The Knight Foundation has just announced a $24 million grant program to challenge community foundations to “find creative uses of media and technology to keep communities informed and citizens engaged.” Todd at Inside Philanthropy thinks that corporate competitiveness has forced (or enabled) major media outlets to “abandon their role as social watchdog and resource,” and [...]
Entries from June 2008
June 29, 2008
Integration: the next philanthropic frontier?
In a really interesting article in the NYTimes on June 26, Heather Timmons profiles the Children’s Investment Fund (T.C.I.) hedge fund and its non-profit twin, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. The fund and the foundation are run by Christopher Cooper-Hohn and his wife, Jamie, respectively, and have grown into one of the largest, best performing [...]
June 28, 2008
Vietnam is the most attractive “emerging market retail destination”
The “trade vs. aid” conversation is one we’ve started and will come back to, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff in A.T. Kearny’s annual ranking of the most attractive emerging market destinations for retail expansion. Basically, the consulting firm looks at about 25 variables spread across categories including: political and economic risk, market saturation [...]
June 28, 2008
Hot Social Entrepreneur Tip #84: Work (loudly) in coffee shops
It seems like every other week or so, some one tells me a story of a chance meeting in a coffee shop that resulted in some major boon for their organization. For me, it has ranged from meeting the future funder of two annual Center for Global Engagement post-graduate fellowships to conversations like the one [...]
June 27, 2008
Some cool student-led organizations you might not have heard of (yet)
One of the most dramatic changes on college campuses in the last ten years or so has been the increase in both traditional and non-traditional study abroad programs. More and more students are trying to learn about the world by going out and being a part of it than ever before. The most exciting news [...]
June 24, 2008
Question of the week: Do colleges and society need to do more to incentivize public service and nonprofit work after college?
A New York Times article published on June 23 asked “Big Paycheck or Service? Students Are Put to Test.”
The article describes how many students take jobs in the financial services or management consulting industries immediately after graduation, citing reasons like salary level, security, competitiveness and notably – availability of information and clear application procedures.
Different [...]
June 23, 2008
A triumph of language?
Just coming back from a planning meeting for the annual Chicago Global Donors Network conference (CGDN). CGDN is a regional philanthropy association that’s designed to connect both global donors in the Chicago and midwestern regional area.
Each year, the annual conference solicits proposals from around the country for panel sessions and roundtable discussions. The discussion and [...]
June 20, 2008
Extending the spirit of World Refugee Day all year
Photo by Thomas Lee – “Unyama Gaze: displaced children in northern Uganda
Today is World Refugee Day, and it’s worth taking a few minutes to question what the status of refugees says about the state of our world and our country.
According to the UN, the number of refugees has gone up for two years, after [...]
Charlie is a student of international development; a co-founder of Runa (www.runa.org), a social enterprise producing sustainablly harvested high-energy teas and beverages from the Ecuadorian Amazon; a meditater; and a musician. You can reach him at caharding (at) gmail (dot) com
