Archive for category: Charity

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Cristiano Ronaldo’s Selfie App to Help Save the Children

Cristiano Ronaldo's Selfie App
Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid’s star forward and Global Artist Ambassador for Save the Children, recently released his latest initiative for the organization, the CR7Selfie: Fans with a Cause app.

According to Save the Children’s website, Cristiano Ronaldo’s selfie app costs $1.99 and will allow fans to “take a selfie with Ronaldo in one of several different outfits and poses.” A portion of all money raised from the app, which can be downloaded from the Apple App and Google Play stores, will go toward the non-profit organization.

Save the Children, which was founded in 1932, focuses on providing children in 120 countries around the world with proper education, food and health services, especially in the wake of natural disasters or war. In 2015, Save the Children delivered health care to 22.6 million children, and 11.6 million children participated in the organization’s nutrition programs.

Ronaldo has represented Save the Children as an ambassador since January 2013, directing his attention to the worldwide issue of child hunger. The athlete first realized that he wanted to join the fight against poverty when he learned that one in seven children go to bed hungry every night.

Over the past few years, it has become common for advocates to utilize social media. More than 230 million people follow Ronaldo on his various accounts, which allows Save the Children’s message to spread quickly. Cristiano Ronaldo’s selfie app — The CR7Selfie: Fans with a Cause app — puts this same strategy to use, allowing users to have fun sharing their selfies with the superstar while also supporting the organization’s mission.

Ronaldo is one of the most admired athletes on the planet, making him an expert when it comes to taking selfies. During the premiere of his documentary Ronaldo, he even tried to break the world record for most selfies taken in three minutes. Ultimately, Ronaldo failed in this endeavor, but his widespread popularity could make the new app a huge success.

– Liam Travers

Photo: Flickr

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Highlighting Celebrity Advocates in the Fight Against Poverty

Celebrity Advocates in the Fight Against Poverty
Celebrities, whether they earn their status through talent, wealth or other characteristics, have many opportunities to use their power for the greater good. The following five celebrities frequently impress with both their commitment to and passion for serving the world’s poor in the fight against poverty.

  1. Bono: No list of superstar advocates, activists and charity workers is complete without his name. The U2 frontman has worked diligently for years to reduce global poverty as well as educate the public on the subject. In a 2013 TedTalk, Bono identified himself as an “evidence-based activist” or “factivist.” His advocacy work is well known and has earned him three Nobel Peace Prize nominations as well as a spot on Forbes’ Most Generous list. In addition, his wide-reaching impact has helped in the creation of charity endeavors such as the ONE Campaign and the RED Global Fund Campaign.
  2. Brad Pitt: He is a big name in both Hollywood as well as the world of celebrity advocates. Pitt joined Bono in 2004 when he teamed up with the ONE Campaign. He acted as a spokesperson, pushing for an additional one percent of the U.S. budget to go toward poverty alleviation in Africa. In a 2005 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Pitt spoke with passion about the poverty and disease he saw while traveling: “I feel it is our responsibility to make those [life-saving medicines] available.”
  3. Angelina Jolie: Known primarily for her outstanding performances in films like Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Tourist, her generosity may outweigh even her acting talent. Jolie has donated millions of dollars, through the Jolie-Pitt foundation, to organizations such as Doctors Without Borders that help the world’s poorest people. She was recognized and named as a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and was the recipient of the U.N. Citizen of the World award in 2003. Together, she and Pitt have been incredibly influential voices in the fight against global poverty.
  4. Annie Lennox: This talented singer-songwriter has long been using her talents to contribute to her causes. She released her single, Sing, in 2007, raising funds for the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). She has been appointed a UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador for her incredible commitment to the cause and is a firm supporter of numerous charities including the TAC and Mothers2Mothers.
  5. George Clooney: He is well known among celebrity advocates for famously founding Not On Our Watch, an organization that deals with human rights violations in the global community. In addition, the star is a supporter of the ONE Campaign and has done much work in the area of poverty alleviation and advocacy.

While celebrity news often seems irrelevant to serious matters such as the fight against poverty, many celebrities use their position as a public figure to raise awareness and funds for vulnerable populations.

These five celebrities have set an example for the ways in which other influential members of society can use their talents, fame or funds to contribute to their global community.

– Jordan Little

Photo: Flickr

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China’s New Charity Law

Charity LawChina is now home to more billionaires than the United States and has experienced an annual economic growth rate of 7% since 2010. Despite this, the country is still ranked second to last in a list of 145 most charitable countries, according to the 2015 U.K.-based Charities Aid Foundation’s World Giving Index. However, China’s new Charity Law seeks to promote a model for greater domestic charitable giving within the country.

The law will also prospectively support the country’s sustainability in disaster relief, environmental protection, public health and anti-poverty efforts to lift rural residents out of poverty by 2020. As of 2015, 55.75 million of China’s rural residents were still considered impoverished.

What Will China’s New Charity Law Assist?

While China’s annual donations to charities have soared from 10 billion to 100 billion yuan in the last ten years, growth has remained stagnant within the last five years paradoxically alongside economic prosperity.

According to the Boston Globe, the China Philanthropy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center identified three reasons.

First, giving in China remains localized and focused on a single cause — six out of 10 renminbi was donated to the same province where the donor’s corporate headquarters was situated, leaving the poorest rural areas without financial support.

Second, three-quarters of the donors gave to a single cause: education, leaving out other realms needing support.

Third, the majority of donors gave through their corporations, a pattern “reflecting the range of legal, regulatory, and political challenges facing the development of a vibrant giving environment on a national level.”

China’s new Charity Law will encourage a more sturdy model of contemporary giving, allowing for more charities to raise funds from the public without a complex registration system or a need for approval from the supervisory board and China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The law will also allow for tax incentives for charities and make it easier for the wealthy to establish charitable trusts on their own. Moreover, with a track record of scandals in the past which have deterred success in charitable giving, transparency, as well as tighter management, will be incorporated. “From the philanthropy side and public policy side, it’s very well written,” Edward Cunningham, a scholar at Harvard University said.

The global community looks forward to the results from the Charity Law, not just in better services and poverty alleviation for Chinese citizens but a transparent and confident government charity program.

– Priscilla Son

Photo: Gauthier DELECROIX

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Rethinking Effective Charity: Giving What We Can

Effective Charity
Giving What We Can (GWWC) is an international society that works to eliminate extreme poverty. It recommends effective charity organizations and its members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to such charities.

Dr. Toby Ord Established Giving What We Can in 2009

Dr. Ord, an Oxford ethics researcher, claims the inspiration for the organization came from Peter Singer’s essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” which argues that the affluent have a moral obligation to donate to the people less well-off.

The organization draws heavily on modern ethical philosophy, especially the effective altruism movement. This philosophical movement attempts to use evidence and analysis to determine the most effective humanitarian causes and charities to donate to.

Taking a Top-down Approach to Evaluating Charities

The organization begins with the big-picture, evaluating which areas — health, education, emergency aid, etc. — require the most attention. The group compares sub-areas within those categories, such as specific diseases. Finally, it analyzes the particular charities that work in this sub-area, such as the Against Malaria Foundation.

In this evaluation process, the organization focuses on three main criteria: neglect, tractability and impact. A neglected cause means the issue is not receiving proper attention from humanitarian efforts. Tractability defines a cause that has a workable solution that the sponsor can effectively implement. Impact focuses on the number of lives that can be improved by investing in a given cause.

GWWC’s website uses schistosomiasis, a disease involving parasitic flatworms, as an example of a cause that clearly meets all three criteria: “[Schistosomiasis] affects millions of people (impact) but it’s cheap and easy to treat (tractability) […] However, it is relatively underfunded (it is part of the so-called ‘Neglected Tropical Diseases’).”

For this reason, GWWC lists the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative as one of its top charities. Its other established, most effective charity is the Against Malaria Foundation. They list Deworming the World Initiative and Project Healthy Children as promising top charities.

Though it accepts donations, Giving What We Can does not ask for them. Instead, the humanitarian organization prefers to play “a complementary role,” asking members to commit to giving to effective charities instead.

So far, GWWC’s 1,696 members have donated more than $36.3 million to effective charities and pledged to donate a further $649 million over their lifetimes.

– Steffen Seitz

Photo: Flickr

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3 Charity Apps You Should Know About

Charity appsIn addition to advocacy and mobilizing governments to make a difference, donating to charities can have a major impact in the fight against global poverty and hunger. Here are three charity apps that are making a difference on a global scale:

  1. Share The Meal: Share The Meal is the world’s first charity app against global hunger. By donating only 50 cents you can feed one child in hunger for an entire day. Since its founding in 2014, Share The Meal has donated more than 7 million meals to children suffering from hunger. Share The Meal funds are distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger. Currently, Share The Meal funds are being used to feed Syrian refugee children in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley where 40 percent of the 360,000 Syrian refugees living in the Bekaa Valley are under the age of 12, according to data compiled by the UNHCR.
  2. Donate A Photo: Taking a picture can do more than just capture a moment, it can help people across the world. For every photo you share through the Donate a Photo charity app, Johnson & Johnson donates $1 to a cause of your choice. So far, over 1.3 million photos have been donated through the app. Causes vary from helping a newborn in Ethiopia survive through UNICEF, to giving a girl in Guatemala school supplies via Girl Up. Sharing photos not only helps to raise money but also spreads awareness. Sharing one photo per day is equivalent to donating $365 in a year.
  3. Charity Miles: Charity Miles allows you to raise money for every mile that you walk, run, or bike. The app uses your phone’s GPS and accelerometer to calculate the distance you traveled. Walkers and runners earn up to 25 cents per mile and bikers earn up to 10 cents per mile, according to Charity Miles’ Terms of Service. There are more than 30 different charities to earn donations on behalf, including The World Food Programme, Pencils of Promise, Girl Up and Every Mother Counts. Charity Miles’ goal is to raise $1 billion for charities by the end of 2016.

If you are looking for ways to donate funds, in addition to empowering others and spreading the word on poverty reduction, these three charity apps put the opportunity to make an impact directly at your fingertips.

– Kristyn Rohrer

Photo: Pixabay

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Whole Foods Market Raises $3.26 Million to Alleviate Poverty

Whole foods market
Whole Food Market’s 2016 annual Prosperity Campaign for the Whole Planet Foundation raised $3.26 million to improve global poverty. All of the funds raised by Whole Foods Market will help support the foundation’s work to fund microcredit for poverty relief in 68 countries.

Philip Sansone, president and executive director for Whole Planet Foundation, shared that the “Whole Planet Foundation will be able to give an additional 91,100 people the chance to lift themselves out of poverty through microcredit and change their own lives” because of shoppers’ generosity.

The Prosperity Campaign encourages Whole Food Market supplier sponsors, customers, team members and online donors to donate to the Whole Planet Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Whole Foods Market. The foundation provides grants to microfinance institutions in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the U.S. These countries then develop and offer microloans to the self-employed poor.

Microloans are small loans of usually less than $300 with no contract or warranty. The loans are used to help the world’s poorest create or expand businesses and make an income for their families. The average first loan size in poor countries is $184, but each microloan helps at least five people invest in their families.

Whole Foods Market covers 100 percent of Whole Planet Foundation’s operating expenses to ensure that all donations benefit microcredit clients. Since 2006, the foundation has distributed over $53 million in microloans across the world, giving 7.8 million people a chance at a better life.

In communities without many jobs, credit serves as a direct means for the poor to improve their family’s lives. Without jobs, the poor are left to their own devices to provide for their families. While microcredit loans alone will not end poverty, it will help provide better nutrition, healthcare, housing, education and schooling to families living in poverty. Whole Planet Foundation is committed to supporting life-saving opportunities to help global poverty.

– Jackie Venuti

Photo: Flickr

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Five Charities Working to Stop World Hunger

Charities

Activists often participate in endless debates about what they think will be the key to unlocking a world without hungry children and families. There are numerous charities that work to stop world hunger, and many of them are making real, sustainable impact in countries all over the world. One way to take a step towards a world with healthy, well-fed families is to spread awareness of these foundations. By spreading awareness, there is a higher chance these charities will get the funding they need to continue to meet their goals.

Five Charities Looking to End World Hunger:

1. Action Against Hunger

With more than 6,500 staff workers all over the globe, Action Against Hunger’s programs have been able to reach more than 13.6 million people as of 2014. Its programs not only save lives but also teaches impoverished people how to live safely long-term. With more than 35 years of experience in food crises and disaster, this foundation knows how to keep children healthy and understands where and when to expect malnutrition.

Regarding nutrition and health, Action Against Hunger has treated 5 million people around the world. This includes almost 3 million people from Nigeria, over 104,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and over 93,000 people in South Sudan. They are able to impact millions of hungry people by evaluating nutritional needs, treating acute malnutrition, preventing acute malnutrition and building local capacity. This is done by collecting data on nutritional indicators like geography, infrastructure, local capacities, resources and cultural practices.

2. Bread for the World Institute

The Bread for the World Institute is a voice that urges national leaders throughout the world to end hunger in their own countries and others around the globe. The foundation has been able to help the hunger epidemic in the United States, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The institute works with members of Congress on issues that affect world hunger including immigration reform, incarceration and child nutrition. Basically, Bread for the World Institute wants the goal of eliminating world hunger to be a priority and believes that by doing so, world hunger can be eliminated by 2030.

Through their Vote to End Hunger campaign, Bread for the World Institute encourages voters to make world hunger one of their top priorities during the 2016 election campaigns and in the ballot box. Their goal is to elect a leader who will make ending world hunger a priority in congress.

3. Freedom from Hunger

Freedom from Hunger provides families the resources necessary to build a healthy future. By equipping families with the proper resources, they can live sufficiently on their own and build healthy lives without continuous aid. Freedom from Hunger believes in educating and empowering communities to fight world hunger. Education modules are influenced by the needs of chronically hungry women, a demographic deemed a priority during the research phase. Group activities, training sessions, guidance counselors and interactive discussions are implemented to inform and encourage the women in safe health practices, like HIV/AIDS prevention or breastfeeding practices and hygiene.

4. The Hunger Project

The Hunger Project focuses on ten principles fundamental to ending world hunger: human dignity, gender equality, empowerment, leverage, interconnectedness, sustainability, social transformation, holistic approach, decentralization and transformative leadership.

The Hunger Project believes there are three essential pillars their foundation must follow in order to make an impact on impoverished communities: empowering women as key change agents, mobilizing entire communities into self-reliant action and fostering effective governments to engage local government.

In Africa, India, Bangladesh, Mexico and Peru, The Hunger Project has supported community development and empowered local entrepreneurship.

5. Heifer International

Heifer International works with various impoverished communities to help boost their economies. Their approach focuses on developing income and assets, food security and nutrition, and the environment. They then work on empowering women and social capital in order to multiple the success of their efforts. The foundation has seen much success in bringing sustainable agriculture and commerce to families without food.

Heifer International supports the “passing on the gift” model. By giving a family a goat, a cow or even a water buffalo, a family can build a sustainable life. Cows produce milk, fertilizer for crops or the capacity to plow fields. When these animals create offspring, families are encouraged to pass on the first female baby to another family. This family then does the same with the offspring of their animals.

It is important to raise awareness and donate to these foundations, seeing that they have been making real-time change and investments. Like these vastly different organizations, ending world hunger does not take a single fix-all approach. Different strategies, supported by generous gifts, provide hungry people with the tools and willpower they need to stop world hunger.

–Casey Marx

Photo: Flickr

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Toronto Joins the 2016 World Partnership Walk

Toronto_World Partnership WalkToronto was one of the many major cities that joined the 32nd annual 2016 World Partnership Walk to increase awareness and raise money for global poverty.

Each year the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, (AKFC), an international development organization and registered charity, hosts the event. AKFC is a nonprofit international development agency helping to find solutions to alleviate global poverty. The organization focuses on improving the living conditions of those living in poverty, regardless of faith, origin or gender.

On May 29, there were over 10,000 participants in Toronto, who gathered at the Metro Hall in David Pecaut Square. Last year, more than 40,000 individuals participated in the event from Montreal, Ottawa, Regina, Vancouver and Victoria, helping to raise over $7 million.

Canadians are motivated to mobilize and donate to the event because they want to see global poverty levels reduce even further. According to the World Bank, there are 1 billion fewer people living in poverty globally than there were 25 years ago.

Many families are driven to participate in the annual event, as 100 percent of the donations go toward AKFC programs. In addition, the event offers memorable experiences through activities that inform, educate and entertain all participants from the young to the old.

Based in Canada, AKFC works to promote the discussion of global issues and works to build partnerships with Canadian institutions. The organization began operations in 1980 and kicked off its first walk in 1985 when a group of women from Vancouver raised $55,000. Now, the event is held in 10 cities each year and AKFC has raised $95 million since the first walk.

The 2016 World Partnership Walk is the largest event in Canada supporting international development in 14 countries. AKFC concentrates specifically on improving access to education and healthcare, food security, producing economic opportunities and constructing strong communities and local institutions.

– Kimber Kraus

Photo: Flickr

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The AMAR Foundation Model of Aid Distribution

AMAR_Foundation
The AMAR Foundation works to improve the conditions of approximately 3.4 million internally displaced Iraqis by utilizing local expertise to build long-term solutions.

The organization, founded in 1991 by Baroness Emma Nicholson, is a London-based charity with the goal of improving education, health care and emergency aid to some of the world’s most disenfranchised and impoverished people.

Their model is simple: AMAR works closely with on-the-ground experts, as well as local leaders, to implement entirely local programs that are tailored to the needs of the community.

In lieu of sending in volunteers from other countries, AMAR cooperates with existing services to locally source the materials and expertise needed to improve living conditions. Outside intervention is kept to a minimum and communities are encouraged to build themselves from the inside out.

Communication is the key to the success of this aid model. In a 2015 Jordan Times article reporting on AMAR’s efforts to stem an outbreak of cholera in Iraq, it is proffered that raising awareness about public health and common diseases is one of the most crucial pieces of improving the health of a community.

Communication is key not only in improving public health but also in ensuring the success of locally-based aid efforts like those the AMAR Foundation organizes.

Local collaboration is by no means a new idea, but the AMAR Foundation’s astonishing success utilizing this model within Iraq provides great hope for the future of foreign aid worldwide.

Without the help of major international funding, AMAR has managed to establish a clinic in northern Iraq that serves more than 600 patients a day, as well as multiple mobile health clinics that can be operated by locals. Since 2005, their clinics have helped over 4 million Iraqis.

Although today only a few organizations embrace a model that favors entirely local implementation, the AMAR foundation continues to provide an example of the great success that can come from on-the-ground solutions.

– Sage Smiley

Photo: Defense Video Imagery Distribution System

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Teaching Self-Reliance Worldwide

Self_Reliance_Worldwide
The ultimate goal of charitable aid for the poor should be to help recipients become self-reliant. Teaching self-reliance worldwide means that individuals will no longer need to depend on outside sources to live without the immediate threat of disease and starvation. Achieving self-reliance leads to stability and sustainability.

Many programs try to accomplish this vision by teaching families valuable skills such as efficient farming techniques and literacy. Evidence has shown that these methods are less costly and have a more permanent influence on the communities where they are implemented.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints teaches self-reliance worldwide.  It attempts to help struggling families achieve this goal by teaching them effective ways to seek employment, manage their time and money, start small businesses and develop leadership qualities.

Volunteers travel to countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe to teach free classes and help their students achieve personal goals. These volunteers range from college students to elderly couples, each of them donating up to two years of their lives to support these struggling communities.

The success stories of this program are as diverse as its students. One participant from Ghana, Irene, is a single mother of four children. She uses an old hand cranked sewing machine as her primary source of income. Carrying the sewing machine on her head, Irene goes from house to house and offers to sew traditional Ghanian dresses.

Irene says the classes help her learn how to network and communicate with customers. It has also helped her learn new business strategies, such as going to a busier public place to advertise her services. Most importantly, the classes have taught her how to manage her money and set aside amounts for future growth.

Although she has not even finished the program, Irene has said that her income has already grown noticeably. The economic benefits of teaching self-reliance worldwide could be staggering.

Another student, Susy, uses a small van to transport neighborhood children to and from school. Her business is still small, but LDS’ Self-Reliance has opened her eyes to many aspects of business management, such as record keeping and improving capital. Susy now has plans to work toward buying a larger van to transport more children. She also hopes to expand her business to include day care services.

The employment techniques offered in the Self Reliance classes have also proved incredibly useful. One student, Rafael, had been unemployed for seven months before setting foot in the Self Reliance Center. Volunteers taught him the importance of accruing multiple sources of information, making as many contacts as possible and setting up interviews.

Within six days, Rafael had found a job. “It was a miracle,” he says in an interview produced by the Self Reliance program. “My wife is very happy… I can now provide for our home and our children.”

– Emiliano Perez

Photo: Wikipedia