Echoing Green - Think Big. Be Bold. Drive Change.

Women: Sit at the Table and Create the Discourse

Nidhi Chaudhary — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:55:37 +0000

Katie Orenstein

“Because the stories we tell determine what we think about what happens, which determines which happens next.” – Katie Orenstein

When 2008 Echoing Green Fellow Katie Orenstein started The Op-Ed Project, only four percent of the submissions to the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal were from women. Now, ten percent come from them. It’s an important indication of progress—and of ensuring that more voices are part of the public debate.

According to Op-Ed, between eighty to ninety percent of all submissions to the opinion essay pages in the United States come from men—usually highly educated, older, white men. Eighty-four percent of TV pundits on Sunday morning talk shows are men, along with eighty-seven percent of Wikipedia contributors, eighty-five percent of Hollywood producers, and eighty-three percent of Congress.* Public discourse in the world is literally being created by a fraction of the population.

So, the obvious solution is to increase the number of submissions by women to the op-ed pages. But how many of us actually read op-eds? Why does it matter? A published op-ed can lead to speaking engagements, appearances on television shows, guest lectures at universities, and even a call from the President. Katie’s own narrative includes opportunities to advise Clinton staffers on Latin America and a by-line across one of the largest wire services in the world—all stemming from her op-eds. Kennedy Odede, a 2010 Echoing Green Fellow, published an op-ed in the New York Times on tourism in slums. With thousands of views around the world, he has since been invited to join Sean Penn and President Clinton for a keynote at the Clinton Global Initiative U annual meeting, as a member of CGI, and has become an internationally recognized human-rights activist. If women, if minorities do not generate the discourse and establish themselves as experts with opinions that matter, how can they find influence in important conversations?

There is, of course, a deeper issue at play here. It's why there are so few women CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, and why we haven't seen an equal number of female Fellows at Echoing Green. A couple years ago, Clay Shirky shared a “rant on women” when a student asked for a recommendation. Shirky asked the student to send him a draft, one that was effusive with its compliments and certainly dismissed if Shirky himself has submitted it. He pondered, however, that he would never have received such a draft from one of his female students. Why?

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, shares it beautifully in her TEDWomen talk last year: “Women systematically underestimate their own abilities.” Men attribute their successes to themselves, while women acknowledge external factors for their accomplishments. Sheryl’s first piece of advice for women—sit at the table, own your success. Clay Shirky’s advice encourages women to say, “I can do that. Sign me up. My work is awesome.”

The Op-Ed Project’s mission: “…create a sea change in our nation’s conversation by empowering a wave of women to write op-eds, join the public discourse and encourage and refer other women to do the same—creating a multiplier effect that will alter the patterns of under-representation of women in media rolodexes and inboxes, and expand the pool of visible female talent.” Seminars are held around the country, with an expanding graduate and undergraduate program. Programs do not discriminate against men, they are, in fact, invited to participate. But, a majority number in each workshop must be women because the conversation must shift. Op-Ed wants women to pull up a chair and say—not to wait to be called on—but, to shout, I am an expert on xyz, this is my opinion, and it matters to what happens next.

*Based on 2011 figures

The Buzz 2-3-12

Nidhi Chaudhary — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:11:11 +0000

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Our quick read on the top tweets, news, and buzz circulating in the field of changemaking this past week. Tell us, what's got you talking? And what do you want to be talking about?

Our big news this week was the announcement of the Semifinalists for the 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship! We received a record number of applications—3,508, up 23 percent from the previous year and 228 percent from the year before. Learn more about the Semifinalists for the EG Fellowship and the Open Society Foundations Black Male Achievement Fellowship and send them your best wishes for the next two steps with the hashtag #EG2012Fellowship: http://ht.ly/8TaYM

There are so many social impact jobs crossing our desks recently. We updated our monthly list from January with a many more openings around the world. Find your way to working on purpose this year and share these opportunities with others who are also on their journey to find a career with meaning: http://ht.ly/8Tcu9

Fifty people who are changing the world selected the people they thought were creating transformative change as well. It’s a list you want to see and individuals you want to know more about: http://ht.ly/8TdxI

Is mobile Africa’s future? IBM shared a detailed infographic on the usage of mobile technology across the continent—did you know that 90 percent of all phones in Africa re mobile? And 18 million Kenyans use their mobile phone as their sole means of banking? Learn more: http://ht.ly/8Tf3x

Gayle Lemmon’s TEDWomen talk was one of our favorite shares this week. She says “Women can no longer be half of the world’s population and a special-interest group.” It’s an important, compelling talk that encourages all of us to remember that women around the world are entrepreneurs—and investment in their businesses is critical to global development. http://ht.ly/8Tf74

Umair Haque, a regular writer for Harvard Business Review said, “We're all built differently—but none of us is here to NOT make a difference.” We can’t think of a better reason to create a meaningful life through meaningful work. http://ht.ly/8TfiJ

Our new program, Work on Purpose, envisions a world in which every person who wants to create a career in social innovation has the inspiration, the tools and the support to do so. We’re very excited to launch a new website in the next few weeks where you can ask and answer meaningful questions about career and purpose and find resources to help you on your journey. Sign up to be one of the first to hear when we launch! http://ht.ly/8Td9r

A Voice for Those Without One

Jay Geneske — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:10:00 +0000

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Esra'a Al Shafei

2009 Echoing Green Fellow Esra'a Al Shafei launched Mideast Youth which uses social web tools to connect youth from the Middle East and North Africa online to promote human rights, religious freedom, tolerance, and free speech.

In a fantastic interview on Forbes.com, Esra'a commented:

"The most important piece of technology and platform that has affected my life is WordPress. WordPress really empowered me to become more outspoken...I think it’s these kinds of obvious tools or platforms that we’ve seen so much of and therefore gotten used to that a lot of us now take for granted, but honestly I can’t imagine being without it."

What do you think is the single most important technology to drive social change?

The 2012 Echoing Green Semifinalists

Lara Galinsky — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:11:26 +0000

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There are 3,508 reasons why we have great hope for a better world. This is the number of applications Echoing Green received for our 2012 Fellowships. We congratulate every single applicant for taking on the world's biggest problems with their bold, innovative solutions. After an awe-inspiring and challenging first-stage review process, we proudly announce our 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship Semifinalists and the 2012 Open Society Foundations Black Male Achievement Fellowship Semifinalists.

Echoing Green sent official notifications to all applicants this afternoon.

The Semifinalists will have the opportunity to submit additional information about their big idea, and the Finalists for both Fellowships will be invited to our Finalist Weekend in May 2012.

We thank all the 2012 Fellowship applicants and wish everyone success in their efforts to solve the world's biggest problems.

Congratulate the Semifinalists on Facebook and Twitter:

2012 Echoing Green Fellowship Semifinalists

A Common Future
Acclivus, Inc
Africa Yoga Project
African Ecovillage Foundation
African School for Excellence
Africans in the Diaspora
Africa's Talking Ltd
AGRICULTURAL MARKETING INFORMATION SERVICES-CAMEROON
All Girls Allowed
Alliance of Young African Patriots, inc
Amani Global Works
Ambassadors for Africa (AFA)
American Women Veterans Foundation
AmpleHarvest.org
Anarouz
Angaza Design
apni mandi
Aporta
AppSuccess
Aqua Vida International
Arkansas United Community Coalition (AUCC)
Art of Play/Art-Parts
ArteSanar: The Art of Healing
Asociacion Mexicana para las Naciones Unidas Jovenes
Atlantic Impact
Atlas DIY
Autism Expressed
Avani Bio Energy Private Limited
Avanti Fellows
Awaaz.De
Ayiti Cherie Healing Project
Aywa International
AYZH Health and Livelihood Pvt Ltd
Azul
B.R.E.A.K. Homes
Back to the Roots
Backpack Farm Agriculture Program
Balyolu: the Honey Connection
Beats, Flights, and Life
Benevolent
Bidna Capoeira
Billion Entrepreneurs Enablers
BK Farmyards
Black Girls Code
BLISS
Bloodsworth Lifeline Project
Blue Rose Compass
Book Harvest
BrAiDs N BeAdS
BreakOUT!
Brown Button Foundation
Buen Manejo del Campo, S.A. de C.V.
Cactus
CASA MIA
Center for Popular Democracy
Centre For Awareness Holistic Healing Growth and Research
Centre for Criminal Appeals
Chalo
ChangeLab
Chaupal
CHINAR International (CI)
Cineminga International
City Health Works!
Civic Dialogues
Climate Response
Cloud Currencies, CA Benefit Corporation
Coal War Cafe,, Appropriate Technology Demonstration Center
CodeNow
CoFED (The Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive
Collectif Contre le Controle au Facies
COMMUNITERE
Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY)
Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)
Cosain
COVER - Community-Owned Village Emergency Resources
D.&E. Green Enterprises, Inc.
Damascuz Fortune
Dance 4 Peace, Inc.
DayOne Response, Inc.
Defining Moments
Derrell Talent
Design Innovations for Infants and Mothers Everywhere
designED
DesignWise Medical
Devintel
DirectedDeposits
Disabled Educational Assistance Re-entry Program (DEAREP)
Discovering Deaf Worlds
DolphinEdge Technologies Ltd
Dream Mobile
DUMA
E3: Education, Excellence & Equity
Earth Works Services, LLC
EcoFire
ECO-FUEL AFRICA LIMITED
Edthena
Educate Lanka
Educational Reform School
E-Energy Green Revolution Initiatives
ElectNext
enke: Make Your Mark
Envaya
Enviro Juris
ENZI Footwear
ethikus
Evomo Research & Advancement Pvt. Ltd.
Farm Commons
Farm Shop Trust
Farm, Inc.
Fashion4Freedom
Feed-The-Need
Fertilait
First Power Corp.
Fit 'n Fast
FoodCorps
Found in Translation
Fresh & Young Brains Development Initiative
Fresh Corner Cafe L3C
Fresh Takes Kitchen
Frontier Markets
G4G Mobile
Gel Together
Generation Hope
GenteGas S.A.
GirlForward
girltank
Give A Living, givealiving.org
Givkwik Inc.
Global Center for Investigative Journalism
Global Community Ambassadors
Global Freedom Center
GloballyEducated
Glocal Youth Fellows
Glovico.org
Grace App Communication
Gram Power Inc.
Grandmentor LLC
GrassROOTS Community Foundation
Green Cloud Technologies
Green E-Waste Recyclers
Greenway Grameen Infra
haoxin.org
Happy Hands Foundation
Hardwork Integrity and Patriotic Generation Youth Initiative
Hatch
HEALTHY FOOD SYSTEMS
Healthy Picks
HelloMundo.net
Hispanic Cancer Foundation
HLD Solutions
Home Base: Building Access, Support and Education
Hope Through Health
Hopeful World
Hosh media
HumEnergy
IdeaDish
IDinsight
iFutures.org
Imagiscience
imMEDIAte justice
Institute of Teacher Education and Development
International Centre for Social Franchising
Invup
iPakistan
Isidore Electronics Recycling
Jana Care
JCLTeam
Jerry the Bear
Jola Venture
Juju's Place
Juntos Finanzas
Just Shea
Justice Makers Initiative
Justice Project Pakistan
KeyWifi LLC
Kinara Capital
Kisan First
Knowledge As Power
Kopernik
Kulinda
Kumbu Health
Kushiri
LA ARENERA
LaborVoices, Inc.
Landmark Development Initiative
Latinas Suicide Prevention, Education, Awareness and Kinship (SPEAK)
LDTC+Labs
Leadership Through Empowerment, Action, And Dialogue Inc.
LearnIndia
Legal Peace Corps
LivelyHoods
Local Insight Global Impact
LocalDM
Lubaga Disabled Entrepreneurs Association
LuminAID Lab, LLC
Madaktari Mobile Initiative
Makit Ltd
Medha
Mekelle Farms
Memunatu
Mindblown Labs
More Than Me
Mother's Day Radio
Moving Forward Institute
MPrep
mSurvey
Multipolar
Mustakbal clean tech
mWater
myAgro
National Young Farmers' Coalition
Navya Network
Needmap
New Sound Foundation
NextDrop
NoPC
not yet named
Nyaya Health
oceanplastics
Off.Grid:Electric
OkCopay, Inc
One Degree
ORIBAGS INNOVATIONS LTD
Paruware
People Powered Savings, Inc.
PhilanTech
PHR Partner
Physicians for Haiti
Pink Wish Foundation
PolicyPulse
Precise Parenting
Progress Collective
Prosperity Candle
Protei
Public Policy Lab
Pykih Inc
Qeyno Labs
Raising Our Skills, Not Our Hands
Rapid Report and Response (R3)
Rare Genomics Institute
Re:Act
Recycle Across America
Red de Educacion Ciudadana
Refugee Center Online
Regalii
ReGenerate Solutions, LLC
Remas
Rent-to-Own Zambia Ltd
Re-Nuble, Inc.
Resiliency Foundation Inc.
Resolve Network
Safe Space
SALA Center for Art and Culture
SALUS Fitness and Physical Therapy
Sanivation
SaveLIFE Foundation
Schaduf
Scholars Academic International (SAI) Education Fund
Schoolyard Films, Inc.
SCRIPT RESOURCES CENTRE
SIFE SSCBS
SlimTrader
Smallholders Foundation
SMV Wheels Pvt. Ltd.
SNAP Gardens
SoJo (Social Journal)
Solafrique
Solar Mosaic
Solar Sister
Solidarium Fair Trade
Solucion Pluvial
Spark MicroGrants
Spark Partnerships
SponsorChange.org
Springboard Collaborative
Starfish International
Starlight Afghan Free Energy
StartSomeGood
STG International
Stockbox Grocers
Student Voice Project
Students for Education Reform
SumofUs
Switchboard
Symphonia for South Africa
Synergic International Foundation -SIF
T to T
TakaTaka Solutions
TBD
Team Rubicon
the [blank] canvas
The Academy for Teachers
The Ambassador Network
The Black Girl Project
the cranes schools
The Education Matters Project
The Journal Lab
The Maids' Company
The Sound Strike
The Station Foundation
The Transition Center
The Working World
Think Unlimited
Ti Bwat Nou - A Place for Help
Tlatoa Inoma (meaning "free yourself by speaking" in Nahuatl)
Tolerance Academy
TownSquared
Ubuntu 2.0
Uspercent
Valu Lamp Inc.
VArc Engineerirng
Veneration Inc.
Venture for America
Vera Solutions
Village Capital
Villager
Vision Spring Initiatives
VitaFlavor
Vive Responsable
Vivus Limited
VOZ
Waging Nonviolence
Wash Cycle Laundry
Waste 2 Energy, Ltd. Uganda
Waste Capital Partners
WaterWalla
We the Change Foundation
wecyclers
Wedu
White Roof Project
Women LEAD
Women's Justice Initiative
World Wide Hearing Foundation International
Xinfugo Group
Yasa
Young Citizen Journalists
Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network
Youth4Jobs
Zambian Institute for Sustainable Development
Zidisha Inc.

2012 Open Society Foundations Black Male Achievement Fellowship

4C Designs
Access to Art Academy
Adams Morgan Youth Leadership Academy (AMYLA)
Adolescent Behavioral and Clinical (ABC) Solutions
African Immigrant Diaspora Alliance (AIDA)
ATPX
August All Year
BET (Brothers Empowered to Teach) Initiative
Big City Entertainment, Inc.
Black Code
Black&Green
BlocPower
Breakaway Education
Brown Boi Project
Center for Community Safety & Racial Justice
City Growers
Coaching For Change, Inc.
Community Fellows
Community Healing Project
Complete the Cypher
Dreamer and Associates
EduK8one
EDUtheWORLD
Equalibrium
Father In My Hood
Fight For Light, Inc
First-to-Finish
Former Student Athletes of Color (FSAC)
From Dads to Husbands
GCL Accounting Services LLP
G-L.A.W. Foundation
Green-Collar Communities Clinic
Grow Dat Youth Farm
Hip Hop, Art, and Fashion Institute
Hip-Hop Education Center
iFoster
Imagine Harlem
InnerCity Weightlifting
Justice for Families
Kimeta Systems
Listen 2 The Lyrics
Louisiana Youth Movement
Lyfe Productives
Micro Learning Foundation
NBA Math Hoops
Noble Pillars
Out Of Bounds
Passport Carriers
PATH: Preserving, Archiving & Teaching Hiphop, INC.
Pitch Mixer
Positive Minds
Pre-Law Institute L3C
Project 3to6
Real Dads Network, Inc.
Reconstruct Art
Restoring the Path
Social Justice Learning Institute
Sophomore Summer
Sports Literacy
StudentMentor.org
Teach.Learn.CARE.
TeenSHARP
Tenacity
The Andy Johnson Pre 1960 Original Harlem Globetrotters Organization
The Beyond The Block Initiative
The Keiron Williams Institute
The New Image TV Production Project
The Phoenix Scholars
The Scholarship Academy, Inc.
The SHELF Project
The TOBY project
The Ubuntu Society
The Urban Reform Network
Torch Enterprises Inc
Urban Sustain
Visible Men Inc.
W.E.B Dubois Leadership Homes for Boys
Young Black Mens Success (YBS)
Young Picasso Painting
Zone 126

Drones for Human Rights

Taliesin Gilkes-Bower — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:51:18 +0000

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Mark Hanis

Mark Hanis, 2006 Echoing Green Fellow and founder of the Genocide Intervention Network, has co-written an op-ed in the New York Times that asks if drone or UAV surveillance could help document state repression in Syria. He writes:

“This we know: the Syrian government isn’t just fighting rebels, as it claims; it is shooting unarmed protesters, and has been doing so for months. Despite a ban on news media, much of the violence is being caught on camera by ubiquitous cellphones. The footage is shaky and the images grainy, but still they make us YouTube witnesses.

Imagine if we could watch in high definition with a bird’s-eye view. A drone would let us count demonstrators, gun barrels and pools of blood. And the evidence could be broadcast for a global audience, including diplomats at the United Nations and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.”

What do you think? Read the full article.

A New Space for Echoing Green

Nidhi Chaudhary — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:27:19 +0000

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In many ways, the space in which you work pre-determines how you work. It affects our happiness, our productivity, our creativity, and our ability to drive innovation and success. The layout of your work place is also a reflection of the culture your organization is trying to create. Adam Richardson at frog design says that we should consider more flexible work spaces to inspire “open thinking” and better support team dynamics, particularly since so many of us are working on collaborative projects.

Echoing Green is redesigning our office to help our team work more purposefully. For us, this means a different layout for smaller teams to work together. For example, our Communications Team is moving to one large area (we’re calling it The Cove) so we can quickly and easily chat and share information. We’re also opening more areas to accommodate the many Fellows who pass through New York and need a place to do some work.

Some of our best thinking and collaboration happens around healthy snacks, so an expanded kitchen and eating area is also in the works. We’re also mindful of the research on importance of quiet, uninterrupted time, so we have a couple of space to give our staff opportunities for privacy. For us, the office renovation has been about finding the balance between creating more functionality in a small Manhattan space for a growing team and regularly visiting Fellows, while maintaining a casual and fun culture.

So far, we’ve repainted our signature green and orange walls to a clean white. New windows came next. Our architects at Taylor and Miller have started the production of the new open boxes that will serve as “open dividers” between our individual spaces. These few renderingswill give you a sense of what our office will look like in the next few months. We’re really excited about our new space—stay tuned as we share more details about the progress!

Photo credit: Taylor and Miller Architecture and Design

The Buzz 1-27-12

Nidhi Chaudhary — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:44:54 +0000

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Jodie Wu

Our quick read on the top tweets, news, and buzz circulating in the field of changemaking this past week. Tell us, what's got you talking? And what do you want to be talking about?

John Coleman’s Passion & Purpose survey found that one of the top three reasons graduate students chose a workplace was the “opportunity to impact the world.” This month’s social impact job list includes opportunities from around the world, including two positions with Echoing Green’s Fellowship and Alumni Team. Align your purpose with your workplace, or share these opportunities with your network to help them on their path: http://ht.ly/8Ks17

The toughest part of the journey to work with purpose isn’t the last ten years, but that small first step. John Lees, a career strategist in the UK, says that to get the jobs of your dreams, consider the following: explore career options with time and care, don’t rush into it; and consider new opportunities as if you were doing it for someone else, imagine yourself as the client and put as much care into the process as you would for another person. http://ht.ly/8Kspv

A few more books to add to your reading list. Amy Lockwood, the Deputy Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford’s School of Medicine, suggests ten books that you should read for a stronger foundation for understanding development, aid, and poverty. It includes well-known classics from Jeffrey Sachs and William Easterly, but also includes the more recent Poor Economics from Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. http://ht.ly/8Kswb

The application deadline for the 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship was just a few short weeks ago. We’ve been having a lot of fun learning more about social entrepreneurs and as a seed funder, we often amongst the first to notice emerging trends in the sector. Learn more about what we’re seeing: http://ht.ly/8Kt3Y

What makes the best leaders? They have the widest field of vision—to learn faster and deeper, they seek inspiration and knowledge from sources different than everyone else. Leaders recognize when new ideas are old ideas and they understand when not to be loners. Most importantly, they are the most insatiable learners. http://ht.ly/8KtFx

“There's no mistakes, just mountains of things to learn! Just follow your heart and your passion, and I think you'll find happiness.” 2012 Echoing Green Fellow and founder of Global Cycle Solutions, Jodie Wu, shares her advice for aspiring social entrepreneurs. http://ht.ly/8KtNC

What We're Noticing About 2012 Applicants

Lara Galinsky — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:32:41 +0000

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It’s always encouraging and, frankly, fun to dive in the statistics of our Fellowship applicants. As one of the few open seed funding processes for social entrepreneurs, we're often one of the first to notice emerging trends in the sector. Here are a few.

The 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship and Black Male Achievement Fellowship application process officially closed two weeks ago, and we’ve been hard at work evaluating all 3,508 applications—an increase of 23 percent over last year, and a staggering 228 percent increase from 2010. We had applicants from a record 128 different countries, an 8% increase over last year. From our vantage point, this increase is yet another stake in the ground that the social entrepreneurship field is growing, perhaps at warp speed.

Plus, we continue to see more applicants launching for-profit and hybrid organizations. Last year, for-profits and hybrids made up 31 percent of all applications—this year that increased 7 percentage points to 38 percent.

Another trend that Echoing Green and our peer organizations are examining is the decrease of women in the social innovation sector. The last six out of seven Echoing Green Fellowship classes have been majority male and the past two years have seen a particularly sharp dip in women Fellows. This year is no different. We had 25 percent more men apply for our Fellowships, yet only 8 percent more women. While we’re thrilled with the increase of women applicants, there’s more work to do. We’ll continue to encourage women leaders to engage their networks in finding and nurturing more women social entrepreneurs.

This year, Echoing Green is honored to work with the Open Society Foundations to launch a new 18-month Black Male Achievement Fellowship (BMA) program that will invest in emerging leaders committed to improving the life outcomes of black men and boys, especially those working in the areas of education, family, and work. The vast majority of the BMA applicants were from the United States, and 72 percent of them were male (which contributed to our increase in male applicants). Seventy percent of the applicants presented organizations that aim to tackle Education, Poverty Alleviation, and Economic Development.

We remain inspired by the Fellowship applicants’ bold ideas to drive positive change throughout our world. Check out this illustration of the words most commonly used to describe their social change idea.

A special thank you goes out to our Fast Track Partners, who were instrumental in helping us find this first round of the world’s most promising solutionists.

Join our email list to be the first to hear about the next steps in our selection process.

We also want to know, what do you think of these trends? Are they signs of good things to come? Or something else?

Advice to Aspiring Social Entrepreneurs

Jay Geneske — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:01:29 +0000

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Jodie Wu

2010 Echoing Green Fellow Jodie Wu recently led a conversation on TED.com centered around advice to aspiring social entrepreneurs. We've excerpted moments of the conversation below. Click here to view the full transcript.

How do I know if a business is the right way to make the difference to the area I want to explore?
I'd say let it grow organically. Start it on the side, and then when it starts taking off, then you turn it into a business. I started Global Cycle Solutions with intentions of going back to grad school after 6 months, but then an investor came in, and I was like, I'm not doing this halfway...I'm all in! I bet you'll hit a transition point like this when the time is right.

How do you pull yourself out of a conventional job—which is secure and paying the bills—and find the courage to strike out on your own?
It's actually the most adventurous thing you'll ever do. I think what makes it terrifying is the fear of making mistakes. There's no mistakes, just mountains of things to learn! Just follow your heart and your passion, and I think you'll find happiness.

What are some common mistakes future entrepreneur's should seek to avoid?
Assuming that they know everything, and their model is the only one that works. Go in and learn first. Then figure things out.

What is the best way to determine if one should run as profit or nonprofit?
For-profit vs. nonprofit is just a tax status. I think if you're in education, stick to nonprofit and find revenue-generating models that allow your model to be sustainable beyond donations. Plus, if you're nonprofit, I'm sure there's lots of people who'd love to give to keep your organization alive. You just have to continue to inspire.

How do you mobilize and keep skilled laborers, hire great managers and build a network?
As the saying goes, build a cathedral. Gather a following, inspire, and then mobilize to build something that lasts a lifetime. For sure, your first hires are some of the most important. Don't be afraid to interview well over 100 people just to find the perfect person.

What advice can you give to me as I move from design to business? Specifically towards making that leap.
Of course you can jump into the tangible product industry! It's one of the hardest things because once you do have the design, you have to think about manufacturing, quality control, distribution, and even pricing! It's tough, and it depends on your markets. Kickstarter definitely is a good way to launch your designs towards production. If you're already in consultancy, talk to the people that you consult and get their advice on the product industry. They probably know where you can find OEMs in the like. For sure, you're going to have to think about the scale you hope to achieve (will your own small workshop be sufficient or do you need to go to the big guys abroad?) Bootstrap at first, but be ready to hire where you don't have the skills! HR is the most important aspect of any start-up!

How far along on the development path can I be before I start turning investors off? Or will this even happen?
Investors always want to invest in the thing that'll make them money! Or meet their bottom line, whether its financial, social, or green! And I doubt your product could ever be too refined. Any company just has to keep on innovating! Look at computers, cars, and phones! Everyday, it's upgrade after upgrade. And if you can partner rather than starting your own business, it's all the better. There's no reason to be redundant. Create synergies where possible! And the WHY is the one thing that will stay consistent as your business changes due to external factors. So, keep that one close to your heart.

The Buzz 1-20-12

Nidhi Chaudhary — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:10:57 +0000

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Our quick read on the top tweets, news, and buzz circulating in the field of changemaking for the past couple of weeks. Tell us, what's got you talking? And what do you want to be talking about?

Bronnie Ware, who has been a palliative care nurse for many years, shares the most common regrets people share on their deathbeds. You might even be able to come up with them without reading her moving essay. Don’t let them be your regrets. http://ht.ly/8CjTb

Researchers at Harvard Business School have been analyzing data on social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship as a field. They have discovered some interesting trends; a big one—hybrid business models are growing and investment models must change to accommodate them. They’re data comes from Echoing Green Fellows from 2006 to 2011, so stayed tuned for more: http://ht.ly/8CkyM

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, took over the internet this week. Wikipedia went black for 24 hours on Monday, as did GOOD, and Wired, with thousands of other sites showing their solidarity in a variety of ways. Don’t understand what all the fuss is about? Here’s your one-minute guide: http://ht.ly/8CkBP What’s most compelling is the shift in Congresspeople changing their support of the act, or lack thereof, on Tuesday. Movements continue to lead to big change.

“Manufacturing solar powered lanterns? Easy.” So many social entrepreneurs focus on innovating on or creating new products to support communities to earn more income, gain efficiencies, or save the environment. But, that doesn’t mean that your community will use your product. Behavior change is the most challenging and, sometimes, the most overlooked side of social change. Without it, though, your product will surely fail: http://ht.ly/8CmMt

The magic and madness of the creative process. An infographic from Virus Comix that puts us all on a road we can identify with: http://ht.ly/8CmXl

Does innovation really stem from collaboration? Data shows that we actually work much better without interruptions, without excessive brainstorming, and the space to think in solitude. Our digital environment may be the perfect medium to allow us to do our best work—we collaborate online, but we can step away and continue to work on our work. Given the move toward more collaborative work in recent years, maybe it’s time to assess if it’s been worth it: http://ht.ly/8CnDf

Social Impact Jobs

Lara Galinsky — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:34:12 +0000

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UPDATED FEBRUARY 2.

A new year marks new opportunities to bring purpose to your career and life. My team and I have been discussing articles like "Five Lessons from World Changers" by John Coleman that declare the need for more purpose-driven individuals to address challenges facing the world. Coleman's Passion & Purpose survey found that one of the top three reasons graduate students chose a workplace was the "opportunity to impact the world." This is exciting to hear.

If you are looking for a workplace that aligns with your purpose, take a look below. This month’s social impact job list includes exciting global opportunities from an array of organizations that I think drive positive change into the world, including two positions within Echoing Green's Fellowship and Alumni Team.

The Project Coordinator for the Fellow and Alumni Programs at Echoing Green provides day-to-day support for the vital roles of event logistics and data management, as well as other key projects.

The Senior Associate for the Black Male Achievement Fellowship at Echoing Green will provide day-to-day management of our search, selection, and support processes for these individuals.

Center for Effective Philanthropy is looking for a Director of Talent to be based in Cambridge.

Vittana is looking for Fellows to evaluate student-lending programs with their micro-finance partners. Vittana combines the massive reach of microfinance with the transformative power of education by building the world’s first student microloan programs with MFI partners in developing countries. Read their job description here.

Brandaid Project is seeking a President and COO. BAP Inc. acts as a bridge between developing world artisans, and regional and international markets. Interested parties should contact co-founder Tony Pigott directly at tony.pigott@jwt.com

Innovations for Poverty Action is looking to fill a variety of positions including Project Associate for a project entitled “Evaluation of Female Supervisor Training Programs in the Bangladesh Apparel Sector” based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Brookings Institute is looking for entry-level Research Assistants in their Economic Studies department.

Rift Valley Institue is looking to fill two newly-created positions a Finance and Administrative Officer and Publications and Public Relations Manager. Both positions will be based in London. Rift Valley Institute is a non-profit research, education and advocacy organization operating in Sudan, South Sudan, the Horn of Africa, East Africa, the Great Lakes and the Democratic Republic of Congo. For details write to institute@riftvalley.net

Achievement Network is looking to fill a variety of positions including Executive Associate in Boston. The Achievement Network (ANet) is a non-profit organization that partners with schools to close the achievement gap by building a culture of data-driven learning.

Imprint Capital is looking for a Research Analyst and Portfolio Analyst. Read their job description here.

Ideo is looking for summer interns.

Universtiy of North Florida is looking for a Director of their LGBT Resource Center.

Souktel is looking for Project Managers. Souktel designs and delivers mobile job & aid information services on three continents—with clients ranging from Unicef and UNDP to World Vision and the Red Cross.

International Youth Foundation is filling a variety of positions including a Manager for Maghreb and West Africa.

Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor is seeking a Marketing Manager and Program Director.

American Enterprise Institute is filling a Research Assistant position.

Context Partners is seeking a Project Lead.

The New York League of Conservation Voters is looking for a Director of Corporate and Foundation Giving.

LGT Venture Philanthropy is looking for an Investment Manager in India.
If you are interested in working with them, please send a 1-page cover letter along with your CV and 2 references to Inderpreet Singh Chawla at inderpreet.chawla@lgtvp.com

GSM Association is seeking two people to join the GSMA’s Mobile Money for the Unbanked team. Both Manager positions will work directly with mobile network operators in emerging markets, to create more successful mobile money deployments. Candidates should send their cvs to Seema Desai, MMU Director - GSMA Development Fund at sdesai@gsm.org

Community-Word Project is looking for a Development Director. Community-Word Project (CWP) is a not-for-profit arts-in-education organization with the mission to inspire New York City youth in underserved communities to read, interpret and respond to their world, and to become active citizens through collaborative arts residencies and teacher training programs. Send a cover letter, resume, salary requirements, three recent writing samples of fundraising materials including a funding proposal & three professional references (with current contact phone numbers) to jobs@communitywordproject.org

The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation is looking for a new Portfolio Director to be based on the East Coast of the United States. Contact alison@nonprofitprofessionals.com for details.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation is looking for a Program Manager to work across the areas of Food, Health, and Well-Being, Racial Equity, and Community and Civic Engagement.

Tiyatien Health is looking for a National Policy and Advocacy Advisor.

Freelancers U has several positions open.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation is looking for an Associate Director of Partnerships Marketing and Communications.

Catchafire in New York is looking for a Service Officer.

GBCHealth in New York is filling internship positions.

The Hub LA in Los Angeles is looking for a Managing Director.

City Year is looking for a new Executive Director in New York.

Aflatoun is looking for 5 Regional Curriculum Development Consultants.

WorldTeach is looking for a Panama Field Director.

UNESCO Myanmar is looking for Interns.

Bryn Mawr College is looking for a Director of Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusion.

DKT International seeks a Country Director who will further develop and manage reproductive health/family planning programs for its Bihar program in east and central India.

Gates Foundation is looking for a Program Officer, Measurement, Learning, and Evaluation

One Acre Fund is hiring for a variety of positions.

Stonehill College is looking for an Assistant Director for Intercultural Affairs.

The Mission Continues is looking for a Director of Strategy and Research.

VisionSpring is looking for a VP of Operations in India; contact Susan Ryan sryan@visionspring.org with details.

Blue Engine accepting applications for its 2012 Fellowship class until February 14th.

Ashoka Changemakers is looking for a Director of Culture and Operations.

Ashoka India is hiring for several positions.

Nike Foundation is searching for creative drivers passionate about the Girl Effect (www.girleffect.org) to fill key roles in Portland, OR and London, England.

ProInspire is now accepting applications for its next Fellowship class.

Design Impact is looking for self-motivated, multi-skilled designers who genuinely want to work full-time in Indian communities on life-improving solutions.The application period closes on February 28th and the ten month Fellowship commences on July 1st, 2012.

Image used under creative commons by Flickr user nassernouri

Time for Change in Haiti

Nidhi Chaudhary — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:58:31 +0000

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Peter Haas

2006 Echoing Green Fellow Peter Haas shares a powerful essay on the two year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. This post was reprinted from the TED Blog.

Today is the two-year anniversary of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and I wanted to write a positive article about the good projects I have seen there. Unfortunately after reflecting, I felt that it would be a disservice to all the people still living in camps; it would be a disservice to all those who have been evicted. Things are getting better and will improve in the coming year in Haiti, but we are a long way from having the rebuilt, revitalized Port-au-Prince that people hoped for. And it is respecting those hopes that I must say the international community, while good at meeting immediate needs, has done a poor job in transforming lives and livelihoods, and I fear we may fail to deliver what the Haitian people are expecting of us. Unfortunately we are running out of time to change our ways.

Failures from Past Disasters: Gonaïves

I want to bring your attention back to 2008 and another devastating tragedy in Haiti: the hurricanes and flooding in Gonaïves, a city a few hours north from the capital. Gonaïves flooded with 10 feet of water; 800 people were killed and there was over a billion dollars in damage. US$100 million was given in response (watch the video from Al Jazeera). The international community responded in force. Tents and emergency supplies were sent in. However, I invite you to visit Gonaïves 4 years on and tell me if that was money well spent. Many projects are half completed or not even started such as the US$19 million hospital pledged by the Canadian Government. Admittedly there aren’t huge tent cities in Gonaïves, but that is because many people were able to reclaim existing housing stock when flood waters receded.

I bring up Gonaïves only because it is a comparatively small problem compared to what is being faced in Port-au-Prince. It is an important frame of reference. Out of US$2.6 billion given for the Haiti earthquake, only an estimated US$360 million remains in unspent private aid funding. Three times what was ultimately spent in Gonaïves is not enough to address the problems remaining in Port-au-Prince. Yet for some reason the UN recently declared “two years later, we can say that the humanitarian response was a success.” With 500,000 still under tarps and tents, with a Cholera outbreak started by the UN, and with a huge sex scandal, you have to ask, what would failure have looked like?

While some might point to the 500,000 figure as a significant reduction from 1.3 million displaced by the disaster, it should be noted that only 4.7% of those who got out of camps got into quality housing. Many were simply evicted into worse conditions than the camps in informal settlements. Many others got themselves out as soon as possible with the help of remittances from family and friends living overseas. The rate of people leaving camps over the past year and a half has slowed dramatically. The people who are left have fewer and fewer means. The biggest fear for me is that when the money runs out in Port-Au-Prince, we will have a situation similar to Gonaïves with closed NGO offices and unfinished projects and with people left to fend for themselves in informal settlements.

The Money

Where is the money? The one positive statement I can make is that in analyzing the situation I don’t see a lot of opportunities for graft in the traditional sense. Contrary to conspiracy theory the money, wasn’t stolen, it was spent. Largely it was spent on things people might expect: food, water, gasoline, medical supplies, and salaries. But there were some expenditures people may not have planned on. For example of the US$376 million from the US government, 30% was spent on our own military.

Of the US$2.6 billion given in the past two years and the US$9.9 billion pledged at the Haiti Donors Conference held at the UN Headquarters in New York in March 2010, it can be hard to understand where the money went.

TOP TEN NGO AID RECIPIENTS (USD)

In total, the following 10 NGOs raised $1.4 billion out of the estimated $2.6 billion of private aid funding given for Haiti earthquake relief.

American Red Cross: $486 million raised → food, shelter, medical supplies → $330 million spent
Médecins Sans Frontières: $138 million raised → emergency medical support → $58 million spent
Catholic Relief Services : $136.9 million raised → shelter, cholera → $67.6 million spent
World Vision: $132 million raised → everything → $194 million spent
Save the Children: $128 million raised→ child services → $100 million spent
Oxfam: $120 million raised globally → water, sanitation, shelter → $89 million spent
Partners In Health: $102 million raised → health care → $72 million spent
Care: $58.8 million raised → food, water, shelter hygiene → $41.4 million spent
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund: $54.1 million raised → job promotion → $37.6 million spent
Habitat For Humanity: $38 million raised → emergency shelter, housing → $38 million spent

HAITI RECONSTRUCTION FUND

In March 2010, US$ 9.9 billion was pledged at the Haiti Donors Conference for the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF), of which US$ 5.3 billion was to be disbursed by Fall 2011. Of that US$ 5.3 billion, US$800 million is debt relief. According to the Office of the UN Special Envoy, only US$ 2.38 billion have been dispersed of the remaining US$ 4.5 billion. From Haiti Libre:

“Of the US$4.50 billion pledged, US$2.38 billion (52.9%) has been disbursed through four channels:

$1.59 billion (67%) in grants in support of the Government of Haiti, and to multilateral agencies, NGOs and private contractors;
$319.9 million (13%) in budget support to the Government of Haiti;
$275.8 million (12%) in pooled grant funding to the United Nations, Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank through the Haiti Reconstruction Fund; and
$197.6 million (8%) in loans to the Government of Haiti

The donors have disbursed an additional US$654.8 million for general development in Haiti, outside of the New York conference recovery pledges.”

The Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), which was formed under the mandate of the Haitian government to disburse the funds in the HRF, has granted US$1.8 billion of those funds to several hundred organizations.

Unfortunately, the IHRC suspended operations in October because the Haitian government would not renew its mandate. It is a shame because the IHRC was one of the few entities getting money out the door on a large scale. So the onus is now on the Haitian government to manage the money in the Haiti Reconstruction Fund.

But even IHRC funding going out the door doesn’t mean work is happening on the ground. For instance everybody talks about housing in Haiti as the biggest need, but one of the big barriers to quality housing, aside from land title, is access to micro-mortgages and repair financing. Over a year ago, I spoke with Gabriel Verret, the head of the IHRC about micro-mortgages as an option to facilitate home ownership for those affected by the disaster. He said yes they had been looking into that. Indeed the Housing Finance Facility was approved with US$47 million to do this in February 2010. By March 2011, this money was appointed to Development Innovations Group (DIG). As of this week, the country director at DIG couldn’t provide information on when the funds would become available. For a US$50 million fund focused on Haiti’s core challenge, it is a shame there is not even a launch date in place yet. This is just one project in the book of IHRC funded activities.

Humanitarian Projects

So a lot of the money spent by NGOs went to getting people the basics: shelter, food, water, medical care and sanitation. For the all the problems with these responses, and I am going to piss off a lot of my activist friends by saying this, all things considered the international community did pretty well on triage. They housed and fed over a million people. They took care of 300,000 wounded. They treated 250,000 cases of cholera. That is serious work and should not be discounted. The problem is when you give to groups like the Red Cross this is the extent of the services you will get, food, water shelter, medical care. The humanitarian organizations are really good at that. What we’re worse at on the humanitarian side is rebuilding lives and livelihoods. That requires government intervention.

A good example of the failed ties between humanitarian organizations and government comes from housing and the Building Back Better Communities Expo. The Expo was supposed to be a showcase of model homes that would be used in reconstruction. I first heard about it in May 2010; the first Request for Proposals went out in June. But due to untold delays the Expo itself didn’t happen until June 2011! I knew several of the participant companies and they were hopeful to leverage government contracts after the Expo to launch real housing solutions in Haiti. Even now two years on from the quake those hopes have not moved forward.

Another unfortunate thing about the BBBC Expo is that it took place in the common area of a giant affordable housing apartment complex built during the Aristide era that stood up to the quake (unfortunate because it took the only green space from that community). My colleague Sasha Kramer, Executive Director of SOIL, kept asking the organizers, “Why is nobody building apartments like that…?” She never got an answer.

Not all projects were delayed. The Iron Market is a perfect example of this and is the crown jewel project of billionaire philanthropist Denis O’Brien, founder of Digicel. In all deference, Denis became the success he is because he has a “get ‘er done” attitude that is almost a force of nature. The man gets involved in all level of projects across the country and sees them through to completion from bridges across previously uncrossable rivers to schools in the remotest regions. But as one guy he can only do so much, as epitomized by the Iron Market. If you look at photos around the market it is surrounded by destroyed buildings. The entire area looks like a war zone, except for one gleaming project.

That captures a lot of the aid effort in Haiti right now, one project at a time. Maybe a nice school or an orphanage but no systemic change. I remember in the days early after the quake being berated by Denis because I was trying to get container forklifts sent to the Port of Cap-Haïtien, the second largest port in the country and then the only functioning port. At that point in time Cap-Haïtien was not accepting new containers of goods, aid, or food for the rest of the country because it was clogged with empty shipping containers. “We need to focus on Port-au-Prince people,” said Denis who offered that he might buy the forklifts for Cap-Haïtien himself if needed. This situation became symbolic to me of the problems of centralized Haiti, a country being denied food because its main port in Port-Au-Prince was shut down, couldn’t accept supplies in its secondary port because of something as small as broken forklifts. For me at that point, understanding Haiti’s problems involved stopping for a moment and getting the focus off of Port-Au-Prince.

Reconstruction and Decentralization

At one time Haiti had a number of vibrant port cities, Port-au-Prince was just one of them. If Haiti wants to get out of poverty it needs to reclaim its regional metropolis structure. Creating economic opportunities requires development in the regional city hubs: Cap-Haïtien, Gonaïves, Jacmel, Jeremie, Mirebalais, St. Marc, etc. A few months after the quake former Haitian Prime Minister Michelle Pierre-Louis sent me a copy of this interministerial plan. This was one of a few plans developed for the first donors’ meeting in the Dominican Republic. The countering government plan that was presented at the March 2010 Donors Conference in New York also included decentralization as a theme, but the implementation has been muted. Following a true plan of decentralization could lead to wealth generation for all Haitians.

It is important for people outside Haiti to understand the importance of decentralization for the economic development of the country. Rugged terrain and a poor road network heighten the needs for stronger regional economic markets. People have blasted the industrial park at Caracol, currently the largest project in Haiti at US$257 million, for being located on the North Coast and for being low wage textile jobs. In my mind, the primary mistake in this project is that they did not hire 50% of the workers straight from camps in Port-Au-Prince and build them worker housing at Caracol.

The country needs more projects like this, generating large amounts of employment, leveraging functioning urban centers outside of the metropolitan Port-Au-Prince area. The US$16 million teaching hospital being built by Partners in Health in Mirebalais is another example of projects outside the capital that hold bright promise for the future of the country. The ideal would be to tie these projects to housing initiatives that clear out the camps in Port-Au-Prince. In Port-Au-Prince everybody argues about land title. If you offered Jeremie a new road network, factory and airport, I can guarantee you’ll find land for a 40,000 person community out there. The same holds for other cities.

I am just trying to be clear here that the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince is going to be a decades long affair. The conditions there are not ideal for the population contained within the city limits. We are late on this. We should have started transitioning people day one out of camps by empowering business development throughout the country. I remember the Delegate for the North telling me he expected 100,000 people relocated to Cap-Haïtien. How many did Cap get? 15,000 coming on their own. That is not an effort toward decentralization. But we should know it is not too late to start. There is still hope for developing an economically robust decentralized Haiti.

Ending Stopgaps

And let’s be clear the clock is ticking. The aid money is drying up in Port-Au-Prince. Of 35 major charities surveyed by the Chronicles of Philanthropy, 15 had less than US$200,000 or had spent all their Haiti aid money. The time has past to be focused on the basics. If you are going to help, don’t waste your money on sheds built out of 2 by 4s. Focus on permanent solutions that improve people’s lives and livelihoods, don’t settle for stopgaps that should have been finished 6 months after the quake.

It is time to get those larger systems in place leveraging what is left of the money pledged at the Donors Conference. The massive jobs programs. The micro-mortgage programs. The SME investment. The industry relocation. The agricultural renewal. The road rebuilding. Port and airport Revitalization. Grid development. Ecotourism development. Improving ease of doing business. Overhauling the courts. If these projects don’t get moving soon, the money available to the government won’t keep pace with the continued triage work that has already drained the aid community. If these projects move forward they will also help engage the diaspora. The diaspora are the silent lion for the redevelopment of Haiti. There are over 1 million Haitians and people of Haitian descent living abroad. These families send over US$2 billion annually in remittances back to the country. They want to invest but the economic climate in the country needs to improve.

The Anger

If I seem angry, it is because I am. No rational person in my situation wouldn’t be angry. Instead of trying to build a new Haiti, we fed people false promises of housing and T structures in government-sanctioned wastelands right outside of Port-au-Prince. Financing has been stuck for reconstruction and training. In the meantime people rebuilding on their own have been doing so improperly with limestone “quarry sand” just perpetuating the risk in the next earthquake. There was a point for a few weeks after the quake when the international community had a real chance to capitalize on the migration out of Port-au-Prince and could have avoided a lot of this suffering. But we blew it in our focus on the camps.

I am angry that we broke our promises, that all of us, for however hard we worked, truly failed the people of Haiti in the scale of the response. Even the voices to the voiceless project has an empty echo to it these days, not updated, not followed up upon. The sad story of people’s sad stories, another echo of empty promises made to people after the quake, never fulfilled and nearly forgotten. It is time to own up to those failures and move the dialogue forward beyond stopgaps and T shelters and towards the future of the country.

Peter Haas is the Executive Director of AIDG. http://www.aidg.org

Fighting Illegal Drugs with a Text Message

Nidhi Chaudhary — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:40:44 +0000

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Nathan Sigworth and Taylor Thompson

You walk into a pharmacy, hand over your prescription, and your pharmacist gives you your medicine—you have faith that what you receive are safe, quality drugs that will help you get better. Why would you even think otherwise?

Turns out, you may have too—with 75 billion dollars worth of counterfeit drugs being exchanged, purchased, and sold every year. Counterfeit packaging is so similar that side by side, you can’t tell the difference. The counterfeit medicine looks so much like the real thing that it takes a magnifying glass to see slight errors in the name. Even the logos from pharmaceutical companies, like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck are lifted, with such accuracy that the copy is not discernible to the naked eye. Recognizing a big problem—with huge potential for social change, 2008 Echoing Green Fellow, Nathan Sigworth, launched Pharmasecure.

According to the World Health Organization, 25 percent of medicines consumed in developing countries could be counterfeit or substandard. A $200 billion industry, counterfeit drugs cost little to manufacture and clearly result in huge profits. A raid last year in Lima, Peru uncovered hundreds of thousands of crude prescription drugs, and underground labs in Canada and the United States simply drop their counterfeits in the mail.

India is particularly vulnerable in this illegal “drug trade” since manufacturing is nearly 40 percent less expensive than most other countries. There are significant economic implications here—many pharmaceutical countries are turning to India because manufacturing is so cheap, but if they cannot stop the counterfeit drugs, the pharmaceutical companies face a significant loss in credibility. Bad drugs also, obviously, mean that people can die—but there is an important nuance here that we also shouldn’t forget. Trust has incredible power in public health; it takes a long time to cultivate behavior change and positive reinforcement to maintain. If it is lost or tarnished, the positive effects can take many steps back.

Most of the efforts to protect distribution of drugs have focused on expensive drugs in the most developed countries. But, it is often the inexpensive drugs that have the highest incidence of counterfeiting. In India, a 2007 study by Dr. Prafull Sheth found that while suspected counterfeit drugs that were priced less than 20 rupees (40 cents) made up 5.2 percent of samples, while suspected counterfeit drugs drugs priced above 500 rupees (10 dollars) had an incidence rate of 1.7 percent.

When a drug is suspected to be counterfeit, the process to get it tested is slow and expensive. With price sensitive markets, preventative measures have been unaffordable until recently. Today Indian companies are turning to PharmaSecure for drug authenticating services. Harnessing the growing power of SMS technology, PharmaSecure’s psID platform serializes each package. After purchasing a drug, a consumer texts a unique code to a phone number, and receives an immediate message in return about the safety of the drug.

PharmSecure began by protecting $1 million worth of drugs distributed to several hundred thousand consumers. Today PharmaSecure protects the distribution of 70 million consumer packages worth over $67 million. This includes over 30 million life-saving Tuberculosis medicines.

Over the next year PharmaSecure has agreements to provide serialization on over a billion pharmaceutical packages, being distributed to many of India’s export markets. They are a team of thirty people, with sights on hiring many more to support a fast-growing company. To support their growth, Pharmasecure recently closed a multi-million dollar round of investment, from Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Gray Ghost, Healthtech Capital and the TEEC Fund—one of the largest rounds of funding any Echoing Green Fellow has raised.

PharmaSecure wants to see serial numbers on everything—and to close the gap between consumers and manufacturers. For public health, their mobile application has huge benefits. With a database on where drugs are being distributed and where people are taking them, PharmaSecure can track trends and even map patterns globally. But, consumer verification isn’t just for pharmaceutical drugs—what about meat, dairy, produce, organic? Could an SMS prevent the next food illness panic?

PharmaSecure recognized a really big problem and is addressing it with a technology that is accessible to a regular consumer and a big pharmaceutical company. Investors believe in the solution and public health could reap enormous benefits. Nathan and his team live in India, working on the ground to understand the nuances of counterfeit drugs in India. It is social innovation, social enterprise, and development that is compelling, and may lead to change on a global level.

On a personal note, Nathan recently shared two pieces of advice for other social innovators: pace yourself, and hire great people who have a passion for the work, and want to have a little fun, too.

Photo credit: SRxA

Social Innovation News from the White House

Cheryl L. Dorsey — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:29:14 +0000

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Marta Urquilla

This week President Obama announced the appointment of Cecilia Muñoz as Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House. Ms. Muñoz, in her new role, will oversee policy-making on a range of domestic issues, including education, energy and health care. "Over the past three years, Cecilia has been a trusted adviser who has demonstrated sound judgment day in and day out," Mr. Obama said in a statement. "Cecilia has done an extraordinary job working on behalf of middle-class families, and I'm confident she'll bring the same unwavering dedication to her new position."

She succeeds Melody Barnes who was a true champion for social innovation and the work of social entrepreneurs. During her tenure, Ms. Barnes relentlessly focused on showing how the government is doing business differently: finding solutions outside of Washington, DC; investing in innovations that can have a big impact and have the potential to grow; and partnering with the private, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors to address the toughest problems faced by the nation.

Ms. Muñoz brings deep experience in both the public and nonprofit sectors and we look forward to collaborating with her to support efforts that drive results to local challenges in education, youth development and the like. Ms. Muñoz most recently held the post of Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, serving as a liaison between the White House and mayors, governors, tribal leaders and other officials. Prior to this, she worked for the National Council of La Raza as Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation. In this role, she led national initiatives in the area of immigration policy and immigration reform as well as civil rights.

“Cecilia brings a depth of experience working with communities, and she understands how strong national policy can deliver meaningful change at the local level,” said Marta Urquilla, 1995 Echoing Green Fellow and Senior Policy Advisor at the Domestic Policy Council. “Our team is thrilled to be working under Cecilia’s leadership as we continue to invest in what works and promote social innovation as a tool for addressing our most pressing national challenges.”

Ms. Muñoz is the daughter of Bolivian immigrants and is the first Latina to hold the position of head of the White House Domestic Policy Council. In 2000, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work.

A Tale of Three Babies

Jay Geneske — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:36:24 +0000

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Bethany Henderson

Echoing Green is pleased to publish a guest blog post by 2009 Fellow Bethany Henderson about the realities of juggling parenting and social entrepreneurship. You can learn more about Bethany's work at City Hall Fellows.

In the last five years I’ve given birth to three babies: two incredible little girls (Adi Rose, now three, and Eliana, now 15 months) and one social venture (City Hall Fellows, a non-partisan national service corps preparing a new generation to lead America’s cities). Having kids and becoming a social entrepreneur were both decisions born of passion, not logic. I walked away from a high-paying “big law” job to launch City Hall Fellows, then got pregnant with my first child a few months later. (Not a combo I’d recommend.)

Figuring out how to juggle all three of my babies is a constant work-in-progress. I am by nature impatient. I became a social entrepreneur because I had a vision for changing the world I believed I could make it happen, and I wanted to make it happen right now. Before kids, I was willing to work around the clock to achieve this goal. And I was pretty much able to. But, once little people joined my household, I could no longer work on my own time frame. I had to work around theirs.

The thing is, each of my babies demands and deserves 110% of my attention 110% of the time—and I really want to give it. But, as every parent knows, you can’t give any baby 110% of your attention 110% of the time. My two daughters need different things from me, but at least their needs are somewhat compatible—I can feed one and soothe the other or bathe one and play with the other at the same time. But City Hall Fellows’ needs are often completely incompatible with my daughters’.

For example, I’ve had to re-schedule many a meeting because one of my kids got sick. Since it can take months to get back on people’s calendars, this has slowed City Hall Fellows’ progress and hurt fundraising. Of course, it goes both ways. My kids don’t care that I was up until 3am working and need sleep. My 3-year-old is fond of climbing into my bed just before 6am, handing me a stuffed animal and chattering away loudly until I respond.

After my oldest was born, I tried to keep my 24x7x365 work schedule by becoming the queen of multi-tasking. I breastfed her while leading staff meetings. I prepared baby food while on conference calls with Board members. I dragged her on long work trips, begging family and friends to babysit while I took care of business. It took several years before I realized that the constant pressure I put on myself to “do it all” was making me miserable. I was constantly annoyed at my daughter for needing attention when I was trying to work and at City Hall Fellows for needing attention when I was trying to be with her. I was so focused on getting stuff done that I wasn’t really enjoying either her or City Hall Fellows. And forget doing anything non-kid- or work-related. I was completely burned out.

My M.O. also was hurting the people I love the most. Lost in my own struggle, I was often crabby and short-tempered; my husband and I fought more in those few years than at any other point in our nine-year marriage. My daughter’s routine was constantly disrupted by being dragged back and forth cross-country or having Mommy “disappear” for days.

To make matters worse, my multi-tasking also wasn’t helping City Hall Fellows. In my sleep-addled, stressed-out, trying-to-be-superwoman state, I simply wasn’t making good decisions. In one memorable low point, I set aside everything and pulled an all-nighter to craft the perfect application for a major grant, only to have the organization remind me hours after I submitted that they only fund for-profit social enterprises. City Hall Fellows is a non-profit. Oops.

In the summer of 2010, shortly before my second daughter was born, I made the decision to stop trying to work 24x7x365. Four things quickly became clear. One—I had to prioritize the truly important work. Before taking on a new project at work, or avoiding an ongoing one, I forced myself to ask “could this significantly move City Hall Fellows forward?” If the answer was yes, I prioritized it—even if it wasn’t the most “fun” work to do. If no, I didn’t. Two—I discovered that good enough really is good enough. As a litigator, I’d dutifully crossed all “t”s, dotted all “i”s, and triple-checked everything. I’ve let go of that mentality, and invoke it only for once-in-a-while things like financial reports. Three—I had to invest in paid help. City Hall Fellows’ budget is so tight that I’d been relying on volunteers to do time-sensitive, mission-critical tasks. It wasn’t working. Trying to get volunteers to produce was sucking up so much of my time I’d started doing their projects myself. So I bit the bullet and, despite my tiny, infrequent paychecks, invested in my own time—by paying for technology and bookkeepers for City Hall Fellows and housekeepers and full-time childcare for my family.

Four, and by far the most painful—I had to accept that City Hall Fellows just won’t progress as fast as I’d dreamed. Now, 18 months later, I’d like to say I’m fully at peace with this. But I’m not. Pangs of petty jealousy strike when I hear of other social entrepreneurs’ successes, and my mind wanders to “what if” land. When I start spiraling down that rabbit hole, I force myself to stop and reflect on all that I have accomplished. City Hall Fellows has trained 61 urban change agents and changed the way three cities operate. Remembering that I am making a real, tangible difference in the world—even if at a frustratingly slower pace then I’d like—reminds me why I do this. And my two beautiful girls remind me every day that City Hall Fellows is not the only impact I’m having on the world.

I’ve found that the key to sustaining my journey—and my sanity—is being present. It may sound cliché, but here’s what I do: Barring emergencies, when I’m with my family, I’m WITH my family. Blackberry is set aside; work calls not answered. Likewise, even though I work from home, when I’m at work, I’m AT work. Dishes and laundry and toy clean-up be damned. Self-imposed rules like “smartphones down from the minute I walk into daycare until kids are asleep”; imposing a consistent daily family routine that clearly establishes when is “work time”, when is “family time” and which parent has primary child duty at what hours; instructing my staff not to call me during “family time” unless absolutely necessary; and my husband (also an entrepreneur) and I both being committed to negotiating with each other before making work commitments outside of “work time” all help.

I’d be lying if I said I was a pro at this. Staying present is not easy, and I don’t always do a great job at it. I’ve been known to sneak many a peek at my Blackberry during family dinnertime, often hiding in the kitchen or bathroom in the hopes my husband won’t notice. (He always notices.) At least once a week, I have to consciously stop myself from folding that three-day-old pile of clean laundry or tidying up the playroom during conference calls. And, before my kids started daycare full-time, I would slip downstairs to micro-manage the nanny more often than I’m proud of. But, the more I work at being present, the easier it’s getting to switch my brain back and forth. As a result, I’m able to be much more productive at work and much more engaged with my kids. I also enjoy both my kids and my work more because I no longer allow myself to feel constantly pulled in two different directions.

What about you? Any other social entrepreneurs or changemakers out there also parents? Or juggling similarly-demanding personal commitments? How are you doing it? What strategies are working for you?

The Buzz 1-6-12

Nidhi Chaudhary — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:09:13 +0000

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After a few weeks off for the holidays and new year, we’re back with our quick read on the top tweets, news, and buzz circulating in the field of changemaking this week. Tell us, what's got you talking? And what do you want to be talking about?

Like clockwork, SocialBrite shared their calendar of social change conferences for 2012. Review it, make a wishlist, and figure out where you’re headed to connect with the social innovation community this year! http://ht.ly/8mcOk

We all know by now that the world should invest in women. It’s something we’re thinking about a lot. Celebrating their 50th anniversary, here’s a compelling infographic from USAID that gives you a few more numbers to backup why: http://ht.ly/8mcVR

Five resolutions for aspiring leaders: find mentors, form a group of leadership confidants, volunteer, work in another country, and ask questions. A really great post to help you create a plan for a productive, inspiring, and purposeful 2012. http://ht.ly/8meeR

Craig Newmark, of Craigslist, asked how people plan to change the world in 2012. He shared sixteen responses, ranging from more collaboration between schools, to creating more open data sources, to helping people have better conversations. These ideas may surprise you and perhaps even inspire you to think about your own positive impact on the world this year: http://ht.ly/8mfgX

FastCompany shares their eleven best innovation essays from 2011. Bookmark them and come back throughout the year—it will be such a fun way to see where innovation has been…and is going. http://ht.ly/8mfH4

We attended FailFAIRE, an open-source community forum to share failure, late last year. It reminded us that not only should we be ok with failure (to a degree), but we should make more of an effort to share it—openly, publically, and maybe even create a “failure wall.” How will you make your failures a learning opportunity for your community? Your organization? http://ht.ly/8mhWN

Ali Cherry, a member of our Social Investment Council, shared her experiences working with Echoing Green supported organization Green Mango in India. She outlines the tensions that social entrepreneurs face when starting up—including the balance between product and mission, building things for how they are, or how they ought to be, and scaling or surviving. What sort of tensions are you facing? http://ht.ly/8mirg

It’s here—the deadline for the 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship application is upon us! A few last minute tips from our team may help you to polish up your app over the next few hours. There will be a lot of traffic on our website tomorrow, so don’t wait until the last minute—if you do, remember that the deadline is at noon EST, January 9th! And once you’ve submitted, share a tweet with the hashtag #EG2012Fellowship, or post a note on our Facebook page. Good luck!

Tensions of Starting a Social Enterprise

Jay Geneske — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:17:21 +0000

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We are happy to share social investment council member Ali Cherry's firsthand account of working with GreenMango, founded by 2008 Echoing Green Fellows Yasmina McCarty and Nandini Narula.

Two years ago today, on January 5th, I quit my job at a nonprofit consulting firm in DC to move to Hyderabad, India to work with an Echoing Green Fellow organization, GreenMango. For years, I had unfulfilled desires that converged in this unique opportunity: live in India, pursue social enterprise and experience the challenges and impact of a start-up. The choice was one that some considered brave and ambitious and others considered irresponsible and foolish. When I moved to India, I discovered that this fine-line was the first of many.

There’s a belief that any word used to describe India is accurate—desperate, thriving, beautiful, sad, energized, etc. Like my decision to go and the country itself, start-up social enterprises straddle fine lines, tension pulling in both directions. All new businesses, social enterprises included, must make difficult decisions about how to spend limited time and money. However, social enterprises face nuanced challenges because of their dual mission to make dollars and make change.

I spent four months working for GreenMango interviewing tailors and others who worked out of their one-room homes. I wrote articles to help customers and service providers do business together, created strategies to drive traffic to the website and developed a customer relationship management plan. During this time, I experienced firsthand four sources of tension facing start-up social enterprises.

1. Sell the social mission or sell the product/service? In India, neither start-ups nor social enterprise carry the cache that they do in the U.S. Because of this, recruitment is one of the most difficult challenges—both in terms of talent and customers. While Western markets are increasingly open to buying social products (ala TOMS shoes), the extreme price sensitivity of the Indian market combined with the fact that philanthropic giving is about a quarter of what it is in the U.S., result in persistent marketing questions. How can a company sell the product based on low price and high quality while simultaneously marketing the social mission to (often Western) investors and the media? Purists argue the product should stand on its own with the social benefit a by-product, but the reality in social enterprise is that the social mission is part of what the customer is paying for.

2. Continue to engage supporters or turn attention to customers? Because Echoing Green is often one of the earliest investors in their grantees’ work, the media attention and “friendly” support can be quite high from the start. Companies like GreenMango, who are faced with converting this good will into revenue-generating business, are forced to evaluate how to allocate time and attention. While supporters can be great cheerleaders, unless they are part of the customer base as well (which they rarely are), a start-up social enterprise can’t necessarily grow the business by strengthening those relationships. Can a social enterprise leverage vocal non-customer supporters to grow income generation? CEOs need to decide how much of energy investment should be redirected to customer recruitment and cultivation while at the same time keeping their cheerleaders and media enthusiastic.

3. Build for how things are or how things ought to be? All Echoing Green Fellows and social change organizations are trying to push people to do something differently for the benefit of the whole. While one could argue that all companies face this challenge, social enterprise is explicitly trying to find the intersection where individual benefit meets societal benefit. These companies want to meet people where they are, but they are also encouraging them to reach beyond their comfort zone, change their behavior and question their assumptions. What is the best way to design and sell a product or service that solves a social problem that consumers don’t recognize exists? Innovative start-up social enterprises build products and services that have to take people from where they are to quickly create the society that ought to be, a leap that requires a complex marketing message.

4. Scale or survival…and on what timeline? Every young successful business faces the question of how to grow: Is it better to create a larger impact across a wider audience in a limited way or a smaller but potentially more meaningful impact? Start up social enterprises face pressure to show impact on both fronts—large and meaningful impact—with “scale” being the ultimate that many are striving for. CEOs want to show to growth while maintaining a high standard for social change, which often means deep one-on-one personal investment that limits scale. The challenge to show progress on two fronts at the same time means using sometimes competing impact measures: revenue and substantive change. Prioritizing one over the other may mean the difference between scale and survival.

Unfortunately, GreenMango is no longer in operation. While I was undoubtedly disappointed to see such a great organization shut down, it was an incredible experience to have witnessed and been a part of the reality a social enterprise faces every day, and an experience that has me consciously planning how I want to lead change in my own life and, how I can help social enterprises successfully navigate these tensions.

Get Ready

Rebecca — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:15:01 +0000

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Whether you are just starting your 2012 Fellowship application or putting on the final touches, here's a final checklist of what to do before you click "submit."

1. Proofread, proofread, proofread. Whenever we ask our Fellows to give advice to applicants, this is always at the top of their list. When you have been staring at the same text for a long time, it is hard to look at it objectively. Recruit a friend, colleague or family member to read over your application. Even if they are not experts in your field or familiar with your concept, they can review for spelling, grammar, and clarity. Ask them to repeat your idea back to you. If they can reiterate your idea as you intended, your application is ready to go.

2. Check your application against the parameters within Application Guidance. Does your answer address all aspects of each question?

3. Try not to wait until the last minute. With almost 3,000 applications received last year and possibly more this year, there will be a lot of traffic on our website.

4. Get the answer now to your unanswered question. Check out all of the resources in our Fellowship section first. If you still can't find an answer, visit the FAQ for contact information. Questions will only be answered during normal business hours, and due to high traffic, may not be answered in time for the deadline.

The deadline to submit an application is January 9, 2012 at 12:00 pm EST.

When you've finished, drop a line on our Facebook page and send a tweet using the hashtag #EG2012Fellowship.

We're looking forward to reviewing your applications. Best of luck to all of our 2012 Echoing Green Fellowship applicants!

Photo: Temari 09

Failure Shouldn't be a Dirty Secret

Nidhi Chaudhary — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:43:58 +0000

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Scott Warren

These days, a lot of us talk big about failure: "Embrace it; share it; learn from it!" Funders (or at least some) are pushing for more transparency so that money can be allocated more effectively. Young people are beginning to take more risks, some that may lead to some big fails, to help find a career with meaning. FailFAIRE takes the notion of "learning from your failures" to a whole new level.

Last month, MobileActive and the US Fund for UNICEF invited people to share their epic failures in mobile and internet/communications technology with the community at FailFAIRE, an open source, safe forum now in its third iteration (you can follow the Twitter stream at #failfaire). Quick presentations from organizations like the World Lung Foundation, MOTECH, UNICEF, and Witness centered around a specific project and how they eventually failed—or, looking back, perhaps were destined to fail from the beginning.

As an example, MOTECH created a mobile application to support community health workers in uploading data—sending alerts when a check-up was needed, medicine should be refilled, etc. They discovered, however, that many people, women especially, didn’t know how to use their phones at a level that the mobile app required. The health workers found the data upload to be cumbersome and time consuming. In hindsight, and perhaps an obvious lesson, that knowing your community and creating systems to reflect their needs is paramount.

There were repeated “aha” moments at FailFAIRE as the audience and the presenters saw threads of commonality and overlap. It reminds us that we can’t afford to let failure go unacknowledged, or unshared. David Domberger of Engineers Without Borders and a Skoll Scholar drives this home in his TEDxYCC talk in April of this year. He makes an often-thought, but perhaps not often-voiced statement: “the aid system is broken.” His theory: aid organizations do not publically share, acknowledge, and analyze their missteps so there is a continuous circle of failed attempts at big problems. With an open culture about sharing failures, Engineers Without Borders has been able to approach solutions and understand problems in very different ways and for the last three years, EWB Canada has published an annual failure report. What could happen if all organizations shared their failures in such a public way?

But, are we celebrating failure too much? Jamer Hunt, the Director of Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons, warns us about making this too much of an esteem building exercise—like trophies for the last place team. Yes, let’s be candid about what we’re doing wrong, but let’s be careful not to let the rhetoric of failure become the norm. Failures can be painfully unforgiving, funders can lose faith in you, and your community may turn on you. While perhaps a bit too nuanced, Hunt proposes a failure spectrum, ranging from “abject failure”—think the BP oil spill—to “predicted failure”—smaller failures that lead to positive social change over time. He suggests that by using this range to clarify the types of failure we experience, we can figure out which failures can lead to learning and innovation that will do little good.

Harvard Business Review also recently published an entire issue of the magazine on failed companies, technologies, and innovations. In a recent HBR blogpost, the CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp, Jeff Stibel, shared the details of their company “Failure Wall” in the breakroom. The purpose—share how you failed, what you learned, and sign your name. Admitting mistakes isn’t easy, but if you create a culture where people can do so, doesn’t that create an entirely different space for work with purpose and innovation? FailFAIRE is an open concept that you can even use at your own organization—bring your team into a room and create a safe forum to share those epic fails. It can only lead to a stronger discussion on current and future projects.

Failure for social innovators is a particularly difficult pill to swallow. Social change—that which touches people, the environment, peace—is not an area where any us of us wants to fail. There is a lot riding on our success. Scott Warren, a 2010 Echoing Green Fellow, openly shared a personal moment when a bad day led to thoughts of failure and failing his team. Scott’s post, along with FailFAIRE, the EWB failure reports, and the “Failure Wall” remind us that sharing failure, acknowledging when it happens, and learning from it is so much more worthwhile than hiding it. Moments of failure can also be moments of inflection. They give us all an opportunity to assess those “out-of-whack” periods in our own lives where nothing seemed to be working. By taking the time to share and reflect on our failures, we can remind ourselves of our “moments of obligation”—those moments when we were able to align what we really wanted to do in this world.

So, wallow for a minute, but take your failure as a much bigger opportunity to move forward with more knowledge and a better understanding on how to succeed.

Share a failure with us. Organize a FailFAIRE for your sector, or for your own organization. Write about a failure on your blog, or on your website.

Your Un-Resolution

Linda Kay Klein — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

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As so many of us resolve what we will do this year, some of us at Echoing Green have challenged ourselves to create something we’ve heard a few people talking about—our not to do lists. Now, this isn’t an invitation to simply flip your resolutions, to say “I will not drink too much soda” instead of “I will drink less soda or more healthy beverages.” So what are we talking about here? That’s where it gets interesting. Because each of us interpreted it differently.

For me, creating a not-to-do list means identifying old patterns and messages, the myriad of ways in which we trip over our own feet, and doing the hard work to unpack those patterns to cut out that which doesn’t serve us. What if those of us with a history of not believing in ourselves stopped telling ourselves that we aren’t good enough to pull off our passion project? Or if those of us who have a habit of going straight home after work tried going to an uncomfortable but potentially exciting gathering? How might focusing on our not-do-do’s affect the items on our to-do list?

A co-worker interpreted a not-to-do list as the list of all of the things we will choose not to do in order to create space for cultivating our purpose. That may mean disengaging from a particular unhealthy or draining relationship. It may look like turning down a freelance job we don’t financially need if it won’t take us where we want to go in our lives. It may even mean shocking a boss by turning down a promotion that feels wrong inside. The trick, she said, is actively using the open time and space to forward your purpose. “Saying ‘yes’ to what you want,” she explained, “means saying ‘no’ to other things, and we need to be smart about both sides of that coin to get where we want to go.”

Another kind of not-to-do resolution is simply carving out the time to…well, not. Not work. Not talk. Not watch TV. And instead simply be for a little while. For the Echoing Green staff here in New York City, this feels especially crazy. And especially necessary.

Do you have another interpretation? If so, we would love to hear it! We would also love for you to share your "nots” and "unresolutions" with us in the comments below, on Facebook, and on Twitter using the hashtag #unresolution.

Happy new year, everyone. We look forward to hearing what you do (and don’t do) this year!

Photo: BIGSTOCK