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google hunger relief campaign: simple ways to take a bite out of hunger

Posted by donna on January 10th, 2013

Koro is a six-year old girl who arrived at A Child for All’s orphanage (ACFA) without a home or family, her thin body extremely malnourished.  The founder of ACFA, Kadiatou Sidibe, remembers the first meal Koro had with the organization in 2010.  “It was lunch-time, and you know how in Mali, we all eat around one large plate of food.  Koro saw the food; her eyes grew big.  Then she took the whole dish and ran away—she didn’t know that there would be another meal later.”

Koro’s health has improved dramatically with the help of ACFA and its donors throughout the world.  It’s hard to think that engineers and marketing managers 7,000 miles away in Mountain View, California are key to improving the life chances of Koro and other children at ACFA.  But the fact is, they are.

Recently Google, Inc. partnered with GlobalGiving to launch its Hunger Relief Campaign, an initiative that encouraged employee donations to hunger relief agencies globally.  Googlers took a short online quiz on food security to receive a GlobalGiving gift code that allowed them to donate US$10 online to a hunger-related project of their choice.

And no, they didn’t have to answer the quiz questions correctly.

ACFA is just one of fourteen projects listed on Globalgiving.org as part of Google’s campaign.  Googlers could give to unique projects in India, Haiti, Guatemala, and Kenya (to name a few) but also to U.S.-based ones like the River Fund Mobile Pantry’s project to aid Hyperstorm Sandy victims.

“We love working with new partners like Google that innovatively deploy our gift card program to support their employees’ passions,” explains Mari Kuraishi, Co-founder and President of the GlobalGiving Foundation.

For ACFA, ten dollars goes a long way.  “All of the children that come to us are malnourished.  Ten dollars can provide multivitamins for two months,” says Sidibe.  The Google Hunger Relief Campaign drew awareness to these issues and often, after redeeming the gift card and learning about the projects, employees chose to give an additional donation that their company matched.

Mali, where Koro is from, has one of the highest child mortality rates of children under age five in the world (178/1000).  Over half of these deaths are related to malnutrition.

And the situation isn’t getting any easier.  Droughts throughout the Sahel and rebel uprisings have struck simultaneously, leading to more than 400,000 displaced and in search of food or safety.   The United Nations claims that the current situation has left 600,000 children under the age of 5 threatened by severe malnutrition.

“The children are staying at my father’s house, the same house that I grew up in.”  The partnership with Google and GlobalGiving allows Sidibe to work towards what she’s long dreamed: a five-acre lot that can house up to one-hundred children and provide a medical facility, a school for grades one through nine, a library, and sports facilities.  “All of this will help support the larger local community as well.  People currently have to walk two kilometers to get to the closest medical facility.”

ACFA has already received a disbursement of US$4,750 through Google employee gift cards, a small fraction of total Google employee giving.  This amount represents two months of ACFA’s operating budget and more than the annual nutrition needs for the current twelve children.

The Google Hunger Relief Campaign concluded at the end of 2012 and the result is absolutely amazing.  Google employees donated nearly US$160,000 to provide more than 800,000 meals to communities around the world.

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freedom starts at home

Posted by donna on July 4th, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is Independence Day in the United States.  On this day we celebrate our freedom from oppression, tyranny, and our equality, our freedom of speech and, among other things, right to pursue happiness.  Often these freedoms are framed in an historic and military context, dating back to 1776.   And they are framed with an eye toward meta- or country-level independence, freedoms and rights.

And while the USA  is a great country in many many ways, we still have a lot of work to do.   We have much to learn from other cultures and countries.  We are – and will always be – a work in progress.  And we have miles to go before these concepts are a reality for all of our citizens and residents.

So today, I share with you some fantastic organizations and projects working here in the United States of America, fighting every day to ensure that the ideals we celebrate on July 4th apply to all:

Empower 500 Navajo Families Without Electricity

War Vets Heal with Help of Shelter Dogs

Protect 250 Women Immigrants fleeing violence

Stop Homophobic Bullying in Schools

Provide School-based Healthcare for Poor Kids

Happy 4th.

 

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celebrating 10 lessons learned over 10 years – always open/never settle

Posted by donna on June 26th, 2012

Ten years ago, Co-Founders Mari Kuraishi and Dennis Whittle launched GlobalGiving. In honor of these past ten years and in the spirit of one of our guiding core values, ‘Listen. Act. Learn. Repeat,’ we have launched a monthly blog series guest-written by former and current staff members. Each will speak candidly about their experience at GlobalGiving and offer up something that they have learned. Mari wrote our inaugural blog post in February, and this month, our Chief Business Officer, Donna Callejon, writes in honor of her 50th Birthday…

—–

I’ve been struggling with what to say on this blog post.  A love letter to Mari & Dennis?  Something about second chapters?  Something about turning 50 (me) and turning 10 (GlobalGiving) in the same year?  Argh…writer’s block.

Last week my friend Anna suggested I subscribe to something called “The ListServe.”  Here’s what it says on their one-page website: 

“This is an e-mail lottery.
One person a day wins a chance to write to
the growing list of subscribers. It could be you.”

The next day I got my first daily email.  It was kind of a mess and seemed like a waste of 30 seconds, so I sent Anna a snarky note underscoring my impatience.   To which she calmly replied, “Hang in there.”

 

 

The day after that I got this:

[The Listserve] Just Do It:  “That idea you have? Stop putting it off. Will it be difficult? Probably. Will you want to give up? Absolutely. But don’t. You have to persevere.

What about failure?Learn from it. Try again. Be smarter this time. Make new mistakes. There’s a story I heard once: it took Edison more than 1,000 tries to invent the light bulb. He remarked to a reporter that he had not failed, he had simply found 1,000 ways to not create a light bulb.

How about luck? You’ll need it. But don’t let that stop you. You can’t get lucky if you don’t even try.

Get started. Change something. Do something.
- Phil Crumm (undergrad at UCLA)

Thanks, Phil, Anna, our values, and this little exercise, for summing up what life has been like for me at GlobalGiving.

 

Posted in GlobalGiving 10th Anniversary | Comments Off

climbing up the hockey stick

Posted by donna on August 29th, 2011

It really is hard to believe that it’s been nearly eight years since the day in Geneva when I met Dennis Whittle.   I went 4,073 miles to meet the guy who would turn the page to my career’s second chapter, when his office was just 3 miles from my house.  Three weeks later I met the other half of the founding duo – Mari Kuraishi.  Needless to say they were smart, direct, and impressive.  So not long after that I found myself toiling along with them and two handfuls of others in that sometimes smelly, often music-filled and always fun office above the thrift store down the street.

One of the first things they suggested I do was to read their business plan.  So I did.  It had, like legions of business plans before it, the classic hockey stick growth curve.  In our case, the unit being donation volume.  According to this plan, we would be at $40 million in annual donation volume, and “pay our own freight” by about 2005.  Um, we didn’t quite make that.  Many slightly less sloped hockey sticks followed.  When things didn’t take off like a rocket ship we tried new things, always led by our two fearless (and in this case that word really applies) leaders.  We tried plan b, plan c, and plan d, always with our eyes on the prize of working to make it possible for great organizations around the world to access funds and for donors of all shapes and sizes to support the causes that inspired them.

So here we are in 2011, celebrating two things.  First, our donor community just crossed $50 million in aggregate contributions.  Second, for the first six months of the year we more than “paid our own way,” covering 103% of our expenses on our own steam.  The business model is different from what was in the original plan.  The mix of donation activity is different from what was in the plan.  The mix of revenue comes from sources not in the original plan.  And we don’t yet feel like that 103% is a lock consistently, but we see the end of the tunnel.

Roles have evolved; Dennis has transitioned off the staff and onto the Board.  Mari runs the day to day with her quiet, determined leadership style.

Why did they persevere?  Ten days ago Dennis wrote a very poignant blog post, made moreso by his mom’s passing just a day later.  The post gives some insight into what motivates him.  Mari  has different, but equally inspiring, motivations as described in this Wharton Blog from earlier this year.

From the perspective of their team, we are glad they did press on.  Because they did, more than 50 million dollars have been contributed to social entrepreneurs and nonprofits around the world who are working to educate children, feed the hungry, build houses, train women (and men) with job skills, and catalyze hundreds of other important initiatives. This past week, a generous donor in Singapore gave the 50 millionth dollar through GlobalGiving to help with relief for the East African famine.  This was possible largely because Dennis and Mari have persevered to build a team and a platform that continue to live up to our mission of “unleashing the potential of people around the world to make positive change happen.”

Posted in General, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

38,000 opportunities for change

Posted by donna on July 26th, 2011

Yesterday we launched our most recent partner program - a custom portal that allows Eli Lilly and Company’s 38,000 employees around the world to support 800 of the projects currently available via GlobalGiving.  The Lilly Foundation will match their donations of $25 USD or more, up to $1 million annually.

Why is this blog-worthy or unique?  For a few reasons:

1.  Organizations otherwise wouldn’t have access to these 38,000 donors and the matching dollars.

Our mission is to make it possible for great ideas and organizations around the world to have a shot at raising funds they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.  And while there are certainly more than a few projects run by larger organizations in the Lilly portal, the majority of organizations only have a shot at receiving matching funds from US donors and companies via GlobalGiving.  They have completed our vetting process and, in most cases, participated in a Global Open Challenge, so we know they have the capacity to receive these funds.

2.  An opportunity for all employees – not just those in the US, UK and Canada – to be matched.

During the last few months we have participated in a number of convenings and meetings with companies large and small at which the topic was, “going international with workplace giving.”   Even some of the largest, most globally respected companies struggle with providing an equitable – and culturally relevant – program that embraces all their employees.  Lilly is taking a unique approach, combining a focus on its corporate areas of interest  – health, education, hunger, and the environment – as well as themes that resonate with its global employee base, including disaster relief.  It’s an experiment, to be sure, but one in which a leading company is taking a bold step to address this vexing question of parity of employee engagement programs worldwide.

3. A company putting its money where its mouth is.

Coincidentally, the launch comes on the same day as the release of the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of most generous corporate givers.  At #28 on that list, Lilly “wrestles above its weight class,” as described by the Indy Star.  So it’s really no surprise to long-time CSR/Philanthropy watchers that the company that supports education/wellness for kids with diabetes, or invests in organizations fighting MDR-TB around the world, would make this program available to its team. What’s not so typical is that the Lilly Foundation has directed a $50 credit to each employee’s “giving account.”  Enough to get them started and familiar with the website.  In the 24 hours since the portal launched, nearly 3,000 employees have already logged on to activate those vouchers, and contributed an additional $7,600+ of their own funds. 

4.  This partnership has made GlobalGiving stronger already.

To be selected by Lilly to provide this giving platform, GlobalGiving has gone through rigorous reviews.  Let’s be honest, these guys have high standards.  These reviews have caused us to strengthen our already considerable data security regime, to document our processes in more detail, and to think strategically about our longer term infrastructure needs.  It’s hard for a non profit social enterprise to make these investments in abstract.   But thanks to the encouragement and support of  the Lilly team  (and a little extra love from our friends at Dell for Good), we have been able to make investments that are critically important as we continue to grow the GlobalGiving platform to serve – for the long haul – even more great organizations doing important work globally.

Let the giving begin.

 

 



 

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Posted in Corporate Programs | 4 Comments »

A first person account of haiti one year later

Posted by donna on February 3rd, 2011

Below is an excerpt from a note sent by Marisa Glassman to several of our corporate partners this week:

Britt Lake and I spent a week in Haiti in January visiting a number of GlobalGiving project partners, all of which our corporate partners’ employees and communities supported through GlobalGiving last year. I intended to follow-up sooner after my trip, but I’ve admittedly had somewhat of a difficult timing wrapping my mind around what my exact messaging to partners should be. Because as productive and motivating as much of what I saw was, there is still much room for improvement.

The great news is that the organizations we visited were incredibly inspiring.  We specifically targeted some of the smaller, lesser known organizations to better familiarize ourselves with their work.   And we were not disappointed.  The happy, healthy, and absolutely adorable orphans at the Rivers of Hope Orphanage were a joy to see, and the conditions they lived in would make any adoptive parent or donor happy and proud.  We saw some truly community-based work during our visit to European Disaster Volunteers, visiting the various schools and orphanages with which they work.  We met with a clean water organization called Deep Springs International, which is not only distributing chlorine solution and buckets to thousands of families but also employs mostly Haitian workers (all but two of its roughly 240 employees). We visited a Haitian organization called Lambi Fund, with which we have been working for years prior to the earthquake, and met an entire group of their beneficiaries in a rural part of the country.  We visited with International Medical Corps, who operates a primary health care clinic in one of the largest tent cities in Port-au-Prince on the grounds of a former golf course.  They were also kind enough to stay with us for over an hour while our truck got stuck in the mud on the way out of the area (never a dull moment!).  And that was only about half of our visits – there were many other very interesting and moving encounters that week as well.

As I’m sure you’ve heard and read about recently, not all the news to report from our trip is good.  Many people are questioning the ability of international aid and governments to effectively help the people of Haiti as a whole, especially since we passed the anniversary of the earthquake on January 12th and the overall landscape is, indeed, still rather bleak.  Much of the rubble has not been cleared, let alone are many homes and buildings being rebuilt.  Every park and/or open space in Port-au-Prince you can imagine is now an IDP (internally displaced person) camp, housing much of the 1 million-plus Haitians who are estimated to be living in the tents within them. Cholera is a growing problem, and diseases like malaria and tuberculosis persist. While it is difficult to see how and where immediate widespread changes will occur, the organizations we visited provide a stark contrast to the generally grim picture the press has, in many cases rightfully, painted.

The people and infrastructure of Haiti have a long way to go as a whole, and I am proud to be working with project organizations like the ones  mentioned earlier, as well as our corporate partners like Discovery Communications, Capital One, Dell, and Nike to do what we can, no matter how large or small.

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Drive More than a Car with Ford

Posted by donna on December 2nd, 2010

In the auto industry, collisions are generally not a good thing.  But the collision of brand and cause marketing continues apace.

As media and its delivery evolves, borders are blurred by technology, and consumer brands embrace the notion that their customers care about things, and want them to care too, these campaigns get more creative.

Take for example the Ford Focus Global Test Drive.  As part of the program Ford will select 40 lucky individuals to travel to Spain in February to test drive the 2012 Ford Focus before it hits the market.  In addition, Ford will award $10,000 to a charity of each winner’s choice, in the categories of environment, education, or hunger.  And, making this truly a ‘global’ event, organizations from around the world are eligible to receive the grant.

To compete, individuals create and upload a two minute video to the Ford Focus Facebook page via the Global Drive tab.  The video has to be compelling – about a cause and desire to drive the car.    Selections will be made based upon criteria such as the quality and creativity of the video, the submitter’s social networking savvy and his/her social media reach (including the number of people who “love it”).

Just another marketing gimmick aimed at cynical Americans?  Not so much. As a partner in promoting and vetting the charity aspects of the program, GlobalGiving has had the chance to see how Ford has brought together marketing, philanthropy, and social media in a truly global way.   And what’s fantastic is that Ford Focus is not “recreating the wheel” (pun intended).  Building off of the success of the Fiesta Movement,  Focus is running a campaign that both brings new aspects of “challenges” to bear (check out the video invites to key bloggers), but also leverages existing platforms and partners, including  Facebook, Twitter, Votigo and GlobalGiving.  Smart.

Get off the curb – submissions have to be in by December 31st.  Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

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Sometimes Top Down Is Needed

Posted by donna on October 18th, 2010

Three seemingly disparate events prompted this post (in order of occurrence):

1. A trip to NYC from DC on Amtrak

2. Attending the Women’s Sports Foundation annual gala dinner

3.  Walmart’s announcement of their global commitment to sustainable food and the Heritage Agriculture program

In different ways each of these  remind me that leadership and “top down” commitment can have dramatic positive impact on the economy, people,  the planet, and the world.  GlobalGiving is built on the premise that “bottom up” solutions need air time and support, and can often be more impactful than “central planning.”  I agree.  But we also recognize the reality of the power of large institutions to make change happen fast.  At scale.  If leadership is committed to change.    What do these three events tell us?

Amtrak is essentially a monopoly in rail transportation in the United States. Despite whining about its sustainability, it’s website says, it “operates a nationwide rail network, serving over 500 destinations in 46 states and three Canadian provinces on over 21,000 miles of routes, with more than 19,000 employees. It is the nation’s only high speed intercity passenger rail provider….”

But – hello! – they can’t put some recycling bins in their trains?  Seriously. I found myself arriving in NYC, and then 24 hours later in Washington DC, carrying my newspaper, magazines, and empty water bottles back to my office so that they could be recycled.    Here’s what Amtrak says  on their embarrassingly un-updated website:  “By the end of 2009, all café and lounge cars throughout the Amtrak system will have a receptacle designated for collection of plastic and glass bottles as well as aluminum cans.”  Except I traveled on Amtrak on October 12th and 13th, 2010.  No recycling bins.  GlobalGiving has 30 people. We are able to figure out how to recycle.  Kimpton Hotels have figured it out.  Even WMATA, the much aligned Washington DC metro overseer, has Newspaper recycling bins in each station.  It’s about top-down commitment and leadership.  Don’t just say it on your website.  Do it.  Consumers care.

In my short trip to NYC  I attended the Annual Salute to Women in Sports, held by the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF).  The WSF was started by Billie Jean King about 35 years ago.  In those days women who participated in sports were somewhat of an anomaly.  And Title IX had just been passed.  And Billie Jean was an icon.

I was a Title IX baby for sure. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t participate in high school and college sports.  But I have Billie Jean King, Donna De Varona and a small cadre of risk-taking leaders to thank for my life-influencing exposure and involvement in organized athletics.  Not everybody loved them. They were called “amazons.”  They were told they should stay home and take care of their husbands and children.  But they took a stand and used the power of their positions and pushed.  Influenced.  Set the table for amazing athletes and women like Mia Hamm, Annika Sorenstam,  and Serena and Venus Williams.  Leadership.

On Thursday of last week, Walmart’s announcement of its enhanced commitment to sustainable agriculture raised some eyebrows, mostly from the skeptics.  But as long ago as 2007 Michael Strong posited that Walmart’s decisions regarding the broader global community could have significantly more lasting impact than its detractors care to admit.  With the largest retail global reach on the planet, and incentives to executives to follow the sustainability mantra, Walmart could conceivably alter the prospects of thousands of family farms around the world.  And this decision comes from the top, just like its promise in 2005  to 1. To be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, 2. To create zero waste,  and 3. To sell products that sustain our resources and environment.

Are they there yet? No.  Are they continually defying expectation and making changes that have unmeasurable ripple effect? Yes.  And it’s all been driven from the top, starting with an epiphany the CEO of Walmart had on a trip overseas.   They have been on a march to impact ever since.

Sometimes it takes a visionary or risk-taking leader to move an organization, or a society, forward.  And equally, those in power who fail to take action and “make change happen” are destined to be remembered for their weakness and inaction.

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The business of business is increasingly philanthropy.

Posted by donna on July 29th, 2010

Ideas about the role of corporations in society have changed a lot in the past few years. Twenty years ago, many corporate executives believed that “the business of business is business,” and that social issues had no place in corporate management.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts rarely went beyond an occasional employee volunteer day or a glossy report.

Today, the outlook is entirely different. Realizing that corporate responsibility matters to customers, employees, and investors, forward-thinking business leaders are making social and environmental sustainability a priority.

From improving energy efficiency to raising labor standards for overseas workers, companies are making corporate citizenship an integral part of their business strategy.

The Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE), a new GlobalGiving partner, advises and trains companies on sustainability and CSR. Registration is now open for CSE’s September workshop, a unique course designed to teach practical, implementable CSR techniques.

GlobalGiving’s corporate clients are at the forefront of new trends in corporate philanthropy. With our help, Dell has refined its philanthropic strategy, ensuring that its corporate giving reflects its vision and goals.

Nike has used our platform to facilitate employee giving, helping employees donate to organizations meaningful to them.

Pepsi and Neutrogena are incorporating philanthropy into marketing campaigns, linking their products to high-impact social projects around the world.

At the CSE workshop, GlobalGiving will share learnings and best practices with the next generation of CSR professionals. Participants will learn about cause marketing campaigns, trends in corporate philanthropy, sustainability reporting, and more.

Participants will leave the workshop with skills and competencies necessary to incorporate sustainability into business plans, benefiting not only their companies and investors, but also their local and global communities.

The GlobalGiving community (that’s you!) qualifies for a 15% discount when registering. Use the discount code “GlobalGiving.”

More information.

Donna Callejon is GlobalGiving’s Chief Business Officer.

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Hayden and Vanessa – GlobalGiving's new BFFs for Change

Posted by donna on July 21st, 2010

On Saturday, GlobalGiving’s new partner, Neutrogena, launched an awesome multi-media campaign called “Wave for Change.”  Vanessa Hudgens and Hayden Panettiere are the spokeswomen for the products involved in this campaign and they – along with GlobalGiving SVP of Operations Jennifer Sigler – hung out in Malibu to announce the program.

Here it is in a nutshell.  For the next month Neutrogena will contribute a dollar – up to $200,000 – for every one of two signature products purchased.  Those products are the Wave Sonic and their Pink Grapefruit Acne Wash.   The funds will go to support three projects on GlobalGiving that match up with Neutrogena’s teen consumers’ interests: Environment (assessing impact in the gulf), rebuilding  in Haiti, and girls education in Senegal.

A centerpiece of the campaign is letting Neutrogena fans and customers decide how the funds are allocated among the three projects…and this is being done in a creative way via Facebook. “Voters” score the importance of several actions (e.g., recycling, building self-esteem) and based upon their responses, one of the three projects is selected.

As a life-long user of Neutrogena products, I was personally pretty excited about this.  Not thinking of myself as at all into beauty or fashion,  last night I found myself at the uber-trendy Soho House in Manhattan, having dinner with the head of PR for Neutrogena, their awesome team at RPR Communications, and ten “beauty and teen bloggers.”   There was a lot of enthusiasm for the campaign, and it was a great chance to spend time learning more about how a big brand like Neutrogena makes decisions to do something so wonderful with its brand dollars.

Like the Pepsi Refresh Project, this is not being run out of a corporate foundation.  It’s a marketing campaign based upon solid consumer research.  While 15 years ago it was a theory, data now shows that consumers do make buying decisions based upon whether or not the companies whose products they buy do something positive to impact the world.  And it matters if the causes align with issues that their particular set of consumers care about.  For Neutrogena’s teen consumers those issues match up with the projects they selected to support via GlobalGiving.

As always, we are psyched and honored to work with fantastic companies like Neutrogena.  And because of this, I might just have to watch High School Musical or Scream 4.

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