If you're in Boston and you want to directly assist Haiti, this is a great way to do it
Ushahidi-Fletcher Situation Room update - scroll to the bottom where it says "Contact us at".
We really couldn’t do this project with out the help of the Boston situation room. They are combing through the reports, getting updates via many different forms of media – basically making sense of a mountain of incoming data. On top of that, they’re coordinating with many more thousands of individuals all over the world to help find critical data on locations, needs and confirmations with the people on the ground in Haiti.
And you can be one of those people!

SMS donations to Haiti might be delayed
Donations made to Haiti via SMS might be delayed 90 days. This may or may not be a big deal, but just to be safe, I'm donating through the Partners In Health website.

"Enormity"
If you've got a small, fixable problem, people will rush to help, because people like to be on the winning side, take credit and do something that worked. If you've got a generational problem, something that is going to take herculean effort and even then probably won't pan out, we're going to move on in search of something smaller.
- Seth Godin

The corollary to this is that there are a surprising number of intimidating but solvable problems out there.

Someone from my high school started this non-profit to help farmers in Kenya. Right now provides loans, training and access to markets to 550 families. They're now expanding into Rwanda.

Damn. Nice job, Andrew.

Devon discusses the Goma Student Fund
I already appealed on behalf of the Goma Student Fund, but Devon's personal description of her work with GSF gives a much better idea of why I'm a supporter.
The next step for GSF is to improve the quality of education in this area to bring it up to the standards of schools in Goma. To date, the investments of friends and family have allowed us to build five classrooms and enroll 250 students. Each class is full beyond capacity, with children sharing notebooks and pens and sitting four to a desk. Even then, more students the school cannot accommodate line up at the windows to watch lessons.
Devon Lake on GSF

Want to build a school in Africa?
The Goma Student Fund is a non-profit started to build and support schools in Congo. Some of my friends are involved in running it. It's incredible how much they accomplish with the limited donations they get - if you want the highest impact for your donation, you can't do better.

  • $12 - Pairs of uniforms for two students
  • $30 - Pairs of uniforms for five students
  • $60 - Teacher's Salary for a month
  • 100 - One year's tuition and supplies for two students
  • $300 - Furniture for an entire classroom

Think of it as another item on your Christmas gift list.

Closer to "management consultants without borders", which is what I'm looking for.

Meetings every month in Santa Monica.

Another "market-based" non-profit looking for high-impact solutions to global poverty. These guys also have some sort of partnership with Google.

Ouch, the name. The arrogance of some of the new philanthropists is wonderful. "Really, the problem is that you guys haven't been smart enough."

"Helping nonprofit organizations become more self-sustaining by generating revenue," interesting. I need to learn more about social venturing (or in this case what, social consulting?)

This site also has a searchable database of nonprofits' ventures and partnerships, which could be massively useful even if it is tilted toward their clients and partners.

FINCA International
"financial services to the world's poorest families"

This is Lukas Bergstrom's weblog. You can also find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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