Surfrider Foundation

WEEK 2: Surfrider Foundation

With this week's organization, I thought it would be great to turn our attention to protecting the things that we love. For me, born in a beach town in South Africa and having grown up in Southern California, this means the ocean.

Growing challenges from pollution, offshore development and climate change pose new threats to our oceans and beaches. At the same time, expanding industries, such as offshore oil drilling, threaten to crowd our ocean and degrade its health.

Surfrider Foundation is a community of everyday people who passionately protect our ocean, waves, and beaches. What started as a group of surfers that came together to protect Malibu from over-development and pollution has grown into one of the most powerful coastal protection groups in the world.

Surfrider has built a network of coastal defenders who transform their passion for our coasts into lasting protection. Bridging local knowledge with national experts in law, policy and science, produces victories for beaches year after year.

$20 pays for to water test to make sure a day at the beach is healthy and safe.

$100 protects 1/4 mile of US coast through the beach preservation program.

This week, let me know about something that is near and dear to your heart! Give to Surfrider or another organization that protects our natural habitat.

Can you believe we are already in our 3rd week of the new year? I'm so grateful for the energy surrounding this project. Thanks so much for being involved!

Have an epic week,
Jodi

Deworm the World

WEEK 2: Deworm the World

Welcome back to GIVE52, so exciting to see so many new pledges - 👋 Hi Creative Mornings crew!

I've been getting lots of questions about the pledge requirements, so let's clear the biggest one up: there is no minimum requirement to donate. I think it's a Mother Teresa quote: "it's not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving." This pledge is about giving what we can (even just $1) every week this year. With that, let's get right into it!

There are more than 870 million children at risk of parasitic worm infections worldwide. While virtually nonexistent and unheard of in developed countries today, parasitic worm infections are endemic in many of the poorest countries.

Treatment with a simple pill is universally recognized as a safe and simple solution.

Evidence Action's Deworm the World Initiative focuses on treatment delivered through existing school infrastructure. This is highly cost-effective and accepted well by communities, and able to reach hundreds of millions of children.

Left untreated, these infections interfere with nutrient uptake and can lead to anemia, malnourishment, and impaired mental and physical development. Infected children are often too sick or tired to concentrate at school, or to attend at all. Worm infections disproportionately affect the poor and particularly children.

Rigorous evidence shows that school-based deworming programs can improve health and education outcomes for children at a cost of less than $0.50 per year.

The Deworm the World Initiative envisions a world where all at-risk children have improved health, increased access to education, and better livelihoods potential as a result of being free of intestinal worms.

They work with governments around the world to eliminate the public health threat of worms through scaling up school-based mass deworming programs. They advocate for national school-based deworming to policymakers, and provide technical assistance to governments to launch, strengthen, and sustain school-based deworming programs. They focus on large-scale school-based deworming programs as they leverage existing infrastructure that result in treatment coverage of over 80% of at-risk children.

There are few issues as cost effective and life-changing as deworming initiatives. The Deworm the World Initiative is doing this, and they are doing it fantastically well. They have treated more than 190 million children during the 2016 school year.

Let's keep up this amazing momentum. Here's to you!

All the best and have a fantastic week,

Jodi

Acumen

Week 1: Acumen

I am so excited that you’ve decided to join the pledge to give to 52 incredible organizations this year. To kick off this year of generosity, I knew immediately which organization I wanted to start with.

Acumen is a bold new way to tackle poverty that’s about dignity, not dependence, and choice, not charity. Acumen raises charitable donations to invest in companies, leaders, and ideas that are changing the way the world tackles poverty.

Their manifesto says it all:

 

It starts by standing with the poor, listening to voices unheard, and recognizing potential where others see despair.

It demands investing as a means, not an end, daring to go where markets have failed and aid has fallen short. It makes capital work for us, not control us.

It thrives on moral imagination: the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be. It’s having the ambition to learn at the edge, the wisdom to admit failure, and the courage to start again.

It requires patience and kindness, resilience and grit: a hard-edged hope. It’s leadership that rejects complacency, breaks through bureaucracy, and challenges corruption. Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.

Acumen: it’s the radical idea of creating hope in a cynical world. Changing the way the world tackles poverty and building a world based on dignity.

I first heard of Acumen when volunteering in Uttar Pradesh, India with one of their fellows. Years later, I rediscovered this incredible organization through a talk about generosity and fundraising at the Do Lectures by Sasha Dichter, an incredible talk from my personal role model, Jacqueline Novogratz, and from the always wonderful Seth Godin, who serves as one of their advisors.

Again, I am beyond overjoyed that you have joined in to make this year amazing. I can't wait to share the rest of the organizations selected for this challenge as they are all near and dear to my heart.

Happy New Year!

Lots of love,
Jodi