“Keep it simple”: that was the advice of Scott Harrison, the founder of Charity: Water, when asked for his advice to a social entrepreneur with an idea for doing good. Harrison was on a panel with Lauren Bush, founder of FEEDprojects (and the niece/granddaughter of two American presidents), and Charles Best, of DonorsChoose, moderated by Matthew and hosted by Janera. As Harrison pointed out, “You can say what each of these organisations does in one sentence; some organisations you listen to for ten minutes and still don’t get what they do. Charity: Water raises money to dig wells in developing countries. FEED sells bags to raise money to feed children. DonorsChoose raises money to help teachers do classroom projects in America’s public schools.”
He had a point – the simplicity of their mission has certainly helped each of these relatively young philanthrocapitalistic organisations grow at a rapid pace. The same is true of another favourite of ours – which we profile with DonorsChoose in a new chapter in the paperback of Philanthrocapitalism – the microfinance lending site, Kiva.
Harrison has applied a marketing instinct honed as a nightclub party organiser to raising money. A particularly effective idea was to ask friends to make donations rather than give him gifts on his birthday – starting by requesting a dollar in donation for each year of his life. The mybirthday campaign has caught on fast, with celebrities now competing to raise the most – the sort of healthy competition the world needs right now. A particularly fierce battle is taking place between new Silicon Valley venture capital, in the form of Sean Parker, and old Silicon Valley, aka Ron Conway, to raise the most for their respective birthdays. Parker, who co-founded Napster and later co-founded Causes on Facebook with Joe Green, is one of a growing number of people who are giving up their birthday gifts via the Causes application, which has put behind it some initial sluggishness and started raising some serious money.
Though their mission may be simple, in true philanthrocapitalistic style, though in different ways, the three organisations represented on the panel are innovative and surprisingly complex in how they set about trying to maximise their leverage. One example is their use of cutting edge technology. Charity: Water has spread through astute electronic viral marketing, friends telling friends, applying peer pressure and so on. It also posts pictures of completed wells and their location using Googleearth, so people can see the direct impact of their giving. DonorsChoose takes that even further, with direct feedback from teachers and thank you letters from students, as well as clever software that identifies and shows first the projects most likely to appeal to a particular donor.
Both DonorsChoose and FEED have formed innovative partnerships with some big for-profit companies. (Indeed, like a growing number of philanthrocapitalistic organisations, FEED is itself a for-profit company, though Bush says most of the profits are given away via the UN Food Programme’s school lunches initiative – which cleverly both feeds children and gets them to attend school in the process.) Prices for FEED bags – $20 feeds one child for a year – range from $60 online to $195 in the super-swanky retailer, Bergdorf Goodman. One of FEED’s latest partnerships is with bookseller Barnes & Noble, in tandem with the terrific library-building non-profit Room to Read (featured in our book). Buying bags at Barnes & Noble not only feeds children but also gives them books – which is also helping to catalyse local childrens’ books industries in some developing countries.
DonorsChoose has tapped into two trends – attempts to make corporate philanthropy more effective and the growth of customer loyalty programmes – through partnerships with firms such as retailer Crate & Barrel, which use some of their foundation dollars to give money to loyal customers to donate via DonorsChoose. These customers seem to feel that giving them the chance to be virtuous is a better reward than a discount in the store, and DonorsChoose benefits not just from the corporate donation, but also from the fact that once people visit the site they tend to get hooked on the satisfaction of giving directly to projects which they can see are making a difference.
Indeed, DonorsChoose took this insight a step further at the Janera event by giving everyone who turned up a card with $25 to give away on its site. Giving potential donors money is an unusual fundraising strategy, but it seems to work. The idea was inspired by the comedian Stephen Colbert, a DonorsChoose board member, who gives every guest on his Colbert Report a $100 DonorsChoose voucher.
The three social entrepreneurs had other advice for those who would follow in their footsteps. The first is simply to start, and figure things out as you go along. Another is to keep at it even if no one else gets it. The third, judging by their actions, is to set crazily ambitious goals. DonorsChoose has already raised $50m for classroom projects. FEED says it has delivered over 50m meals. Charity: Water says it is providing clean water to 1m people. Yet these achievements seem to have made them raise the bar still higher. Harrison says his goal is to provide clean water to 1 billion people within ten years, and that his organisation’s success so far represents only one-tenth of one percent of its target. We wish them all a great 2010.
Join us for our holiday party on Tuesday December 15th.
Matthew Bishop, The Economist’s New York Bureau Chief, and co-author of the highly acclaimed book Philanthrocapitalism (which is just out in paperback) will talk with Lauren Bush, of FEED Projects and Charles Best, of DonorsChoose. The conversation will spark ideas on innovative ways to give this season. And the cocktail party will be, as always, a great way to meet new people.
On the subject of giving, we have a host of gifts for you:
- Matthew is generously giving his book to the first fifty people who sign up for this party;
- Donorschoose is offering all guests a $50 online gift-cards to donate to a classroom of their choice;
- We’re giving away FREE tickets to this salon to our members. Non-members pay a reduced $25. RSVP here.
You can also stay for dinner at Norwood’s new Club Room on the second floor.
For those of you who haven’t yet heard, we launched the JANERA Membership and have designed three different levels to suit your individual needs. Click on our Membership Page and find out which level fits you best. Sign up now, and secure your free admission for this party.
The membership officially starts in January 2010, but if you become a member before December 14th, we’ll also give you a 10% discount on the annual fee. Note that those of you who sign up now will be considered founding members and will stay at this annual rate for life.
Buy your discounted membership today!
We look forward to seeing you on 15th and happy holidays!
2009 has been intense for us here at JANERA. We talked to established world leaders, provocative thinkers, and bold innovators, all of whom are tackling the biggest issues of our time. See below an overview of our 2009 events, and read what’s next on our agenda for 2010.
Global Religion in February with leading Buddhist thinker Sharon Salzburg and five other leading religious figures;
Modern-day Slavery in March with Peter Buffett and Dayton Literary Peace Prize winning author Benjamin Skinner;
Global Capitalism in March with ProfessorJeffrey Sachs and the New York Bureau Chief of The Economist Matthew Bishop;
Green Transportation in May with Robin Chase one of Time Magazine‘s most influential people in 2009 and Vijay Vaitheeswaran award-winning correspondent for The Economist;
Iranian Elections in June with journalist and author Hooman Madj and Nisid Hajari, Newsweek’s Foreign Editor;
Empowering Women & Girls in September with Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Sheryl WuDunn and Camfed’s Executive Director, Ann Cotton.
Climate Change Debate in November with NRDC’s Ralph Cavanagh, Duke University’s Eric Roston, AEI’s Steven Hawyard, Reason Magazine’s Ronald Bailey, moderated by CNBC’s Dennis Kneale;
We undertook a complete redesign of our Web site and switched from being “the voice of global nomads” to “curating global conversations.” We now integrate video into the site more and think this better reflects our mission of making international affairs accessible and attractive.
And we launched a brand-new membership program with exciting benefits! We not only serve individuals with discounts to our events at our Nomad level, but we can also help causes spread the word at the GameChanger level, or even co-host events with authors, advocates and concerned citizens at the Leaders level. And this is just the beginning. Click on our Membership page and find out which level fits you best, and sign up today!
2010 promises to be amazing. We are taking the conversation to the next level by partnering with fabulous companies and individuals, and are expanding beyond New York. If you’re interested in bringing our events to your city, email us to set it up.
THANK YOU for being with us along this roller-coaster ride and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
At last night’s climate change debate (“Will Green Put us In the Red?”) Eric Roston, senior associate at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy at Duke University said that his goal for the evening was to show the audience that the issues of climate change are far more confusing than we thought they were.
First off, the 1400-page Waxman-Markey bill that’s now before Congress, the primary component of which is a “cap-and-trade” program that will (among other things) cap greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. Second, comprehending why there is rising skepticism of climate change around the world (amongst both liberals and conservatives), despite there being plenty of science proving that the atmosphere is warming due to man-made C02 emissions. Finally, what exactly is geoengineering and why is it getting a lot of attention on both Capitol Hill and The Daily Show?
Though the four panelists agreed that climate change is real and that there’s scientific evidence to prove it, they all had different ideas on how to go about fixing things. (So did moderator Dennis Kneale, anchor of CNBC’s Power Lunch.)
Ralph Cavanagh, senior attorney and co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s energy program, reminded the audience repeatedly that there’s evidence that we (and various industries) can actually save money by reducing energy. Cavanagh cited a McKinsey report that shows that we can achieve energy efficiency merely by changing the appliances and building materials we use from here on out. (The report, summarized here, estimates we would save $1.2 trillion as a nation by 2020 if we invested $520 billion in efficiency improvements.)
While this notion of energy reduction saving money did not seem like earth-shattering news to most of us, apparently it was for some on the panel.
Steve Hayward, the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (and host of “An Inconvenient Truth…or Convenient Fiction?”), argued that developing countries such as India and China cannot afford to adopt the clean technologies that the U.S. and other western nations are already starting to use. (There is reason to be concerned about this as China has already overtaken the U.S. in carbon emissions, and India is soon to follow.)
This is no reason not to do what we can to stop climate change here in the U.S., as one member of the audience pointed out.
Ronald Bailey, author and science correspondent at Reason magazine agreed with Cavanagh that the entire fossil fuel infrastructure is going to be replaced in 40 years—“The question is, will it be cost effective or not?” asked Bailey. Bailey was the panelist most skeptical of government intervention and urged trusting the genius of the marketplace. Roston concurred, at least in regards to ethanol, which the government mistakenly espoused even though it doesn’t make environmental sense.
“Drinking it is the best idea!” Roston continued, promising he’d have a few glasses of ethanol as soon as the panel concluded.
Towards the end of the evening, we learned about vaporizing ocean water (to create white clouds that would deflect the sun, reducing global temperatures) and other controversial “geoengineering” projects that are gaining currency in Washington. (Controversial because some people, such as author Steven Levitt, argue that we should turn to geoengineering instead of, not in addition to, reducing man-made CO2 emissions.)
A smirking Hayward mentioned that Jon Stewart had Levitt, one of the authors of SuperFreakonomics, on his show a few weeks ago and seemed to side with his (apparently poorly researched) chapter on “Global Cooling.”
“Have you stepped on a secular religion?” Stewart asks Levitt at one point, referring to the controversy generated by his chapter. (For more on this controversy, see this excellent post by Brian Merchant of Treehugger.)
Cavanagh says there’s something to these technological solutions, such as painting roofs white to deflect the sun (and thereby reducing planetary warming), but he cautioned that we’ve got to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for other reasons than reversing climate change. “This is also about energy security and public health, not just climate change,” Cavanagh said.
Suzanne Dawson, a public relations executive for energy companies including Duke Energy and PPL, said she was surprised by how much she enjoyed the rowdy debate. “I loved the intimate setting,” said Dawson, referring to the cozy bar on the 3rd floor of the Norwood Club.
Asked what he got out of the evening, entrepreneur Locke Raper said, “The issue is complicated in terms of underlying science, possible outcomes of future scenarios and underlying politics. But we do know enough at this point to be rationally concerned and to invoke the human ‘fight or flight’ response at a collective level, which given the limited options for ‘flight’ means we need to ‘fight’ by systematically and simultaneously incentivising energy conservation (both in consumption/production) and reorienting energy supplies with a goal of reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses.”
Please watch on World AIDS Day, Tuesday December 1st 2009, Camfed‘s premiere screening of their award-winning documentary film, Where the Water Meets the Sky. The movie premiers on the Sundance Channel at 10 EST. You can also watch the live stream panel discussion which starts at 7.30pm EST on FORA.tv.
Written by Jordan Roberts (March of the Penguins) and narrated by Academy Award®-winner Morgan Freeman, Where the Water Meets the Sky tells the inspiring story of a group of women in a remote region of Northern Zambia who achieve the unimaginable: they learn how to make a film as a way to speak out about their lives, raising an issue that no one will discuss- the plight of young women orphaned by AIDS.
There will also be a panel discussion, streamed live on FORA.tv, that will bring to life the issues highlighted in the film, and explore the ways in which film can be a powerful tool for social change.
You’ll get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the filmmaking process and the issues that the film addresses from the panelists – among them, a participatory filmmaker from Ghana; the Zambian educator who helped change the fate of the young woman at the center of the film; and Camfed’s founder and Executive Director.
JANERA collaborated in the production of this event.
Join us for our holiday party on Tuesday December 15th.
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, on his show a few weeks ago and seemed to side with his (apparently
Please watch on World AIDS Day, Tuesday December 1st 2009,