Kindness, Facebook, and $10,000

A random act of kindness that was documented on Facebook has yielded $10,000 in donations to food banks in California! Is it possible that Facebook is more than just a massive time suck? Read the inspiring story HERE.

O Magazine's Power List

Check out O Magazine's interesting take on the "20 remarkable visionaries who are flexing their muscles in business and finance, politics and justice, science and the arts."

Guiding Light to dress job hunters - Crain's New York Business

Guiding Light to dress job hunters - Crain's New York Business

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Michael Jackson, Philanthropist

A recent entry on the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Give and Take blog talks about Michael Jackson as a philanthropist and suggests that he was at the forefront of celebrity-driven philanthropy:

The entertainer supported dozens of charities during his life, including USA for Africa, the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. He reportedly was listed in the 2000 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for “Most Charities Supported by a Pop Star.” The number was 39.

As a humanitarian, he is perhaps best know for “We Are the World,” the 1985 song he wrote with Lionel Richie that raised millions of dollars for famine relief in Africa. To honor the King of Pop’s philanthropy, some fans and small companies have pledged to make donations to his favorite charities.

What a special soul. Read the entire post HERE.

Holocaust Museum, and Honoring Officer Johns

I was absolutely heartbroken last week after the tragic shooting at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). A place that was designed to teach tolerance became a site of hate and violence.

I am very proud to have worked at the USHMM in the late 1990s. I was a fundraiser there, and I also volunteered in their education department, giving tours to school groups and to law enforcement officers (including FBI agents and local police forces). It was so inspiring to see the ways that the Museum transformed its visitors every day.

I felt moved to visit the Museum on Friday, because I really wanted to be a part of the Museum's visitation numbers that day. I am happy to report that this was not an original idea! The Museum was CROWDED. Lots of visitors, including school groups, and the Museum was out of Permanent Exhibiton passes by the time I got there in the late afternoon. Evidently, there were lines around the block to enter the Museum on Friday. I'm so glad that people showed up to show the world that one lunatic act of hate will not deter people from getting educated and valuing diversity and tolerance.

A fund has been set up to honor Officer Johns, the security guard that died in the shooting. Find information about the fund, and about Officer Johns, HERE.

Gotta Love Dolly!

More great news from one of my favorite philanthropists, Dolly Parton, who has an amazing childhood literacy program called Imagination Library. She will work with United Way to provide 1 million children with free books every month by 2014. Learn more about the Divine Miss Dolly's efforts HERE.

The Poorer You Are, the More Things Cost

BRILLIANT article today in the Washington Post. "The High Cost of Poverty" explains how "the poorer you are, the more things cost." A brief excerpt:

"The poor pay more for a gallon of milk; they pay more on a capital basis for inferior housing," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "The poor and 100 million who are struggling for the middle class actually end up paying more for transportation, for housing, for health care, for mortgages. They get steered to subprime lending. . . . The poor pay more for things middle-class America takes for granted."

Poverty 101: We'll start with the basics.

Like food: You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.

A loaf of bread there costs you $2.99 for white. For wheat, it's $3.79. The clerk behind the counter tells you the gallon of leaking milk in the bottom of the back cooler is $4.99. She holds up four fingers to clarify. The milk is beneath the shelf that holds beef bologna for $3.79. A pound of butter sells for $4.49. In the back of the store are fruits and vegetables. The green peppers are shriveled, the bananas are more brown than yellow, the oranges are picked over.

(At a Safeway on Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda, the wheat bread costs $1.19, and white bread is on sale for $1. A gallon of milk costs $3.49 -- $2.99 if you buy two gallons. A pound of butter is $2.49. Beef bologna is on sale, two packages for $5.)

The article goes on to talk about things like banking - the poor often do not have checking accounts, so they have to pay high fees to go to check cashing establishments, which means that they get less of their hard-earned money.

Link to the article HERE.

Obama budget and nonprofits

How will Obama's budget proposal impact nonprofits? It's getting mixed reviews. Find out more from this Chronicle of Philanthropy article.

Fun DC charity events!

There are a couple of really fun DC charity events coming up this week. I wish I could go to them! Alas, I have conflicts - teaching a class on Wednesday night, and going to the Opera on Saturday night. But I am totally behind both of these artsy causes and encourage you to go in my stead... and let me know how they are!

The Smithsonian Young Benefactors' Roaring Twenties Gala and Silent Auction

The Washington Ballet Young Benefactors "beerandballet"

Hop on the Bus, Gus....

Besides the fact that I loved that Simon & Garfunkel song when I was a kid (I thought it was hilarious, until I became a lover who had been left in 50+ ways... but that's a whole other blog post...) I was excited to dig into my GOOD Magazine this weekend for "the transportation issue."

I've lived in the DC area for almost 16 years and looooooove public transportation. Love it, love it, love it. I've also had the pleasure of taking public transportation in lots of other places around the world - just used the heck out of Le Metro in Paris; have ridden the rails and public buses in India; and know the 1/9 subway in NYC almost as well as the Metro here in DC.

And I love the bus. That's right, not a misprint. I love the bus. Love riding above ground. Love saying "good morning" and "thank you to the bus driver." The bus is the bomb. When it's on time. And I don't have to wait 20 extra minutes in the cold. And it doesn't double my total travel time...

Believe it or not, it looks like the good folks in Bogota, Columbia really got it right. Their bus system is amazing. Read about it here.

And take the bus, or the Metro, or whatever is available where you live. It's cheaper than driving, it's good for the planet, and you see all sorts of new, interesting faces there!