Archive for the ‘philanthropy’ Category

Playing for Good

WeTopia, the game from Sojo Studios where you Play for Good! Earn Joy and choose real world projects to help fund while having fun with your friends.

Meet Betty

Krochet Kids helps women of Northern Uganda with the assets, skills, and knowledge to lift themselves and their families out of poverty, creating long lasting and sustainable change.

Party for a Cause with Donor’s Choose

Philanthro is throwing a five city party (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, New York) on 11.11.11 to raise money for Donor’s Choose to secure funding for $88 million in books, art supplies, technology and other resources that their students need to learn…

The Education of Bill Gates

Bill Gates on 20 new schools that he made:

"But the overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn’t move the needle much," he says. "Maybe 10% more kids, but it wasn’t dramatic. . . . We didn’t see a path to having a big impact, so we did a mea culpa on that." Still, he adds, "we think small schools were a better deal for the kids who went to them."

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My Ninja, Please! 4.13.11 : Coffee Shrooms

A couple of students learn about social entrepreneurship and mushroom farming on coffee grounds and share at TEDxPresidio:

Jeff Hawkins : An Entrepreneur’s Take on the Non-Profit

.:ecorner.stanford.edu->

Patri Friedman : The Seasteading Institute

Patri Friedman, founder of The Seasteading Institute, which believes that governments could be far more diverse and innovative. Currently, there is no open space for political experimentation, which is why we work every day towards opening the oceans as the next frontier for human civilization. Ocean cities will function as "startup countries", competing to find the political and social systems of the future. Current projects include research into engineering, law, business models, and locations, as well as building a global movement of seasteaders, all directed towards the audacious goal of seeing the first seasteads this decade.

.:seasteading.org->

Enthusiasm for the Billionaire Giving Pledge

Image source

Last week, 17 more billionaires signed on toAthe Giving Pledge and declared their intention to give away to charitable organizations at least 50 percent of their wealth. The initiative is being spearheaded by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates.

I’ve been following this effort since it was launched earlier this year with aAcover story inAFortuneAmagazine. Let me say clearly that I think it’s fantastic for billionaires to give money to charity instead of buying expensive toys they don’t need or giving it all to their heirs. And I applaud the Gates family and Mr. Buffett for being willing to challenge their peers and to lead by example. Their effort will surely lead to an increase in giving among billionaires and others. I do, however, have some concerns.

I don’t want to be a Grinch about it in the middle of the holiday season, but there are three important reasons to keep our enthusiasm for the Giving Pledge in check. First, the pledge is likely to have an extremely small impact on total giving, especially in the first few years. Second, little of the money is likely to benefit the most under-served populations. And third, giving by billionaires has typically been limited in its effectiveness and has dangerous implications for democratic decision-making.

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Time to Rethink Design

David Carlson of the David Report has released a new trend look at the state of a full design world. Design contamination has taken over an expertise that is barely 100 years old; new products are simply the variations of old themes- (conceptual design, new articulations of the same, design signatures and design as art).

However if we are able to get back to using aging products and making design matter in a lifecycle, there is a cleaner horizon.

Designer Naoto Fukasawa: "I understand that myArole is about enhancing our living…. I've become moreAattached to the current life, and have started considering the betterment of our lives in a reality where we allAbelong, rather than predicting what could happen".

We need new storytellers:

Fred Alan Wolf - The Dreaming Universe (1994):A"Aboriginals believe in two forms of time: two parallelAstreams of activity. One is the daily objective activity,Athe other is an infinite spiritual cycle, called dreamtime,Amore real than reality itself…".

Carlson poses a great question, how do we A"change old habits and not to perpetuate the sales argument that the main role of designAis added value."

Read the full report in one of three forms: PDF, Flip Through Version or Text