Posts Tagged → women

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.

10×10 Presents: Girl Rising

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I am so excited to see 10×10 pick up speed, momentum and be a driver in the conversation about girls’ education. I have known about the documentary and campaign for a little over a year now and was honored to attend a special event to showcase the new trailer this month on International Day of the Girl at the Paley Center here in New York. Pat Mitchell opened the event, the film’s executive director and producer, Holly Gordon, introduced the incredible lineup of speakers and many of my favorite women were in the room including Susan McPherson and Tammy Tibbetts.

Girl Rising is the feature-length film at the center of 10×10′s global action campaign for girls’ education. The film reveals the extraordinary stories of girls from around the globe, fighting to overcome impossible odds on the road to realizing their dreams of education. The documentary will be released in 2013 and you can believe I’ll be sharing more information as it’s released!

Shared below are more ways your can get involved in your community, school, and business and information on their nonprofit partners. Also a big thanks should go out to Intel for being their lead corporate sponsor. I really love when business is smart business. Their tagline is “Sponsoring Tomorrow Starts Today” and they are really putting their money where their mouth is supporting this documentary and highlighting these nonprofit organizations and their work around the world helping to support initiatives focused on women and girls.

SPEAK UP
Tweet, like, and share away. Get the word out that educating girls can make all the difference:

  • Like the 10x10act Page
  • Share a 10×10 video or blog post on your Wall—or some of these facts
  • Follow and retweet @10x10act on Twitter or write your own with the hashtag #girlseducation
  • Blog about girls education on your own blog
  • Write an op-ed piece in your school newspaper (be sure to let us know so we can promote it)
  • Get credit: Write a paper on the societal impact of girls education for one of your classes
  • Tell your community:  Give a presentation on 10×10 in one of your classes or at a community event

GET TOGETHER

  • Host or join a 10×10 Book Club
  • Screen a film related to girls’ education, and show one of our videos at the event
  • Mount a photography exhibition on your campus using our photos

DIVE IN

MORE ABOUT 10×10′s NONPROFIT PARTNERS

10×10 has tapped a coalition of NGOs to create a high-impact network of champions and leaders in girls’ education. These organizations, which provide life-changing services to girls every day, include:

  • Afghan Connection (http://www.afghanconnection.org/) supports schools, teachers, and sports opportunities in rural Afghanistan – and has educated over 40,000 boys and girls.
  • A New Day Cambodia (http://www.anewdaycambodia.org/) provides food, shelter and education to Cambodia’s garbage dump scavenger children.
  • CARE (http://www.care.org/) is a leading global humanitarian organizationthat fights poverty by empowering girls and women.
  • Girl Up (http://www.girlup.org/) educates, motivates, and trains American girls to become global leaders while channeling their energy and compassion to raise awareness and funds for United Nations programs that help some of the world’s hardest-to-reach adolescent girls.
  • Partners in Health (http://www.pih.org/) delivers life-saving care in some of the poorest corners of the globe, ensuring girls have access to health services as part of their mission to break the cycle of poverty and disease.
  • Plan International USA (http://www.planusa.org/) works side by side with communities around the world to end the cycle of poverty for children. Plan’s Because I am a Girl Campaign is a global initiative committed to fighting gender inequality, promoting girls’ rights, and lifting millions of girls out of poverty.
  • Pratham USA (http://www.prathamusa.org/) is the largest educational movement in India and provides Indian youth with the educational environment and tools to learn, grow, and break the poverty cycle.
  • Room to Read (http://www.roomtoread.org/) transforms the lives of millions of children in the developing world by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education.
  • World Vision (http://www.worldvision.org/) is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

I love big juicy campaigns like this that pull together resources and really focus on impact. To use the phrase, “Go big or go home” that is what it is going to take to really get girls education on the map and part of the conversation. It’s really exciting to see a campaign come around like this that has so many great partners and voices behind it.

Get involved, sign up, dive in and check it out.

I know I am.

Exciting Announcement! I’ve Joined the Board of She’s The First!

I could not be prouder than to share that I’ve joined the Board of Directors for She’s The First. You have read about She’s The First here on The Causemopolitan a few times – most recently about my “sweet sixteen x2″ birthday campaign to raise money for girls in Guatemala with bi-coastal birthday parties in New York and Los Angeles.

I was passionately looking for an organization I really believed in and where I felt my skills could be best utilized. I have quite a few organizations that I’m really passionate about – and a lot of those all of you know about read about here – but it’s been so thrilling to really focus on She’s The First and this gigantic year of acceleration for the team.

I want to give a huge thank you to so many of my friends, family, readers and supporters for supporting my birthday campaign and also for supporting She’s the First last year. Together we raised $5,000!

Because of all of our efforts together, 15 students in Solola, Guatemala are sponsored in 2012, through a She’sThe First partner organization Starfish One by One. 15!!! That’s incredible. Go to shesthefirst.org to see year-round updates on how the girls are doing–including video footage from a volunteer trip to Guatemala this spring.

If you’d like to receive monthly updates subscribe to the She’s The FIrst newsletter. You can also connect on Facebook, Twitter, and at upcoming events!

So what’s next? Our 2012 goals include:

  • DOUBLING the number of girls we’re sponsoring annually, to more than 300
  • Increasing our She’s the First*{Campus} chapters from 21 to 50, training 500+ high school and college students to act as young global leaders
  • Piloting an after-school program with the Young Women’s Leadership Schools in NYC, reaching 1,000+ girls who will be first in their families to go to college
  • Forming new sponsorship program partnerships worldwide
  • Raising a budget to hire our first employee, capacity building
  • Hosting a bigger GIRLS WHO ROCK concert during Internet Week NY (May 18) to raise $50,000 for theShanti Bhavan school in India

If you’d like to get more involved on a personal level just let me know – would love to have you on board!

Join Me and Donate To My Birthday Fundraiser

Dear friends, family and everyone else who has stumbled onto this page,

Let me set the stage…the big one was my 30th birthday in 2009 – that was the year Cause It’s My Birthday was born and we raised $20,000 for Netting Nations and for malaria nets in Ghana.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to shake the power of social media to help drive social change. I eat, live and breathe in this space.

I’m at it again! This year, I’m celebrating my Sweet Sixteen (x2) and 100% of online donations and donations at my birthday party will go to She’s The First. She’s The First supports girls education in the developing world. The partner school I’ve chosen is Starfish One By One School in Solola, Guatemala. Only $300 provides a scholarship to one girl for one year.

I am so incredibly passionate about education and girls. Education is quite simply not an option for many girls in many parts of the world. Often it’s because families can’t afford the very basic school costs. I’ve researched nonprofits in this space and have been a supporter of She’s The First for the past year. I carefully picked this school in Guatemala and have talked to volunteers who have been there on the ground and met the students. Your donations go DIRECTLY to support these students and provide them with a future that is not possible without your support.

Please join me in making a donation today and reaching my goal of $5,000.

You can make a donation HERE. Every dollar counts. Thank you for your donations and for supporting my birthday wish.

If you’d like to help spread the word, please post this message to your social media networks:

I’m supporting @sloane’s birthday fundraiser to support #girlseducation through @shesthefirst: http://slne.us/sweetsixteenx2

More about She’s The First:

She’s the First is a not-for-profit that sponsors girls’ education in the developing world, helping them be the first in their families to graduate. In the process, She’s the First fosters leadership and self-awareness in young Americans, by inspiring them to lead creative fundraisers and correspond with sponsored students. Our efforts shape a rising generation of well-educated global leaders, future philanthropists, and cross-cultural communicators.

Come out and celebrate in person!

Tuesday, 10/11 in Los Angeles, CA
Thursday, 10/13 in New York, NY

Thank you,
Sloane