Archive for the ‘Human Rights’ Category

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How To Mess Up Your Holiday Giving

Monday, December 20th, 2010

It’s holiday giving time! People who – oops – forgot to donate to charity all throughout 2010 are now scrambling to give away enough money to score some sweet tax breaks before the end of the year. But according to some lady at the Wall Street Journal, there are a lot of stupid things you can do when you engage in last-minute philanthropy.

gift-house-by-howard-dickins.jpg
credit: howard dickens

Let us count the things you should not do, according to Ms. Shelly Banjo:

1. Give impulsively. Newsflash: Charities are falling over themselves trying to get your attention. Good for them, but don’t be a philanthropic sucker. Think about what’s really most important to you, decide how much you want to donate, and engage in some thoughtful charity.

2. Donate stock you’ve held for less than a year. Did you know you can donate stock to some organizations? Did you also know that you can only get a tax deduction for doing it if you’ve owned the stock for more than a year? Now you know.

3. Donate stock that’s lost a lot of value. You can actually claim the money you lost on that stock as a tax deduction, which might lower the taxes you have to pay on the investments that did make you money. If you hold onto the stock and donate cash instead, you get double the deductions!

4. Think you can claim the cost of a fundraiser ticket as a charitable donation. Okay, actually you can do this. But you can only claim the cost above what the ticket is actually worth. (So if you bought $1,000 Knicks tickets to benefit a charity, but the tickets are actually worth $200, you only get to claim the $800 as a donation.)

5. Donate stuff (instead of money) to an organization that won’t use it. This is something only your accountant understands. Basically, the amount you can write off on stuff donations depends on the mission of the organization you’re donating it to.

6. Donate something called a “gift annuity” when interest rates are really low (i.e. right now). Gift annuities are basically donations to charities that earn you a little money on the side. The charity keeps the money you’ve given them, but they pay you interest every year on the amount you donated. So low interest rates mean your payments will also be low.

7. Obsessively stick to charity ratings. Rating sites like CharityNavigator.org and GuideStar.org are helpful when it comes to sorting through the jillions of charities out there. But they can basically only give you numbers. (And numbers liiiiie!) It’s up to you to get the full picture before you shell out for a particular organization.

8. Give to a charity that rents or sells your personal information. (duh)

9. Donate to the wrong donor-advised fund. Donor-advised funds are a complicated way of pooling your money with other investors so that you all save big on taxes while your money or investments go to organizations you all believe in. You don’t have much control over where the money goes after you put it in the fund, so make sure you’re a believer before you join a specific donor-advised fund.

10. Don’t get insurance if you’re on the board of an organization. Congratulations! You’re on the board of an organization. Now you’re partially responsible if that organization does something stupid. Directors and officers insurance exist for a reason.

Now that you’re paying attention, here’s a picture of two Christmas cats hugging to get you in the philanthropic mood:

christmas-hugs-by-tuija2005.jpg
credit: tuija2005

Aww.

China Prevents Activist From Accepting Nobel Prize

Friday, December 10th, 2010

By cracking down harshly on government reformers, China is drawing international attention to the very activists it’s trying to silence.

  • Today’s Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony was missing one popular award-winner: Chinese political reformist Liu Xiaobo. He is being held in a Chinese prison for proposing changes to the communist government there.
  • China treats Liu as an enemy of the state, and accuses nations that support him of creating unnecessary conflict between China and the Western world. They have responded by ending trade talks with Norway, where the prize ceremony was held.
  • When prizes winners are unable to attend the ceremony, a family member is allowed to accept the prize on their behalf. But Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest since October.

Facts & Figures

  • The last time a Nobel Peace Prize winner did not claim his award was when Hitler prevented Carl von Ozzietzky (a pacifist) from accepting the prize in 1936
  • Seventeen other nations joined China in boycotting the event – most of them non-democratic
  • Liu is currently serving his fourth term in prison – 11 years for the alleged crime of sedition (which is any act or speech that is intended to provoke rebellion in a country)

Best Quote

“[As a world power, China] should become used to being debated and criticized.” – Thorbjoern Jagland, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee

Facebook Founders Pledge To Give Away Most Of Their Assets

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

Why wait until you’re dead to make your mark on the world?

  • Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz are the latest billionaires to sign on to “The Giving Pledge.” They’re part of a growing number of wealthy individuals choosing to get involved in philanthropy while they’re still young.
  • The Giving Pledge was thought up by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, who are on a joint mission to get other billionaires to donate the majority of their wealth to charity before they die.
  • Internet and technology billionaires like Gates and Zuckerberg have a special motivation to give – they’ve already built their wealth by trying to change the world.

Facts & Figures

  • More than 50 billionaires have signed onto the pledge so far
  • In 2008, donations in the U.S. totaled $315 billion; in 2009, that number fell to $303.75 billion
  • Zuckerberg recently pledged $100 million in donations to Newark public schools

Best Quote

“Wealth is an advantage, but it also is frankly a responsibility.” – Nicolas Berggruen, Investor, recently signed on to The Giving Pledge

Jumo Picks Up Where Facebook’s “Causes” Left Off

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Jumo.com wants to “do what Yelp did for restaurants.” But do people want to connect with nonprofits as badly as they want to eat tasty food?

  • Chris Hughes, one of Facebook’s founding fathers (and if you watch the movie, they’re alllll fathers), has started a new kind of social networking site all about connecting people to the issues they care about.
  • Jumo indexes charities, projects, and causes to help users learn about them. It also gives charities big and small easier access to potential supporters.
  • Users sign up with their Facebook account, so sharing donation announcements and favorite causes/ organizations with friends is easy. The site also has some familiar Facebooky features – users can share and comment on pages, and see which organizations their friends like.

Facts & Figures

  • Hughes was the Chief Digital Organizer for Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008
  • Only 9% of the $300 billion in donations in 2009 were submitted online
  • Jumo launched with over 3,000 issues and organizations on the site

Best Quote

“It’s still not clear whether or not followers translate to volunteers and donors. But people that are more engaged with nonprofits are most likely to become a donor or support them in another way.” – Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Internet Solutions at BlackBaud, a tech consultancy serving nonprofits

Chicken Gas Chambers For Humanity

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

If nobody wants to be reminded that their chicken was slaughtered before arriving in the supermarket, then how can chicken producers advertise their new “humane” slaughtering process?

  • Your typical chicken arrives at the slaughterhouse on a truck. It’s plucked from its cage and hung upside-down with its legs shackled to a rail that takes it first to an electrical stunner, and then to a machine that slits its throat and bleeds it to death.
  • But electrical stunners aren’t perfect, and the ethics of hanging already-stressed live chickens upside-down for the last minutes of their lives are sketchy. So some producers are starting to use a gas-based alternative to the electrical stunner.
  • You can call it “controlled atmosphere stunning,” “sedation stunning,” or “slow induction anesthesia,” but the new method uses a carbon dioxide gas chamber to knock the birds out before they’re slaughtered, vastly reducing the stress, pain, and suffering that come with traditional methods.

Facts & Figures

  • Bell & Evans, one of the companies using the new gas-stunning method, “processes” 200,000 chickens a week.
  • Tyson Foods, which uses electrical stunners, slaughters more than 1 million chickens per week.
  • Companies in Britain and Nebraska that already use “controlled atmosphere stunning” tend not to advertise this fact on their product packaging.

Best Quote

“People don’t want to know too much. It’s hard to sell humane killing as a concept.” – Marc Cooper, Senior Scientific Manager in the Farm Animals Department of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, London

They Wanted The World To Change, So They Did It Themselves

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Ever been frustrated by how slow things are to change, when people are suffering right now? If you’re anything like the latest crop of social entrepreneurs, you may be able to turn your frustration into something much more meaningful.

  • Today’s social entrepreneurs are taking on the world’s problems a bit at a time. Their successes show that it’s not necessarily the biggest, wealthiest organizations who make the small incremental changes that matter.
  • These individuals tend to identify specific problems and then do whatever they can to meet the need. One invented microfinance. Another is focused on making menstrual supplies available where a woman’s period causes her to miss school and work. And another pressures U.S. companies to stop buying from African warlords, effectively funding terrorism and horrific violence directed at women in Congo.
  • They’re often naive at the beginning, expecting too much and consulting with local people too little. And success is never assured. But the rewards are real – both for entrepreneurs and the relatively small number of people whose lives they are changing.

Facts & Figures

  • DoSomething.org provided $100,000 to help 23-year-old Maggie Doyne build a school in Nepal.
  • Lisa Shannon carried 45,000 pennies to Intel’s headquarters, offering to pay the extra penny it would cost Intel to source their materials outside of Congo and avoid 45,000 more violent deaths at the hands of warlords.
  • $300 sends a Nepalese child to Maggie Doyne’s school, with health and dental care included.

Best Quote

“If your own children were born orphans in Nepal, you wouldn’t wait for the U.N. or the government to do something about it while they were hungry and cold and breaking rocks by the side of a riverbed.” – Maggie Doyne

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is…

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a proclamation by the United Nations (proclaimed December 10, 1948) intended to create a worldwide benchmark for Human Rights by laying out every right and freedom a person is inherently entitled to – regardless of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or any other status.

Report On Congo Conflict Identifies Neighbors As Villians

Friday, October 1st, 2010

In one of the world’s most violent and tragic conflicts, it appears that no one’s hands are clean.

  • The UN just released a controversial report about the conflict in Congo from 1993 – 2003, and the picture it paints of certain foreign governments is causing political conflict.
  • The report accuses several African nations of committing serious crimes during the conflict. Rwanda in particular has expressed outrage that its military forces were accused of committing genocide.
  • In response, Rwanda and Uganda have both threatened to remove their peacekeeping forces from neighboring countries like Darfur and Somalia, where they are helping to maintain order.

Facts & Figures

The report accuses several nations of committing war crimes with their military forces:

  • Uganda – torturing civilians
  • Rwanda – hunting down refugees
  • Angola – raping women, looting hospitals
  • Zimbabwe – conducting deadly air raids
  • Chad – setting fire to homes

Best Quote

“The systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of damning elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide.” – Excerpt from the 566-page report issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Development Goals In Africa May Not Be Met By Deadline

Monday, September 20th, 2010

The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals were created to fight poverty and stimulate economies in Africa between 2000-2015, but whether the project will be a success remains to be seen.

  • Several new reports are suggesting that U.N. Millennium Development Goals will not be met by their deadline unless leaders of both developing and developed nations step up their involvement and investment.
  • The goals for Sub-Saharan Africa, which were agreed upon by 190 countries in the U.N. in 2000, include reducing poverty, hunger, disease, and early deaths by a certain percentage by 2015.
  • There are many reasons why the initiative is in danger of failing: Donors have failed to fulfill their pledges, some African leaders have been uncooperative, and many African governments have failed to increase health spending to the mandated 15% of their gross domestic product.

Facts & Figures

  • The death rate for mothers has barely shifted since 2000.
  • The total number of people living in poverty has grown to more than 400 million.
  • The U.S. has pledged an additional $63 billion to improve healthcare in target countries, $3.5 billion for agricultural initiatives, and $30 billion to help countries prepare for global warming.

Best Quote

“Unless an urgent rescue package is developed to accelerate fulfillment of all the MDGs, we are likely to witness the greatest collective failure in history.” – Oxfam

For Migrants To The U.S., A Deadly Journey

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Hernando Maquin, a 24 year old father, is the most recent in a pattern of migrant murders plaguing Central America.

  • The Mexican government declared war on the country’s powerful drug cartels in 2006, but the war is far from over. Drug gangs have branched out into human trafficking – profitable for traffickers and extremely dangerous for humans.
  • People – mostly men – from countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras have long risked their lives to travel to America for work. They typically leave impoverished families at home, who depend on their financial support while they are away. That’s assuming they survive the trip to the U.S. and find work without being deported.
  • Illegal migrants are particularly vulnerable, as they must navigate an underworld of traffickers with no police or government protection. Maquin left his pregnant wife in Guatemala to find work in America along with two in-laws. His body was found along with the bodies of 71 other Central and South American migrants in an empty ranch in Tamaulipas, Mexico – about 90 miles from the U.S. border.

Facts & Figures

  • Since 2006, 28,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war.
  • Migrants can pay “coyotes,” as traffickers are called, up to $10,000 to be smuggled into the U.S.
  • There are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in America.

Best Quote

“We were praying for them. We were worried about floods, and by the fact they had no money and no food. But we never thought this would happen.” A relative of Maquin, kept anonymous for protection

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