global giving matters nov. '07 - jan.'08 issue 32

8/9/2019 Global Giving Matters Nov. '07 - Jan.'08 Issue 32

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Global Giving

MATTERS

Issue 32

November 2007January 2008

2 Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneurs Collaborating forInnovation

7 Global Giving Round-Up

Philanthropy by Indian diaspora expanding focus and becoming institutionali

Sri Lankan Diaspora Day?

Labor and the environment top CSR issues in Asia

GPC Members company joins environmental partnership in Asia

Execution counts, says Mario Morino Giving wisely: Mike Murray and other high-impact donors profiled in Barron

Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation supports orphans, mobilizes resources

Gates Foundation supports Chinese effort to combat HIV/AIDS

Jet Lis new fight mental illness and natural disasters

Financial Times looks at Internet giving

Philanthropy through career change the move to green jobs

Philanthropy by the wealthy more frequent in South Africa

Ackerman family honored for philanthropy

Synergos seeks director of networks

BusinessWeek profiles the Global Philanthropists Circle

12 Resources & Links

New guide for philanthropy against racism

New research on diaspora philanthropy

Alliance Magazine focuses on measuring impact

Synergos launches institutional newsletter

13 Your Ideas Wanted

Global Giving Matters presents best

practices and innovations in philanthropy

and social investment around the world.

It is an initiative of The Synergos Institutes

Global Philanthropists Circle and the World

Economic Forum, under the direction of

Adele S. Simmons, President of the Global

Philanthropy Partnership, and Beth Cohen,

Senior Director, Global Philanthropists Circle.

Neil Carlson is the features writer.

If you would like to subscribe to this

newsletter, to unsubscribe, or to designate

someone else in your organization to receive

it in your stead, contact us at

[email protected].

2008 Synergos/World Economic Forum

www.globalgivingmatters.org [email protected]

Synergos

In This IssuePhilanthropists have recently become

more interested in social entrepreneur-

ship. This issue ofGlobal Giving

Matters looks at this emerging field,

and reports on the challenges social

entrepreneurs face and the opportuni-

ties philanthropists have to move the

field forward.

Working with social entrepreneurs canprovide philanthropists tremendous

leverage of their resources, and allow

them to connect with a kindred entre-

preneurial spirit.

Philanthropists looking to support

social entrepreneurs can choose indi-

viduals making a difference on an issue

of importance to them. They might also

consider working with a growing

number of support organizations such

as Ashoka, the Schwab Foundation forSocial Entrepreneurship and the Skoll

Foundation. These organizations pro-

vide a range of services to social entre-

preneurs and advance understanding

of social entrepreneurship.


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Global Giving MATTERS


Its been over 25 years sinceAshoka, a pioneer in social entrepreneurship, appointed its

first fellows in India, and nearly a decade since the approach to social change gained

widespread notoriety. Since then, Ashoka has been joined by the Schwab Foundation forSocial Entrepreneurship in Geneva, Switzerland, along with the Skoll Foundation and

Echoing Green in the United States, plus a host of others. Academic centers now exist at

Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford Universities. In short, the field of social

entrepreneurship has grown into a global phenomenon.

Its easy to see why. For starters, social entrepreneurship took root at a time when tech-

nology, knowledge, capital, and social problems were all going global. Its no accident

that the same epoch that gave rise to the Internet and saw the emergence of India and

China as global economic powers also saw the emergence of HIV/AIDS, global

warming, and persistent poverty in the developing world as inter-connected, transna-

tional problems. As Pamela Hartigan, Managing Director of the

Schwab Foundation, notes, social entrepreneurship is an

approach that, in cutting across traditional disciplines, opens up

new approaches to dealing with complex social, economic and

political issues. Social entrepreneurship is not about a funding

model. Its an approach. Its an innovative approach to a social

problem that uses entrepreneurial thinking to create sustainable

change.

Not surprisingly, this new approach to social change resonates

with a new class of entrepreneurs and business leaders who

made their fortunes using innovative approaches to business

challenges. Many contemporary business leaders like JeffSkoll, the founding President of eBay, or Robin Richards

Donohoe, a venture capitalist and co-founder of the Draper

Richards Foundation made their money at a relatively young

age and are eager to apply their business skills to making the

world a better place.

Over the past decade, these social investors have begun creating

an entire ecosystem to support social entrepreneurs worldwide.

Think about the institutions and networks that sustain the

technology industry in Silicon Valley, explains Lance

Henderson, Skoll Foundation Vice President for Program and

Impact. Stanford and Berkeley are centers of research and

scholarship, drawing talent from around the world.The venture

capital industry provides financing for technology start-ups.

Talent, ideas and innovations move across business and social

networks. And entrepreneurs come to Silicon Valley because of

that infrastructure. Thats what we need to create in the social

entrepreneurial sector.

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Feature: Philanthropists and Social Entrepreneur Collaborating for Innovation

Organizations Supporting Social

Entrepreneurs

Ashoka www.ashoka.org

Founded in 1980 by Bill Drayton, Ashoka pioneered

the field of social entrepreneurship. Today it provides

financial and other forms of support to social entrepre-

neurs around the world. It also promotes networking

among them and what it calls group entrepreneur-

ship an approach through which networks of people

can more quickly expand their impact. Ashoka has

created a website www.changemakers.net that sharesideas and approaches to social problems and pro-

motes collaborative competitions to refine them.

Echoing Green www.echoinggreen.org

Echoing Green provides financial support and technical

assistance to its Fellows. To date it has invested

$25 million in seed grants to nearly 450 social entre-

preneurs.

Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

www.schwabfound.org

Established in Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde in

1998, the Schwab Foundation helps connect socialentrepreneurs to sources of funding, other resources

and networks that enable them to strengthen and

expand their work. The Schwab Foundation is a sepa-

rate entity from the World Economic Forum but

works closely with it and other important organizations

promoting global dialogue and understanding in pro-

viding opportunities for Schwab Fellows.

Continues


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Yet if the practice of social entrepreneurship has grown up, its

by no means mature. Social entrepreneurs and investors still

lack a rigorous capital market capable of allocating resources

efficiently to nonprofits, hybrids and social businesses.

Performance metrics are still fairly idiosyncratic. And, as Sally

Osberg and Roger L. Martin argue in a recent Stanford Social

Innovation Review article, there is no consensus even on basicquestions such as:What is social entrepreneurship? Who is an

entrepreneur? How does the approach differ from social service

or activism? Lets call it an awkward adolescence.

In the end, the practice of social entrepreneurship grows by the

experience of entrepreneurs dealing with concrete, real-world

challenges. Here is how four leading social entrepreneurs have

tackled some of the biggest challenges facing the field and

how social investors have helped them along the way.

Scale UpWhenVicky Colbert created the Escuela Nueva (New

School) methodology in 1975, with the participation of rural

Colombian teachers, it represented a breakthrough for the

countrys rural schools. Escuela Nueva upended the conven-

tional teacher-centered model, replacing it with a cost-effective

educational model that emphasizes active, cooperative learning,

small-groups, and cast teachers as facilitators. Equally important, the Escuela Nueva

methodology provided a roadmap for strengthening the ties between teachers, adminis-

trators, and community members. In its expansion phase in Colombia, Escuela Nueva

reached over 20,000 rural schools and, to date, over five million children in 16 countries

throughout Latin America and Asia.Yet Escuela Nuevas long-term success and thesetbacks it overcame along the way illustrate how an idea moves from an innovation to

silent a revolution.

From the outset, Colbert says, Escuela Nueva approached reform systemically. This

was not just at the classroom level, Colbert says. It was with the teachers, with the

administration, with the community, so you had to have a systemic approach. Colbert

also had the foresight to build her reform from the bottom up, and to root demands for

reform in empirical results. Once the first few schools had proven superior results,

Colbert could point to rising test scores, increased self-esteem, democratic behavior, and

citizenship skills among students, and improved teacher attitudes as evidence that

Escuela Nueva worked. And cost effectiveness, of course, she adds. You have to con-

sider that the innovation is feasible, technically, politically and financially and that its

easily replicated. Its not how one teacher can do it, but how thousands can do it.

During the 1980s, Colbert served as Colombias Vice-Minister of Education, a position

she used to expand the Escuela Nueva model throughout the country, a tenure that

imparted an important lesson about the fragility of reform. Once I left the Ministry of

Education, I realized that innovations are not sustained in government bureaucracies,

she recalls. Under the next Colombian administration, schools began sliding back into

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Skoll Foundation www.skollfoundation.org

Created by Jeff Skoll in 1999, the Skoll Foundation

invests in social entrepreneurs through its award pro-

gram, the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. It

also promotes networking among social entrepreneurs

and supports documentation of new approaches. Skoll

has built a website www.socialedge.org to promote

sharing of best practice information among social

entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders and others.

Other organizations are beginning to work in this

space. Synergos itself is an example it has recently

launched the Middle East/North Africa Social

Innovators Program to enable social entrepreneurs in

Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine to

bring their successful ideas to scale, build the sustain-

ability of their programs and contribute to lasting socialchange. Services provided will include financial

awards, training, and links to businesses, govern-

ments, influential individuals and other social entrepre-

neurs.

Organizations Supporting Social

Entrepreneurs, continued


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old ways of doing business. Innovations are very vulnerable to political and administra-

tive change.

Seeking to insulate Escuela Nueva from the educational bureaucracy, Colbert reached

out to the private sector and civil society, and launched the Escuela Nueva Foundation, a

nonprofit organization that develops and provides curriculum, consults on implementing

the Escuela Nueva model, and ensures quality and sustainability. In addition to enjoying

broad support from Colombias private and citizen sectors, Colbert has received support

from the Schwab and Skoll Foundations and Ashoka and was recently given one of five

inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Awards by the Clinton Global Initiative. Still, she

insists, government support is the key to long-term sustainability. Its the balance of

power that needs to be recalibrated. Through governments you reach coverage and

create public policy.Through public private partnerships, you reach quality and sustain-

ability.

Acquire the capital to finance change

One of the perennial challenges facing social entrepreneurs

comes down to the question of money: How do you find bigchunks of flexible, patient capital that will sustain measurable

change? Financial metrics and traditional capital markets do a

poor job of capturing social value, while philanthropic capital

markets inconsistently reward efficiency and scale. Beginning in

2005, J.B. Schramm, the founder and CEO ofCollege Summit,

a national US nonprofit organization that helps school districts

develop a college-attending culture throughout high schools and

a planning infrastructure for post-secondary education to match,

forged a new solution to this dilemma. Instead of waiting for the

capital markets to evolve, he created an investment instrument

that met College Summits needs: the College Summit ProofFund, a $15 million philanthropic investment fund that prom-

ised investors clear, measurable returns in four areas growth

(measured by the number of children served), sustainability (fee-

for-service revenue), efficiency (cost-per-student) and success

(the number of young people who apply to college).

Granted, Schramm had some high-powered help.When his vice

president of development left in 2005, board member Charles

Harris, a former Partner and Managing Director at Goldman

Sachs, served as the interim development director for six

months. During his tenure, Harris saw first-hand the inefficien-

cies and strategic misalignment traditional fundraising caused,

fragmenting revenue into restricted grant pools and under-

funding core operations in favor of programs.

Drawing on Harriss experience in private equity, he and

Schramm devised the Proof Fund and took the idea to investors

drawn from Harriss Wall Street rolodex. Within six months,

Harris and Schramm raised the entire $15 million Proof Fund

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A Diversity of Social Entrepreneurs

Although our examples are drawn from the field ofeducation, social entrepreneurs can promote innova-

tion in many other areas and through both business

and non-profit approaches or even hybrids of both.

One example isAjantha Perera, an Ashoka Fellow in

Sri Lanka, who is an innovator in building multi-sector

cooperation in the field of recycling. She has been

able to demonstrate both to local governments and

local businesses how recycling programs can be

cost-effective and, for the business side, profitable.

Mexican businessman and GPC member Jos

Ignacio Avalos Hernandez is another example. He

has created Gente Nueva and related organizations

that together use both business and nonprofit

approaches in microfinance, savings, enterprise devel-

opment, health and nutrition programs. Avalos efforts

were examined in more detail in Global Giving Matters

December 2002-January 2003.

Some social entrepreneurs operate mainly in the for-

profit sector. Farouk Jiwa of Honey Care in Kenya

has, as the Schwab Foundation describes it, revital-

ized Kenyas national honey industry by focusing on

smallholder farmers across the country. Central to thesuccess is an innovation in production technology,

effective beekeeping training and community-based

extension service provision, the provision of a guaran-

teed market to smallholder farmers through forward

contracts, as well as prompt payments. Like Avalos,

Jiwa is a Schwab Entrepreneur.


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from ten wealthy individuals. Investors loved the accountability of the Proof Funds

bottom-line approach. Schramm loved not just the money but how it was structured as a

big, up-front pool of funds with no strings attached. (Harris went on to found

SeaChange Capital Partners, a nonprofit investment fund that will replicate the Proof

Fund model with other high-performing nonprofits; two weeks ago, Schramm was

named the 2008 US Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation.)

The Proof Fund has allowed us to say no to non-strategic opportunities that have come

our way, Schramm says. Because the organization was aligned from the board on down,

there was no reason to chase grants that didnt align with College Summits core

strategy. Since implementing the Funds underlying business plan, College Summit has

achieved a 50% annual growth rate in the number of children served and in its fee-for-

service revenue the cornerstone of long-term sustainability. Applications are up an

average of 18% per year, while per-student costs have gone down 10%. If we hit our

four metrics in four years, we win, Schramm says. And that allows for much more

long-term decisions to be made.

Attract bold people for bold ideasBack in 1999, when John Wood left his position as a Microsofts Director of Business

Development for China to start Room to Read, he did what any ambitious entrepreneur

should do: established his big hairy audacious goal and started getting the right people

on board to help him meet it. The goal? To help 10 million children in the developing

world get an education by developing schools, libraries, and other educational infrastruc-

ture.The people? Therein lies the story of how Wood, in just eight years, took Room to

Read from a first-year start-up that brought 3,000 books to a Nepalese village on the

back of a yak to an organization that has built 440 schools, over 5,000 bilingual libraries,

and reached over 1.7 million children throughout Asia and Africa.

Perusing the bios of Room to Reads board and management team, one could be for-

given for thinking that Room to Read was not a nonprofit organization but a world-class

corporation. Board members include Netscape co-founder and serial entrepreneur Marc

Andreessen, as well as John Ridding, Chief Executive of the Financial Times and

FT.com.The management team includes alumni of Goldman Sachs, Gap, Unilever, the

Asia Society, and The Nature Conservancy.

Bold ideas attract bold people,Wood says of his team. One of the biggest issues in the

social sector is the inability and/or the unwillingness to scale. But there are so many

great solutions out there, and there is such need out there, why are we not scaling this

sector more quickly? If you can get a hybrid you get a CFO who went to Wharton and

has a decade of corporate experience and you have another person from a top-tier non-

profit thats the best of both worlds. Not only can we talk about a great solution, wecan take it to scale.

Beyond the bold vision, Wood made the strategic decision to hand over the reigns of day-

to-day operations to his management team, a move that has freed him up to play a more

public role. I might be pretty decent at balancing a checkbook or looking at what kind

of dental insurance we should give employees, but thats not my unique value added,

Wood says. Instead,Wood spends 70% of his time on the road, speaking, evangelizing,

and raising money. Room to Reads revenues grew 70% last year, off a $9 million base.

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To keep up with the pace of leads Wood is developing in his peripatetic fundraising from

corporations, high-net-worth individuals, and speeches,Wood has scaled his develop-

ment team from three people two years ago to 12 people today. The fact that I have a

great team really frees me up to be the classic CEO, Mr. Outside Ambassador.

Room to Read has been equally successful at hiring top-level local managers. The key is

to find people who have the same zeal for education that we do, who see education as

the ticket for their country,Wood says.To local managers, Room to Reads focus and

discipline hold the promise of widespread change. They see in us that we are going to

take things to a serious scale,Wood continues. Last year, we opened, on average, a new

school library every six hours and created the infrastructure to monitor and evaluate

them.What could be more motivating?

Evolve and adapt

Like any good entrepreneur, Rodrigo Baggio has learned as much from his failures as

from his success. In 1993, Baggio, then a young information technology teacher in Rio

de Janeiros private schools, had a radical idea stemming from a newfangled thing called

the Internet. He would create an electronic bulletin board through which young peoplefrom different social classes the middle-class kids he was teaching and the young

people living in thefavelas overlooking the city could interact with each other.Yet

when the project was up and running, it turned out that the only kids talking were the

ones from privileged backgrounds.Why? Kids from thefavelas didnt have computers.

So Baggio retooled his idea. Partnering with the Information for All campaign (whose

aim was to bring used computers to poor communities), the C & A Fashion Institute and

ECO Group (a local nonprofit organization), Baggio opened the first Information

Technology and Civic Engagement Schools. Run by and for local residents, the schools

used technology as a foundation for debate, reflection and citizen engagement.The

school was a hit with local residents, and they clamored for more.

In 1995, Baggio founded Committee for the Democracy in Information Technology

(CDI) to help replicate the schools.Ten CDI schools were launched within a year, and

the organization had an annual growth rate of 70% until 2002. Now, six years later, CDI

has 840 schools in 20 Brazilian states and ten Latin American countries. Baggio, who

became an Ashoka Fellow in 1996, enjoys widespread support among Brazils business

community; CDI receives funding from the Skoll and Schwab foundations.

What is most extraordinary about this growth, however, is not the speed with which it

occurred, but rather the extent to which Baggio has managed to expand, improve and

evolve CDI through the rigorous use of information management. In 2003, 200 CDI

leaders from across the network came together to design an Internet-based assessment

tool that would help them track outcomes across the network.With 17 indicators for

measuring quality, results and process, the CDIs information system is a vital manage-

ment tool for local and regional sites, and for CDI headquarters. The system allows us

to take a photograph every four months of the CDI network and work a lot with quality

and good decisions to impact our work, Baggio says.

With this system in place, CDI has managed to add programs while also expanding its

geographic reach while retaining simultaneous commitments to high-quality services

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and local control of CDI sites. Last year, for instance, CDI launched Connections, a

social venture with the Brazilian office ofAccenture, the global consulting giant, which

will provide job training, internships, and entrepreneur training for students at CDI sites.

This is about digital inclusion and job creation, Baggio explains. But the basis of

Connections is the CDI schools. It all begins with local schools and local people.

Looking ForwardDespite these four challenges, an entrepreneurs outlook is by definition hopeful. How

else does one look at the desperate poverty of, say, Riosfavelas and see hope and oppor-

tunity where others see only misery? Yet even the most ardent advocates of social entre-

preneurism insist that widespread change will require more resources. Thats the uber-

challenge, insists the Skoll Foundations Lance Henderson. The issues these organiza-

tions are trying to address are enormously complex. The challenge of taking on a world-

wide intervention takes a level of resources and talent that is beyond the reach of many.

For investors and philanthropists, helping entrepreneurs reach scale means continuing to

bet on smart people doing big things. But it also means thinking about using their other

resources vision, social connections, business skills to build an ecosystem capable ofsustaining social entrepreneurs worldwide. Because its not just about money. Its about

bringing the same urgency traditional entrepreneurs and investors bring to their tradi-

tional work to something more profound: making the world a better place.

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Philanthropy by Indian diaspora expanding focus and becoming

institutionalizedIndia has a well-established tradition of philanthropy that has been carried to other

countries by its diaspora. For example, Britain-based Raj Loomba, founder of a series of

clothing businesses in that country, established a trust in 1997 which today supports the

educational efforts of several thousand children in 29 states in India. Among Indians in

other countries who do not have their own mechanism for giving, the amount of giving

often rises in response to natural disasters, such as the Gujarat earthquake and the

Indian Ocean tsunami. But giving on less dramatic issues is rising, as groups such as the

American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) are looking to make a

lasting impact through their members philanthropy. For example, AAPI has started a

pilot rural healthcare program in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. The Tata Energy Research

Institute is also doing its part starting a program to enable Indians (including those

living abroad) to donate in support of technology-based solutions to problems in rural

areas. (Earth Times, January 7, 2008)

Sri Lankan Diaspora Day?

The two million Sri Lankans living outside their country have become an important eco-

nomic and philanthropic force in their home country, returning an estimated $3.4 billion

annually. Some Sri Lankans living abroad have wondered if the country should attempt

Global Giving Roundup

Overviews of best

practices aroundthe world and

links to learn more

about them

Links to websites with

more details are available

at the online edition of

Global Giving Matters at

www.globalgivingmatters.org


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to follow the model of India, with explicit efforts to increase diaspora philanthropy

through the creation of an annual Sri Lankan Diaspora Day. Walter Jayasinghe, head

the Sri Lanka Foundation in the United States, is one supporter of the idea, and said that

large number of Sri Lankans working in the Middle East could be a major source of

money for development. (Asian Tribune, January 13, 2008)

Labor and the environment top CSR issues in AsiaIn his blog 6A.M. (www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/), PR mogul Richard Edelman

points to a number of trends in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Asia particu-

larly a focus on the issues of labor and the environment. Interestingly, he reports that,

overall, Chinese companies with international competitors seem to be moving faster on

CSR than companies based in Hong Kong. Another new trend he identifies is coopera-

tion among global NGOs, local NGOs and businesses on specific projects or industry

standards. Commentator Raul J. Palabrica of theInquirer(Philippines) makes similar

observations on the focus of CSR in Asia. He adds that multinational corporations can

play a leadership role on the issue of labor when national companies and government are

reluctant or unable to do so.

GPC Members company joins environmental partnership in Asia

GITI Tire Corporation, which is led by GPC Member Enki Tan, is donating $1 million for

conservation projects in northern Sumatra (Indonesia) and the southwest China for use

in partnership agreement with Conservation International (CI).The initiative will protect

habitat of threatened species such as the Sumatran orangutan and pandas while replant

forest areas, which will also reduce levels of atmospheric carbon that cause climate

change. This collaboration is an important step in bringing more private sector invest-

ment for conservation programs in Indonesia, said Jatna Supriatna, the CI regional vice

president for Indonesia. We hope that the communities benefiting from better liveli-

hoods in the buffer zone will support our conservation efforts for the orangutan in thewild. (Conservation International press release, December 13, 2007)

Execution counts, says Mario Morino

In an essay Execution Counts in a World Enamored with Social Innovation, GPC Member

Mario Morino suggests philanthropists place more emphasis on supporting what works

and perhaps less on funding the latest trend. He agrees that the tremendous growth of

new ideas and new organizations in the nonprofit sector in the United States and else-

where is a good thing, but cautions that we cant forget that building organizations,

managing them effectively, and helping them improve is vital as well.This concern is far

more relevant to the nonprofit versus the private sector, for the former has few mecha-

nisms or incentives to separate the wheat from the chaff. One of the most tangible les-

sons is that greater attention should be paid to management and leadership of nonprofits

organizations. Recruitment and retention are important in the nonprofit sector, as is sup-

port that enable social entrepreneurs to have the management capacity to make the most

of their ideas.The essay is available online at www.vppartners.org the website of

Venture Philanthropy Partners, which Morino chairs.

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Giving wisely: Mike Murray and other high-impact donors profiledin Barrons

Barrons magazine asked Philadelphia-based consulting company Geneva Global to iden-

tify ten donors who are making a big difference in the world, despite not giving amounts

of money that would make them household names.The ten (including some couples and

families) are making a difference on issues arising from housing in the United States to

the provision of clean water in Ethiopia to disaster response worldwide.They share afocus on impact. As Steve Alderman, who with his wife Liz Alderman has helped orphans

of war in Rwanda and Cambodia, put it, Were 66 years old and dont have time to

mess around with stuff that doesnt work. GPC Member Mike Murray is one of the ten,

and is lauded for his work in helping increase the impact of the worlds best microfi-

nance organizations. Mike Murray and the organization he founded Unitus were profiled

in Global Giving Matters February-March 2003. Another example is Lynn Fritz, who

took his business expertise in supply chain management to the field of disaster response.

His Fritz Institute, launched with $6 million, has trained humanitarian workers from 50

countries and its software is used by nonprofit organizations around the world. Fritz was

profiled in Global Giving Matters December 2004-January 2005. Geneva Global has

launched a website www.beyondphilanthropy.org to share findings of its work on phi-lanthropy and social investment. (Barrons, November 26, 2007)

Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation supports orphans, mobilizes resources

Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation (BCAF www.bcaf.bg), which has been operating

since 1995, has established a scholarship program to support orphan children who have

reached of 18 the age at which they can no longer live in institutions for orphans.The

program is supported by national and international donors, including the International

Womens Club, Eurofootball, Intracom, Mail.bg, Microsoft and BNP Paribas. BCAF was

one of the first nonprofit organizations in Bulgaria to take online contributions from

both within the country and from international donors. BCAF is part of the global net-

work ofCAF (Charities Aid Foundation) organizations with headquarters in the United

Kingdom.Through the network, the CAF UK experience and experiences of its mem-

bers in effective philanthropy are shared internationally. (Sofia Echo, October 15, 2007)

Gates Foundation supports Chinese effort to combat HIV/AIDS

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed $50 million to work with the gov-

ernment of China and nonprofit organizations fighting HIV/AIDS in that country. About

$30 million will go to the Ministry of Health and the remainder to local, national and

international NGOs.The focus of the work will include not only treatment of infected

people and prevention for high-risk groups, but also efforts to reduce the stigma associ-

ated with the disease. UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said, I am sure this valu-able new commitment from the Gates Foundation, which will also assist civil society

organizations, will lead to an even stronger response to HIV in China at all levels.

(Gates Foundation press release, November 14, 2007)

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Jet Lis new fight mental illness and natural disasters

Action movie star Jet Li is taking a break from acting this year to focus on his new Jet Li

One Foundation Project, which he launched in cooperation with the Red Cross Society

of China.The foundation will raise funds to help victims of natural disasters worldwide

and Chinese youth coping with mental health problems. At a recent magazine launch, he

said, I hope business leaders will take the lead and their employees will follow.There is

hope for that a recent rise in private philanthropy in China has followed two trends:(1) growth and a great accumulation of wealth and (2) increasing social divides.

(Reuters, January 14, 2008)

Financial Times looks at Internet giving

Websites such as GuideStar (in the United States), GuideStar International and an

emerging number of similar databases around the world allow visitors to find informa-

tion about nonprofit organizations working on a particular issue or in a particular place.

Often, links are provided for visitors to contribute directly to organizations they find.

These tools are not limited to grantmaking but also include approaches as microfinance.

For example, Kiva.org and MicroPlace.com allow users to lend relatively small amounts

to microentrepreneurs in many countries. Social networking sites and online virtual

communities such as SecondLife are also being used by activities and concerned individ-

uals to make connections and mobilize support. (Financial Times, December 10, 2007)

Philanthropy through career change the move to green jobs

As attention to environmental issues grows around the world, philanthropists are finding

ways other than giving money to make a difference. One approach is through career

changes that support environmental action. GPC Member Jeffrey Horowitz is an

example. Formerly a successful architect who also worked on some philanthropic ven-

tures, Horowitz now devotes the majority of his time to efforts such as theAvoided

Deforestation Partners (www.adpartners.org), a think tank that supports internationalefforts to halt tropical deforestation. Avoided Deforestation Partners brings together

input from the private sector, governments, NGOs and forest communities in its work,

which includes promotion of the sale of carbon credits. Horowitz is not alone in making

a career shift that uses skills honed in the private sector in new, socially-oriented ways. In

fact, services are emerging to help people make such transitions. One example is Green

Careers, which since 2000 has helped thousands of clients move to doing something

[they] already know how to do and putting it in the context of the green agenda, as

company founder Marie Kerpan puts it. (BusinessWeek, January 10, 2008)

Philanthropy by the wealthy more frequent in South Africa

Companies and organizations serving wealthy clients in South Africa report increasing

interest in organized philanthropy, with the primary reason reported to be a rising social

conscience about the use of wealth. Others have pointed to a desire to leave a legacy,

which contributes to rising interest in endowments. Although tax laws in the country

dont provide many incentives for charitable donations, progress has been made with

notable effect.Anna Vayanos, Business Development Manager ofTBS Consulting

(which helps wealth individuals organize their giving) points to a massive increase in

the creation of charitable trusts after changes in the tax laws at the start of the decade.

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Still, some observers, such as Tracy Fortune, Executive Director of the Non-Profit

Consortium, have called for increasing limits of income tax deductions individuals can

make. In South Africa, the limits are currently set at 10% of annual income.That figure

is sometimes exceeded when someone makes a large single gift, such as the establish-

ment of a trust or endowment. (Business Report(South Africa), October 23, 2007)

Ackerman family honored for philanthropyTheAckerman family of South Africa has been honored in the inaugural 2007 Inyathelo

Philanthropy Awards in the category of Family Philanthropy.The Ackermans are GPC

Members and their philanthropic efforts addressing issues such as education,

HIV/AIDS and local entrepreneurship were profiled in Global Giving Matters October-

November 2002. Kathy Ackerman-Robins is also a member of the Board of Directors of

Synergos (Southern Africa).The Inyathelo Awards are a new initiative ofInyathelo:

South African Institute for Advancement, and were decided by an independent panel of

judges. For more information, visit www.inyathelo.co.za.

Synergos seeks director of networksSynergos has undertaken a strategic planning process over the past 18 months and has

determined a need to focus attention on deepening its work around its extensive net-

works, including the Global Philanthropists Circle, Senior Fellows program and others.

To maximize these efforts, the organization will dedicate additional resources, including

adding a senior manager to oversee all of Synergos networks. Synergos is seeking a moti-

vated, creative and results-oriented leader to fill this newly created position, Senior

Director, Networks.We welcome your feedback and any suggestions of individuals who

could lead this effort. A full description of the position can be found at

www.synergos.org/employment/.

BusinessWeekprofiles the Global Philanthropists CircleThe November 26, 2007 issue ofBusinessWeek contained a feature on Synergos Global

Philanthropists Circle.The piece gives a broad overview of the Circles work, and the

GPC Members and staff who participated in the piece contribute their views on how

involvement in the Circle helps philanthropic leaders.The focus of many of the com-

ments is on the value of partnerships and networking. As Circle Member Hylton

Appelbaum puts it, If I learn about someone else tackling the same problem in a bril-

liant way, I can fast-track what Im doing by taking a leaf out of their book. I dont have

to reinvent the wheel.Well, thats priceless. (BusinessWeek, November 26, 2007)

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November 2007January 2008 12

New guide for philanthropy against racism

GrantCraft (www.grantcraft.org), an initiative of the Ford Foundation that collects and

shares best practice information about grantmaking, has produced a new guide in coop-

eration with the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equality (www.racialequity.org).

Entitled Grant Making with a Racial Equity Lens, the guide offers skills and strategies

that donors can use to deepen their understanding and actions regarding race, ethnicity

and equity. The guide is available online at www.grantcraft.org/pdfs/equity.pdf. (Aspen

Philanthropy Letter, October 2007)

New research on diaspora philanthropy

The Karoff Center at The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI) and the Global Equity Initiative at

Harvard University have completed a research study that examines the growing philan-

thropic giving from citizens and residents of the United States to their countries oforigin. Entitled Diaspora Philanthropy: New Roles and Emerging Models, the effort

includes a look at trends in diaspora philanthropy in general, as well as case studies of

giving to Colombia, Kenya, the Philippines and Vietnam. It also includes a compendium

of institutions and programs that encourage and support diaspora giving.The studies

can be found in the Strengthening Global Philanthropy section of TPIs website

www.tpi.org.

Alliance Magazine focuses on measuring impact

The December 2007 issue ofAlliance Magazine (www.alliancemagazine.org) contains a

special feature on Measuring impact:Who counts? It includes an interview with Paul

Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, in which he shares his

views on the importance of both funders and the organizations they support investing in

evaluation of their work. In another piece, David Bonbright of Keystone Accountability

(and a Synergos Senior Fellow) looks at new tools that are helping nonprofit organiza-

tions better measure their impact. As he puts it: Current thinking favors a much friend-

lier pluralistic model in which qualitative, quantitative, perceptual and empirical data can

be assembled into a comprehensible whole that still honors the complexity of social

change. Bonbright andAkwasi Aidoo of Trust Africa guest edited the special feature.

Synergos launches institutional newsletter

This December, Synergos distributed its first organization-wide electronic newsletter topartners. Entitled The Commons, it provides an overview of work across Synergos var-

ious programs.The inaugural issue features articles about work in Brazil, Canada, India,

Namibia, the Middle East and North Africa, and along the US-Mexico border, as well as

brief profiles of new members of the Global Philanthropists Circle. It also presented

links to highlights of the GPC Annual Meeting. The Commons will be produced quar-

terly and available free. To subscribe or read the first issue, visit www.synergos.org/

thecommons/.

Activities, web-

sites and othercutting-edge

information for

global givers

Links to websites with

more details are available

at the online edition of

Global Giving Matters at

www.globalgivingmatters.org

Resources & Links


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November 2007January 2008 13

Global Giving Matters aims to present information on best practices and innovations in

philanthropy and social investment around the world.We encourage you to send us:

Ideas about issues or people you would like to learn more about

Examples of your own philanthropy

Comments about this issue.

Write to us at [email protected].

Global Giving Matters does not present solicitations of support for particular

initiatives or organizations.

Your Ideas Wanted

The World Economic Forum91-93 route de la CapiteCH-1223 Cologny/Geneva

Switzerlandtel +41 (22) 869-1212fax +41 (22) 786-2744www.weforum.org

The Synergos Institute51 Madison Avenue21st Floor

New York, NY 10010USAtel +1 212-447-8111fax +1 212-447-8119www.synergos.org

global giving matters nov. '07 - jan.'08 issue 32

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