Social Impact Social Media

This Southern California nonprofit group home provides special education and counseling to children of abuse, mental illness or in foster care. The main campus is 17 acres and includes 6 group homes serving kids 7 – 18.  Founded over 100 years ago HILLSIDES, based in Altadena, CA,   has made its mission is to create safe places for children, strengthen families, provide special education; and advocate for children’s rights. This Southern California nonprofit creates safe places for children in its residential treatment program where children living in the group homes, are in foster care or that have been referred by the Department of Mental Health or public school districts. On the Hillsides’’ campus   they have the chance to live in a secure, stable environment enabling them to heal and rebuild trusting relationships with adults. Hillsides works with many social and child services organizations, including Los Angeles County, Pasadena, Glendale, and San G...

This organization, a super early player in this field, was started in New York City in 1987 by Steve Mariotti, a former entrepreneur turned high school math teacher in the South Bronx. Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) has worked with more than 600,000 young people from low-income communities in programs across the U.S. and around the world. As of fall, 2014 NFTE operates our successful curriculum in 17 U.S. communities and 10 countries and is continuing to expand. There are opportunities to volunteer in Chicago, Miami, various New York state locations, Los Angeles, D.C., Baltimore and Boston. As a volunteer you have opportunities to support young people in the development of business ideas with positive social impact.   Volunteer roles include becoming a guest speaker, offering to be a field trip host, business plan coaching, mentorship and other options. There are also opportunities to bring the NFTE program to a community you want to support as a NFTE te...

Melissa Hargett is a successful Alabama business woman. She launched the Shoals Area Families Foundation (SAF) to assist temporarily impoverished families with making ends meet. Families that request assistance also sign up as part of an innovative "give back program," where in exchange for support they agree to volunteer at start-up local thrift shop. Shoals Area Families was formed to assist local temporarily impoverished families with utilities, food and shelter to give them a way to give back and to train them with a new skill that will hopefully break the cycle of impoverishment. The mission is simple -One to take person at a time over the poverty line. SAF is opening a thrift store to help fund the foundation.  They have a 10,000 square foot building where they take donations, process items, and sale the merchandise. The families they work with come to the organization through referrals from public school counselors and through the SAF Facebook page, https...

Playworks is the only national nonprofit sending trained "coaches” to under-served inner city schools. They currently have programs in 300 schools in 23 cities and serve around 130,000 students. playworks.org Playworks trains adults in how to create, safe, rewarding and inclusive experiences at recess. These coaches then go out to low-income urban schools and train teachers and parents how to get the most out of learning opportunities even during recess. Coaches become a part of the school community. Playworks also runs tutoring programs and physical activity programs. It is amazing what kids and adults can learn in terms of leadership skills, diversity tolerance and apparently much more according to results of their annual survey of participating principals, teachers and staff. With coaches in place students come back to class more focused and ready to learn. For the 2010 -11 school year Playworks surveyed over 2,500 educators. Here, briefly are the results. 98% r...

In  a July 2002 editorial  published in the San Bernadino  California Sun Jane Roberts wrote, " A week has passed since the Bush Administration decided to deny the $34 million dollars  voted by Congress for the United Nations Populations Fund. Ho Hum, this is vacation time. Columnists have written about it and newspapers have printed editorials of lament. Ho Hum. More women die in childbirth in a few days than terrorism kills people in a year. Ho Hum. Some little girl is having her genitals cut with a cactus needle. Ho Hum just a cultural thing. As an exercise in outraged democracy, would 34 million of my fellow citizens please join me by sending one dollar each to the US Committee for UNPA?" That idea was the genesis of 34 Million Friends  when Jane and co-founder Lois Abraham - separately and not knowing one another had the same idea-- a grassroots effort, one dollar at a time to get 34 million American women to give one dollar each  to help provide ...