Nonprofits

My Donations 2012

This is something new for me to share more of my personal tracking. I decided to be a better self-tracker in 2012. I tracked places I went in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 but only last year did I start to track in a real way a number of other personal items. That list includes books I read (that post is coming soon) and 100% of donations versus just my larger donations. I decided to include a second column for crowdfunding. It’s all split up below but I wanted to be able to really dig in and share where I’m giving to.

My goal was 1% of my salary. I have been exceeding that for most of my career (before the One Percent Foundation was created, though I do love that there is a larger movement towards something I believe in.

In giving there were a few areas that I really focus on. I first go local, so I give to places that were meaningful to me growing up like my alma maters and then I give locally to where I live. I also give to organizations that focus on my core areas: women & girls, financial literacy & microfinance and education. I also give when friends ask. So quite a few donations below are to birthday or other various fundraisers. I believe many of us are giving to organizations because friends ask and I know I greatly appreciate it when I ask and friends give so this is also really important to me. I give to people who I believe in. I give to more startup nonprofits than established ones. I give to socially relevant topics like Planned Parenhood’s battle last year. I give to places where I also dedicate my time volunteering and playing a bigger role (Kiva, She’s The First, Resolve, Step Up Women’s Network). Last, I included crowdfunding in my tracking just to see how much I gave over last year to Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. These aren’t part of my total donations but I did track them.

I’m not releasing the actual amounts instead I bucketed below. I’m excited to track again this year and really look at where I’m giving and how it supports my overall giving philosophy. I am going to be writing more about my own giving philosophy and am excited to put some of those thoughts to paper and share them here.

If you have a giving philosophy and want to share that with me, I’d love to hear from you.

Without further ado, giving in 2012.

$0-$100
Care For The Homeless
charity:water
Hole In The Wall Gang
Kiva
Plant A Fish
Red Cross

$100-$250
BPeace
Glory Reborn
Resolve Network**
Shady Side Academy
St. Edmund’s Academy
Step Up Women’s Network
University of Vermont

$500+
She’s The First*

Additional fundraising platforms used:
Crowdrise
Razoo
Kickstarter
IndieGoGo

* – Board of Directors
** Advisory Board

Introducing Catapult. Crowdfunding and Microfinance Combined

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What if you took the best of the web, combined it, and put the focus on helping women and girls? That is the challenge taken by Catapult, a new website that brings together crowdfunding and microfinance to help women and girls around the world. Launched (with exciting buzz) at the Clinton Global Initiative, Catapult is gaining momentum with both its early partners, supporters, press and new members.

Catapult was born from Women Deliver, a global advocacy organization that brings together voices from around the world to call for action to improve the health and well-being of girls and women. Women Deliver focuses on solutions by nonprofits, NGOs and voices from around the world. Catapult can do this through each and every one of us taking an action.

There are other platforms out there that speak just to microfinance or to crowdfunding. I know for me, when I am making a loan on Kiva, I specify that I want a project that supports women. However there wasn’t one place that only supported women and that went beyond microfinance for traditional businesses, home loans and educational loans but that also supported all of the ways women and girls in the developing world need our help. Also I would be willing to make my loan a donation, if only I was given the opportunity to do so.

Catapult also speaks to the growing need in nonprofits to showcase where our donation is going. Instead of making an unrestricted donation to an organization, donors want to know where their money is going and be able to track the progress of that initiative/campaign. Through Catapult they can.

Like Kiva and many other platforms, Catapult does not take a percentage of the donation. You can support them through an additional donation in check-out but 100% of your donation goes to the project you’re funding.

Here is their missions statement:

We all believe in a gender equal world.

Obviously.

But more than 500 million girls and women will be denied the opportunity to take part in the next generation’s development.

This doesn’t have to be the reality. Organizations working for girls and women currently raise less than half the average amount raised by other nonprofits and charities.

Catapult can change that.

We’re combining the financial power and actions of people like you to help tackle gender inequality around the world.

Join me, create an account, find a project you believe in, and help fund it. Spread the word. Help get these projects out into the world.

**Disclosure: Engender Health is a client and is one of the first organizations to launch projects on Catapult’s platform. But in all fairness, I knew about Catapult way before Engender Health was a client and that is just a happy by-product of being so involved and passionate in the women & girls network.

Introducing Resolve Network

“There is a saying, ‘together people are strong.’ We could not have achieved this success alone, because working in isolation, it weakens you. What one woman alone could not do, we can achieve together”   – Mapendo

I first met the Founder of the Resolve Network, Vijaya Thakur, at a Kiva event two years ago. It was just one of those things. We clicked instantly. I was so inspired by her story, her energy, frankly her resolve. We talked about microfinance and women’s issues and how those issues changed in different parts of the world.

We stayed in touch and our relationship took a turn towards true friendship when we took a 8-week OpEd Project workshop together in 2011. I continued to look at the work Vijaya was doing at Resolve and looked to get more involved in her growing organization by offering tips, advice and counsel.

It is with great joy and truly an honor that I can share with everyone that I have officially joined Resolve Network’s Board of Advisors. I will act as an advisor on a range of topics but will focus my attention on social media, online fundraising, increasing donor engagement and expanding Resolve’s digital toolbox. It’s now my turn to reach out to some friends for advice and counsel as I join the amazing team, Board of Directors and other Advisors to help grow and scale Resolve’s work in the Congo and soon in other countries as well.

If you’d like to learn more, read below! You can also make a donation HERE.

More about Resolve:

Resolve Network builds peace from the ground up, empowering those most affected by chronic and systematic conflict: women. Through our work with women in Eastern Congo, Resolve reconstructs how peace is achieved and fosters creative and self-sustaining solutions. Our programs focus on developing comprehensive and dynamic networks of support for women peace makers, affirming their agency to enact their own visions of peace.

In the last year, we: 

› Launched 10 village microfinance cooperatives.

› Empowered 500 people to rise out of extreme global poverty.

We multiply our impact when we unite. The women of our program matched you step-by-step. As their businesses became profitable, they joined together to organize community building projects so: 

› 1,500 farmers grew more food and better fed 15,000 people thanks to a sustainable irrigation program.

› 20,000 people gained safe access to clean drinking water

› 30,000 at-risk people gained access to safe latrines, cutting their risk for cholera by 80%.

I personally believe it’s so important to support these small organizations that are nimble, cost-conscious and dedicated to helping people directly on the ground – minus the red tape. I am really looking forward to being part of this movement in a more dedicated way moving into 2013.

Hurricane Sandy Volunteer Opportunities

It’s Friday which means it’s been over four days since lower Manhattan had power. At last count 730,000 New Yorkers were without power and that’s just around New York but doesn’t include New Jersey, Rhode Island or the other states that were affected by Hurricane Sandy.

I have been looking for volunteer opportunities and found quite a few across the web but not everything one place. So I have pulled below lots of different ways to help. If you know of more leave them in the comments or I’ll keep adding to this as recovery goes on.

From the office of the Public Advocate. Sign up for updates HERE.

Brooklyn

  • Friday, November 2, 12pm-4pm: Help us go door to door and distribute information to small business owners about filing for federal disaster aid in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Space is limited, please RSVP to esharp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov
  • Friday, November 2, 12 pm-4 pm: Help us go door to door to distribute information to homeowners about filing for federal disaster aid in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. Space is limited, please RSVP to esharp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov

Queens

  • Friday, November 2 through Sunday, November 4, 10am-8pm: Drop off canned foods, clothes, and cleanup supplies at 8000 Cooper Avenue (the former Borders Bookstore site). For questions about the donation drive, please call Council Member Elizabeth Crowley’s office at 718-366-3900.
  • Friday, November 2 through Sunday, November 4, 10am-8pm: Drop off canned foods, and men’s, women’s and children’s coats, and blankets at 83-91 Woodhaven Boulevard, Woodhaven, NY 11421. For questions about the donation drive, please call Assemblyman Mike Miller’s office at 718-805-0950.
  • Friday, November 2 through Saturday, November 3, 10am-1pm: Click here to volunteer in Brookville Park or Baisley Pond Park with clean-up efforts.
  • Friday, November 2, 12pm-4pm: Help us go door to door and distribute information to small business owners about filing for federal disaster aid in Jamaica, Queens. Meet at the office of Councilman Ruben Wills, 95-26 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica. Space is limited, please RSVP towgardiner@pubadvocate.nyc.gov

Manhattan

  • Friday, November 2 through Sunday, November 4, 10am-1pm: Click here to sign up to volunteer with clean-up efforts in Happy Warrior Playground, Annunciation Park, Carl Schurz Park, Anne Loftus Playground (at Fort Tryon Park), Randall’s Island (Friday and Saturday only) or Hudson River Park (Friday only).
  • Friday, November 2, shifts starting at 10am, 12pm and 2pm: Operation Water Bottle, initiated by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, is helping deliver water to Chinatown using Dance New Amsterdam (280 Broadway, entrance at 53 Chambers Street) as a staging area to fill up empty water bottles. While the Department of Environmental Protection has opened the fire hydrants for water use there are many who don’t have access to refillable bottles or don’t have easy access to the hydrants. De Blasio’s team has thousands of empty water bottles they are filling up at DNA and delivering to residents. Space is limited, please RSVP to jmerritt@pubadvocate.nyc.gov

Bronx

  • Friday, November 2, 9 am-3 pm: New York Blood Center Emergency Blood Drive at the Bronx County Building, 851 Grand Concourse-Veterans Memorial Hall, 1st Floor Rotunda
  • Friday, November 2 – Sunday, November 4, 10 am-1 pm: Click here to volunteer with clean-up efforts in Van Cortlandt Park or Orchard Beach.

Here is a summary of where you are needed on the Lower East Side today:

  • GOLES, 171 Ave B between 10th & 11th St Friday & Saturday between 12-6 pm Knocking on doors to distribute supplies, calling members to make sure they’re ok, posting information, coordinating, etc.
  • CAAAV, 46 Hester St Friday 10 am-5 pm Knocking on doors to distribute supplies and information.
  • Help the Smith Apartments, 46 Madison St Friday 10 am- 5 pm Bringing water, food and information to elderly residents stuck in their apartments.
  • Henry Street Settlement, 265 Henry St Friday, 10:45 Distributing food to the elderly population
These are all drop-off centers if you have food, water, generators, etc.

Astoria (items dropped in Astoria will be delivered to the Rockaways)

Location 1: 23-74 38th Street (closed for the night, MIGHT reopen tomorrow, please check back here for updates) Contact Leni: (347) 762-1648

Location 2: 33-33 87th St btw Northern Blvd and 34th Ave (closes 9pm) Contact Neha: (917) 392-9708

Chinatown (open Nov 1, 10am-5pm) CAAAV 46 Hester St Frnt A (212) 473-6485 justice@caaav.org - email provided, but best to just show up to help or bring supplies!

Specific Requests in Chinatown: Water bottles C, D, AA, AAA batteries (and one 9 volt battery) Food (hot at lunch, non-perishable/bread/cookies) Some bottles of Ensure (Glucerna shake) for the elderly, vitamins for the elderly Generator (for shelter at 350 Grand St, Seward Park High School)

Rockaway and Far Rockaway Location 1: Firehouse on 59th street across from the train station. contact person: Jean Dupont9179755623

Location 2: Veggie Island 96th Street and Rockaway Beach Blvd.

Location 3: Store Front Community Center B113 and Rockaway Blvd

Specific Requests in Rockaway and Far Rockaway (starred ones are most urgent): * Propane grille or camping style oven * Plates, cups, forks, bowls, spoons, etc * blankets, jackets, gloves, hats, anything to keep folks warm * cleaning supplies – buckets, squeegies, mops, bleach * masks, gloves for cleaning * socks * water * tarps * garbage bags boots electric stove gas stove satellite phones big paper, tape, markers pens, paper, notepads generators pumps camping tables gasoline gasoline containers percolator fire extinguishers walkie talkies i9 tablets projector/illuminator

Fort Green/Clinton Hill 45 Waverly Avenue just off of Park Ave in Fort Green/Clinton Hill (Hours for Nov 1: 10am-6pm)

Park Slope New Hope Church 120/122 16th St btw 4th and 5th ave Contact: Pastor Craig: (718) 768-5275

Red Hook The Red Hook Initiative 767 Hicks Street Contact: Mariya (347) 770-1528 (but please just show up!)

Specific Requests in Redhook: (Will be updated at redhook.recovers.org prepared food (including food for children) batteries flashlights power strips toiletries (including toilet paper and paper towels) utensils such as spoons and bowls jugs of water

Bay Ridge Residence 9108 Colonial Rd. Brooklyn 11209 #E9

Sunset Park St. Jacobi Church 5406 4th Ave Contact: Ronnie 646-353-5194

Specific Requests in Sunset Park: steamtable foil pans full or half size w lids blankets cleaning supplies tin foil saran wrap

Williamsburg (starting Nov 1, 10am) Residence 306 Leonard St, apt J1 (btwn Conselyea and Metropolitan) Contact: Jennifer (917) 586-4153

Bed-stuy Residence 136 Jefferson Ave, apt 2 11216

East Billyburg (Beginning Thursday Nov 1 at 12 noon) House of Yes 342 Maujer st Contact: Kae Burke (525)217-7209

Downtown Brooklyn NYCC 2-4 Nevins Street, 2nd Floor

Harlem Location 1: Residence 47 saint nicholas avenue #4d btw 112 and 113

Location 2: Residence 938 st Nicholas ave # 25 at corner of 157th and st Nicholas ave.

Lower East Side

Location 1 The Bowery Mission 45-51 Ave D 212-777-3424 contact: Claude Nelson or any “operations manager” on duty. they’re open 24/7 and in need of prepared foods, a generator and anything else you can offer.

Location 2 (open 11/1 3pm-6pm and 11/2 12pm-6pm) Goles 169 Ave. B btwn 10th and 11th

Specific Requests at Lower East Side: Generator (Requested at Bowery) Prepared Foods (Requested at Bowery) flashlights (Requested at GOLES) batteries (AA, AAA, D) (Requested at GOLES) non perishable food (Requested at GOLES) candles (Requested at GOLES) first aid kits (Requested at GOLES) vehicles or bikes with trailers (to bring supplies around) (Requested at GOLES)

Upper East Side (drop off center for Rockaway/Breezy Point/Broad Channel donations) Saloon York Ave between 83rd and 84th.

From Stephanie Diamond’s Listing Project:

From New York Tech MeetUp and Gary’s Guide:

Here are a few ways you can get involved in the recovery process …… 

https://lowereastside.recovers.org/

https://redhook.recovers.org/

https://astoria.recovers.org/

Hurrican Hacker is also doing a great job of connecting people online: http://www.hurricanehackers.com/

The Red Cross expects this to be a large and costly relief response across several states, one that continues for several days, and they need your help now as they work on opening up and maintaining many shelters for those who were forced to evacuate their homes. So donate to or volunteer for the Red Cross.

There are a few recovery organizing sites that allow people to offer/request assistance, and are coordinated by the folks at Occupy NYC and community organizations on the ground including Lower East Side Recovers and Astoria Recovers, Red Hook Recovers and Staten Island Recovers.

You can sign up to volunteer at the NYC Public Advocate’s Office.

Craig Newmark of Craigslist and CraigConnects is matching the next $25K in donations to help Hurricane Sandy relief efforts and United Airlines Foundation will contribute upto $50,000 to match donations to the American Red Cross, Feeding America or AmeriCares.

You can also donate blood via the NY Blood Center.

And the NY Tech Meetup and New Work City are organizing volunteers with technology skills to help with relief efforts and help New York-area businesses and organizations get their technology back up and running after Hurricane Sandy. Here is the signup form.

Us New Yorkers are a resilient lot and together we’ll get through this!

Update (1:23pm)

Thanks Jessica Kirkwood for these additions from NYC Serve:

Do you want to Donate?

Those who wish to give cash donations to assist New Yorkers suffered damage from Hurricane Sandy visit the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.

Those who wish to donate goods and services should visit Aidmatrix.

Do you want to Volunteer?

Those who wish to volunteer in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy click here. As opportunities arise we will contact you.

New York needs your BLANK

Many of New York City’s parks and playgrounds were impacted by Hurricane Sandy. If you would like to volunteer with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation to aid in clean up and recovery, please review the list of parks and playgrounds below that are in need of assistance this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Click the links below to sign up in your borough and be sure to check back for updates on other parks in need of volunteers!

Bronx
Pelham Bay Nature Center
Van Cortlandt Park
Click here to volunteer in the Bronx

Queens
Brookville Park
Baisley Pond Park
Click here to volunteer in Queens

Manhattan
Annunciation Park
Anne Loftus Playground
Click here to volunteer in Manhattan

From Reena De Asis

@FoodBank4NYC Community Kitchen & Pantry, 252 W. 116th St., open now w/ emergency pantry bags & will serve meals 2-4pm #sandy

Big Business Commits Aid To Hurricane Sandy Relief Efforts

As Hurricane Sandy continues to wreak havoc up and down the Eastern seaboard, many big businesses have stepped up and immediately pledged relief efforts.

As many of you know, I am a big supporter, believer and proponent of the private sector’s investment to support and help communities. I salute these companies for cutting through the red tape and jumping to raise their hand to say, “I will help” in the early hours.

It’s an important measure and hopefully just the beginning of what we’ll see in the days, weeks and months to come.

(If you know of any additional ones, please leave them in the comments)

Here is a list of the first commitments to be widely promoted and shared:

Bank of America Provides Relief in Wake of Hurricane Sandy

Pernod Ricard USA Responds to Hurricane Sandy; Provides Monetary and In-Kind Contributions

Walgreens Donates $250,000 to Hurricane Sandy Relief Efforts

Capital One Commits $1 Million in Support for Hurricane Sandy Relief and Recovery Efforts

Lowe’s to Donate $1 Million to Help Communities Affected by Hurricane Sandy

Western Union Responds to Hurricane Sandy