Meet your new beneficiaries
By AdministratorWelcome to the first quarter of our new giving structure! As announced last month, we have reduced our slate from ten to five featured charities each quarter. This will increase our impact on each beneficiary and enhance our ability to tell their stories and give our members the information needed to make informed distribution decisions.
Let’s meet our five featured charities for first quarter 2012:
POVERTY and HEALTH: Roots of Development
Roots of Development is a smart, well-run organization helping impoverished communities in Haiti acquire the financial resources and organizational skills they need to manage their own development. Instead of pouring money into communities without building local capacity, ROD listens to the goals of community representatives, then helps them complete community-driven projects that foster greater independence. Recent initiatives have included water source, midwifery, and concrete block-making projects. Each initiative includes project reports with location, costs, beneficiaries and plans for implementation.
THE NATURAL WORLD: Environmental and Energy Study Institute
Created by the US Congress in 1984 as an independent 501(c)(3), EESI is a unique organization working toward a society that functions on clean, renewable energy, enjoys improved public health, and places a higher priority on protecting the environment on which all life depends. The organization does so through education, research, and advocacy of well-informed public policy.
HUMAN RIGHTS: Center for Reproductive Rights
Though opinions differ regarding various aspects of human sexuality and reproductive rights, the overwhelming consensus of the nontheist community is in support of reproductive freedom, comprehensive family planning and sex education, and access to safe and legal abortion. In recognition of this consensus, we are proud to support the Center for Reproductive Rights. The legal arm of the Choice movement, CRR is a highly-ranked, transparent, efficient organization fighting for the broadest possible access to education and options for reproductive decision-making.
At the close of 2010, a small organization bringing science education to rural India captured the imagination of our members and netted the highest donation total for our first year. Metropolitan India enjoys world-class science education, while rural India is mired in poverty, a lack of basic infrastructure, and an abundance of superstitions. Vidnyanvahini uses a mobile science laboratory to offer rural children a means of learning science through hands-on laboratory experiments. We are proud to once again feature the innovative work of Vidnyanvahini.
CHALLENGE THE GAP: Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Our Challenge the Gap program features non-proselytizing religious charities doing outstanding work for the common good. This quarter we are pleased to support the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, an organization advancing human rights and social justice in the United States and around the world. Through a combination of advocacy, education, and partnerships with grassroots organizations, UUSC promotes economic rights, advances environmental justice, defends civil liberties, and preserves the rights of people in times of humanitarian crisis. Unitarian Universalism is a non-creedal denomination sharing many values and principles with the nontheistic community.
Though the Foundation itself is no longer a category as such, a separate box allows members to designate a portion of their monthly donation to the care and feeding of the organization itself if they so choose, including the Volunteers Beyond Belief and Humanist Crisis Response programs.
As of January 1, all distributions have been cleared to an even default. Members are now invited to log in and click on Manage Donation in the right sidebar to distribute their funds within the new category structure. You have until March 31 to set your distribution for the current quarter.
Questions? We’re here to help.