We are excited to announce that our new fund – The Mayoress’ Fund for Youth – is now open for applications!  The fund will use monies raised at the inaugural Mayoress’ Charity Gala Ball in November to support youth projects across Auckland.

The fund is targeting projects that support young people aged 10-24 through projects focused on health & well-being, education and effective youth transitions.

Applications close 31 March 2012 and we’re hoping to see some great evidence-based projects come through.

For more information, check out our website!

Firstly, a very happy new year to our Creative Philanthropy readers!  We thought it would be appropriate to kick off 2012 with a look at some new year’s resolutions from the world’s big thinkers and givers.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has published a series of excerpts from their conversations with non-profit leaders about the vision for 2012.

The idea of collaboration over duplication was a common theme – Jeff Raikes (President, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) said, “Not only do we need to share more about our strategies and what we’re learning, but we need to listen more”.

2012 may be the year where non-profits look to get scalability right too.  We liked the way that Ritu Sharma (Executive Director, Social Media for Nonprofits) puts it, “2012 must be the year of deeper vs. wider. We must resolve not to pursue every opportunity to serve – like a raccoon chasing every shiny object it sees – but instead focus our efforts on where we can maximize impact.”

We all love a feel-good story during the festive season and the outbreak of random acts of philanthropic kindness in Kmarts across the USA really hits the mark.

AssociatedPress reported that generous strangers have been paying off the bills for toys on lay bys set up by impoverished parents.

Dona Bremser was at work when Kmart called to tell her that someone had paid off the balance of her account which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

“I was speechless,” she said. “It made me believe in Christmas again.”

For full story follow the link: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017025447_apuslayawaysantas.html

We are highly impressed with Brighter Future Workshop Limited – a great organisation who have developed a powerful social enterprise that recycles, repairs and resells mobility equipment.

Importantly, they also provide opportunities for young, disadvantaged and disabled people to work with them to help recycle the equipment that is donated.

We weren’t alone in our admiration – they won the Guardian Social Enterprise Award 2011 and were finalists in the National Lottery Awards too.

The Awesome Foundation proclaims itself to be all about “forwarding the interests of awesomeness in the universe” – which is pretty awesome.

Grants of $1,000 are distributed monthly by a group of 10 ‘microtrustees’ who each commit $100 a month to support issues that they are passionate about. This format makes philanthropy effective on a scale that is manageable for most individuals.

The idea behind the Awesome Foundation came from Tim Hwang, a Harvard-graduate who became increasingly frustrated by the rigours of grant applications and funding accountability.  Awesome grants are purposefully light-touch to encourage no-boundaries  ideas – ‘a micro-genius grant for flashes of micro-brilliance’.

Check out the Awesome Foundation website, where you can visit a blog tracking the projects that are supported – including projects in our neighbours Sydney and Melbourne.

If you can spare twenty minutes and are looking to deepen your appreciation of creativity in philanthropy, this audio interview of Roger Hughes, retiring CEO of St Luke’s Health Initiatives, by Hildy Gottleib at the Chronicle of Philanthropy provides some powerful insights on the importance of taking risks and learning from the outcomes.

As Roger poignantly asserts, we need to be constantly on the alert against increasing conservatism and excessive command and control  cultures in our foundations. We need to be open to innovation, surprise, and discovery.

As Roger says “‘Clarity’ emerges from ‘practice’, ‘practice’ does not emerge ‘clarity’”.

 http://philanthropy.com/article/How-a-Grant-Maker-Became-a/129345/

 It’s just over a year since Warren Buffet and Bill Gates instigated their Giving Pledge, inviting the world’s billionaires to pledge at least half their wealth to charity over the course of their lifetimes and progress has exceeded their expectations.

This article from the Wall Street Journal checks in on the Pledge’s progress to date and features some of those who have signed on talking about their motivations for doing so.  As the article says:

 “The Pledge has touched off a national debate about how much is “enough” when it comes to giving, and created the most powerful movement in American philanthropy since Andrew Carnegie released his famous “Gospel of Wealth” treatise in 1889.” 

Although Buffet and Gate are working with billionaires, the conversations their initiative has sparked are relevant to all of us who are interested in the possibilities philanthropy can unlock and our motivations for giving.  We’re looking forward to seeing where this momentum leads.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article here.

Fair trade champions Ben & Jerry’s have pioneered a clever piece of social marketing to promote the cause.

The ‘Fair Tweets’ campaign is built around a Twitter app that automatically uses any of the unused characters from your tweets to create hastags, slogans and links that all promote the fair trade message.

Ben & Jerry’s ‘Fair Tweets’ website explains: “Put your unused Twitter characters to good use and help spread the word aboutFair Trade.  Every day, millions of Twitter characters go unused. That’s not very fair. But now you can tweet as you normally would, and we’ll turn any leftover characters into a message about Fair Trade. Now that’s fair.”

We think it’s great to see such a corporate using creative ways to add power to a message

We love it when companies show real initiative and creativity in attacking relevant social issues.

Starbuck’s new corporate social responsibility initiative (launching tomorrow) encourages employees and consumers to make a minimum $5 donation with the commitment that 100% of it will be go into a nationwide ‘Create Jobs for USA’ fund at not-for-profit organisation Opportunity Finance Network. The fund will help to develop community businesses via micro-loans.

The Starbucks Foundation will start the fund off with a $5 million donation.

Donors will receive a patriotic wrist band with the slogan “Indivisible”.

Thanks to Paul Dunn for bringing this great example of a highly current corporate connection and exciting social enterprise format to our attention.

Project C is a student initiative from Ohio University in the U.S. The project’s mission is to inform and inspire the audience to become more involved in their community – ‘it’s not just about giving money to those who are in need, but instead it’s about learning who they are and what they are passionate about’.

Project C draws on the power of multi-media presentations to give greater profile to local causes – ‘as designers, developers, animators, storytellers we have the power to present content in a way that people are inspired and influenced.’

To read more about the Project C visit the website www.clickingcreateschange.com