCA and the Ronald McDonald House Charities Intermountain Area, for large capital projects. In her current position at the Ronald McDonald House, she led the effort to raise the money necessary to more than double the size of the house (now the size of a significant hotel).

Carrie Romano CREDIT: RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE

“Gratitude is generative. We all want our work and our lives to matter. When people express and feel genuine gratitude – we work harder and better,” she says.

Gratitude is generative. We all want our work and our lives to matter. When people express and feel genuine gratitude – we work harder and better.

 – Carrie Romano

She sees a model of gratitude in the families the organization serves. “Every day we’re reminded of the fragility of life as we watch the courageous children and their warrior parents battling life-threatening illnesses. They feel and express gratitude for every moment together.”

“In addition, our mission is fueled by philanthropic support – people that give away their own treasure for a greater good, volunteers that give their time, and dedicated staff that bring the mission to life every day,” she says. “We grow our mission impact because we share gratitude.”

Christopher Soukup is the CEO for Communication Service for the Deaf, a nonprofit that provides relay communication services using video phones to translate between hearing and deaf people. He is a member of the community his organization serves.

Chris Soukup CREDIT: CSD

“Gratitude elevates business beyond the transactional,” he says. “It is a fundamental part of reciprocal business relationships.”

“When you make time to appreciate the people around you and the contributions they make, and give them opportunities to do more of what matters to them, you create a synergy between yourself, your employees, and your company’s purpose,” he adds.

Gratitude elevates business beyond the transactional. It is a fundamental part of reciprocal business relationships.

 – Christopher Soukup

He says, “Gratitude is vital to engagement, to creating the spirit and energy of togetherness as we work towards a common vision.”

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Gratitude Network Announces 30 Fellows For 2020 Cohort Of Changemakers For Children

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This post was originally produced for Forbes.

The Gratitude Network, a Bay Area-based leadership development organization led by serial entrepreneur, angel investor and venture capitalist, Randy Haykin today announced the selection of 30 fellows for the 2020 cohort of changemakers working to support children and youth around the globe.

The fellows are carefully screened over five months and are focused on at least one of three areas of work: education, health and wellbeing and children’s rights. The fellowship is a 12-month leadership development program that includes coaching and advice from experts, regular interactions with their cohort members, participation in a four-day leadership summit and visibility on the Gratitude Network website.

Prior to the cohort announced today, the Gratitude Network has had 80 fellows working in more than 30 countries around the world. More than 26 million children and youth are benefitting from the services of the fellows’ work.

The selection process began with 1200 applicants, from which 300 were chosen for a second-round screening yielding only 10% being finally chosen. The second-round applications are reviewed by a panel of 16 judges. The final step involves interviews with those judges.

Of the 30 fellows, five are focused on children’s health, 10 on children’s rights and 15 on education. Eleven are based in the U.S., five each in India and Nigeria, two in the U.K., and 1 each in Kenya, Uganda, Peru, Switzerland, Pakistan, Tanzania, Cameroon and Vietnam.

Here’s a list of the 30 new fellows in alphabetical order by the name of the organization. The information has been drawn from the applications with help from the Gratitude Network.

African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect Nigerian Chapter

African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) Nigeria is working to provide a child protection system for Nigeria and technology-based coordination of response to violence against children.

Elekwachi Chimezie Lekwas CREDIT: ANUGO OSADEBE PHOTOGRAPHY

Elekwachi Chimezie Lekwas

Lekwas has a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. In 2010, he was head of an NGO delegation to present Nigeria’s Alternative Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. He has been working at ANPPCAN for 14 years, rising from field officer to national program director of ANPPCAN.

Better Life Vietnam

Better Life Vietnam is a non-profit organization that works to improve education conditions for underprivileged children and youth in Vietnam.

Thinh Nguyen CREDIT: BETTER LIFE VIETNAM

Thinh Nguyen

Nguyen was born and raised in Hanoi, Vietnam and is passionate about human rights. Nguyen founded Better Life Vietnam (BLV) with the belief that access to education, food, clean water, healthcare and a decent quality of life are basic human rights. She has master’s degrees in International Law and Human Rights, and Political Sciences.

Clinic5 (School Health Initiative)

Through its School Health Services (health education, medical screening, first aid responder and infirmary in schools, access to pediatricians at our clinic), it is able to improve health outcomes in school-going children by merging the verticals of healthcare and education. It’s mission is to innovate and implement primary healthcare solutions for its ecosystem.

Dr. Selina Hasan CREDIT: CLINIC5

Dr. Selina Hasan

After working in a developed healthcare system (UK), the problems and possibilities that existed in healthcare in an under-resourced country like Pakistan became clear to Dr. Hasan. She wanted to do more high impact solution-oriented work in healthcare using health education and joined the organization to focus on sharing her clinical knowledge with school children and teachers.

Devatop Centre for Africa Development

Through advocacy, training, community projects, ICT, and educational services, Devatop Centre for Africa Development has trained and engaged over 2500 human rights advocates, sensitized 500, 000 children and youth, provided educational services and support to 1050 vulnerable children, and rescued victims of exploitation.

Joseph Osuigwe CREDIT: DEVATOP

Joseph Osuigwe

Osuigwe is an international human trafficking advocate, research, and author with the vision of raising young people as advocates and empowering them to be at the forefront of combating human trafficking, child abuse and other related human rights abuses. In 2018, he advised Germany Parliamentarians on better ways to tackle human trafficking and irregular migration and participated in U.S International Visitors Leadership Program.

Educate a Child in Africa

ECA’s mission is to support student achievement and school improvement in Africa through play and educational games and activities, family and community engagement.

Gideon A. Asaah CREDIT: EDUCATE A CHILD IN AFRICA

Gideon A. Asaah

Asaah is an Ashoka Fellow and social entrepreneur with over ten years of experience working with young people in Africa. As co-founder and chief operating officer of Educate a Child in Africa, Gideon is responsible for executing ECA’s projects in Africa.

Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children

Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children’s mission is to create a better life for all of Louisiana’s youth, especially those involved in or targeted by the juvenile justice system. It seeks to divest from the juvenile justice system and invest in community-based alternatives, including policies that transform the educational system into one that truly serves young people.

Gina Womack CREDIT: FAM. AND FR. OF LA’S INCARCERATED CHILDREN

Gina Womack

Womack was born and raised in Louisiana and is the executive director and co-founder of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children. She has worked on children issues for over 20 years and trained hundreds of parents to be advocates for their children and develop leadership skills. Gina is a 2015 United States Human Rights Network (USHRN) Fellow and 2011 Alston Bannerman National Fellow.

Generations For Peace

Generations For Peace empowers youth to lead and cascade sustainable change in communities experiencing conflict, through world-class free education in conflict transformation and the use of sport, art, advocacy, dialogue, and empowerment for peacebuilding.

Lindsay McClain Opiyo CREDIT: GENERATIONS FOR PEACE

Lindsay McClain Opiyo

Opiyo is the development and partnerships specialist and US representative for Generations For Peace. She holds a master’s degree from the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and has more than 12 years’ experience supporting community-led peacebuilding around the world.

Girl Child Art Foundation

GCAF’s mission is to provide a supportive environment that educate and inspire underserved girls in Africa using arts. GCAF programs seeks to address poverty, gender-based barriers and low self-esteem faced by girls by providing a platform for underserved girls to explore their inherent creative strength, life skills education and also earn a livelihood to support themselves and their families.

Blessing Onyejike-Ananaba CREDIT: GIRL CHILD ART FOUNDATION

Blessing Onyejike-Ananaba

As an artist, a social advocate, a transformational leader and social entrepreneur, Onyejike-Ananaba applies her wealth of experience in social advocacy, the art advocacy, education, youth friendly health initiatives and livelihood pathway options for young people—while preparing young leaders for tomorrow’s global stages. She has over 18 years’ experience working directly with over 80 communities in Nigeria focusing on education and empowerment for the girl child and youth.

Global Changemakers

Global Changemakers supports youth to create positive change towards a more fair, just and sustainable world. We do this through skills development, capacity building, mentoring and grants, and have supported young leaders advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 180 countries.

Katherine Hermans CREDIT: GLOBAL CHANGEMAKERS

Katherine Hermans

After receiving her MA, Hermans started out as a journalist working in the Netherlands, Japan and the USA, reporting on social and environmental issues. In 2014, she co-founded Global Changemakers, a Switzerland-based NGO that encourages youth to come up with solutions and consequently supports them to make their projects and initiatives become reality.

I Protect Me

I Protect Me offers sexual violence interventions in schools and in the community in South Africa, teaching women, children and vulnerable adults resilience and self-defense without the use of weapons, teaching them how to be resilient, to set their own boundaries and to respect the boundaries of others.

Monica Bennett CREDIT: I PROTECT ME

Monica Bennett

Bennett is committed to keeping children safe by empowering young people to resist abuse, thereby helping them to reach their full potential. She founded I Protect Me in 2013, teaching women, children and vulnerable adults resilience and self-defense without the use of weapons.

Involve Learning Solutions

Involve partners with low-income schools where they train and mentor senior school students to teach their juniors which develops future-ready skills in seniors and improves academic scores in juniors, thus tackling all the problems effectively through a single program.

Samyak Jain CREDIT: INVOLVE LEARNING

Samyak Jain

Jain heads the Program Design at Involve Learning Solutions and has always been passionate about solving real-life problems of the nation. He is an Avanti Fellow and a YES Foundation Fellow.

Jara

With 262 million children out of school, and 1 billion children in poverty, we are scaling quality education to out of school children in disaster-affected regions and refugee camps through personal education devices. The Jara Unit is a long-term viable alternative learning solution for students to learn anywhere at any time – in under-resourced classrooms and out of school. The Jara Unit enables a child to learn anywhere, anytime, with or without a classroom.

Soraya Fouladi CREDIT: JARA

Soraya Fouladi

Since she was a teenager, Fouladi has designed her life so that she could gain the skills to one day, make Jara a reality. After attending the United Nations school to gain a global education, she went to university for electrical engineering to understand how to build what is now the Jara Unit, where she also designed and manufactured products from prosthetics to wearables. In 2018, Jara won the first runner-up prize in Cisco’s Global Problem Solver Challenge and received the Entrepreneurship Scholar Award from Social Capital Markets.

Kantaya

Kantaya’s mission is to promote quality education and holistic development for children living in extremely impoverished communities in Peru.

Yessica Flores CREDIT: KANTAYA

Yessica Flores

Flores cofounded Kantaya in 2004. Driven by innovation and entrepreneurship, she leads the areas of fundraising, marketing, finance, strategic planning and the social business. In addition to her leadership in social initiatives, she has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and strategic planning at leading corporations in Peru. She was the recipient of a SOCAP Fellowship in 2019.

Lagos Food Bank

Its mission is to end hunger and malnutrition by providing for the immediate (nutritious meals) and long term needs (sustainable employment) of indigent families to improve their socio-economic status. It is committed to alleviating hunger and poverty by delivering nutritious food, basic healthcare services and self-sustenance programs to the most vulnerable in the society.

Michael Abolarinwa Sunbola CREDIT: LAGOS FOOD BANK

Michael Abolarinwa Sunbola

Sunbola has over ten years’ experience in the non-profit sector and is a legal practitioner by training with a master’s degree in law and arbitration. In 2015 he founded the first indigenous food bank (Lagos Food Bank) which has reached 86 rural communities with the assistance of over 7,000 volunteer-base in Lagos. In 2019, he participated in the Obama Foundation’s Leadership Training.

Learn Fresh (NBA Math Hoops)

Learn Fresh makes learning fun for all students. The organization improves engagement and achievement through innovative learning experiences, leveraging students’ passion points to inspire their STEM and social-emotional learning. Through its work, the organization explicitly strives to reach students who have historically been underrepresented in STEM fields, specifically girls, students of color, and students from low-income communities.

Nick Monzi CREDIT: LEARN FRESH

Nick Monzi

Monzi earned a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship and marketing management from Syracuse University, and completed his master’s degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he took an active role in growing the presence of education innovation on Harvard’s campus. As the co-founder of Learn Fresh, he has worked with global corporations, leading urban school districts, and national and regional after-school program providers to develop the Learn Fresh community program model.

Milaan Foundation

Milaan Foundation is a non-profit organisation which envisions an inclusive and equal world, where every girl has the knowledge, skills and social environment to pursue her dreams and explore her full potential. By 2030, Milaan will empower 10 million girls across India and build a movement of Girl Leaders with a thriving ecosystem of change-makers and networks.

Dhirendra Pratap Singh CREDIT: MILAAN FOUNDATION

Dhirendra Pratap Singh

Singh is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Milaan. Under his leadership, Milaan launched the Girl Icon Fellowship, a leadership development initiative for adolescent girls. He has also been a recipient of the Karamveer Puruskar and Youth Ambassador for Peace Award by Universal Peace Federation in 2007 and was most recently named an Action for India Fellow in 2019.

Music Life Skills And Destitution Alleviation (M-LISADA)

M-LISADA uses education, music, life skills and child protection to empower and transform vulnerable children and youth from the slums of Kampala so that they become self-reliant. M-LISADA created a children’s center, approved by the government of Uganda, which acts as a safe haven for the children.

Donia Emilly CREDIT: M-LISADA

Donia Emilly

Donia has worked with M-LISADA since 2013, initially as a volunteer, then rising in the ranks to act as the executive Director of M-LISADA Organization in 2017. She is an environmentalist with 9 years’ experience in various fields.

Panacea Project

The Panacea Project provides food and other essentials to the extremely vulnerable children such as the orphans, children of/on the street while also engaging in teaching secondary school students on various issues such as global citizenship, leadership and community service.

Oluwaferanmi Omitoyin CREDIT: PANACEA PROJECT

Oluwaferanmi Omitoyin

Omitoyin is a co-founder of the Panacea Project and currently is in his fifth year of medical school. He has been named a Young African Leaders Initiative Fellow and a UNITE 2030 Ambassador.

Project Commotion

Project Commotion’s Mission is to foster healthy development in children of all abilities through purposeful movement, play, and family and community relationships. Project Commotion’s movement-based programs deliver an innovative fusion of child-development, neuroscience, sensory-based and relationship-based practices, producing healthy physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive outcomes in children of all abilities (children with disabilities & typically-developing children).

Susan Osterhoff CREDIT: JOHNATAN URIBE

Susan Osterhoff

Osterhoff has 19 years of experience working with children in movement programs throughout the Bay Area. Susan has guided Project Commotion’s growth trajectory from the early days as a two-person operation offering sensory-based movement classes, to an organization serving 1,445 individuals annually through 5 program branches, including extensive partnerships throughout San Francisco.

Red Dot Foundation

Red Dot Foundation aims to make cities safer by encouraging equal access to public spaces for everyone especially women, through the use of crowdsourced data, community engagement and institutional accountability.

ElsaMarie DSilva CREDIT: RED DOT FOUNDATION

ElsaMarie DSilva

D’Silva is the founder and CEO of Red Dot Foundation (India) and president of Red Dot Foundation Global (USA). She is a 2019 Reagan Fascell Fellow, a 2018 Yale World Fellow and an alumna of the Stanford Draper Hills Summer School, the US State Department’s Fortune Mentoring Program, Oxford Chevening Gurukul and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Leadership Program. She is also a fellow with Rotary Peace, Aspen New Voices, Vital Voices and a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader.

ROYBI Inc.

ROYBI’s mission is to provide a personalized learning experience for every child, highlighting their unique abilities and interests. Roybi Robot is an AI-powered educational robot for children ages 3-7 in language learning and basic STEM skills.

Elnaz Sarraf CREDIT: ROYBI

Elnaz Sarraf

Sarraf is a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in technology, business, sales, and marketing. She has been named Female Entrepreneur of The Year, a Nasdaq Center Milestone Maker, and was included in the “Women of Influence” in Business Journal.

San Francisco Achievers

The mission of San Francisco Achievers is to support African-American young men in San Francisco to lead and thrive in higher education and beyond by closing the opportunity gap. The organization addresses the challenge through college scholarships, leadership training, and mentoring. Its students benefit from a community of support that starts with staff and extends to volunteers, businesses, and nonprofits throughout the Bay Area.

Duane Wilson CREDIT: SF ACHIEVERS

Duane Wilson

Wilson started his first business while in high school, when he realized he found great joy in advising youth on starting their own enterprises, and in empowering them to believe that they could achieve anything. Service is engrained in his life, illustrated by his status as a 2016 Chicago Defender Man of Excellence honoree and his foundation The Spirit of Philanthropy.

Saturday Art Class

Saturday Art Class is a non-profit education organization promoting life-skills, social emotional learning and character development in low-income schools of Mumbai. We aim to educate children about important values and life-skills to create more wholesome individuals who can better navigate their lives beyond the walls of the classroom.

Manasi Mehan CREDIT: SATURDAY ART CLASS

Manasi Mehan

Mehan co-founded Saturday Art Class in 2017 after completing a two year Teach for India Fellowship, in which she saw the need to integrate social emotional learning into classroom curriculum. Mehan has a master’s degree in sociology.

Shule Direct

Shule Direct improves learning outcome by creating access to its local and relevant content, developed according to the national curriculum and monthly market surveys of users’ learning needs that can be accessed anytime and anywhere on available technological devices.

Fatma Said Kauga CREDIT: SHULE DIRECT

Fatma Said Kauga

Kauga was born and raised in Tanzania and is very passionate about education as a tool to eradicate poverty in Africa and a strong believer in youth potential to bring positive change in the world. She is the recipient of the Young and Emerging Leaders Project Fellowship in 2019 and the Cordes Fellowship in 2018.

Society for Children (SOCH)

SOCH saves the lives of many innocent runaway, abandoned, trafficked, and missing children going into various difficult situations via counselling, address tracing, family reunion, and rehabilitation camps.

Manoj Kumar Swain CREDIT: SOCIETY FOR CHILDREN

Manoj Kumar Swain

Kumar received his master’s in social entrepreneurship, going on to found Society for Children, a nonprofit that has been recognized in many national and international platforms. In 2015, Society for Children won Best Children NGO award at Giving Back, Mumbai, and in 2016, Manoj was a winner at the India CSR Summit.

Soul Shoppe

Its mission is to create safe learning environments that bring forth a culture of compassion, connection and curiosity—eliminating bullying at the roots. Its innovative and interactive programs give the entire school community an experience of empathy, transforming not only the behaviors, but the very ways community members see each other.

Vicki Abadesco CREDIT: SOUL SHOPPE

Vicki Abadesco

Abadesco started Soul Shoppe in 2000 because she realized that young people have the desire and ability to be heard, understood, and mutually supportive if only they were given communication tools and teachings to thrive. She is a fellow for the Dalai Lama Center for Transformative Values & Ethics at MIT and the recipient of Packard Foundation/Ashoka Changemakers “Building Vibrant Communities: Activating Empathy to Create Change” Award.

The Commonwealth Education Trust

CET is built on the premise that education is the foundation for development. Its purpose is to advance primary and secondary education across the Commonwealth with a strong focus on teacher professional development. Teach2030 is the Commonwealth Education Trust’s (CET) innovation to improve foundational teaching skills, develop a culture of lifelong learning and digital literacy.

Kat Thorne CREDIT: THE COMMONWEALTH EDUCATION TRUST

Kat Thorne

Kat Thorne is a former teacher and educational technology specialist and has a vast background in public and private education. She began as head of learning and educational development at CET and now acts as executive director.

TQIntelligence

TQIntelligence leverages innovation in digital health, automation, and machine learning analytics to transform the quality of mental health treatments and eliminate the long-standing outcomes disparities for at-risk youth from low-resourced communities.

Dr. Yared Alemu CREDIT: TQINTELLIGENCE

Dr. Yared Alemu

The genesis of TQIntelligence is partly based on founder Dr. Alemu’s frustration with the lack of data-driven, efficient mental health services for patients being served in the publicly funded mental health sector. Dr. Alemu has 13 years’ experience as a psychologist and healthcare administrator, including working with more than 5,000 patients and training more than 100 mental health providers.

Tripura Foundation

Tripura Foundation seeks to deliver hope to children around the world living in poverty, hunger, violence, disease, inequality and exploitation. We believe that all children, regardless of socio-economic background, should be enabled to reach their highest potential and contribute to their community and the world at large.

Elaine Keuper CREDIT: TRIPURA FOUNDATION

Elaine Keuper

Keuper is global director of the Tripura Foundation, overseeing the overall strategy and global program operation of the non-profit for the last seventeen years. She is a renowned speaker and presenter, including delivering a TEDx talk in India and has spoken at various press conferences and events.

U&I

With over 2500 changemakers, impacting 2000 children across 20 cities in India, U&I is creating a new generation of changemakers passionate about providing quality education to students from underprivileged backgrounds and shelter homes.

Satish Manchikanti, Ajit Sivaram

Manchikanti is a social entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in the verticals of corporate training and media. Having led volunteer movements for the last 15 years, Sivaram understands how to influence without authority and motivate people to go above and beyond for a cause.

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Things Change When Providers Gather Feedback From Homeless People They Serve

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This post was originally produced for Forbes.

Getting customer feedback is so axiomatic that we scarcely have any interactions with a business without being invited to take a survey. Even after using the bathroom! Who hasn’t seen an instant satisfaction survey in a restroom position for you to choose one of three faces matching your satisfaction with the experience?

In the homeless services arena, feedback isn’t always sought. When it is, it often is done by the staff. How honest is the feedback about the services likely to be when the service provider conducts the survey, watching as you answer questions on a written form?

Patron uses Pulse For Good kiosk to offer feedback. CREDIT: PULSE FOR GOOD

Matthew Melville, the Homeless Services Director for Catholic Community Services of Utah, was excited when he was introduced to Pulse for Good. “This was very exciting for me to hear because many times in our industry (homelessness) the people actually using the services have little input in decisions that affect them daily.”

“I wanted to give our guests a way of giving feedback to us through a third party,” Melville says.

Pulse For Good provides small kiosks guests can use to provide instant feedback. The system aggregates the data to help its service provider customers make sense of it, helping to analyze it both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Catholic Community Services of Utah is using the Pulse for Good kiosks at two homeless services locations in Salt Lake City. It uses the kiosks to gather feedback from both guests and volunteers.

Melville says the surveys help in many ways. “. Our guests give us great feedback on the cleanliness of our buildings and even which work shifts need to step up their game. We are able to adjust some of our service hours to better accommodate people that are working because they leave us great feedback.”

Matthew Melville CREDIT: CATHOLIC COMMUNITY SERVICES OF UTAH

CCS also provides reports from the system with the board of directors and major funders so they can see more directly how guests are reacting to the services they receive.

“The survey also helps us see how well we are engaging with our volunteers. After a volunteer shift, we encourage everyone to take a survey and let us know what their experience was like, what we can improve on and if they would recommend us to a friend or family member,” Melville says. “Just the simple fact that we want to hear their opinion goes a long way. As with all of our pulse surveys we talk about our most recent week’s responses at all of our departmental staff meetings. This way we are able to address concerns quickly.”

The process doesn’t end there for CCS. “We also host weekly “Town Halls” with our guests where we go over the past weeks responses and ask for additional feedback. This is a very important aspect of these surveys. We want our guests to know that their responses do not just go sit on a desk somewhere and never get addressed. The Town Hall’s let them know we are serious about wanting their feedback and acting on it to make their experience with us better which will help future guests at the same time,” Melville says.

Pulse For Good CEO and co-founder, Blake Kohler, who still works a day job so he can pursue this passion project on the side, shared a specific example of the effectiveness of the feedback loop.

Blake Kohler CREDIT: PULSE FOR GOOD

Some guests in a homeless shelter reported that they wanted curtains in the showers for privacy. After some consideration, the curtains were installed. The feedback was instantaneous and positive. The guests not only benefited from the dignity of privacy in the showers but also from the respect of being heard.

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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Climate Change But Were Afraid to Ask

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This post was originally produced for Forbes.

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Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist who leads the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and is the host and producer of the PBS series Global Weirding. I asked her everything you want to know about climate change but were afraid to ask.

Katharine Hayhoe CREDIT ©2009 MARK UMSTOT

Hayhoe has a positive, upbeat manner that leaves people feeling as if she’s talking about planning the best birthday party ever rather than warning about climate change. Perhaps that is her appeal. She has earned a reputation—she’s been named to Time’s 100 most influential people list and Fortune added her to their World’s Greatest Leaders list—for being able to communicate climate science better than most.

She explained why a difference as small as two degrees actually matters, why she calls it global weirding, how she explains climate science to skeptics who are religious, and the respective roles of big business, entrepreneurs and individuals in fighting climate science.

Customarily, I think it is my role as a Forbes contributor to distill a source’s insights into digestible bites for my readers. Hayhoe is such an effective communicator that I’ve instead chosen to provide you with a lightly edited transcription of most of our conversation (I still hope you’ll watch or listen to the full interview.)

Devin Thorpe: What do you mean by “global weirding?”

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe: Well, often people say, don’t you mean global warming? And that’s what we think about it typically.

But we don’t feel—we don’t experience global warming. I mean, we can’t tell if the earth is warming by 1 or 2 or 3 or even 5 degrees.

 – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

But we don’t feel—we don’t experience global warming. I mean, we can’t tell if the earth is warming by 1 or 2 or 3 or even 5 degrees. But what we can see is that things are just getting weirder. So, it’s hot when it shouldn’t be. Hurricanes have more rain than they should have. We’re seeing three 500-year flood events in three years. That’s not normal. We’re just seeing things get weird. That’s how we ourselves are experiencing the impacts of a changing climate. The places where we live. So, when we’re looking for a title for our YouTube series on PBS, we thought why not call it global weirding?

DT: Why is two degrees such a big deal?

KH: Well, when we say the planet’s warming by one or two or three degrees Celsius, often we think, well, that’s nothing. There’s a bigger difference between the room I’m in right now and just outside of the hallway, right? But what we have to understand is that the planet’s temperature is as stable as that of the human body.

And if our body’s temperature goes up one and a half to three or even four degrees Fahrenheit, we are running a fever. We go to the doctor. If it was three or four degrees, we go to the hospital. And that’s what’s happening to our planet. It is running a fever. And that fever is affecting us.

 – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

And if our body’s temperature goes up one and a half to three or even four degrees Fahrenheit, we are running a fever. We go to the doctor. If it was three or four degrees, we go to the hospital. And that’s what’s happening to our planet. It is running a fever. And that fever is affecting us. It’s affecting the way that we plan for our water and our energy. And our food is affecting the quality of our air. It’s affecting the safety of our homes. We care about a changing climate because it is affecting us. Two degrees is not a magic threshold. You know, if we’re at 1.9 degrees, it doesn’t mean everything’s fine. And, you know, at 2.1 degrees now the world’s going to hell in a handbasket. But as humans, we need a threshold to plan for. So, we know that the more carbon we produce, the worse it is. Just like we know, the more cigarettes we smoke, the worse our health risks are. There’s no magic number of cigarettes that can prevent all damage other than zero. It’s too late for that. But we do know that the quicker and the faster we stop smoking, the better off we’ll be. It’s the same way with climate change. And so, all the governments in the world got together and some of them said, well, we’re already at one degree and it’s dangerous for us. And then some of them said, well, you know, we’ve crunched the numbers, we think three degrees will be OK for us but beyond that is dangerous. And everybody had to negotiate to figure out, well, what do we agree on? And they agreed finally on two degrees or one and a half, If we can.

DT: How do you respond to people of faith who tell you that climate science is bunk?

KH: Well, our most popular global weirding episode, the one that the most people have watched, is called “What Does the Bible Say About Climate Change?” And that’s sort of a trick question, because, of course, it says nothing about climate change. But it says a lot about our responsibility for this planet, God’s love and care for creation, and about how we are to care for our brothers and sisters, especially those who are less fortunate than us today. So I’ve looked into this and thankfully, as you just said, the correlation is not causal. So believing the Bible doesn’t make us reject the idea that climate is changing due to human activities. In fact, as I recently said in New York Times op ed just the other week, if we truly take the Bible seriously, we would be out at the front of the line demanding action on climate change, because that’s what we as Christians would do because of who we are.

Why is it that we reject the reality of what the science has been telling us since the 1850s? That’s not 1950s, 1850s. It’s because we’ve confused our politics with our religion. The causal link is where we fall on the political spectrum.

 – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

So, why is it that we reject the reality of what the science has been telling us since the 1850s? That’s not 1950s, 1850s. It’s because we’ve confused our politics with our religion. The causal link is where we fall on the political spectrum. The further we fall to the right hand side of the spectrum, the more likely we are to reject the science.

But does that mean we aren’t smart, or we don’t know science? No, not at all. There are tons of smart people all across the political spectrum. What it means, though, is we’ve decided we don’t like what we’ve been told are the solutions.

We’ve been told the solution is big government, socialism, communism, destroying the economy, taking away my truck, letting China or the United Nations or the Antichrist rule the world. And frankly, I don’t like those solutions either.

 – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

We’ve been told the solution is big government, socialism, communism, destroying the economy, taking away my truck, letting China or the United Nations or the Antichrist rule the world. And frankly, I don’t like those solutions either. But instead of looking for positive solutions that are consistent with our values, often what we do is we just say, oh, well, if there’s no solution that I can be on board with then it can’t be a real problem because I’m a good person and if it were a real problem, I would want to fix it. But if I want to fix it, it can’t be a real problem. So, we throw up sciencey sounding smokescreens like “it’s just the actual cycle” or religious sounding smokescreens like “God is in control” to hide our real problem, which has everything to do with our aversion to what we think are the solutions.

DT: What is the role of big business in a climate solution?

KH: Huge. Because business is a big part of both the production of heat trapping gases. We dig up and burn coal and gas and oil is wrapping an extra blanket around the planet that it didn’t need. And just like we would if somebody snuck into our room at night and put an extra blanket on us that we didn’t need in the same way the planet is heating up because that blanket.

So, business has a huge role to play in solutions. And the really cool thing is that they are playing a huge role.

 – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

So, business has a huge role to play in solutions. And the really cool thing is that they are playing a huge role. So, if you look at the world’s richest corporations, you’ve got Walmart right there at the top, right? And Wal-Mart is planning to be 50 percent clean energy by 2025. And they’re amazing. And then Berkshire Hathaway, I think, is somewhere around 11 or so on the list. Their most recent headline was they’re putting up a huge wind farm in Alberta, which is the Texas of Canada, known for oil and gas. Apple is around number twelve. They’re already 100 percent clean energy and they’re decarbonizing their supply chain in China. And India, I believe, has more green energy jobs than any other country in the world. Here in the US, we have more solar jobs than coal jobs, right? And the Museum of Coal Mining in Kentucky put solar panels on the roof. So, there’s a lot to do with industry. We are at a key point in the transition of our society where, you know, one hundred and twenty years ago we were transitioning from horses and buggies to cars. Now we’re transitioning from the coal and oil and gas we’ve used for 300 years to new sources of energy. And there are plenty of opportunities for businesses as well as challenges in that.

DT: Tell us about the opportunities for entrepreneurs in this shift.

KH: Oh, well, that’s really interesting to me personally. So, I’m a scientist. First of all, I do a great job at diagnosing the problem and telling us just how bad it’s going to be if we don’t change our ways. You know, sort of like when those Old Testament prophets and then when people change their ways, we’re like, oh, they changed their ways. How surprising. But I find that very accurate. So, I love hearing about entrepreneurs for figuring out brand new ways to do things that are smarter and better.

Some of my favorite entrepreneurs are kids and young people. There was a girl who started growing algae under her bed. Her mother eventually kicked her out into the garage. She figured out how to turn her algae into biofuel. And she won the National Intel Science Fair.

 – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

Some of my favorite entrepreneurs are kids and young people. There was a girl who started growing algae under her bed. Her mother eventually kicked her out into the garage. She figured out how to turn her algae into biofuel. And she won the National Intel Science Fair. In California, in L.A., United Airlines is flying their flights from the L.A.X. airport off biofuel. I went to visit a company in Iowa recently, RTG, Renewable Energy Group. They literally collect used cooking oil from McDonald’s and KFC used cooking oil that they wouldn’t know how to dispose of anyways or would be a problem for them. They collect it. They turn it into biofuel that powers trucks. You don’t have to change the truck. All you’re doing is putting something different into the tank. And then there’s things like solar paint. There are military applications that save lives. There are innovations for increasing our air quality. There’s, you know, just the simple fact that you can plug your car into the wall of your house now and charge it with your solar panels. I mean, there are so many really cool, amazing things.

DT: What would you tell someone who wants to do their part to solve climate change?

KH: Well, I would say, first of all, we’re not saving the planet we’re saving us. The planet will still be orbiting the sun long after we are gone. We care about ourselves, our families, our kids, our communities, our city or state, our country. We care about ourselves. And that’s what’s at stake here. So one of the most important things we can do and actually talk about this is my TED talk is talk about it because it turns out we never have conversations about this because we’re worried, well, I’m not a scientist or I don’t want to pick a fight with Uncle Joe. But talking about it is the most effective thing that we can do. And if we do talk about it, turns out it can change people’s minds about the impacts and about the solutions, because I’m not talking about climate science I’m talking about, how does it affect us in the place where we live and what can we do?

So, talking about [climate change] is the most important thing we can do and everybody can do that.

 – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

So, talking about it is the most important thing we can do and everybody can do that. And then we can step on the carbon scales and we can say, well, where does my personal carbon footprint come from? And a lot of us will be surprised that it might not be where we think it is. So, for a lot of us, it’s our food. And it’s not just what we eat, it’s what we don’t eat. We throw out about a third of the food we produce and if food waste were its own country. It would be number three in the world after China and the US in that crazy.

So, eating lower down the food chain. You don’t have to eat as much beef. Have a meatless day and don’t waste your food is something really important. And then flying is a big part of my personal carbon footprint. So, I do a lot of these virtual type talks. We’re not wasting any carbon here. We’re doing it virtually. And then when I do travel, I do so carefully. I think about how many things can I do in one place that make that plane trip worthwhile, I love my plug-in car, but for a long time we couldn’t afford solar panels. They were just too expensive. Thankfully, thanks to the tax rebate, we actually finally got them this year and I’m super excited about that. I hang up my laundry to dry. We have this place where you can put an extra freezer instead of putting an extra freezer. I just got racks which were cheaper than extra freezer. And I get my clothes. I replace my light bulbs. But talking about is the most important thing we can do to our friends and our family and to our elected officials, because it doesn’t matter who we are. Climate change affects us all. And so, I was really happy to participate in a project called New Climate Voices. And people can find it online at newclimatevoices.org with a Republican politician, with the leader of a libertarian think tank and with a military general who all talked about solutions that are consistent with their values and their perspective. And I love that.

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This Founder’s Story Will Inspire You

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This post was originally produced for Forbes.

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In 2008, Aussie Daniel Flynn came across two facts: children were dying (some still are) due to waterborne illnesses and the world market for bottled water was about $50 billion (now it is about $140 billion). In that juxtaposition, he saw a solution. The idea for Thankyou Water was born.

Working with his buddy Jared Burns and his then girlfriend now wife Justine Flynn, as first-year university students, they launched a consumer brand that features 55 different products and is sold in 5,500 locations across Australia and more recently New Zealand, dropping “water” from the brand to become “Thankyou.” The plan was to give 100% of profits to nonprofits working to eradicate extreme poverty. In 2015, the company set up a charitable trust which now owns the business. All dividends flow to the trust to be distributed ultimate to charities.

But I’ve skipped the good parts.

At the outset, the team found a bottler that agreed to produce their product without charging anything upfront.

“I remember we pitched to the largest distributor of beverages in the country. They work for brands like Lipton Iced Tea and Red Bull. And we’re in the meeting sharing the vision we had, change the world, you know, one bottle at a time,” Flynn says. “And on the spot in our first sales pitch, the director says, ‘I love it. I’m going to order 50,000 units from you guys.’ And then he said, ‘How quick can you get it to me?’”

After a pause, unprepared for the question, Flynn says, “Well, give us about three weeks.”

Daniel and Justine Flynn with son Jedediah CREDIT: THANKYOU

“I mean, we were first-year university students. We had no concept of manufacturing lead times,” he adds.

“It sort of sums up Thankyou,” Flynn says. “We really haven’t known what we were doing. And yet people have come around this idea.”

The social media marketing and the authentic connection with consumers has been key to success.

To get 7-Eleven to stock Thankyou Water, the Flynns produced a video on YouTube asking for their fans to visit the 7-Eleven Australia Facebook page to promise to buy Thankyou water if it would stock it.

It worked. “In two weeks, we had consumers singing and dancing and rapping. We had media covering this story. And then 7-Eleven said yes,” Flynn says. Their water quickly became the third bestselling brand at the convenience store chain and even worked its way into the top spot for a while.

Even with that success, Australia’s two primary grocery chains, Coles and Woolworths, declined to stock any products.

Time to repeat the social media magic.

“One Wednesday morning, we launched a video. The video was called the Coles and Woolworths campaign,” he says. “We said two weeks from today, we’re meeting with them and we need you to come in the room with us.”

“And it was crazy. I mean, media kind of blew up because we’re now pinning the two biggest supermarkets kind of against each other,” Flynn shares with fresh amazement as he retells the story.

“Our heart wasn’t to be cheeky,” he says. “It was just simply we need them to see the power of this brand and its people. It’s the consumer.”

“It was then we flew helicopters, one in Melbourne, one in Sydney,” he says referring to the locations of the grocers’ respective headquarters locations. “So, during the campaign, these helicopters flew with these huge signs. ‘Dear Coles, Dear Woolworths, thank you for changing the world [If you say yes].’”

“Long story short, five hours after the meeting at Coles and three hours after Woolworths, they both said yes,” Flynn effuses.

Among the things the founders had failed to consider was that a company really can’t pay out 100% of profits. Even if a company retains some profits for operating capital it is unlikely to accumulate enough capital to fund growth. Of course, it gets worse. If a company has pledged its profits to charity it can’t attract investment capital—or even borrow much.

The team found an innovative way to address the pinch.

Flynn wrote a book, called Chapter One: You Have the Power to Change Stuff. Time for another video. The company then offered the book for sale in a crowdfunding campaign, giving people the option to pay whatever they choose. A few people did, perhaps testing the system, buy the book for pennies but one person paid $50,000!

“I also said I’m on going to stay in this warehouse and I going to pack books until we raise $1.2 million—and some people were like you’re going to be in there forever. And I literally remember packing books day in, day out,” he says.

“But within two hours of the launch, we made three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. And within one month, we didn’t hit our AUS$1.2 million target. We hit AUS$1.44 million. I mean, it was, it was amazing.” The book continues to sell, and Flynn reports it has now raised AUS$2.5 million.

He is coy about plans to enter the U.S. market, but it is clearly on his mind. That may require another book.

Over the last decade, Thankyou has donated more than AUS$7 million to charities working to eradicate extreme poverty.

Now that is a founder’s story.

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CEO Who Led Red Cross From Brink Of Disaster Reflects On Leadership Lessons Learned

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Gail McGovern, 67, became the eighth CEO in five years at the American Red Cross in 2008, as the country entered its most severe economic downturn in seven decades. Today, she remains at the head of what is once again a fiscally healthy nonprofit. Looking back, she reflects on what she learned.

The $3 billion annual revenue organization responds to 60,000 disasters every year, ranging from single house fires affecting one family to natural disasters that impact hundreds of thousands. At the time she took the helm, the large nonprofit had drawn down its available credit lines and was nearing the brink of its own disaster.

McGovern successfully steered the organization through the crisis and credits the leaders of the organization for their resilience during the challenging period.

She had been through challenges before; in fact, she often sought them out early in her career. Along with 1900 men, she was one of just 50 women admitted to Johns Hopkins University the first year that women were allowed.

Gail McGovern CREDIT: MIKE MCGREGOR 2017

She joined AT&T doing technology “back when dinosaurs roamed the earth,” she quips. She nearly had to beg for an opportunity in sales, defending her candidacy by noting she’d sold Girl Scout cookies. A series of other lateral moves prepared her for a trajectory that landed her in the executive suite.

While working at AT&T, she worked with Dan Schulman, now president and CEO at PayPal. “Gail McGovern is a great friend, a valued mentor, and an outstanding leader. We first worked together many years ago at AT&T – and I have appreciated and benefitted from her wise counsel and support all along the way. I’m so proud of what Gail is achieving at the Red Cross and thrilled that PayPal can support her team’s life-saving initiatives,” he told me.

PayPal supports the Red Cross year-round, helping with digital fundraising and working closely on the annual “Missing Types” blood drive. “The American Red Cross and PayPal share a common commitment to improve the lives of people and communities around the world. The Red Cross is a trusted and necessary organization that mobilizes quickly to support those in need. We are honored to be their partners,” he said.

After leaving AT&T, McGovern, she joined Fidelity Investments as president of Fidelity Personal Investments, overseeing an operation with 10,000 people and $500 billion under management.

After leaving, she spent four years at Harvard when the challenges at the Red Cross created an opportunity there. It appealed to her “give-back gene” so she took the job.

“After 28 years in the for-profit world, you would think I had learned what I need to learn,” McGovern says. Referring to her experience leading the Red Cross, she adds, “But it taught me to be a different and better leader as a result of that experience.”

McGovern shared what she learned about being a leader, lessons she says would have applied perfectly in her for-profit experience to make her a better leader.

“Back when I was in the for-profit sector, you know, I would tell people, ‘Calm down. It’s just telecommunications. We’re not saving lives here,’ or at Fidelity, I’d say, ‘Calm down. You know, it’s just managing money. We’re not saving lives here,” she explains. “That schtick doesn’t work at the American Red Cross.”

“What I’ve learned at the Red Cross is it’s possible to not only lead with your head, but also lead with your heart.”

She says, in the for-profit world, it was her style to seek input and build consensus, but she and the team knew that at the end of the day, she had the authority to make decisions and she did. “I would say, ‘OK, we’re going to do this. Everybody jump!’ And people would say, ‘How high?’”

She says, working with 300,000 volunteers and a relatively small staff of just 19,000 mission-driven people, that approach doesn’t work. She says, directing volunteers is different. When you say, “’OK, everybody jump!’ And they say, ‘No, I’m not ready to. You can convince me. I don’t understand how that’s going to help our mission.’”

Her success suggests she learned to adapt quickly. “What I’ve learned is, first of all, you can lead to the power of your ideas, not the power of your office.”

Reflecting on the lesson, she points out how she might have led differently in her for-profit career.

“I just wish I said, ‘People, this is important work. We’re connecting people to the people that they love and the information that they need.’ Or ‘People, this is important work. We’re making people’s financial dreams come true,’” she explains. “Everybody wants to be part of a higher purpose. And, you know, I learned that while I was at the American Red Cross.”

She credits the team for the success she’s had. “Red Crossers are a special breed,” she explains, noting that they made sacrifices, including frozen salaries for a time and a year without a 401k match. “People were just so bound and determined to save the institution that for the most part, we really didn’t hear squawking. It was amazing.”

Their passion devolves in part from the breadth and importance of the mission. In addition to responding to disasters, they also provide blood products to thousands of hospitals and provide first-aid and related trainings to help build resilient communities. One lesser known program is the support provided to America’s armed forces.

USAA and The USAA Foundation have been long-term supporters of two military programs, including the Home Fire Campaign and the Services to the Armed Forces in addition to the disaster relief programs.

Harriet Dominique, senior vice president of corporate responsibility at USAA, told me, “The American Red Cross’ mission is to bring help and hope to individuals and communities affected by disasters. Their mission aligns to USAA’s mission – both catastrophe response and military support – that all underpins military family resiliency. We recognize the American Red Cross as a world-class leader in disaster relief, and through their leadership and strong team, do so much more for individuals and communities, including the men and women who serve our country.”

For more than a decade now, that leadership reflects the lessons Gail McGovern learned about leading with both her head and her heart.

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The post CEO Who Led Red Cross From Brink Of Disaster Reflects On Leadership Lessons Learned appeared first on Your Mark On The World.

Pulitzer Prize Winners’ New Book Is Required Reading For Social Entrepreneurs

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This post was originally produced for Forbes.

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Pulitzer Prize Winners Nicholas Kristof and Cheryl WuDunn have written a new book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, to be released next month. The book will follow the model of the couple’s previous collaborations, Half the Sky and A Path Appears, painful analyses of big social problems that also celebrate the hope found in existing solutions.

Without the benefit of a review copy, I recorded a discussion of the book and some of his other writing with Kristof several months ago. I invite you to watch the interview in the player above. Kristof’s thoughtful manner of speaking reflects a mind practiced in editing his prose as he goes, sometimes causing him to pause mid-sentence only to finish the thought by starting or finishing a new sentence, leaving the last incomplete.

It’s a style that has garnered the New York Times columnist millions of social media followers to whom he has often appeared in self-produced videos like mine (the key difference being the size of our respective audiences). His millions of fans and followers feel an authentic connection to the self-described “farm boy” from Oregon, despite more than because of his Harvard and Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar) education and 30+ years at the Times.

Nicholas Kristof CREDIT: EARL WILSON

Kristof partners with WuDunn, his wife of three decades with whom he has three children, to write books. They won a Pulitzer for their coverage of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989 while they both worked at the Times. WuDunn now works in banking.

For Tightrope, which he describes as “deeply personal,” Kristof begins with his own beginning, returning to his rural hometown of Yamhill, Oregon. He focuses on the kids who were on his old school bus. “And about a quarter of those kids have passed away largely from what economists call a death of despair, drugs, alcohol, suicide and also reckless accidents.”

“Most of America has looked the other way as working families have collapsed into a miasma of lost jobs, drugs and shortening life expectancy,” he told me.

“One of the stories we tell is of some neighbors who lived not far from us,” he says beginning his narrative. “There’s a family of five kids. The oldest was in my grade. Really, I mean, everybody was very smart. And they had risen very, very quickly. I mean, the 20th century had been enormously good to them. The dad had a good labor union job. And then then everything kind of collapsed and the jobs went away. The kids all ended up dropping out of school and they self-medicated with that with alcohol, with other drugs.”

“And then then they became less employable, less marriageable. The family structure, which had been really strong in my community, just collapsed very, very quickly. The social fabric, it became undone,” he said, speaking of his hometown. “And so now of those five kids, four of the five are now dead. And the only one who survived survived because he spent 13 years in the Oregon State Penitentiary on drug offenses.”

“These are these are smart kids who could have contributed so much to the country, to a community, and instead they, you know…,” his voice trails off thinking of what might have been and finally notes, “we didn’t intervene.”

The fact that it is easier to help a three-year-old get on the successful path than to help a 30-year-old turn around, is a key lesson he takes from his research and observations about the Yamhill community.

Revealing his penchant for earthbound wisdom, he says, “Look, there is no silver bullet to address these kinds of problems. But there are there are silver buckshot.”

On Housing:

In the U.S., the government provides $30 billion in housing vouchers each year. Often, the recipients congregate in poor areas of the community, sometimes moving from one poor area to another, he notes. This aggregation tends to magnify the problem.

Economist Raj Chetty, has found that if a family uses the voucher to move to a community with higher opportunity, better schools and a stronger family structure, the kids are much more likely to graduate from high school and the girls are less likely to get pregnant as teenagers. They’ll also earn more money and pay more taxes as a result of a relatively small nudge to move to a better neighborhood.

“I wish that some of my neighbors could have had that kind of help back when they were at a tipping point,” he said.

On Education:

“One in seven kids in America still doesn’t graduate from high school. And those kids are cooked. They’re just cooked,” Kristof says in frustration.

“It is it is really easy for successful people to ignore those who’ve been left behind,” he says, noting that our communities are segregated not only by race but by class and education as well. “We can tune out those who have been left behind.”

“I want to make it harder for that to happen and remind people that there is just a lot of desperate need out there,” he adds.

“We I tend to think of education as one of the best predictors of long-term outcomes for countries. The U.S., we pioneered mass education in this country. We pioneered high school—mass high schools. We pioneered mass tertiary education. And as recently as the 1960s, we were number one in high school attendance,” he says, preparing to make a point. “Now we rank number 61. And that doesn’t just hold that hold back those high school dropouts. It holds back our country.”

On Drug Abuse:

Kristof says that drug treatment is only a part of the solution to the crisis in our country. It also isn’t enough to stop drug companies from encouraging physicians to prescribe more opioids. “But it also has to be about giving people who are at the margins more of a sense that they have a future, that they don’t need to numb that pain.”

For Tightrope, Kristof says, they looked at autoworkers who had been laid off in both Detroit and directly across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Globalization and technology are likely to continue eroding manufacturing jobs in both countries.

“But those on the Canadian side were much more likely to get retraining so that they could move into new jobs. And so, an autoworker could become an ultrasound operator. And the upshot was that if you were a Canadian auto worker, you know, you were less likely to turn to drugs. Your kids were less likely to turn to drugs. And today, you know, your grandchild is less likely to be born dependent on opioids.”

In our interview, we talked about a variety of issues I haven’t tallied here, from Kristof’s criticisms of liberals to the lessons he’s learned about the ineffectiveness of the death penalty. Be sure to watch the full interview to the end where he shares his superpower.

By way of confession, I have long seen Kristof as a role model. After 1,200 episodes of my show, I invited him to be my last guest. I am grateful he had a book to promote, which likely gave him the nudge he needed to accept the invitation.

Kristof reflects on his life since leaving Yamhill, noting the aphorism, “talent is universal, but opportunity is not,” suggesting he had no more potential than the kids he rode the bus with to school. “I went to this small rural school and I just I just hit the jackpot.”

“I had parents who read to me who I was surrounded by books. I applied to Harvard. And there was somebody on the admissions committee who was from rural Oregon and loved the idea of a farm boy and our in our class. And so I was admitted. I, you know, four years later, I was lucky enough to win a Rhodes scholarship, which opened all kinds of doors, gave me more of an education, led me to The New York Times. There were editors at The Times who took chances on me. And so I ended up having this string of doors opened up magically for me as I approached,” he says seemingly a bit befuddled by his luck.

“I mean, absolutely, I think I worked incredibly hard. And I think I had, you know, some genuine talent to bring to the table. But there are so many others, you know, in my high school who had talent. And I know that if I had been in somewhat different circumstance, like some of these families, then instead of being in this interview, I would be struggling with my meth addiction or whatever else.”

This recognition of his good fortune, he says, motivates his work.

“Talent is universal, but opportunity is not.”

For social entrepreneurs and others working to change the world, Tightrope is required reading.

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