Global Giving Circle

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." – Booker T. Washington

I've learned over time that my greatest satisfaction and pleasure comes from joining forces with others to use our collective talents, gifts and resources to make a difference in the lives of others. The idea for the Global Giving Circle came to me when I worked at Link TV, a satellite channel that airs eye-opening documentaries about the problems facing humanity and the people who are working to alleviate them. These shows inspired people from around the world to send in emails asking how they might help. Seeing these emails made me realize that there are a lot of people who want to make the world a better place, but don't know how to go about it.

I decided to investigate how to connect these people to the causes they felt so strongly about, and learned about the brilliant thinking in the field of humanitarian problem solving. When I decided I wanted to create an organization where people would pool their money to make a greater donation than they could as individuals, I went to a number of conferences, met some amazing women and men who were as excited about this endeavor as I was. I realized that part of their passion was to share the gift of giving with others.

In February of 2009 I founded the Global Giving Circle, a nonprofit organization which provided people of all income levels with the opportunity to support hybrid grassroots social enterprise and philanthropic initiatives focused on poverty alleviation. For examples of giving projects click on India or Swaziland. In 18 months the Global Giving Circle produced five fundraising events which brought the public together to support 18 nonprofits and social enterprises working in the areas of human rights, the water crisis, global warming, youth education and leadership with a focus on female empowerment and social entrepreneurship. In December Global Gifts That Matter was launched, an online gift emporium which supported high impact non-profits and social enterprises through the sales of gifts and gift donations. In February 2010, I began work on the Global Cocoa Project. Its mission was to support cocoa farmers around the globe by supplying them with not only tools to improve the quality of their cocoa production, but also basic needs for their daily lives.

With 2 years of experience under my belt, and realizing that I was more interested in helping other nonprofit founders and social entrepreneurs, in the fall of 2011, I founded the Social Innovators Collective. It launched as a network of emerging founders, leaders, and individuals who worked in the social enterprise and nonprofit sectors and then transformed into an organization that offers short and long format educational programming for early stage social entrepreneurs, nonprofit founders and individuals working on social impact projects. Our mission is to nurture, shape, and train the next wave of changemakers so that they can demonstrate measurable social impact and achieve financial sustainability.

Please visit the site to learn more about our programming.

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