It doesn’t matter your age, your religion, the color of your skin, the place you grew up, none of that matters, what matters is that you have the power and the unique heritage to become an impressive leader of philanthropy in your community. Watch this video, take up a cause, and lead the charge. You are a Philanthropist.

Video Courtesy of D5 Coalition

March 2012 Featured Charity: Bottom Line

My mother worked so hard to ensure my five sisters and I attended college. She knew that obtaining a college degree would be an important step in our careers and improve our placement in life. Taking a cue from my mother’s wisdom, I believe in the power of education to improve our future. This is one of motivating factors for much of my philanthropic work, from the literacy programs at 826CHI and Literacy Works, to the school building and scholarship programs of Foundation Escalera to this month’s feautured charity Bottom Line, you can begin to see a pattern in my giving. Education is power.

This month marks the 12th featured charity of the Living Philanthropic Year 2, at the end of this month it will mark 2 years of Living Philanthropic, which begs the question what shall we do for Year 3?

Bottom Line is dedicated to helping disadvantaged students get in to college, graduate from college, and go far in life. They achieve this mission by providing low-income and first-generation students with one-on-one guidance through the application process and during college. Since 1997, 74% of Bottom Line college students have graduated within 6 years. Currently, Bottom Line is providing mentoring and support to more than 1,900 students from our offices in Boston, MA; Worcester, MA; and New York City, NY.

Please join Team Living Philanthropic with a contribution and help us meet the $1,000 match from LiveNation, please visit: http://www.crowdrise.com/lp-mar12

Want to be a guest blogger on Living Philanthropic?
Join the team and donate on this page & submit your blog post about why you made a contribution here: http://bit.ly/lp-blogger

Living Philanthropic was founded in April 2010 as one man’s mission to give to charity everyday for a year. This mission is built on a belief that you don’t have to be rich in dollars to make a difference; you only need to be rich in spirit. After completing his 365 day mission, the spirit of giving everyday carries on through his friends and in his mission to continue his micro-philanthropy for a second year. For more information, please visit: www.livingphilanthropic.com

Today (Feb 22) is my birthday and my only wish today is to share my love for Foundation Escalera and the work they do with you.  This past Christmas break, I went on my second school building expedition with Foundation Escalera. (You can read about it here.)

Please take a moment and watch the video above, it’s a snippet from the expedition video and in it I talk about the stove project and it’s importance to improving health and education. Your donations along with the donations from Live Nation/Ticketmaster last year paid for 18 of the 40 stoves we installed in December in Nichnamtic. 

If you would like to help me celebrate my birthday (you are too kind!), all I am asking for is one of 3 things, pick and choose what you’d like to do.

1.) Like Foundation Escalera on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/escalerafund 

or better yet Take the Pledge to stand with Students without Schools
http://www.causes.com/causes/635109-build-a-school-in-mexico/actions/1592345

2.) Share this video with friends on your facebook page and help me spread the word about the work Foundation Escalera is doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAdQOHbnWk4 

3.) Consider a small donation to help us do more to improve education for students without schools: http://www.crowdrise.com/stoves 

Thank you for all the support and kind wishes over the past 2 years. You are simply the best people I know!

Valentine’s Day? How about Generosity Day?

“This Tuesday, Valentine’s Day, is going to be rebooted as Generosity Day: one day of sharing love with everyone, of being generous to everyone, to see how it feels and to practice saying “Yes.” Let’s make the day about love, action and human connection – because we can do better than smarmy greeting cards, overpriced roses, and stressed-out couples trying to create romantic meals on the fly.” (source: Generosity Day)

For Generosity Day, all acts of generosity, small and big alike, count.

So, $25 could buy a box of candy or it could enroll an unemployed mom like Wanda in a 5-week program to help her find a sustainable job! Make a donation to The Women’s Employment Network (WEN) who assist women in raising their self-esteem and achieving economic independence through sustained employment. (via Global Giving)

Instead of that $12 bunch of roses, consider donating to Living Philanthropic’s featured charity for February OMG2012 Cancer Summit and help a young cancer survivor attend this life-affirming weekend event of support, education, community and hope!

Or pledge your support to a cause, like Foundation Escalera and stand up for students without schools. Won’t cost you a dime, just a moment of your time. Pledge your support: http://www.causes.com/causes/635109-build-a-school-in-mexico/actions

Or choose your own adventure! It’s fun and we won’t say anything if you skip ahead between your choices to find the most thrilling outcome!

Happy Valentine’s Day, I mean, Generosity Day!

February Featured Charity

Quick update, we’ve raised $2,120 for Operation Respect as January’s featured charity, thank you to everyone who contributed to the cause!

February’s featured charity will be I’m Too Young For This Cancer Foundation. I met I’m Too Young’s Development Director, Colleen O’Neill in San Diego when they won their Classy Award and she turned me on to the organizations OMG2012 Cancer Summit for Young Adults.

The OMG! Cancer Summit is the premiere oncology conference and social networking event for the young adult cancer movement.  A program of the I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation, the OMG! Cancer Summit, now in it’s 5th year, has become a pivotal healthcare event that inspires thousands of survivors, cargivers and providers—along with scores of academic, advocacy, research and support organizations—to get organized, build community and unite as one to drive change.

I was planning on attending the summit this year, but I will be unable to do so due to work commitments. But I wanted to support the cause and raise some money for I’m Too Young For This, so please check out February’s featured charity: I’m Too Young For This!

If you would like to contribute, please visit: http://www.crowdrise.com/omg2012/fundraiser/livingphilanthropic

Want to be a guest blogger on Living Philanthropic?

Join this team or donate and submit your blog post about why you made a contribution here: http://bit.ly/lp-blogger

Nichnamtic Expedition Update

LIOTE! [leo-tay] That’s Tzotzil for Hello!

Happy New Year Everyone! I’m excited to back in Chicago, I had an amazing trip to Chiapas, Mexico over Christmas break. It was a truly wonderful experience.

To provide a quick wrap up, we built a 6 classroom school house plus a basketball, and installed 40 wood burning stoves in the homes of those most in need in the village of Nichnamtic. 

I spent most of my time working on the stove project this year, because it allowed me more time to meet with the people of Nichnamtic, to get to know them, to learn about how they live, work, cook, and eat.

The stove project was especially dear to me, my fundraising efforts and some of your donations covered the cost for 18 of the 40 stoves! So, I wanted to make sure they were installed properly, that the women knew how they worked and would put them to good use. 

So, why install stoves? In most of the homes, the cooking is done over an open fire pit which tends to fill the kitchen or living space with smoke and carbon monoxide. This slow carbon monoxide poisoning can have a great effect on the development and health of the families and children in the home. Learning disabilities and respiratory problems can have an adverse effect on student’s abilities to concentrate and learn in school. The hope is that the mother’s will use the new stoves that vent the smoke out of the house or kitchens. 

Will it work? My host family Crescencia (23) and Pedro (24) live on a very small plot of land with a humble living space and separate kitchen. They have 3 children Freddy, Juan David, and Irma. They lived in the States for one year before moving back to their home in Nichnamtic. Pedro’s work consists of migrating to Northern Mexico from March to November to cut calabazas (squash) for 40-50 pesos a day. That’s about $3-4 US dollars a day. The winter months are definitely the hardest, as it is too cold for their small crops, so money and food is tight. When I first arrived, their second oldest Juan David (2) was following his mother around as she would prepare food or coffee. The first thing I noticed was the smoke in the kitchen and Juan David’s pronounced cough, it sounded pretty bad, aggravated by the smoke. 

This is a very common scene across Chiapas, children spend their time with their mother when not in school, gathering wood, watching their mother’s cook, breathing in smoke. My team and I installed our stove, Pedro actually moved their big fire pit that they were using for cooking outside! That was a good sign! We came back later that night after installing more stoves and Pedro was happy to make room for us to sleep on the concrete floor of their house. 

The next morning, I spent some quality time with Pedro learning about his life, his family, his work, his land. Meanwhile, Crescencia used the new stove to make us coffee and handmade tortillas, a good sign that she would continue to use the stove. On the last day, the poignant moment for me was noticing how the new stove was already helping Juan David, as we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and eating tortillas, this little guy did not cough once! I knew in that moment, that this project would have a simple, yet profound effect. 

By the end of our expedition, the school was built and all forty stoves were installed and I was extremely proud of the team and work we accomplished together, over 60 volunteers from the US and 40+ volunteers in Chiapas came together for a great cause. 

I want to thank Ticketmaster, Live Nation, Anonymous donor Cyper for their $1,000 donations, and every donor who helped fund this expedition! You are amazing and your contributions made an impact!

If you would like to help fund a stove, please visit: http://crowdrise.com/stoves or if you would like to fund a future school build, please visit: http://www.crowdrise.com/LP-DEC

For more information about Foundation Escalera, please visit: http://foundationescalera.org/landing.html

For more photos, check out the Living Philanthropic page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/livingphilanthropic

January 2012 Featured Charity: Operation Respect

LIVING PHILANTHROPIC’S JANUARY 2012 FEATURED CHARITY is OPERATION RESPECT!

FIRST $1,000 in contributions matched by State Farm’s Go To Bat Program and Anonymous Donor CYPHER!

Operation Respect is a non-profit organization working to assure each child and youth a respectful, safe and compassionate climate of learning where their academic, social and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule and violence. Founded by Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary, the organization disseminates educational resources that are designed to establish a climate that reduces the emotional and physical cruelty some children inflict upon each other by behaviors such as ridicule, bullying and-in extreme cases-violence. It is a unique organization that provides a gateway to broad scale adoption of school-based character education as well as social and emotional learning (SEL) programs.

Toward this end, Operation Respect developed the Don’t Laugh at Me (DLAM) programs, one for grades 2-5, another for grades 6-8 and a third for summer camps and after-school programs. All of the programs utilize inspiring music and video along with curriculum guides based on the well-tested, highly regarded conflict resolution curricula developed by the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) of Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR). Thanks to the generosity of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Operation Respect disseminates the DLAM programs free of charge. More than 150,000 copies of the program have been distributed to educators since Operation Respect’s inception.

Operation Respect also offers assembly programs and professional development workshops designed to provide educators with the tools for effective implementation. To date, over 40,000 educators have participated in workshops throughout the United States.

For more information, please visit: http://operationrespect.org or To donate to team Living Philanthropic, please visit: http://www.crowdrise.com/lp-jan12

Take the Living Philanthropic Challenge Options:
Donate $1 a day for a week or month.
Give once. Give Everyday.

Thank you for being a living philanthropist!

Want to be a guest blogger on Living Philanthropic?
Join the team and donate on this page & submit your blog post about why you made a contribution here: http://bit.ly/lp-blogger

Living Philanthropic was founded in April 2010 as one man’s mission to give to charity everyday for a year. This mission is built on a belief that you don’t have to be rich in dollars to make a difference; you only need to be rich in spirit. After completing his 365 day mission, the spirit of giving everyday carries on through his friends and in his mission to continue his micro-philanthropy for a second year.