February 7, 2010 – CBS News – USA

They say that “charity begins at home,” but in one family’s case, charity began WITH their home -  selling their house and downsizing in order to give half their profit to charity.

Mark Strassman looks at their spirit of giving.   View Video Story

Bilaal Rajan is a passionate philanthropist and charity fundraiser, all at the tender age of 13!

He has changed the world with his passion, love and inspiration, but most of all–his action. He started the foundation Hands for Help with the motto “Remember, together we can make a difference.”

Another of his projects is COOkids: Contributing, Organizing and Outstanding kids, a program that allows students to raise money for their school.

Bilaal’s ultimate goal is to inspire one million kids in the next three years to maximize their true potential and get involved in creating a better world, to have fun and to MAKE CHANGE NOW.

Visit his site for some creative and inspiring ways for adults and children to become Thrillionaires.  Read it here.

January 30, 2010 – Mashable – USA

Last week marked the entry of everyone’s favorite geek, Bill Gates, into the social media realm. The Microsoft tycoon launched a website and Twitter stream to discuss his philanthropic efforts. Though pundits feel Gates hasn’t added much to the conversation yet, his entry encapsulates a larger trend — the rise of the citizen philanthropist.

Empowered by social media, individuals can now reach out, support and discuss their giving efforts with their immediate networks. Citizen philanthropists don’t want to work with third party organizations, prompting industry leaders like Citizen Effect CEO Dan Morrison to say, “average citizens in wealthy countries no longer want to outsource doing good to large organizations.” For the social media empowered donor, seeing direct impact and building relationships becomes the priority.

Our new communications technologies have empowered the individual, and caused a disruptive effect on the non-profit sector. Here are five examples of the citizen philanthropist’s immediate impact. Read Story.

January 27, 2010 – The Edmondsun.com – USA

A world free of multiple sclerosis is closer because of 13-year-old Keith Gage and his friends. Every bit of the $156.02 the Edmond student’s fundraising effort brought in means a lot to people living with MS, and will help advance biomedical research and treatment for MS.

Keith was about to turn 13 a couple of months ago when he decided he didn’t need any presents for himself. The son of Keith and Kathryn Gage was more concerned with the welfare of others when he asked his friends to donate money to the National MS Society.

“It kind of feels good to help other people,” said Keith, a student at Cimarron Middle School. “It helps everybody when you do it.”

Keith said he had been inspired by his brother, Kyle, who had done a similar fundraiser for his birthday party. And Keith had learned about MS from Talesa Shores, who has MS and who also worships at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

“For him to want to do that, I thought that was pretty big for a 13-year-old kid,” Shores said. “It really got my attention and it affected my heart. He’s an outstanding young man. I admire him.” Read Story.

January 25, 2010 – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – USA

The term philanthropy may conjure images of checks with multiple zeros or ribbon-cutting ceremonies at new hospital wings.

But it doesn’t take the income of an Andrew Carnegie to make a difference. Recession-pinched folks reviewing their end-of-year charity receipts might feel guilty if their charitable contributions for the past year seem a little miserly.

They’re not alone. According to a November survey by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, donations to the nation’s 400 largest nonprofits were expected to fall 9 percent for 2009.

Nicole Bouchard Boles found herself in this position when she and her husband were expecting their first child. Her pregnancy made her unable to volunteer on a long-term basis, and money was tight, so she couldn’t donate to charity as much as she would have liked.

” I didn’t think there was much I could do,” she says.

Her frustration motivated her to write “How to Be An Everyday Philanthropist” (Workman, $10.95). The book lists more than 300 ways people can donate time, household items or professional skills instead of cash. While volunteer time is not tax deductible, it does keep one in the black on the karma balance sheet. Read Story.

January 24, 2010 – The Durango Herald – USA

An older man watched a young boy walking down the beach at low tide picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. Curious about his behavior, the man asked the boy what he was doing.
“I’m rescuing starfish,” said the boy.

“But you can’t possibly rescue all the starfish on the beach,” replied the man.

“Yes, but I made a difference for one,” said the boy.

When the world’s troubles seem so impossibly overwhelming, I remember the starfish story: You can make a difference, even if it’s only one person at a time.

That’s the philosophy behind Womenade, a grass-roots fundraising project that’s been around since 2002, when Durango resident Jane Dunn read a story about a Washington, D.C., physician who had organized a group of women to raise money for direct, one-time donations to people in need.

The concept was simple: Rather than spend $35 or $40 on a meal out, women gathered for a potluck dinner and contributed $35 each to a pool of money that they donated directly to people who needed help. Dunn gathered friends to plan their own grass-roots philanthropy program, called it Womenade and held their first potluck that fall.

Womenade reflects a growing trend in female philanthropy: More and more women are building networks and collaborating with other women to use their collective financial power to change the world for women and girls. Read Story.

January 24, 2010 - from Brainpickings

In an ideal world, an invisible hand would be balancing the supply-demand ratio of help for humanity’s problems. The world, however, is far from ideal and we’re faced with more challenges than help is readily available for. And when help does present itself, it’s mostly in the form of donations – which often lack the immediacy of more hands-on approaches that give the help-giver a sense of ownership over the problem, in turn infecting the helpee with this we-can-solve-it resolve and unleashing a chain reaction of empowerment.

That’s exactly the kind of thinking that inspired Pencils of Promise – a powerful grassroots movement that seeks to solve the global education crisis from the bottom up and inside out. The nonprofit is 100% volunteer and its primary goal is to build schools and related facilites across the developing world, but it also embodies something we celebrate here at Brain Pickings – the cross-pollination of skills and perspectives – by empowering people to contribute whatever they are best at and cover different facets of the problem, rather than merely making impersonal and distanced donations. Read More.

January 13, 2010 – ConsumerReports.org

Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, many generous people are eager to help by donating. If you’re among them, make sure you’re giving to a legitimate organization that‘s in a position to actually provide assistance, warns the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, a charity watchdog.

Scammers often respond to disasters quickly by setting up fake charities and registering Web addresses in various combinations that sound like legitimate groups or that seem related to the disaster.

Another concern is that some bona fide charities seeking donations may not be in a position to help in Haiti, immediately or long-term. Some groups don’t actually have an on-the-ground presence in the country. Some merely collect money on behalf of other organizations, the BBB warns. And some charities spend little on their charitable programs, compared to fund-raising or administration.

WHAT TO DO?

December 30, 2009 – NEXT – Timbuktu, Mali (West Africa)

White Socks, a foundation made up of eight school children, with ages ranging from two to 13 years, has given out N68,000 in total to charity in two years.

Born out of their resourcefulness and a passion to help the needy, the project is meant by the charitable young hearts to be their own contribution to humanity.

The young philanthropists are three 13-year-olds, Abisoye Ilaka; Iyabo Ojo, and Fikeyinmin Odulaja; Tomiwa Odulaja, and Elias Ilaka, who are both 11 years old. Others are Moradeun Ilaka, six; Boluwatito Odulaja, five; and Adura Ilaka, who is two years old.

Apart from being neighbors, friends, and pupils of Grange School, Ikeja, some of the pupils are related to one another.

White Socks started from their neighborhood in Ilupeju, Lagos, as kiddies’ endeavor to be prudent and productive, later turning out to provide food, clothing, and education for some under-privileged children in the society.

The mother of some of the children, Fehintola Odulaja, said some of the sold items had come from their parents’ wardrobe, and the donations from the kids and some others.

“They are quite enterprising; like lending books out for N20 to N50 and doing stuff like that. After a while, they thought, “We’ve made so much money, so what do we do with it, so they decided to give it to charity,” said Mrs. Odulaja. Read Story.