Imagine being married before your 18th birthday.
That’s the fate half of Indian women face, but one 16-year old girl is part of a bigger group that’s trying to change their domestic destiny.
Krishna Chaudhry, a typical village girl in rural India, is one of the 1,000 girls who attend the Pardada Pardadi Educational Society, where girls spend half of their days studying, and the other half working hard to earn an income for the family, so they are allowed to stay in school. Although she lives in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest states, …

The White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation has an ambitious goal: to transform how we approach, and ultimately solve, our nation’s most pressing domestic problems in education, health care, poverty, joblessness, the environment, and more.  Their secret weapon – the nonprofit sector.
According to a White House Press Release, President Obama, in his FY2010 budget, will ask Congress for $50 million for the Social Innovation Fund to identify the most promising, results-oriented non-profit programs and expand their reach throughout the country.
“The idea is simple: to find the most effective programs …

For decades, American nonprofits have primarily focused their fundraising efforts on the domestic turf. After all, as an economic superpower with a culture that encourages giving, the US probably had the best pool of donors to tap into.
However, the number of people capable of making a substantial gift is growing in many part s of the world, said Deborah Miller, an assistant vice president at Wake Forest University.
According to the World Wealth Report 2009, by 2013 the number of millionaires in Asia and the total value of their wealth will …

Universal education isn’t exactly universal. India, while enjoying one of the best performing economy in recent years, has extremely literacy rate. More than 35 per cent of Indians are illiterate, and more than 50 per cent of its female population cannot read. The problems begin in childhood. Half of Indian children do not go to school, and more than half of those who do drop out at the age of 11 or 12.
That’s why the new Indian parliament bill, which demands universal, free and compulsory education for all children aged …

Former President Clinton recently remarked that a greater focus needs to be put on philanthropy directed toward rural areas, describing the philanthropic activity in the rural parts of this country has been “woefully inadequate.”
One of the issues he addressed was that there is not enough option for philanthropists when considering charity for rural parts of the country. He wanted new ideas and innovative solutions – such as environmental initiatives that could help encourage job growth in rural states (think investment in solar power). Another key point Clinton stressed was the lack …

The Six Degrees concept is nothing new. The popular trivia game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, challenges players to link any actor to Kevin Bacon through no more than six connections. It’s a small world indeed – and made even smaller by the rise of social networks.
Everyone is interlinked in this “human web” today – that’s the idea SixDegrees.org was founded upon. SixDegrees, a nonprofit founded by Kevin Bacon, is “social networking with a social conscience”. The website allows any Internet users to support a registered charity by donating or creating …

Anyone scouring the headlines these days has come to expect the usual messages of doom and gloom.  It’s particularly refreshing, therefore, to find some editorials articulating somewhat more hopeful messages, especially on the topic of education.
Editorials from newspapers on the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum sprang up last week, in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, both addressing the education crisis in our country with guarded optimism.  In one corner, The Gray Lady’s own David Brooks touts Obama’s stimulus spending on community colleges as an appropriate …

CSR. Just a few years ago, only representatives from major firms threw this phrase around as a PR jargon. Today it has become part of many people’s daily vocabulary. Now days, it is almost expected for a major firm to have a CRS branch, committed to a few core causes and holding regular events and initiatives. As it turns out, combining good business smarts with socially conscious  practices can be a very beneficial move for the company in the long run.
Employees want to work for socially responsible firms. A study that surveyed …

Let’s start with a little exercise: pick three adjectives to describe a nonprofit that serves a good cause. You have 5 seconds – starting now.
…..
Time’s up, what did you come up with? Inspiring? Charitable?  Helpful? Nice?
How about sassy, business-savvy, and sexy?
That’s the image that charity : water has achieved, thanks to its founder Scott Harrison’s vision. If charity : water were to become a real life character – and it already has plenty of it – it would be sharp, posh, and undeniably sexy. Partnering with Hollywood celebrities and high-end fashion retailers, charity : …

South Korea’s president, Lee Myung Bak, has pledged to donate $26 million of his personal fortune to a scholarship fund benefiting the poor. The president has lived the “rags to riches” dream, starting as a poor rural boy, rising to the top of the conglomerate world with Hyundai, and to becoming president of South Korea. The $26 million, which comprises of the majority of his wealth accumulated while at Hyundai, will go towards scholarships for needy children.

South Korea’s economy was blessed as it rose from being a destitute country to …