Good Grief Center Support Groups Offer Hope and Healing Having trouble coping with the death of a loved one The Good Grief Center for Bereavement Support can help. In addition to its services for individuals and families, the Center offers three on-site support groups each held twice monthly at 2717 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill: An [...]
Joe Saxton, co-founder of nfpSynergy, says none of the main political parties can take comfort from research
Prime Minister tells audience at a Business in the Community event that companies now have a deeper engagement with charities and causes
Better understanding and addressing the needs of children in Mecklenburg County through services, research and advocacy is the job of the Council for Children’s Rights.
Navca head Joe Irvin asked the council’s deputy leader Martin Suthers to discuss the 34 per cent reduction in its 2011/12 voluntary sector grants budget
Or, How to Make your Company’s Facebook ‘Like’ Campaign a Little Less Gratuitous.
We all know how Facebook ‘Like’ campaigns go. Companies provide a little something-something, perhaps a donation to a cause, and people hit the ‘Like’ button and give up the crazy amount of data that Facebook collects on all of us.
But such promotions have already become pedestrian.
FlyBuys, Australia’s largest loyalty program with some 10 million cardholders and 5.5. million households, wanted to do something a little different.
FlyBuys knew that half of its members were on Facebook and it wanted to engage them there. But how to do it without resorting to a garden-variety ‘Like’ campaign?
FlyBuys created a promotion to ask members to donate 25 million points to Cancer Council Australia. That goal was met in 30 days.
The reason why has to do with the FlyBuys’ history. Since its inception in 1994, members of FlyBuys have been able to donate their points to charity partners, notably to Cancer Council Australia.
FlyBuys members knew therefore that this isn’t just a flash-in-the-pan relationship. The company has a history with the cause.
The result is that during the promotion more than 20,000 members have donated points and some 12,000 have liked the company’s Facebook page.
*I apologize for the gratuitous reference to the Linsational young point guard for the New York Knicks.
The Teenage Cancer Trust has added another concert to its roster of shows at the Royal Albert Hall at the end of next month.
The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Paul Weller will hit the stage on March 28, the night before Paul McCartney plays for the charity.
The following week will see concerts by Example (March 30), Pulp (March 31), Jessie J (April 1), an evening of comedy hosted by Jason Manford plus special guests (April 2), and Florence + The Machine (April 3).
Charity patron Roger Daltrey is proud to perform for the organization: "Every year Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall raises essential funds to support the charity’s work. I am incredibly proud of what we have already achieved and am inspired about what we will accomplish together.
“Within these memories of unique collaborations and musical firsts are the faces of the incredible young people I have met. Over the years I have met many young people with cancer and like Teenage Cancer Trust, I believe that they shouldn’t have to stop being teenagers just because they have this disease.
“They have helped me understand that they are young people first – cancer patients second and I am always struck by their enthusiasm, positivism and their lust for life.”
Eleven years of concerts have raised over £14 million for Teenage Cancer Trust, making a real difference to the lives of thousands of young people with cancer. All money raised has helped the charity to build more specialist teenage cancer units in NHS hospitals across the UK, allowing young people to be treated together with others their own age, in an environment suited to their needs.
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Chase the winter blahs by attending a spring season show at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center! Tickets are inexpensive, Lincoln Park is right here in Beaver County, the performances are live and first-rate, and there is something to suit every taste, from concerts and dance to musicals, comedy and children’s fare. The spring late winter [...]
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has told the international agricultural community it had fallen short of delivering the help small farmers in developing countries need, when they need it.
In a speech delivered at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Gates asked the UN bodies responsible for fighting hunger and poverty to unite around a common global target for sustainable productivity growth to guide and measure their efforts.
“If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture,” said Gates. “Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty, and they have made life better for billions of people. The international agriculture community needs to be more innovative, coordinated, and focused to help poor farmers grow more. If we can do that, we can dramatically reduce suffering and build self-sufficiency.”
Gates told IFAD, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that the approach being used today to fight against poverty and hunger is outdated and inefficient. He urged these food agencies to commit to a concrete, measurable target for increasing agricultural productivity and to support a system of public score cards to maximize transparency for themselves, donors, and the countries they support.
“The goal is to move from examples of success to sustainable productivity increases to hundreds of millions of people moving out of poverty,” said Gates. “If we hope to meet that goal, it must be a goal we share. We must be coordinated in our pursuit of it. We must embrace more innovative ways of working toward it. And we must be willing to be measured on our results.”
The number of hungry people in the world has reached the 1 billion mark, and global food prices that were beginning to fall last July—signaling some relief—are starting to creep up again. According to estimates, small farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa can double or almost triple their yields, respectively, in the next 20 years. This sustainable productivity increase will translate into 400 million people lifting themselves out of poverty.
“History has shown us what’s possible when people can grow enough food. If we want to transform the lives of people in Africa, we need to focus our efforts on raising agricultural productivity, creating markets and making agriculture a business not a development activity,” said Akin Adesina, Nigerian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Gates also announced nearly $200 million in grants, bringing to more than $2 billion the foundation’s commitment to smallholder farmers since the agriculture program began in 2006. The foundation takes a comprehensive approach to supporting small farmers so progress against hunger and poverty is sustainable for the economy and the environment.
The money will fund agricultural development projects that are already producing great results for farmers, with a goal to help millions of small farmers lift themselves out of poverty. This re-investment will be in projects that have already:
New foundation grants will go to support:
“When Melinda and I started our foundation more than a decade ago, we initially focused on inequities in global health. But as we spent more time learning about the diseases of poverty, we realized that many of the poorest people in the world were small farmers. The conclusion was obvious. They could lift their families up by growing more food,” explained Gates.
The Thirty-Fifth Session of IFAD’s Governing Council, entitled “Sustainable smallholder agriculture: Feeding the World, protecting the planet,” provided a forum for governments and the agricultural development community to discuss ways to grow 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed a growing, more urbanized population.
“IFAD works in remote areas where few development partners have ventured, helping poor farmers raise not only their yields but their incomes,” said IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze. “Development fails when imposed from above. IFAD’s ground-up approach helps farmers build strong organizations that give them more power in the marketplace and a greater voice in the decisions that affect their lives so that they can earn more, eat better, and educate their children.”
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On February 22, 2012 Vanity Fair and Ermenegildo Zegna, along with Colin and Livia Firth and Anna Zegna, hosted an intimate dinner at Chateau Marmont to benefit Oxfam America, the international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice.
Over the last ten years, Colin Firth has worked hard, both in public and behind the scenes, to become an extremely knowledgeable and highly respected campaigner for Oxfam.
Guests at the event included hosts Colin and Livia Firth and Anna Zegna, along with Demian Bichir, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh, Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter, Kristin Davis, Cameron Diaz, Djimon Honsou and Kimora Lee, Emile Hirsch, Danny Huston, John Krazinski, Olga Kurylenko, Vanity Fair Publisher Edward Menicheschi, President of Oxfam Raymond Offenheiser, Gary Oldman and Alexandra Oldman, Stefanie Sherk, Mia Wasikowska and more.
Adding a special element to the evening, Ermenegildo Zegna dressed select male guests including Demian Bichir, Kenneth Branagh, Colin Firth, Djimon Honsou, John Krazinski, Danny Huston, and Raymond Offenheiser in eco-friendly fashions as part of Livia Firth’s ‘The Green Carpet Challenge.’ For the third year in a row, Livia Firth is spearheading the project which asks top designers to use eco-friendly fabrics when designing gowns and suits for celebrities to wear during awards season. The goal of the project is to show design and creativity doesn’t have to be compromised while working with environmentally friendly materials.
Vanity Fair and Ermenegildo Zegna’s support of Oxfam America is part of Vanity Fair Campaign Hollywood, the magazine’s annual week-long series of events and one-of-a-kind “moments” leading up to the Academy Awards in support of charitable causes.
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