June 12, 2009 by admin.

I recently learned of a charity that’s working with wounded veterans and their families, and did a little background search on them to find out more about their focus and their work.

I came across an article written by Mychael Urban posted on MLB.com which mentions some of the work being done by the charity Strikeouts for Troops, created in 2004 by San Francisco Giants pitcher Barry Zito.

…Zito’s ever-expanding roster of big league contributors [to Strikeouts for Troops] is nearly 70 strong, and more than $2 million has been raised since the program’s inception, with 100 percent of the funds distributed; Zito covers the administrative costs associated with making sure the money goes where it’s supposed to go.

The money comes primarily from the participating players, who donate per strikeout, home runs or RBI or make flat donations. Among them are CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher of the Yankees, Manny Ramirez and Orlando Hudson of the Dodgers, Albert Pujols and Rick Ankiel of the Cardinals, Jake Peavy of the Padres, Dan Haren and Eric Byrnes of the D-backs, Eric Chavez of the A’s, Jermaine Dye of the White Sox, and Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson and Matt Cain of the Giants…

This March, Zito continued his annual tradition of bringing to Spring Training a large group of wounded Marines who’ve been recovering at Balboa Naval Hospital in his hometown of San Diego…

Zito had secured for the Marines a section of seats directly behind home plate [at a pre-season game between the Dodgers and White Sox in Glendale, AZ], and when the Marine Corps Hymn was played during the fifth inning, the Marines stood at attention. The crowd followed suit with a standing ovation.

As depicted in the recent movie Taking Chance with Kevin Bacon (excellent movie!), there is a substantial cross-section of America — people of all ages and political views — who are not only ready to respond but they are looking for ways to show honor to our service men and women, to embrace their families, to pay their respects.

I was particularly impressed with excerpts from letter sent by Rick Williams of the Marine Corps League of San Diego, which Urban quoted in his article and I’ve included below.

…What happened next was detailed in a letter that Williams sent to Zito upon getting the troops back to San Diego.

When we all left the game in the seventh inning to get back to the airport, the injured Marines had to walk up, directly behind home plate, about 75 stairs to leave. Of course, it took a while because several had canes, and even more could not walk fast because the guys with the canes were at the head of the line.

As they filed up the stairs out of the stadium, in a single-file line, spontaneously the crowd again all stood up and gave the Marines [another] standing ovation until the very last one reached the top of the stairs. Had to take 3-4 minutes.

It was loud. It was crazy. The players on the field were even clapping. It was truly a proud moment for me. When the Marines got to the top of the stairs, several were crying. It was very, very emotional. Emotional for them, for me, for the crowd.

… To be taken out of the hospital, out of rehab and told “Thanks” by the very same people they are fighting for, it is truly overwhelming for them. To watch them hobble up those stairs, with 12,000 to 15,000 people cheering for them and then them having tears streaming down their cheeks, it made me very proud.

… [Barry], I want you to know that you made it possible for them to receive the recognition that they deserve. You should be very proud for what you are doing for our military and, especially, my fellow Marines.

“Baseball is my job,” Zito says, “… Strikeouts for Troops is personal. Baseball is a game, and I’m fortunate to be living my dream by playing it for a living. But would any of us be living any of our dreams if not for what our soldiers are doing and have done in the name of our country?

“No, obviously. And nobody should ever lose sight of that. Strikeouts for Troops isn’t about me. It’s about baseball showing appreciation for the men and women who put their lives on the line.”

Barry, you’re making a major-league baseball fan out of me.

To Rick and others in the Marine Corp League, that applause on the way out was for all marines, and for the people who support them. Thanks for what you’re doing!

I hope that those 12,000 to 15,000 cheering people will watch to Gratitude Campaign video (70 seconds) and help to spread the message. It only takes a few people living-it-out to start a worldwide movement.

To the ball players involved in Strikeouts for Troops, and to the behind-the-scenes donors, a salute to you.

And to all the American heroes serving here and overseas, recovering in hospitals or at home, separated from loved-ones by distance or time or injury, or back in civilian jobs taking each day at a time… we are standing and applauding you, too.

(Mychael Urban is a national writer for MLB.com. Excerpted story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. Used under GNU public-use license.)

Posted in media, MLB, heroes, gratitude, public policy, social ventures, philanthropy, nonprofit, military, CSR | No Comments »

June 4, 2009 by admin.

Brainstorming responses to the Katrina disaster gave me license to research low-cost housing. I had already been musing about the possibility of opening-up and exploiting new markets, finding new ways to use this huge mortgage lending (mortgage banking) machine that was Countrywide.

Nobody around me took the idea of low-cost housing seriously. Nobody wanted to talk about mortgages in developing countries. I was uninformed, they said. “There’s no money in it.” Hmmm.

Still, I wondered about it.

Well, since that time, lo and behold – microcredit (peer-to-peer lending or P2P lending) has taken-off, and traditional financing has, well… collapsed.

So, uh… I guess I’ll bring it up again: where’s the money being made these days? What was only a “whacky idea” a few years ago now doesn’t look so crazy. (Thanks to Richard Weddle for recommending The Starfish and the Spider.)

When you’ve got a huge demand, low production costs, ample financing, job-creation, ultimate “portability” (the building system and micro-lending model can be replicated just about anywhere), you’ve got the makings of an economic boom — or a bonanza, at the very least). This is a great example of “the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations.”

Low Cost Construction Housing Affordable Building System

The man interviewed in the above video is Associate Professor Bernard Lefebvre (Domtec Company Ltd), affiliated with the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.

Background on Habitech

Conceived at the Habitech Center of AIT the Self-Contained Housing Delivery System is an inexpensive, quickly and easily erected building system, the cost of which consistently undercuts conventional construction systems. Components have been added to create a complete modular interlocking building system especially suited for construction by unskilled labour which eliminates the need for construction equipment as the components are lightweight. The system has been disseminated in Asia since 1987 when research and development started up to 1995 when the building system was made available through private sector equipment suppliers.

The technology was demonstrated through housing projects (75) in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Nepal and Fiji, where small scale building material industries have been set-up creating employment, generating income and producing affordable housing for middle and low income groups.

As the building system spreads through Asia, the beneficial reduction in the consumption of timber products for construction will lead to a salutary effect upon the environment and help reduce the depletion of forest.

Habitech Center was awarded the Matsushita Award by the Japan Housing Association in 1994 “in recognition of excellent achievements in improving human settlements in Asian countries by promoting research and development related to technologies for low cost housing as well as providing educational programs and facilities to disseminate the results of their research efforts”.(Source: UNESCO Most Clearinghouse)

Posted in city planning, community development, urban renewal, public policy, NPR, suburban infill, infill development, microcredit, homelessness, poverty, redevelopment, social ventures, ventures, P2P, development, investing, philanthropy, politics, Linkedin, finance, jobs, shelter, affordable housing, small business, marketing | No Comments »

May 22, 2009 by Robert.

 I’ve been tracking the dollars in the $3 million give-away and thought I’d share an interesting graph.  It tells a story about the organizations involved… but perhaps you see it differently?

 Here’s what I did.  Each time I voted at Target’s Facebook profile, the site replied with a tally of the current stats.  The first couple of days I didn’t bother to grab the numbers.  But after a while (as is my custom) I started to get curious about how the numbers are changing over time, and what it might mean.  So I started to collect samples.

 Now, these are not scientific samples — the samples are not evenly-spaced.  That is, they were taken at different times of the day, sometimes with a day-and-a-half inbetween.

 FYI, the sampling interval is roughly between 24 and 30 hours.The above Fig. 1 shows a sample of performance data from the Target Bullseye Gives Challenge on Facebook, in which Target is splitting $3 million between 10 organizations.

 Sample 1 was taken at about the 4th day of the challenge (40K+ votes).  Box 1 suggests that even after 40K votes, the Red Cross shared climbed steeply for 2-3 days while all other organizations declined in %-share.  Box 2 shows that St. Jude CRH surged back to regain the largest share of votes. The number of total daily votes at Sample 1 was about 10K, and it has increased to about 20K per day.

 The chart clearly shows that 2 of the organizations stand out from all the rest.

  The top 2, St. Jude and Red Cross, have demonstrated the ability to rally Facebook voters.  There are interesting implications, and it would be very telling to map spikes in actual votes against campaign pushes (emails, ads, etc.).  Hopefully, Target or Facebook will release the statistics.

 Without the details, some assumptions must be made.  We may assume, for example, that some people are “one-time-voters” and other people continue to vote every day, at every opportunity.  Since we don’t know exactly how that plays-out, we can assume that the ratio/trend is constant across all organizations.  But it would be interesting to know.

 Is the daily increase in votes due to a growing base of “repeat” voters, or lots of “one-time” voters?

 In boxes 1 & 2 above, the slope of the lines indicates that one of the top 2 organizations was adding new votes very quickly during those periods.  The other organizations show a gradual decline, suggesting that most organizations are “holding steady” while the organizations with a larger voting base are taking a bigger and bigger share.

 Implications for Operation Gratitude At this point, with the gap in total votes so wide (and widening), it would take a SIGNIFICANT boost in daily votes for OpGrat to make much of a dent in the final “% share” of total votes.  For example, at the current pace, OpGrat will end-up with about 7.1% of the total ($214K).  (The top 2 are on pace to capture more than 26% each.)

 If OpGrat were to add 10,000 new votes over the Memorial Day weekend (all other trends holding steady), it would increase OpGrat’s share to roughly 7.8% ($297K).  At that rate, each new vote is worth approximately $8!

Posted in finance, military, social ventures, Linkedin, nonprofit, CSR, philanthropy, marketing | No Comments »

May 20, 2009 by Robert.

Jacqueline Novogratz founded and leads Acumen Fund, a nonprofit that takes a businesslike approach to improving the lives of the poor. In her new book, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, she tells stories from the new philanthropy, which emphasizes sustainable bottom-up solutions over traditional top-down aid.

Posted in energy, shelter, small business, ventures, social ventures, public policy, health, stimulus, finance, philanthropy, CSR, investing, nonprofit, Linkedin, development, politics | No Comments »

May 7, 2009 by Robert.

Here’s a shameless plug for two causes that I support.  If you’re in the Los Angeles area on May 29th, make a point of seeing Witt’s Daughter at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills.  The tickets are $10 online or at the door.  $2 of each ticket will be donated to Operation Gratitude, so bring a big group of friends!

A representative from Operation Gratitude OpGrat Founder & President Carolyn Blashek will address the audience and give an update on the 2009 fundraising, care-package,  and letter-writing effort.

Cpl. Lex McMahon will MC, and lead Q&A afterward with the cast and crew.

Operation Gratitude is the nonprofit, all-volunteer organization that sends care packages and letters of support to troops deployed overseas. Its mission is to lift morale, put a smile on a service member’s face and express the appreciation of the American people for the sacrifices of the men and women defending our freedom. 

Posted in military, Linkedin, philanthropy | 2 Comments »

April 30, 2009 by Robert.

I just heard a radio report on NPR in the Global Health section:

Egypt To Slaughter Pigs As A Flu Precaution by Peter Kenyon    

(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103642533)

The growing Swine Flu epidemic has got a lot of people scared.  But knee-jerk policy decisions can sometimes have dangerous consequences.

In Cairo, where the Muslim population does not eat pork (or even touch pigs), hogs are farmed by the Coptic Christian population, a small minority.  So it’s not a tough political decision for Egypt to simply say “kill all the filthy animals” before Swine Flu breaks out.

‘Problem is… many of these pig-farmers in Cairo are the garbage collectors – they go from house to house and busines-to-business collecting garbage, bringing it back to their homes, separating it, and feeding the food scraps etc. to the hungry hogs.  That’s their livelihood.

Without the hogs, they will certainly not want to bring the garbage back to their homes.  The pig-farmers warn NPR that the garbage will quickly pile-up, and Cairo will be a filthy place (er, even filthier).

But of course, Cairo won’t let that happen, will they?  They’ll burn their trash.  They’ll pile up the trash, pour kerosene on it, and light it up.  Somebody will.  If the government won’t do it, civilians will.

Swine Flu is an immediate public health issue in other countries, and is threatening Egypt.  But Egypt’s reaction is creating a different urgent public health issue in Cairo.  And they may soon export an even bigger environmental issue in the form of pollution and noxious fumes.

Instead of simply burning trash and putting filth into the air, they could use the trash to generate electricity while at the same time getting rid of all kinds of municipal waste.  It’s called Waste-To-Energy (WTE or W2E).

Envirepel™ gasification uses a brick oven design which is not new: it was patented over 100 years ago. They do not burn the trash — they heat the trash to the point that everything melts, all the microbes and disease “bugs” are cooked.  They use the waste heat from the process to generate eletricity.  And they use the gases that come off of the trash to fuel the system and to produce methane, ammonia, and other good stuff.  The “ash” that comes out the other end can be used for making bricks, concrete, roads, roof shingles and other useful products.

Now there’s a good thang!  See http://envirepel.com/

Posted in jobs, energy, small business, ventures, social ventures, public policy, health, finance, Linkedin, philanthropy, politics, investing, nonprofit, development, P2P, renewable energy | No Comments »

April 28, 2009 by Robert.

“…A new generation of changemakers is emerging that sees for-profit ventures as intrinsically more scalable than nonprofit entities.” – John Elkington, co-author of The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World     

…Consider Rubicon Programs, a Richmond, Calif., nonprofit that provides jobs, housing, and life skills to poverty-stricken, formerly incarcerated and disabled individuals. The organization, which was founded in 1973, has started two businesses and helped more than 40,000 individuals find jobs and live independently… [and] helped Rubicon build 200 units of affordable housing and operate mental health and workforce services in a dozen cities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area … 

 Thinking outside the box?  Now is the time to disregard the box, and start thinking creatively and practically. Nonprofits are in a great position to create small enterprises (tax-free, with low break-even), take limited risks, and create jobs.

Posted in stimulus, affordable housing, jobs, ventures, finance, Linkedin, philanthropy, investing, nonprofit, development, marketing | No Comments »

April 22, 2009 by Robert.

In many school cases schools and other public entities have unique opportunities to help finance wind projects because they qualify for low interest loans, can issue bonds, have lower required rates of return, and generally can get longer financing terms.  Pictured [right] are the Spirit Lake Community School District’s 250 kW and 750 kW wind turbines.  The 750 kW wind turbine was financed through a zero interest loan from the Iowa Energy Center’s Alternative Energy Revolving Loan Program and a low interest loan approved by the Iowa Energy Bank.  (Article and photo from the Windustry Community Wind Toolbox)  Photo credit: Iowa Energy Center

Posted in community wind, finance, schools, stimulus, VCwind, Linkedin, development, politics, renewable energy, philanthropy, investing, nonprofit, wind | No Comments »

April 20, 2009 by Robert.

This is a nice CNBC report from 2007, saying that Kiva went from $1 million in loans in 2006 to over $15 million in 2007.  But it’s interesting that the CNBC website misses the whole point of Kiva.  (Apparently the person who posted it onto the CNBC website did not actually watch the video!   What a shame!)  The server is slow (overloaded?), but it’s still worth watching.

Posted in video, Linkedin, development, P2P, investing, nonprofit, philanthropy | No Comments »

April 3, 2009 by Robert.

Many companies are scrambling to demonstrate their “social responsibility” and even to involve their employees and clients in charitable activities as a way to build their brand. But when businesses try to “pluck the heartstrings” of their customers and employees, they quickly run into uncomfortable grey area.  This blog article, “Poverty Isn’t Always Pretty,” was written Kiva Fellow RobC, wrapping-up his six-month fellowship in the Philippines.  It’s clear from the context that he considers his work philanthropy (”giving” as opposed to “investing”).  Nevertheless, the article deals directly with difficult issues that are pertinent to corporate investment, private charitable donations, and even family relations.

“The greatest thing I see in Kiva and its lenders is the ceding of decisions to the borrower.   Making a loan in essence conveys a trust in the borrower and preserves the dignity of the relationship.   But it also means that borrowers may make decisions at odds with your own thinking.   A recent borrower in the Philippines took a loan to raise fighting cocks.   This is a very popular and legal activity which provides an income for many families throughout the country. While many lenders may not want to fund such a loan (and exercise their own free will through such a choice), is it appropriate to deny this borrower access to Kiva since we may not agree with how she chooses to legally pursue her livelihood?This is one of the more difficult questions we face when we engage in charity of any sort.   Do we give with the expectation of control?  Or do we give with the acknowledgment that we are empowering others?”

It reminds me of when grandparents give money to their grandkids.  Is it purely a gift? Or is there an expectation of Return on Investment (ROI)?Certainly the PETA crowd would say that Kiva is funding the abuse of animals.  Such controversy will limit the growth and breadth of organizations like Kiva, which depend on crowd funding.  If donors don’t like the projects that Kiva is funding, Kiva could lose a huge customer/investor base.  So it makes sense for Kiva to poll their donors, “choose their battles,” and steer clear of “torpedo issues” that could sink them in a high-profile ethical controversy.

Posted in P2P, Linkedin, nonprofit, investing, CSR, philanthropy, marketing | No Comments »