Showing posts with label NonProfits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NonProfits. Show all posts
Google Geo Challenge
Through this program, Google will be offering grants valued between US$5,000 and US$100,000. These grants will be issued through an open application process - legally qualified, public charitable organizations with a compelling idea about how maps can help them work more effectively are eligible. Smaller mapping applications requiring only static data might receive US$5,000 in funding, while development of tools that enable many organizations to create maps might receive US$100,000.
Apply and submit your proposal online by December 22nd, 2008.
Apply and submit your proposal online by December 22nd, 2008.
How nonprofits can learn how to attract cash for expansion
William Foster, partner at leading nonprofit consulting firm Bridgespan Group, in his Stanford Social Innovation Review article, “Money to Grow On,” suggests that funding organizations should approach grantmaking in a similar way that venture capitalists approach making investments: high performing organizations with proven success should be awarded larger infusions of unrestricted cash to ramp-up and achieve long-term social change.
The Next Billion Network
MIT has launched a Next Billion Network to deploy innovative mobile technologies that can help people reduce friction in their local markets from the bottom up.
The Next Billion Network is based at the MIT Media Lab and will comprise 6 core activities:
1. Year-Round Academic Coursework at MIT
2. Next Billion Challenge Awards
3. On-the-Ground Deployments with Local Partners
4. Working Relationships with Industry
5. Local Mobile Programming Incubators
6. Opportunities for High-Tech Entrepreneurship
The Next Billion Network is based at the MIT Media Lab and will comprise 6 core activities:
1. Year-Round Academic Coursework at MIT
2. Next Billion Challenge Awards
3. On-the-Ground Deployments with Local Partners
4. Working Relationships with Industry
5. Local Mobile Programming Incubators
6. Opportunities for High-Tech Entrepreneurship
Global Village Phone Grant Competition
Grameen Foundation today announced its inaugural Village Phone Grant Competition which will provide $10,000 each to up to two organizations to launch Village Phone programs. The competition is open to microfinance institutions and other non-profit organizations and is being run through Grameen Foundation’s Village Phone Assistance Center website, www.villagephonedirect.org. In addition to the $10,000 grant, the recipients will also receive technical assistance from the Grameen Foundation Village Phone team and support in developing program materials.
The Future of Social Enterprise
The Future of Social Enterprise
Authors: V. Kasturi Rangan, Herman B. Leonard, and Susan McDonald
Authors: V. Kasturi Rangan, Herman B. Leonard, and Susan McDonald
- Full Working Paper Text
- Working Paper Publication Date: June 2008
- HBS Working Paper Number: 08-103
This paper considers the confluence of forces that is shaping the field of social enterprise, changing the way that funders, practitioners, scholars, and organizations measure performance. The authors trace a growing pool of potential funding sources to solve social problems, much of it stemming from an intergenerational transfer of wealth and new wealth from financial and high-tech entrepreneurs. They further examine how these organizations can best access the untapped resources by demonstrating mission performance, and then propose three potential scenarios, outlined below, for how this sector might evolve.
SVN Innovation Awards
The Social Venture Network (SVN) is accepting applications until July 15th for their 2nd Annual Social Venture Innovation Awards. Go to http://www.svn.org/awards for more information.
$250,000 for Nonprofits That Collaborate
The Lodestar Foundation has launched a $250,000 Collaboration Prize: The Collaboration Prize recognizes collaborations among two or more nonprofit organizations that each would otherwise provide the same or similar programs or services and compete for clients, financial resources and staff. The Prize also seeks to build an information base of effective practice models that can be studied and used by academics, nonprofit leaders and grantmakers to inspire and advance their work.
Yacha Salud
In rural areas of Peru, 7 of 10 individuals are poor. The majority of the rural poor are active in agriculture, mainly as producers and often with limited access to health, education and markets. The Sierra region consistently has the worst indicators for access to health, water and sanitation services, education, poverty and extreme poverty.
In Peru the quality of available health care is a problem. Health services tend to take a curative rather than a preventive approach, because of the training of health personnel. Health professionals may not speak the same language, which creates a barrier in interpersonal communication and creates in the population a fear of poor treatment.
In Peru health problems do not solely rest on the access to health services but the problems are also embedded in behavioral and cultural practices. Cultural practices are particularly influential in matters of food consumption and hygiene. Certain traditional health practices may have strong ceremonial or religious ties, or may be preferred by a population simply as a matter of tradition.
In Peru an integrated public health strategy has not until now been implemented on a national or regional scale, whether due to lack of technical capacity, administrative constraints, or lack of political will.
New local initiatives emphasize participation of schools. In addition to education the new approach includes education on health, hygiene, nutrition and entrepreneurship. They are more applicable to Peru, due to understanding of budget, government, and cultural constraints.
Evidence from around the world demonstrates that investments in public health and education are fundamental to improving human welfare, resistance to disease and reduce poverty through improving worker productivity. Integrating health, hygiene and nutrition messages into the basic education curriculum, particularly for girls, could be an effective approach to improving health of future generations.
Non-governmental organizations in Peru have many years of experience working successfully with the model of community health promoters. The public sector has started to establish a system of community health promoters affiliated with the health sector, who would have direct contact with families in their homes, providing outreach, services, and learning activities related to health, hygiene, and nutrition.
We propose to develop Yacha Salud in the 8 poorest regions of Peru, around 6 million people. The target groups for the proposed media project are school children; school teachers; pregnant and lactating women; adolescent mothers and girls; household in extreme poverty; health professionals and health promoters.
Content will be designed according to national health guidelines and based on local successful strategies for community health. We are involved with the formulation and review of health-related programs.
Health professionals and health promoters will receive technical assistance and training on Community Health and ICTs tools, enabling then to participate in the creation of content. The training materials will be distributed through partnership with our Peruvian partners that can translate it into native languages and add relevant localized content. The project will be implemented in a decentralized manner for maximum responsiveness to local needs. The ICTs training will be implemented by our local partner. The curriculum includes practical classes on use of Wikis (Wikimedia), Blogs (WordPress) and CMS (Drupal).
The initiative’s focus on Health, Hygiene and Nutrition addresses an unmet need with tremendous potential: Improving household access to and use of quality health information and services translate into healthier, better educated families that can benefit generations to come.
In Peru the quality of available health care is a problem. Health services tend to take a curative rather than a preventive approach, because of the training of health personnel. Health professionals may not speak the same language, which creates a barrier in interpersonal communication and creates in the population a fear of poor treatment.
In Peru health problems do not solely rest on the access to health services but the problems are also embedded in behavioral and cultural practices. Cultural practices are particularly influential in matters of food consumption and hygiene. Certain traditional health practices may have strong ceremonial or religious ties, or may be preferred by a population simply as a matter of tradition.
In Peru an integrated public health strategy has not until now been implemented on a national or regional scale, whether due to lack of technical capacity, administrative constraints, or lack of political will.
New local initiatives emphasize participation of schools. In addition to education the new approach includes education on health, hygiene, nutrition and entrepreneurship. They are more applicable to Peru, due to understanding of budget, government, and cultural constraints.
Evidence from around the world demonstrates that investments in public health and education are fundamental to improving human welfare, resistance to disease and reduce poverty through improving worker productivity. Integrating health, hygiene and nutrition messages into the basic education curriculum, particularly for girls, could be an effective approach to improving health of future generations.
Non-governmental organizations in Peru have many years of experience working successfully with the model of community health promoters. The public sector has started to establish a system of community health promoters affiliated with the health sector, who would have direct contact with families in their homes, providing outreach, services, and learning activities related to health, hygiene, and nutrition.
We propose to develop Yacha Salud in the 8 poorest regions of Peru, around 6 million people. The target groups for the proposed media project are school children; school teachers; pregnant and lactating women; adolescent mothers and girls; household in extreme poverty; health professionals and health promoters.
Content will be designed according to national health guidelines and based on local successful strategies for community health. We are involved with the formulation and review of health-related programs.
Health professionals and health promoters will receive technical assistance and training on Community Health and ICTs tools, enabling then to participate in the creation of content. The training materials will be distributed through partnership with our Peruvian partners that can translate it into native languages and add relevant localized content. The project will be implemented in a decentralized manner for maximum responsiveness to local needs. The ICTs training will be implemented by our local partner. The curriculum includes practical classes on use of Wikis (Wikimedia), Blogs (WordPress) and CMS (Drupal).
The initiative’s focus on Health, Hygiene and Nutrition addresses an unmet need with tremendous potential: Improving household access to and use of quality health information and services translate into healthier, better educated families that can benefit generations to come.
Grameen’s Social Business Initiatives
Grameen Bank itself would be an example of such a social business enterprise, which provided microfinance related services to the designated rural poor and the bank is also owned solely by the borrowers themselves. Some of the social enterprises were created in direct response to the demand of GB borrowers as well as the rural poor, for essential services needed for development of health, education, nutrition, and alleviation of poverty.
New ventures aim to provide nutrition and health services to a targeted client. In these new ventures, after the initial capital costs have been fully recouped, the investors agreed to take only nominal dividends, plowing back all profits for further expansion of the social business. Grameen-Danone Foods Ltd, and the newly formed Grameen Eye Hospitals are the latest examples of more rigorously designed social business models.
Numerous Grameen social enterprises have had both direct and indirect social development impact. They have clearly demonstrated that some of the social objectives of a poverty alleviation program can be achieved in a business like way.Toyota Environmental Activities Grant Program FY2008 now accepts Applications
The themes this year are “Global Warming Countermeasures” and “Biodiversity Conservation”, representing serious and urgent issues for preserving the earth′s environment.
The Program has two categories of grants. One is called General Grants, which has no restriction regarding project implementation site(s) and the limit of the grant amount per project. The other is Small-scale Grants, targeting community-based grassroots activities implemented in Japan with simpler application procedures.
Application Period: From Friday, April 25 to Friday, June 20, 2008
Application must be arrived by June 20, 2008.
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/environment/ecogrant/program.html
The Program has two categories of grants. One is called General Grants, which has no restriction regarding project implementation site(s) and the limit of the grant amount per project. The other is Small-scale Grants, targeting community-based grassroots activities implemented in Japan with simpler application procedures.
Application Period: From Friday, April 25 to Friday, June 20, 2008
Application must be arrived by June 20, 2008.
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/environment/ecogrant/program.html
The L-RAMP Model
Arun Sharma is Scouting Lead for Innovations at the Lemelson Recognition and Mentoring Program (L-RAMP) and a writer for L-RAMP Blog, which explores trends in social enterprise, innovation, technology and poverty alleviation.
Wireless Technology for Social Change
The study "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use," conducted by the U.N and Vodafone foundations, the study offers many inspiring stories of how activists and development experts in the field are using mobile technologies in innovative ways.
The Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership Deficit
From Bridgespan's "Leadership Deficit" report
Whether it is helping a teenage mother learn to care for her child, training an exconvict to get a decent job, or aiding disaster victims, nonprofits increasingly do the work required to fulfill our desire for a civil, compassionate, and well-functioning society. Like most organizations, their ability to consistently deliver these results depends more on the quality of their people than on any other single variable. Yet today nonprofit organizations struggle to attract and retain the talented senior
executives they need to fulfill their missions. Over the coming decade, this leadership challenge will only become more acute.
Whether it is helping a teenage mother learn to care for her child, training an exconvict to get a decent job, or aiding disaster victims, nonprofits increasingly do the work required to fulfill our desire for a civil, compassionate, and well-functioning society. Like most organizations, their ability to consistently deliver these results depends more on the quality of their people than on any other single variable. Yet today nonprofit organizations struggle to attract and retain the talented senior
executives they need to fulfill their missions. Over the coming decade, this leadership challenge will only become more acute.
Free Knowledge Institute Launch
The Free Knowledge Institute (FKI) is a non-profit organisation that fosters the free exchange of knowledge in all areas of society. Inspired by the Free Software movement, the FKI promotes freedom of use, modification, copying and distribution of knowledge.
The FKI develops projects in four different but highly related fields: education, technology, culture and science. Its multidisciplinary nature enables the seamless flow of information and expertise between different fields through global and transversal actions.
On Wednesday January 16, 2008, the Free Knowledge Institute will be presented during a New Years Reception organised by SELF, FKI, ISOC.nl and other organisations.
The FKI develops projects in four different but highly related fields: education, technology, culture and science. Its multidisciplinary nature enables the seamless flow of information and expertise between different fields through global and transversal actions.
On Wednesday January 16, 2008, the Free Knowledge Institute will be presented during a New Years Reception organised by SELF, FKI, ISOC.nl and other organisations.
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