Search results for: LightHawk

By AJ Chalom, Humanist Giving Program Coordinator

Q1 2013 introduced Foundation Beyond Belief members to a very strong slate of beneficiaries. We launched a 2013–2014 initiative to have an Encore Beneficiary in each giving category over the next five quarters. Our first Encore for 2013 was our Challenge the Gap beneficiary, Buddhist Global Relief.

Our Q1 beneficiaries help middle-class families keep from falling into poverty, designed a model education system for girls and boys in Pakistan, teach men how to combat rape culture in our society, assist environmental organizations and researchers with aerial research support, and feed and educate the poor around the world. Our Small Grant beneficiaries strive to provide educational opportunities in impoverished communities in the United States.

Modest Needs Foundation inched out The Citizens Foundation USA for the largest grant this quarter. Modest Needs has already informed us that they can probably help keep 10 families from falling into poverty with these funds.

	Poverty & Health: Modest Needs Foundation	$8,740
	Education: The Citizens Foundation USA	$8,710
	Human Rights: Men Can Stop Rape	$8,595
	The Natural World: LightHawk	$7,760
	Challenge the Gap Encore: Buddhist Global Relief	$7,550
	Small Grant: Science Cubed Initiative of Black Atheists of America	$1,500
	Small Grant: First in the Family Scholarship Fund of Black Skeptics of LA	$1,000
	Humanist Giving Total:	$43,855

This giving represents an increase of 12% over grants to our Humanist Giving Beneficiaries in Q4 2012. During the last quarter, we saw one beneficiary receive a grant of more than $8,000 (a first for FBB). This quarter, we awarded three of our beneficiaries with grants of more than $8,000.

Every new member just increases the value of our combined donations and the impact we humanists can make in the philanthropic community.

We would also like to thank our members for the voluntary support of FBB itself in their donation allocations, totaling $4,915 during Q1. These donations help us keep the wheels turning at FBB.

Each quarter is unique, and Q2 2013 offers a new slate of fantastic beneficiaries, including the launch of our new program, Pathfinders Project. If you think Pathfinders Project is worth supporting, please donate to our Pathfinders fund drive.

By Cathleen O’Grady, Director of Special Projects

The first quarter of 2013 is drawing swiftly to a close, and it’s your last chance to distribute your donations among our five beneficiaries. To help you make your decision, take a look at this video for a summary of what our beneficiaries have been up to. Don’t forget to share this video (and your love for FBB) with a friend to help us reach our goal of doubling our membership!

Here’s a quick look at what our remarkable beneficiaries have been up to these past few months:

The Citizens Foundation, our current Education beneficiary, is a Pakistani educational organization that is a powerful answer to the religiously motivated movement against women’s education and liberty in Pakistan. TCF has an astounding 830 schools across five provinces, 115,000 students, and an all-female faculty of 5,800. The schools operate on a “pay-as-you-can” basis, allowing even the poorest of parents to afford a quality education for their children – and with a 90% pass rate in the Secondary Board Examination, a quality education is exactly what TCF provides. Because of the all-female faculty, conservative parents are more likely to allow their daughters to attend school, and TCF maintains a strict 50-50 gender ratio. It also combats the ways in which poverty can affect a child’s education, creating jobs and providing opportunities for mothers to work for TCF in a variety of roles, mentoring students in their career development, and providing health education.

Men Can Stop Rape, our current Human Rights beneficiary, has been fighting rape culture by educating and mobilizing men as allies. Their Strength Campaign encourages young men to start “Men of Strength” clubs at their schools and colleges; these are places that provide a safe, supportive space in which to discuss healthy models of masculinity. Their Healthy Masculinity campaign intends to illuminate the link between masculinity and violence in our culture by bringing together some of the foremost organizations and leaders examining the environment in which men are raised and taught to behave. MCSR’s work explores how a traditional definition of masculinity ties in with violent behavior and is creating an opportunity for the next generation of men to be unconstrained by restricting societal pressures.

LightHawk, our current Natural World beneficiary, partners with a wide variety of organizations to help with conservation and preservation. This year, LightHawk has been involved in rescuing endangered turtles who, unable to navigate their way out of Cape Cod Bay, end up stranded and vulnerable to hypothermia, dehydration, and a host of infections; and they have protected the first-ever harpy eagle nest discovered in Honduras, gathering information about the nest from the air. They have also flown an injured Yucatan black howler monkey (an endangered species) to the Wildtracks Primate Rehabilitation Center in Sarteneja, Belize, after she was hit by a car. After the wildfires in Colorado in 2012, LightHawk was involved in restoration efforts, flying leaders over the burned area to inform their planning efforts.

Buddhist Global Relief (BGR), our encore Challenge the Gap beneficiary, partners with organizations in Asia, Africa, and the United States to combat hunger, focusing on grassroots projects that address underlying causes of hunger and poverty in a sustainable manner. They train farmers in Cambodia and Thailand in the Rice Intensification system, which greatly enhances productivity at lower costs; promote proper breastfeeding techniques in Niger; and empower women by helping them to escape the sex trade and by making provisions for women’s education and support. BGR’s goal in furthering the position of women, supporting farmers, and promoting education is to empower people in need to overcome hunger on their own.

Modest Needs, our current Poverty and Health beneficiary, is a charity that is dedicated to making small differences that mean a lot. Modest Needs raises funds for those who are scraping by, whether to help them pay for repairs to a car, medical expenses, or even just one month’s rent. By doing so, the organization aims to help people avoid the cycle of poverty and remain self-sufficient, by giving them a relatively small boost that allows them to retain their independence. In 67% of cases, those who were funded by Modest Needs go on to become donors to the program, indicating not only financial stability, but also a desire to pay it forward.

The Science Cubed Project of the Black Atheists of America (BAAm), one of Foundation Beyond Belief’s small grant recipients, furthers BAAm’s vision to support a stronger and more diverse atheist community while also supporting individuals in that community. BAAm understands the importance of supporting their community by “improving education through the promotion of critical thinking and science” and “participating in community service efforts in lower income areas.” Science Cubed is an initiative to work with motivated teachers and donate science school supplies and educational modules for learning at the high school level. The modules “are designed to teach the students critical thinking and the scientific process.” The goal of Science Cubed is to provide equal access to scientific education for all high school students.

FBB’s other small grant recipient this quarter is the “First in the Family” Scholarship Fund from Black Skeptics of LA, which will be awarded in June 2013 to up to ten South Los Angeles high school students of color who will be the first in their immediate family to attend a two- or four-year college. Scholarships will range from $200 to $500. These scholarships will allow historically underserved youth a greater opportunity to achieve what was not possible for their parents or grandparents, but what we at Foundation Beyond Belief feel should be possible for everyone—to have better opportunities through education. To donate to Science Cubed or the First in the Family Scholarship Fund, go to our Small Grants pages and make an additional donation, or assign your quarterly donation to “greatest need/small grants.”

Don’t forget to log in to the site and visit the “Manage Donation” area under “Manage Account.” For more information, visit our beneficiary pages for links to their websites and social media.

View a video summary of our Q1 charities

Read More

Learn more about our featured beneficiaries for the first quarter of 2013: Modest Needs, LightHawk, The Citizens Foundation, Men Can Stop Rape, and Buddhist Global Relief:

If you’d like to adjust your donation allocation, click on “Manage Donation” under “Manage Account” on the right (make sure you’re logged in first). And if you’re not a member yet, why not join now?

This past quarter, we had the pleasure of working with organizations working locally and nationally to accomplish humanistic goals: mobilizing students to fight poverty, improving the educational environment in prisons, empowering women internationally, building a greener Washington, DC, and protesting and lobbying for a more peaceful world. Let’s see who we’ll be working with to kick off the new year.
 
Human Rights | Men Can Stop Rape

Men Can Stop Rape is an organization dedicated to ”mobilizing men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women” and “to institutionalizing primary prevention of men’s violence against women through sustained initiatives that generate positive, measurable outcomes in populations throughout the world.” Rape culture is a huge problem in the United States, with the focus on rape prevention often falling on women—their clothes, drinking habits, and movements—rather than on men and their attitudes toward women, power, and violence. In order to challenge this rape culture, Men Can Stop Rape aims to educate about masculinity, gender-based violence, and sexual harassment.

Men Can Stop Rape provides training in preventing gender-based violence to a wide variety of groups, from religious groups and youth organizations to government agencies and colleges. Foundation Beyond Belief is delighted to offer support to a group challenging rape culture and providing positive solutions to the problem of rape and gender-based violence in the United States.

The Natural World | LightHawk

LightHawk’s mission is to champion environmental protection through the unique perspective of flight. Using volunteer pilots, they provide flights to organizations and individuals working to protect land, water, and wildlife. LightHawk is a volunteer-based aviation organization providing an aerial perspective that enhances environmental accountability and accelerates conservation efforts in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. The flights provide information and contact with wilderness regions that might not otherwise be reached, with a broad focus encompassing the protection of wildlands, wildlife, freshwater and wetlands, and oceans, reefs, and coastlines.

Lighthawk’s work is entrancing. Their approach is innovative and their photography and videos are extraordinary. Go to Vimeo to see their beautiful pictures and videos, or explore their Mission Map on their website. LightHawk is unlike any other organization we have featured in our Natural World category.

Education | The Citizens Foundation

Since its founding in 1995, The Citizens Foundation (TCF) has established 830 schools nationwide, with a presence in all provinces of Pakistan. The incredible support for Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani education activist who was shot in October by a member of the Taliban, has thrown the crisis in Pakistani education into the world spotlight. TCF maintains a strict 50% female ratio, an impressive accomplishment in a country with many roadblocks for women’s education. As of 2012, 115,000 students are currently enrolled in TCF schools, with an average of 10,000 students being added each year. Students are completing high school and enrolling for college education. TCF rigorously assesses the progress of their students at each new level, rather than simply basing their claims of success on mere school attendance.

This quarter, Foundation Beyond Belief is proud to support an organization making great strides in improving the overall educational system in Pakistan, with a particular focus on girls’ education and women’s employment. TCF aims to remove barriers of class and privilege, believing that access to education is an inalienable right. It constantly appraises new locations for an extension of its network, assessing the need and demand for a new school as well as the ability of the community to host a school.

Poverty and Health | Modest Needs Foundation

Modest Needs works to meet the needs of the hardworking, low-income members of our society, who are often left without a safety net when unexpected expenses occur. A medical bill, unexpected move, or lost wages may be the first step into another cycle of poverty or debt. Modest Needs attempts to stop the poverty cycle by offering grants to encourage self-sufficiency. According to their mission statement, the goals of Modest Needs include preventing families from entering the cycle of poverty, restoring the financial self-sufficiency to individuals who are ready to work, empowering permanently disadvantaged individuals who otherwise live within their means to live independently, and strengthening small nonprofit organizations by providing a forum that allows such organizations to apply directly to the public for the help they need.

The direct aid provided by Modest Needs makes tangible differences in the lives of many people—so much so that, in 2012, 67% of their previous grant recipients became donors when they became financially stable enough to pay forward the help that they had received. Foundation Beyond Belief is proud to support the efforts of an organization doing so much to assist an often-neglected section of the population.

Challenge the Gap| Buddhist Global Relief

Inspired “by the vision of a world in which debilitating poverty has finally been banished” and the necessities of life—including food, medicine, and education—are made available to all, Buddhist Global Relief (BGR) seeks to provide relief to the poor and needy throughout the world regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, or religion. Bearing in mind the Buddha’s statements that “hunger is the worst kind of illness” and “the gift of food is the gift of life,” BGR particularly focuses on providing food aid to those afflicted by hunger and lack of food security. Currently, BGR is engaged in programs of Critical Rice Support in Cambodia in partnership with Lotus Outreach International, as well as youth education efforts in India. Throughout the quarter, BGR will be partnering with Ecology Action to provide relief in Africa, and will be aiding farm families in rural Vietnam.

Both FBB and BGR were founded in part to put the highest aspirations of their respective worldviews into compassionate action for the betterment of our world, and to expand our vision beyond our own tribes. FBB is proud to welcome Buddhist Global Relief as an encore beneficiary in our Challenge the Gap program, having also been featured in Q2 2011.

This quarter we’re proud to sponsor charities that offer a brand-new approach to living out humanist values, as well as re-featuring charities we’ve sponsored in the past. We’re excited to share these organizations’ stories in the coming months and to see what your generous donations can accomplish in each of their hands.