The Humanity Campaign

What We'll Be Doing in Kenya & Uganda

2009-06-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

From June 25th through July 5th I'll be in Kenya and Uganda with Jess Shorland and Bob Phoenix. The purpose of our trip is to:

Visit the non-profits that The Humanity Campaign and iContact have provided funds to in order to see and document how they are using the funds and to learn about their operations and needs;
Find additional qualified non-profits for The Humanity Campaign to invest in;
Find companies with unique innovative technologies that address local social needs and for-profit companies with a social mission to invest in;
Learn as much as we can about conflict resolution, IDP camps, food and water distribution, rural health care provision, and rural primary and secondary education; and
Dance, dance, and dance some more like Matt from Where The Hell is Matt!

On our first day in Nairobi we'll be meeting with Amon Anderson from the Acumen Fund and Mary Muhara from Africa Rising. Amon is a friend of mine from back when we went to UNC together and from when he was in charge of the entrepreneurship minor at UNC. Mary is the in-country local representative for Africa Rising who vets the non-profits that Africa Rising contributes to. Mary will be taking us to visit TULIP Nairobi a program supported by AR. TULIP "strives to deliver hope for girls subjected to poverty and its vices: teenage pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, drugs, crime, and prostitution."

On day two in Nairobi we'll be visiting with Carolina for Kibera. CFK works in Kibera, a slum in North Nairobi to "promote youth leadership and ethnic and gender cooperation in Kibera through sports, young women's empowerment, and community development." CFK was started in 2001 by a UNC students Kim Chapman and Rye Barcott. Rye has since completed five years of service as an officer in the Marines and completed a MBA/MPA joint degree from HBS and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, which is what I'd love to be doing in a few years. They operate a soccer league, medical clinic (Tabitha Clinic), and a reproductive health and women's rights center (Binti Pamoja). I'm so excited to be seeing their operation first hand.

On day three, we'll be flying from Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta Airport to Entebbe, Uganda. We'll stay the night in Kampala with our friend Louis Ntale, the brother-in-law of Duke's Christopher Kigongo, and then wake up early to catch the five or six hour Posta Uganda bus from Kampala to Gulu and traverse once again the adventurous roads of rural Uganda.

Upon arriving in Gulu we'll be meeting up with Andrew Morgan of Invisible Children. Over the past year I have been studying the conflict between the LRA, led by Joseph Kony, and the Ugandan army known as the Ugandan People's Defence Force and formerly known as the National Resistance Army.

Invisible Children (IC) is working to put an end to the conflict, which has died down considerably in Northern Uganda but spread to the Central African Republic and the Northeast Democratic Republic of Congo, near the Garamba Forest. IC also working to re-integrate and educate former LRA child soldiers in the surrounding region's Internally Displaced Person's camps and to lobby the U.S. government to put State Department resources into ending the conflict. I had the chance to spend a couple days with their CEO Ben Keesey and co-founder Bobby Bailey while at The Summit Series trip in Aspen in April. They've put out a series of very well done DVD documentaries explaining the conflict and highlighting the stories of particular child soldiers. I'm very excited to see the IC operation while in Gulu.

After a day with IC, we'll be visiting the Concerned Parents Association, another organization supported by Africa Rising, which mobilises parents of abducted children toward the objectives of:

Immediate and unconditional release of all abducted children
Peaceful resolution of the conflicts
Creation of an awareness of the plight of children in conflict

After three days in Gulu, we'll head back down to Kampala on July 1st, visit with Joseph of Appfrica, and stay the night again with Louis. On Thursday, July 2nd we'll have one free day and either head to the Kampala Hospital, do a follow-up visit with the Kyetume health clinic an hour away in Nkokonjeru, or head over to Jinja to see the source of the Nile.

On Friday we'll head over to Mityana, Uganda to visit the Naama Millennium School and get an update on the scholarship program that iContact and The Humanity Campaign have funded that will be helping students at Naama attend secondary school. We'll also be visiting a team from Duke and Nourish International. Naama serves 321 students, 113 of which have lost one or both parents. It was a true joy last year visiting Naama and seeing the school children dance!

After visiting Naama we'll visit the Mityana Secondary School. One of my favorite memories from the visit last June was sitting in on an entrepreneurship class and seeing first hand the drive in the students to excel.

On our final day, Bob and I will head back to Kampala to fly to Nairobi and then back to RDU through Heathrow and JFK to be back in time for work on Monday morning July 6. Jess will continue on and head down to Karegwe, Tanzania to work with Juma Masisi at WOMEDA, a women's rights organization.

I look forward to blogging about our experiences! Stay tuned.

OptInNow.org - Opportunity International's New Kiva-Like Site

2008-12-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

This is something really cool.

I had coffee this evening at the HW55 Starbucks in Durham with Sam Serio from Opportunity International. Opportunity International is a Christian microfinance organization that's been around since 1971.

Opportunity International has launched a site called OptInNow.org. OptinNow allows you to make small loans directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Comparison to Kiva

OptInNow is similar to Kiva, with the exception that the loans made are contributions to Opportunity International and are re-loaned over and over again to entrepreneurs with microenterprises in developing countries instead of paid back directly to the lender. Another difference is that Opportunity International has a Christian affiliation whereas Kiva does not.

OptInNow.org is in the early stages, so the site does not yet have as extensive inventory of loans and projects as Kiva, but does allow loans to be made to entrepreneurs in Kenya, Ghana, the Philippines, and Mexico with many more to come soon.

Props to the folks at Opportunity International for creating a well-designed usable interactive site that will get a lot more visibility and unique donors for their organization.

Aid 2.0

As opposed to the old-school 'top-down' Easterly-criticized bi-lateral government-to-government aid model where funds were given to oft-unelected semi-corrupt dictators for cold-war geopolitical reasons that indebted the populace without providing much benefit to them while sometimes forcing the funds to be used to pay Western contractors (okay I'm being a bit harsh here but do read Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and Stiglitz' Globalization and Its Discontents), OptInNow's model is from the grassroots--from the bottom-up. It gives small amounts of funds that can make a world of good directly to the local entrepreneurs who know how to best use them. It's market-based aid versus the top-down centrally controlled aid of the past.

Who Is It Run By?

Opportunity International is currently run by CEO Christopher Crane, an entrepreneur, YPO member, and Harvard MBA who took commercial real estate information provider COMPS InfoSystems to 450 employees and took it public in May 1999 before being acquired by CoStar (NASDAQ:CSGP) in February 2000. I haven't met Christopher yet but look forward to meeting him soon.

Here's a video about OptInNow. Spread the word!

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About Opportunity International

Opportunity International, the largest not-for-profit microfinance organization in the world. OI began in 1971 and specializes in working with the poorest of the working poor, those who make less than $2 a day. OI has 1.2 million active loan clients in 28 countries and 85% of their clients are women. Here are some key facts.
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About OptInNow

Our mission is simple. We're working to end global poverty. Faster. How? By providing those who live in chronic poverty with one vital thing they need to transform their lives: Opportunity. Along the way we hope to transform additional lives, like yours. That's why we've made it so simple for good people everywhere to come together, to fund small loans, to witness big and lasting impact, and to truly change the world. That's what we're really about. We're about every land becoming a land of opportunity. And with your help we'll get there.

Project Polaroid in Niger and Ghana

2008-11-23T12:39:00.000-08:00

Back in September I posted on Project Polaroid, an effort started by UNC student Carly Brantmeyer to provide children in developing countries like Colombia, Niger, and Ghana with the first pictures of themselves they've ever owned. You can read more on her blog. I wanted to post some of the recent Project Polaroid photos from Niger and Ghana.

Project Polaroid in Niger

Project Polaroid in Ghana

Project Polaroid: Giving A Child Their First Picture

2008-09-18T13:04:00.001-07:00

How do you get the attention of an large global company (Polaroid) and convince them to reverse a key strategic decision? Hopefully, like this...

The Birth of Project Polaroid

Nine months ago, in early January, I was hanging out in Charlotte with a friend of mine named Carly. Carly is just 20 and a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is an entrepreneur and a social entrepreneur who runs a photography business, Carly Brantmeyer Photography. We were brainstorming. She wanted to be more than a student and photographer. She wanted to use her talents and abilities to give back.

Carly had just returned from a Christmas family trip to Costa Rica. There, she took lots of beautiful digital photos. The children were eager to see the picture she just took of them on the back LCD display. She wanted to be able to give the children a copy of their photo, but couldn't. There was no easy way.

She thought, "If I had a Polaroid camera with me I could give them a copy of the picture right now."

She returned and while brainstorming at her house in January she came up with Project Polaroid. She would bring hundreds of Polaroid instant film with her to developing countries and give children a picture of themselves--something most of them would never seen before, yet alone owned.

Project Polaroid in Colombia

Carly had the opportunity to visit Colombia over the summer to try out Project Polaroid for the first time. She borrowed my Polaroid camera that was given to me as a gift in 2007 and bought some film. Here are some of the inspiring pictures she took. Take a look especially of the one of the mother, holding a picture of her beautiful young daughter for likely the first time:

Project Polaroid in Uganda

In July, I went to Uganda for a week. Carly had returned from Colombia so I got my camera back the night before. Here are some of the pictures I took.

I was able to take about 60 pictures there while in Uganda while in 4 different locations. Each time I noticed an interesting phenomenon. In one of the locations, I found myself in a small village near the Mirembe Kawomera Peace Coffee Cooperative. This place was about 30 minutes down a dirt road from Mbale, Uganda. I took my first photo of a child and gave it to her. She was very confused as to what it was. I told her to shake the picture. She then ran away, nervous it seemed.

Exactly, on the dot, 3 minutes later, a group of at least eight kids came running around the corner jumping up and down with excitement. The picture had developed! Each time I began taking photos with just one or two children. They would go away, wondering what I had gave them (most Ugandan children in villages speak little English), then come back with their whole crew just 2-3 minutes later when they realized what had been given to them. This run away, see the photo develop, and bring back more children would happen every time. Sometimes, as Carly has experienced, you get surrounded by as many as 40 or 50 children within minutes.

In the village outside of Mbale I also gave away some of the soccer jerseys and shorts that had been donated by Sports Endeavors of Hillsborough, NC, the owners of Soccer.com and Eurosport, through the U.S. Soccer Foundation Passback Program. The children created such a commotion that the villages lone police office came over hurriedly, thinking the children were stealing from the van.

Project Polaroid in Ghana

This fall semester, Carly is living and studying in Legon, Ghana at the University of Ghana, with a study abroad program from UNC. She has received a number of donations to help expand the program and has brought dozens of packs of film. Here are some of the photos she's taken so far in Ghana:

Polaroid Will Stop Selling Polaroids in Early 2009

For background information, back in 2001, Polaroid Corporation, the makers of the famous Polaroid Cameras and instant film filed for bankruptcy. It's assets ended up being purchased by a private investment firm, Petters Group Worldwide, in 2005.

Very unfortunately for Project Polaroid, Polaroid announced back on February 8 that it will be phasing out production of its instant film and that it will be completely off the shelves by early 2009. We were of course a bit saddened by this announcement. Polaroid will no longer sell Polaroids. It's a travesty of sorts and will certainly make the project difficult to scale. Polaroid has said that it will be willing to license its instant film technology to another firm should another firm be interested. Here's hoping Polaroid somehow comes across this story and they realize the immense value that Polaroid film has to their brand.

Scaling the Project

Carly writes on her detailed travel blog.

"The idea is simple. $1=1 Polaroid photo, for 1 kid, that will last a lifetime. So many children around the world have never even owned a single photo of themselves. What could be more precious of a memory than a photo of you/your family?"

How You Can Help

When she left, Carly raised money from her family and community. She was able to take a few dozen packs of film with her. A month into the trip, Carly is now running out of film. If you would like to contribute, the best way would be to mail her a pack of two of Polaroid 600 film. She would very much appreciate any help. She will be at the following address until December:

Carly Brantmeyer
University of Ghana
c/o International Programs Office
International Student Housing II
Room #127
Legon, Accra, Ghana

Overall, I am excited to see Project Polaroid in Ghana and look forward to her getting back in January and brainstorming how to scale the project to many more developing countries. Being in Uganda myself in July and seeing the impact owning a simple picture can have in the life of a child and the parents of that child has made a lasting impact on me. One of the children was 3 and didn't have pants--just a long shirt. He lived in a thatch hut near a school Roey and I were speaking at with his brother, sister, and mother. He didn't have pants but he was overjoyed with happiness to have the picture. Hopefully we can convince Polaroid to sponsor the project in the future and keep producing instant film.

Endeavor - Promoting Entrepreneurship in Middle-Income Nations

2008-09-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

A Non-Profit Profile By Humanity Campaign Writer Ebs Sutton--

Recently, a non-profit organization by the name of Endeavor was profiled in the July issue of The Economist, in an article which gave rave reviews of the group’s commitment to providing not just access to opportunity, but access to the mentoring and investment which turns opportunity into actuality.

When it comes to promoting entrepreneurialism in developing nations, Endeavor believes that a significant part of the problem is not just a lack of access to entrepreneurial possibilities, but a lack of access to the modeling and mentorship which are available in places like the United States. Endeavor seeks to address this need by using successful high-impact entrepreneurs in developing nations to select and mentor budding entrepreneurs in developing nations.

The Purpose of Endeavor

Endeavor is a non-profit organization whose vision is to change communities and countries by promoting entrepreneurship where it is needed most. Using their internal Search and Selection teams as well as panels of successful entrepreneurs from across the globe, candidates for the Endeavor program undergo a rigorous selection process which can take up to 18 months. Endeavor uses six main criteria to evaluate candidates:

Entrepreneurial Initiative

Business innovation

Value and Ethics

Role Model Potential

Development Impact

Fit with Endeavor

Additionally, through the course of this process, each entrepreneur is given valuable feedback and advice, whether or not they are selected. Once entrepreneurs are selected according to the criteria, they are set up with mentors and access to support and advice. Endeavor matches the entrepreneur with selected mentors who can help him or her with specific challenges faced. Some Endeavor Entrepreneurs can have over a dozen mentors.

Interview with Elmira Bayrasli

I had a chance to interview Elmira Bayrasli of Endeavor's Outreach Team via email. She described the Endeavor process this way:

“Generally Endeavor looks for high-impact entrepreneurs who are leading companies that are generating between 500K to 20 million in revenues; and entrepreneurs who have role model potential – who will give back to their emerging market communities and not only inspire, but lead, mentor and support aspiring entrepreneurs. Endeavor Entrepreneurs generally are those who have a business that has great high-impact potential to go to scale – to create jobs, generate revenues and investment opportunities.”

The Process

Here is an image showing their selection process from their 2007 annual report:

Many selected entrepreneurs go on to become mentors themselves. Some serve as panelists or as members of local boards of directors.

Before this process even begins, Bayrasli says, Endeavor does its homework:

“Before Endeavor starts to identify and support high-impact entrepreneurs, we spend quite a bit of time building local operations. Endeavor will only launch its 'mentor capitalist' model for high-impact entrepreneurship in countries where there is actively backing and engagement from leading business talent and recognized leaders. These individuals form the basis for Endeavor’s local board of directors.”

Here is a graphic that shows the Endeavor "idea to impact" process:

Examples of Success

This year Wences Casares became the first Endeavor Entrepreneur to join Endeavor’s Global Board of Directors. An Argentinean entrepreneur, Casares founded Patagon, an Argentinean online brokerage; Wanako Games, a developer of video games fueled by Latin American creativity; and Lemon Bank, a Brazillian bank designed to help the poor.

Of the roughly ten Endeavor Entrepreneurs profiled on the Entrepreneur website, one in particular stood out to me. Natallie Killasy began a company called Stitch Wise which sews mine safety gear in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. After realizing how many miners were seriously and permanently injured in mining accidents, she customized sewing machines to provide work for disabled miners. The products started as protective rainwear and eventually moved into safety equipment to prevent underground collapses. According to the Endeavor website, "these products are now industry standard and are critical to the industry."

Some Reader Criticisms

Five out of the eight responses to the article posted on The Economist expressed concern. One concern is that Endeavor is addressing the wrong issues when it comes to entrepreneurialism in developing nations. It is stated main challenges faced are not a lack of well thought out ideas or good business strategy but rather the bureaucracy, corruption, unreliable infrastructure and poor access to loans which plague most emerging economies. Another concern is the Endeavor selection process and its rigorous search for entrepreneurs already brimming with potential. The term “picking winners” appeared twice in reader feedback, seeming to imply that Endeavor has an ulterior selfish motive. If Endeavor strives to “picks winners”, one wonders, are they truly developing an entrepreneurial spirit or just helping an elite few gain their feet?

From my perspective, Endeavor appears to be effectively carrying out its mission and creating lasting positive change in developing nations. Certainly the concerns Economist readers raise regarding the “real” challenges facing entrepreneurs in developing nations are undeniable. I spent 13 years in one of the poorest, most corrupt countries in the world and witnessed the bureaucracy, unreliable infrastructure, and corruption firsthand. However, it takes one look at the Endeavor site to see the statistics supporting their success in countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Mexico. Endeavor currently works in 11 countries and hopes to expand its reach to include even more.

Picking Winners

Although it may seem that Endeavor only helps an elite few, “picking winners” could be a necessary part of smart strategy. With all the possible Endeavor Entrepreneurs and limited Endeavor resources, Endeavor has to pick entrepreneurs showing the most likelihood of success. It’s about investing precious time and resources wisely it seems.

At a relatively young 11 years old, Endeavor is a welcome addition to the scene of international sustainable development.This noted, it has so far focused its work in middle-income countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey and not in the most impoverished "developing countries" where arguably they could create more social value. Though certainly not the only organization addressing entrepreneurial needs in developing countries (Technoserve, for example, has a very similar purpose) Endeavor is energetic and effective in fulfilling its purpose.

Seeking Part-Time Writer for The Humanity Campaign

2008-07-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

Seeking Part-Time Writer

The Humanity Campaign is a start-up non-profit organization based in Durham, North Carolina. Its mission is to reduce poverty and hunger in developing countries by working to increase access to education, healthcare, nutrition, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity in North Carolina and in developing countries.

The organization wishes to begin to publish content in its web site in order to raise its profile as a contributor within the field of sustainable development. To accomplish this goal, The Humanity Campaign is seeking an individual to research and write content for its web site at www.humanitycampaign.org and build a network of sources and writers in developing countries.

Topics that can be written about include, but are not limited to:

Appropriate Technology

Civil Conflict

Compassion and Dignity

Corruption

Direct & Bilateral Aid

Economics

Education

Efforts of NGOs

Energy, Food, & Water

Entrepreneurship & Entrepreneurs

Environmental Sustainability

Financial Systems & Exchanges

Genocide

Government, elections & democracy

Healthcare & Medicine

History

Human Rights

ICT (Internet, Mobile)

Microfinance

Motivation

People Changing the World

Poverty & Prosperity

Private Enterprise

Human Psychology

Public Policy

Religion & Faith

Social Entrepreneurship

The Rule of Law

Trade & Investment

Transparency

Trends

War & Peace

Youth

Organizations that can be reported on include, but are not limited to:

Acumen Fund

Amnesty International

ASHOKA

Doctors Without Borders

Engineers Without Borders

Gates Foundation

Global Giving

Google.org

Idealist.org

Kiva

Human Rights International

Millennium Village Project

Nourish International

Open Society Institute

Red Cross / Red Crescent

Save The Children

The Bookings Institution

The Cato Institute

The Clinton Foundation

The Earth Institute

The Ford Foundation

Transparency International

USAID

UNICEF

UNDP

World Bank

World Economic Forum

World Trade Organization

Philosophy

The organization has a philosophy that all humans have equal worth and that equality of opportunity should be encouraged. It believes that economic development does not always lead to greater happiness or prosperity if it causes environmental destruction, dependency, or materialism. It tends to favor development work that is done through local stakeholders and is sustainable. It tends to favor transparency.

The organization chooses to focus partly on North Carolina as one can often make the largest impact locally. It chooses to focus partly on the developing world as there the need is often greatest. While it is interested in writing about any country or group in the developing world, it’s area of greatest focus is Africa.

The organization believes that we have the ability to end extreme poverty in our lifetimes while ensuring we leave a world that is environmentally sound and ecologically rich.

Through the writing, the organization wishes to explore the overarching question of “what are the factors that contribute to a happier, more prosperous society” and start to build a global network of individuals who are working toward creating better and stronger communities and societies.

The eight core beliefs of the organization are:

All humans are created equal and have equal value

We should strive to create a society in which there is equal access to opportunity for all humans

We should strive to live in a sustainable world

We should respect each other and treat others as we would treat ourselves

There is value in education

We should love, not kill each other

We should work to eliminate extreme poverty

There is great power in entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship to address the critical challenges of our time

Responsibilities

The individual hired for this position is responsible for:

Researching, writing, editing, fact-checking, and publishing content to the web site.

Working to build a network of sources in developing countries who can provide quality story ideas, photo and video content, and primary research data. We wish for the site to be a source of primary news and reporting whenever possible and over time be cited by others as a trusted source.

Working to build a network of writers in developing countries who are willing to contribute topically-relevant quality content that can be posted to the site.

Style Guidelines

Content should be written in a conversational style that engages the reader.

All facts and data should be fact checked and footnoted.

Sources should be listed unless information was provided on the condition on anonymity.

Biases or conflicts should be disclosed. Ownership of stock in any publicly traded company that is discussed should be disclosed.

All articles should have at least one picture within them.

Use of videos within posts is encouraged when possible.

Individual posts should be between 200 and 750 words.

Draft posts for story ideas can be written as drafts and saved until completed

The author of each post should be disclosed

The language that the posts should be in is English

We would like for a number of the posts to highlight people, programs, or companies that are doing exceptionally positive work in developing countries, especially those in the start-up, technology, or entrepreneurial sectors.

Examples of posts that generally fit the topical, style, and guidelines to be used on the site include:

http://www.ryanallis.com/the-opportunity-of-our-lifetimes/

http://www.ryanallis.com/1m-prize-for-best-developing-country-technology-innovation/

http://www.ryanallis.com/sustainable-capitalism/

http://www.ryanallis.com/the-superficial-luxurious-degeneration-of-america/

Requirements include

B.S or B.A. degree from a four year accredited university

Experience living in a developing country

General alignment with the beliefs of the organization

Excellent writing skills

A high level of character and personal integrity

A passion for helping others and making a difference in the world

Remuneration

Work can be paid hourly or by approved post. Compensation is market-based, negotiable, and based on experience. Hours and work is negotiable. Schedule is flexible.

For More Information

If you are interested and/or would like more information, please send resume, cover letter, writing sample, and work history to ryan[at]icontact.com. Additional information on The Humanity Campaign, Inc. can be found at www.humanitycampaign.org.

About The Humanity Campaign

2008-02-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

The Humanity Campaign, Inc. was founded in November 2005 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by Ryan Allis. Originally known as the Anti-Poverty Campaign, the organization's name was changed in December 2007 due to the inspiration of Mother Theresa who was never anti-anything and instead always pro-something. She never once would attend an anti-war rally, but attended many peace rallies.

THC has supported projects in Guatemala, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, and Honduras to date. The organization has provided financial support to Nourish International, Advocates for Grassroots Development in Uganda, Shoulder to Shoulder, Inc., Clinton Global Initiative, Duke Engineers Without Borders, the Women's Center of Wake County, and the Millennium Village Project to date.

We've provided funding for interactive English-language courses for school children in Concepción, Honduras, supported the efforts of Jeffrey Sachs in Sauri, Kenya, funded the creation of a video documentary of a Nourish International trip to Najaf, Guatemala, supported AGRADU in providing anti-retroviral medication in Mukono, Uganda, started a scholarship program at a primary school in rural Uganda, and supported engineers at Duke University working on the creation of a peanut shelling and corn kernel removing appropriate technology device for use in Malawi.

The Humanity Campaign, Inc. incorporated on February 13, 2008 as a Non-Profit Corporation in the State of North Carolina.

The Humanity Campaign, Inc. represents an ongoing lifelong commitment. The mission of The Humanity Campaign, Inc. is to reduce poverty and hunger in North Carolina, the United States, and in developing countries by increasing access to education, healthcare, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity.

Thank you very much for your support!

Students in Conception, Honduras being provided English-language training by Jody Heck of Shoulder to Shoulder, Inc. with a grant provided by THC

"I will never attend an anti-war rally. When you have a peace rally, invite me." - Mother Theresa

A Mission to Change The World

2008-02-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

While I am optimistic, I am somewhat distressed by the state part of our world is in today. I am distressed by two simple facts...

First, while we have prosperity and opulence in many parts of our world--49,000 humans, people just like you and me, die each and every day from starvation and preventable diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, and diarrhea. Second, while we live in comfort, 2.7 billion humans live on under $2 per day.

These numbers are Purchase Power Parity (PPP) adjusted--meaning that 42% of the humans in our world must live a full day on the same $2 that you and I would use to buy half a latte at Starbucks. These facts come from the World Bank and the World Health Organization, respectively.

When I learned these facts in Economics class at Manatee High School at age 17 from an inspirational teacher Robert Fletcher, I couldn't ever afterwards pretend as if "I didn't know."

I've read a lot over the past six years about the topic of human poverty, global politics, and economics--inspirational books like The End of Poverty, The White Man's Burden, How to Change the World, The Bottom Billion, Globalization and Its Discontents, The Lexus & The Olive Tree, The Road to Serfdom, Atlas Shrugged, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, The Secret History of The American Empire, The Fortune at The Bottom of the Pyramid, and The Mystery of Capital.

I've come to a conclusion...

I want to dedicate the rest of my life to reduce poverty and hunger and increase access to education, healthcare, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity here at home in North Carolina and the U.S. as well as in developing countries. This is not charity--this is humanity. We will never have a secure world when half of our brothers and sisters do not have access to basic human needs like shelter, food, primary education, and preventative medicine.

Personally, I believe entrepreneurship is an essential part of the solution--commercial entrepreneurship, public sector entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship.

But being an entrepreneur is NOT easy. The knowledge of how to build a successful organization isn't easily learned.

Building a new 'start-up' of any type whether a non-profit or for-profit is definitely not simple. I'm only 23 and I feel sometimes like I have developed the scar tissue of a 45 year-old building iContact to $10 million in annual sales.

It's truly been an absolute bliss to come in every morning and know that I've played a big role in creating 85 jobs. I get so much energy from being around our team. Being an entrepreneur is truly my passion. I love it, but the experience is what I can only imagine raising a real child would be like. What one has to sacrifice, to give, to devote to the effort is immense. I never thought it would be THIS hard when I started six years ago.

What I can say is that I've learned so much more than I could have ever imagined.

I want to share everything I've learned about business, about opportunity evaluation, about raising venture capital, about product development, about marketing, about sales, about finance, about managing people, about creating systems with as many entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs as I possibly can--and not just commercial entrepreneurs, but social entrepreneurs, corporate entrepreneurs, and public service entrepreneurs in every part of our world.

Writing Zero to One Million for me is part of spreading a message of entrepreneurial possibility and global social change.

I believe that every person in this world should have access to the knowledge of how to be an entrepreneur.

I believe that anyone in this world should be able to become a successful business, social, or public service entrepreneur--if they set their mind to it and have the right tools.

I also believe that IF the knowledge was spread far enough and the financial structures existed in our global society for anyone regardless of location or class to become a successful entrepreneur--our world would have the entrepreneurial talent at the grassroots level to address the biggest challenges of our generation--how to eliminate extreme poverty, get food to the hungry, medicines to the sick, and microcredit financial resources to the ambitious youth of our generation--so that they can productively solve the needs of humanity with their talents, not fight in political or religious wars driven by a lack of hope.
Thank you very, very much for your help and assistance. I sincerely appreciate your help and look forward to working with you for many decades to change the world together.

Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance whatsoever to you now or in the future.

Love, hope, peace, prosperity...

Cheers,
Ryan

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." - Vincent Van Gogh

The Humanity Campaign: What We Believe

2008-02-02T11:17:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the home for The Humanity Campaign. We're just beginning, but intend for this campaign to continue on for decades to come.

The Humanity Campaign works to reduce poverty and hunger by increasing access to education, healthcare, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity at home in North Carolina and the United States, and in developing countries.

We believe in a loving, caring humanity in which that which binds us together is much more powerful than that which separates us. We believe...

All humans are created equal and have equal value
We should strive to create a society in which there is equal access to opportunity for all humans
We should strive to live in a sustainable world
We should respect each other
We should love, not kill each other
We should work to eliminate extreme poverty
There is great power in entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship to address the critical challenges of our time

The Mission of the Humanity Campaign

2007-10-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

Below is the original mission of The Humanity Campaign as published in Appendix 4 of the book Zero to One Million (McGraw-Hill, January 2008) by Ryan P. Allis:

The Humanity Campaign was founded in November 2005. It is based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We wish to increase standards of living, reduce poverty, and encourage sustainable economic development, especially in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin/South America. Our mission today is:

"To reduce poverty and hunger by increasing access to education, healthcare, technology, and entrepreneurial opportunity in North Carolina, the United States, and the developing world."

Our strategy for accomplishing this goal is to make entrepreneurship and business development possible for every person in every country, fight corrupt government and business, work with governmental and non-governmental organizations to enhance the business and social infrastructure, establish proper legal and property ownership systems, promote free trade and remove tariffs and subsidies, improve entrepreneurship and business education at the grassroots level in every country, and connect entrepreneurs, investors, and governments at every level so as to encourage the exchange of contacts, ideas, methods, and investment capital.

We believe that competitive market economies, free from collusion and corruption, are essential to creating an incentive to produce and thus are essential to a high standard of living. We believe that the ability to be an entrepreneur should be made available to every human from every country. To this end, we will promote not pure capitalism, but rather efficient competitive market economies that take into account those at both ends of the socioeconomic ladder.

We believe in promoting the principles of liberalism. We believe in a republic and democratic system of government, religious freedom, and the promotion of individual initiative. We believe there is a distinct and important role, though limited, for government, especially in the early stages of a country’s development.

We want to give the over two billion persons who live on under $1 per day the chance and ability to make something of themselves, create a life free of poverty, and provide value to society. Presently, breaking out of poverty, becoming an entrepreneur, or significantly improving one’s status is not possible for the majority of persons in the world. In the way is corruption in government and deficiencies in business and social infrastructure, proper legal frameworks, entrepreneurship education for those at the lower socioeconomic ends of society, and communication among aspiring entrepreneurs.

To reach this goal we will follow the below tactics. We will

Encourage and teach entrepreneurship at every level;
Fight political and business corruption;
Help build the business and social infrastructure;
Lobby for free trade in goods;
Help establish proper legal and property ownership systems; and
Connect entrepreneurs at all levels with investors and governments.

First, we will encourage entrepreneurship at every level. The skills of always improving processes, focusing on efficiency, and properly managing people will be important to all members of society. While not everyone will want to be an entrepreneur, we believe that it is a right of mankind to be able to start a business, create value, and if a business succeeds profit from working hard and intelligently.

We must democratize entrepreneurship and streamline governmental systems so as to create a society in which it is not just those with money and connections who are able to start a business. We believe that entrepreneurship creates competition in the marketplace, creates an efficient use of resources and distribution of goods and services for society’s needs, and over time ensures that the price of goods and services goes down while the quality goes up—thus increasing standards of living.

We must teach entrepreneurship in the villages, towns, and cities, and in the schools and homes. Often this will not be the type of entrepreneurship you’ll learn in an American business school. There will often be no venture capital, no down rounds, no initial public offerings, no option pools, and no seasoned executives to attract. Rather, we’ll just as often be teaching how to register a business in a country, the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement, or the difference between revenue and profit. We hope to be at all levels, from working with governments and NGO’s such as the World Trade Organization and World Bank to arranging methods of international distribution and trade for local artisans and farmers to helping write the curriculum at a new graduate business school in Nairobi to assisting with the creation of the first formal stock market in a country.

Crucial to our ability to reach our objectives will be the extent to which we are able to reduce political and business corruption in our world. While the majority of this has been routed out in developed countries over the past century, much still remains in developing nations. We must promote democratic elections, checks and balances in government, and the development of organizations that play roles similar to the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States. We must fight despotism, nepotism, favoritism, fraud, tax evasion, and financial manipulation.

The third part of our strategy is to assist in the development of the business and social infrastructure. There are very few entrepreneurial support organizations, effective Chambers of Commerce, or universities completing top-tier research in developing countries. We must work to encourage the growth and assist in creating the structure for such organizations.

We must help to launch research labs, entrepreneurship clubs, and tech transfer offices at universities, encourage an active Chamber of Commerce in every sizable town, and bring entrepreneurial networking organizations such as the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), World Entrepreneurs’ Organization (WEO), Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO), and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) to the developing world. Finally, we will work to establish efficient tax systems and with part of this revenue, along with revenue from international aid create a social safety net that gives a hand out for a limited time and forever a hand up.

One of the major problems in our world today is that countries continue to have tariffs on foreign goods and subsidies for their domestic producers, hurting the people of other countries as well as their own countries. Through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and now the World Trade Organization (WTO), much progress has been made on this front since World War II.

One of the most egregious free trade violations today, however, is being made not by the developing countries, but rather by the industrialized countries, namely those in the European Union as well as the United States. This is the problem of farming subsidies. The rich nations of the world pay over $320 billion each year as subsidies to their farmers while they pay just $50 billion in aid to developing countries. These subsidies create artificially high prices and keep producers in developing countries out of the marketplace, essentially relegating the farmers of the developing world to poverty and enriching the large agribusiness companies of the developed nations, while consumers everywhere suffer from higher prices. While a case can be made that some of these subsidies are necessary to maintain enough domestic food production for national security, many must go. The WTO talks in Cancun in September 2003 were the first step toward removing them. The Humanity Campaign will join this fight.

As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto notes in The Other Path and The Mystery of Capital, a significant problem in the developing world is the lack of formal property laws. Without official title to their land, even if it is only a ten foot by ten foot slum, the poor have little incentive to improve their house and surroundings and just as important are unable to leverage this asset to obtain a microloan from the bank that they could use to start a small business or turn their wood panel or hardened mud walls into concrete or brick. We must establish formal property laws throughout developing nations and we must do this immediately. Further, we must establish legal systems that do not unduly benefit any party or caste, are fair to all members of a country, and take atrocities such as corruption and torture very seriously.

It will take many decades to build The Humanity Campaign into the foundation we hope it will become. There are many people who have dedicated their lives to increasing standards of living, solving the global problem of poverty, and encouraging economic development in the third world. We are with you and we hope you will be with us. For more information on our mission and organization, you can visit http://www.humanitycampaign.org. If you may be interested in helping us achieve our goals, I encourage you to contact us.

The Humanity Campaign: Who We Are

2005-11-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

Ryan P. Allis, Executive Director

Ryan Allis, 23, is the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanity Campaign. Ryan is the CEO of Durham, NC based iContact, and the author of the book Zero to One Million: How I Built a Company to One Million Dollars in Sales... And How You Can Too.

Ryan serves on the Boards of Nourish International, Leadership Triangle, Junior Achievement of Eastern North Carolina, and Advocates for Grassroots Development in Uganda. He is a member of the Raleigh-Durham Chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization.

Ryan founded The Humanity Campaign (formerly known as the Anti-Poverty Campaign) in 2005 to work to reduce poverty in developing nations by fighting corruption, promoting technology use, expanding microenterprise and microfinance efforts, and instituting improved education, health care, and financial systems. Ryan attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was an economics major and Blanchard Scholar.

> Learn more at ryanallis.com

Other contributors include:
Jennifer Monroe, was blogging from Mali and Uganda, now from Washington D.C.
Joel Thomas, was blogging from Argentina, now from Chapel Hill
Erin Mulfinger, blogging from Guatemala, now from Greensboro, NC
Carlos Toriello - blogging from Guatemala, now from Chapel Hill
Joan Moina - blogging from Nairobi, Kenya
Moffat Thomas - blogging from Gabarone, Botswana

Want to join the HC team? Email ryan [at] icontact.com and he'll add you as an authorized contributor.