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Corporate Development for a Networked World

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Humanitarian, Charitable and Philanthropic Community Services

Bruce Donnelly   bruce@gdi-solutions.com    (Biography)

This includes non-governmental organizations (NGO's) such as organized charities, plus multilateral organizations, governmental foreign aid or humanitarian disaster relief assistance and community development programs, private and corporate foundations, and other resources which may be relevant to the philanthropic, charitable, or general humanitarian interests of our friends and visitors to this site.

 This includes charitable and general humanitarian interests which extend across borders beyond their own local communities to assist people in other regions who may be less fortunate. 

Our own work is not as a non-profit, but as a company promoting business and community economic development across borders, both within and between countries, by openly sharing market knowledge and contacts to facilitate the more effective flow of direct investment projects by companies to places where they will successfully contribute to the growth of the companies, communities, and many lives involved.  Economic development is not a zero-sum competition, and inefficient capital flows sustain needless misery in both developed and developing nations.  In short, the billions in capital investment flows matter.

This is a for-profit business with a social purpose - what some would call a "social entrepreneur venture" - which by the nature of our business works closely with many local community economic development organizations and related professional services.

This directory will continue to evolve in response to suggestions, research, and feedback from our contacts.  We welcome suggestions for addition to this selective directory.  The focus of this directory relates to cross-border humanitarian and economic development work, rather than general cultural, educational, health, and local community charities or other non-profits.

Humanitarian and charitable work or philanthropy reflects a fundamental desire to not only succeed personally or as a family or social group, but to contribute to a better future for all people, and indeed for the environment we inhabit and the world we will all leave behind in time as a legacy for future generations.

This transcends religious, cultural, political, economic and other boundaries by definition as a humanitarian response to other people, whether they are suffering or can simply benefit from some generous act of unexpected and deliberate kindness.  It is an initiative to help other people by choice, rather than just a response to immediate crises or direct charitable appeals on behalf of specific victims. 

While we certainly sympathize with the victims of tragic events, there are great ongoing needs in the world which can be neglected while attention focuses on crisis response rather than long-term solutions to development challenges worldwide.  In any case, regardless of motivation, scale, or timing, every commitment to take action can help.

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Non-governmental organizations, charitable organizations

This includes faith-based institutions as well as other types of organized charities

Website - see also other resources below for charity background information

Regional contact directories may include other organizations with a regional focus

Congratulations to 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded to promote local economic development and alleviate poverty through microcredit programs.  These enabled small groups of poor people in Bangladesh to access unsecured loans in very small amounts for their own self-help business efforts which would not be possible through the traditional bank loan processes.  This made it possible for many poor people to find their own path out of poverty through their work and savings, rather than rely on high-cost sources of capital or continuous government aid, social programs, or charity.  This development model has been repeated elsewhere as an effective approach to poverty reduction challenges, and adopted by various non-profit charitable organizations as a way to leverage the economic impact of their limited resources.

One of the interesting concepts promoted by Muhammad Yunus is the idea of "non-loss" companies with a clear social purpose as their main objective.  In short, they are managed like for-profit business ventures, but are not managed for profit maximization, but rather to maximize the desired social impact of their work.  This differs from the typical nature of "non profit" organizations, which may similarly focus on trying to achieve good social outcomes, but perhaps more from the perspective of raising and distributing money or other benefits as charity rather than managing the process for demonstrable results as in a business.  In other words, a non-profit may measure activity (how much it has given away and to how many) rather than results (what has been changed to achieve sustainable progress beyond immediate crisis-response).  This concept of business-like social ventures has started to catch on with philanthropic business leaders who want to achieve lasting results.

Congratulations to 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai of Kenya for her contributions to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

Her inspirational lecture was also broadcast through the Worldview program of Chicago Public Radio, where an audio clip is available, which is well worth hearing to capture the passion of her many years of commitment to this cause.  It is an exceptional lecture on development and the linkages between environmental issues and democratic governance and peace.  A full transcript is on the Nobel website.

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/wv_radec04.asp  

The above audio clip requires RealPlayer 8 or higher

http://www.nobel.no/eng_lect_2004b.html   Transcript

tsunami directory

tsunami directory

For contrast : www.architectureforhumanity.org

We do not support the work of AI, and encourage those who support it to reconsider their choice, and look into related websites such as www.corporate-responsibility.org .  We abhor abuses of human rights anywhere, but that doesn't equate to support for AI.

An apparently noble cause which naturally attracts sympathetic support is being perverted.  There are better alternatives for donors and volunteers than to support this organization.  It still does some good work, but when they make outrageous and unsubstantiated abuse allegations against the US government to gain headlines and support, while calling little attention to some of the true atrocities around the world, they are part of the problem rather than the solution, just like the farcical UN Commission run by leading human rights abusers.

This shifts the focus away from the "triple bottom line" concept (metrics for recognizing financial, social, and environmental performance by corporations) to a more regulatory rather than voluntary approach to enforce corporate social responsibility as they define it.  This starts from the false premise that companies are by nature irresponsible and harmful to society unless such social activists mobilize government restraints on their actions.

This seems analogous to asking government to tell private individuals what they must do for society, rather than just creating a societal framework in which competing ideas are free to attract private or governmental support.  It enforces adherence to the social ideals of a particular special interest group whose cause seems worthy.  It is an abuse of the power of government, however, for such special interest groups to create what is in effect a corporate draft board to force companies to join up and invest resources in compliance activities and reporting requirements to support their activist wars on chosen social issues according to their own visions of how the social problems they perceive must be attacked.

Corporations are a "legal person", and like other free citizens they must operate within the norms of the societies where they operate, but it is a slippery slope for special interest groups to try to enforce their own social agendas through government mandates designed to force companies to do their bidding.  People with good intentions and sincere interests in worthy causes can create very harmful government policies, just like populist demagogues who use popular sympathy for a single issue to achieve their own rise to social power.

One can be against this group and still favor corporate social responsibility in general and some of the social causes which the member organizations promote.

The participating organizations include major charities which have been widely perceived as leading very worthy social causes for many years.  Frankly, we are disappointed that they have chosen to follow the adversarial, overtly anti-business path articulated by CORE.

For example :

ActionAid UK

Amnesty International UK

Christian Aid

Friends of the Earth

Traidcraft

War on Want

World Wildlife Federation - UK

Although much of the focus of this apparently small organization is on the UK, it clearly is intended to influence policy across Europe and in other regions as well.

This certainly seems to be a far cry from the liberal ideals of the Kennedy era, such as the "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" ideal.  This is more a case of "we'll tell you what you have to do for our country, and enforce it".