National Service
One of the subjects I most enjoyed reporting on this summer was The Case for National Service, which was published a couple of weeks ago. As part of the reporting for that cover package, my colleague Kristina Dell and I reported on organizations like Ashoka, which take an innovative, ambitious approach to making a difference through social entrepreneurship. It will be interesting to see if a dialogue about national service gains momentum over the course of the presidential campaign season ahead.
1 comments:
Jeremy, I'm so glad to see social entrepreneurship attaining new levels of awareness.
One area I think is special is that we can use our business skills to make nonprofits effective and sustainable. I was a cofounder at VolunteerMatch, and started VolunteerMatch Corporate, selling into and managing more than 20 Fortune 500 companies in their domestic employee volunteer programs. It's a GREAT way to increase community results -- but also generate revenue and support your nonprofit through a paying service. Yes!
Now -- the next key -- is global. Here, I've started UniversalGiving (http://www.universalgiving.org). We help people give and volunteer with the top performing organizations all across the world. Vet and prequalify them. Free for the public.
BUT then -- we make the business case for Fortune 500 companies. Companies such as Cisco and BEA pay us to help us launch their global philanthropy and volunteer programs across the world. Part of our services is again, vetting the organizations, and they pay us for it.
I really hope we can move towards the following:
*Less information, higher quality on the Web
*Increase/scaling in strategic global involvement, both in giving and volunteering
*Increase in corporate involvement, both in scaling their global community impact AND generating revenue for the nonprofit provider. Not handouts.
Thanks, Jeremy, for helping get out the word on these strategic ways to impact the world.
Sincerely, Pamela
Founder/CEO UniversalGiving.
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