CARE Empower a woman to lift herself out of poverty, CARE believes, and that woman can help her family—and her local community—build a better future. CARE works side-by-side with women in the poorest areas of the world to improve education, sanitation, and economic opportunity, as well as to prevent the spread of HIV. CARE also offers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters. Visit the site’s Web Features section to view photo and video galleries, where you can get a glimpse into the lives of real people who are overcoming poverty, hunger, and other hardships. For a truly interactive experience, embark on a virtual field trip, where you can “travel” with a CARE group by reading volunteer journal entries and viewing photos of their trip.

In Her Hands Paola Gianturco and Toby Tuttle were so inspired by the strength and spirit of indigenous craftswomen—many living on less than $1 per day—that they flew around the world to meet some of them, ultimately interviewing 90 women in 12 countries. Their subsequent book, In Her Hands: Craftswomen Changing the World, and this corollary Web site celebrate the exquisite and often colorful work of indigenous craftswomen living in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The money these women raise selling their crafts feeds their families, educates their children, and sometimes has unexpected effects, such as boosting respect for women and decreasing domestic violence. The site features an online gallery of the women and their handiwork, including mirror embroidery from India, beadwork from Africa, and painted pottery from Peru. Visit You Can Help for information on how to get involved or the Events page for a listing of appearances and exhibitions around the country.

Pro Mujer As their web site makes clear, Pro Mujer has confidence in women and their ability to be not just economic support, but economic drivers in Latin American societies. Pro Mujer uses microfinance, that trendy idea that is yielding tangible results all over the world, to create a women’s development network. Latin America’s poorest women are offered the means to build livelihoods for themselves and futures for their families through microfinance, business training, and healthcare support.

Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Society Named for a courageous woman who lost her battle with breast cancer at age 36, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Society has become a leading voice in the fight against the disease. The organization supports research, education, and community-based programs, and spearheads fundraising events such as Komen Race for the Cure. The Web site—available in English or Spanish—offers reliable medical and other information for patients and survivors, as well as those who care about them. Visitors can also subscribe to the national organization’s e-newsletter, KomenLink, to get the latest medical news. The message boards are incredibly active on this site, with women reaching out to one another to share information and experiences, offer advice, and lend heartfelt support. To get a more local perspective, visitors can enter their ZIP code on the Home Page to link to a Komen affiliate in their area, where they can learn about nearby initiatives and events.

The Breast Cancer Fund A call for action, the Breast Cancer Fund site strongly makes the point that breast cancer is now a public health crisis. Their well designed site succinctly delivers up to date information on current breast cancer research and outlines the actions that can taken to address the known preventable causes of the disease. An excellent resource for anybody concerned with breast cancer, the site links to events, articles, press coverage, reports, brochures and newsletters, to name a few. Knowledge is power.

Women for Women International This innovative organization harnesses the power of sisterhood to dramatically change the lives of women in war-torn countries, from Afghanistan to Kosovo to Sudan. For a small monthly donation, participants can support a “sister” who is struggling to rebuild her life. Funds help provide her with food and water, medicine, job skills training, and even guidance in launching her own small business. Sponsors receive a photo of their sister and can even exchange letters with her to learn about her life and offer moral support. The clean, user-friendly Web site provides an overview of each country it works in, complete with maps, photos of local women, and updates. Visitors to the site can read letters from the field, send a personal message of support to women in one or more countries, and visit the online bazaar where they can buy handcrafted items made by program graduates (who receive proceeds from the sales). Women for Women International also publishes an e-newsletter for those who want to stay abreast of the organization’s activities.

Annie E. Casey Foundation To honor his mother, a young widow who had struggled to raise her family, UPS founder Jim Casey created a Foundation which aims to shape a better future for disadvantaged children. The Annie E. Casey Foundation partners with decisions makers at all levels and offers grants to states, cities, and community groups to help create smart, effective and durable solutions to the many problems that cause and are caused by child poverty. The Foundation takes a two-level approach to its work: providing both direct services to children at-risk and working to reform the existing systems that address their needs. The site inventories the many Casey Foundation projects, including a state-by-state map of initiatives, as well as a “knowledge center” that presents a range of valuable data amassed from the Foundation’s decades of work.

Big Brother, Big Sister For a child who is discovering who he or she is, having a trusted mentor can make all the difference. For 100 years, Big Brothers, Big Sisters has been matching kids aged 6 to 18 with volunteer adult mentors who meet once a week to talk, share, and just have fun. Big Brothers, Big Sisters now operates in all 50 states in the U.S. and in 35 other countries. The organization’s colorful, upbeat Web site features several real life stories of “Bigs” and “Littles” from around the country—with photos. Visitors can sign up for the organization’s e-newsletter, which spotlights Bigs and Littles, offers ideas for fun activities to share, and more.

Break the Cycle True to its name, this organization means to address domestic violence before it creates a cycle that spreads to future generations. The non-profit’s work therefore centers around teenagers; offering education and advocacy for young people confronted with aggression. Be it violence in the home or in the dating scene, Break the Cycle aims to empower teens through education, free legal services and peer leadership programs

Images of Child Labor No doubt inspired by Lewis Hine’s revelatory and transformative photographs of child labor in 19th century, this project aims to give faces and stories to some the millions of children who are put to work, often in hazardous and dangerous conditions, while also exploring the complex factors that have created their situations. Child Labor and the Global Village: Photography for Social Change is a project that put a team of 11 photographers in the field to photograph child workers around the world, and to take account of the individual contexts and stories of each. The result is a traveling exhibition that has been shown in venues from the U.S. Congress, and American universities and schools to venues in Bangladesh. Some of these unsentimental and often intense stories are previewed on the site, and should be seen.

Save the Children Save the Children has a long history of matchmaking—that is, matching caring donors with children around the world who need their help. The organization protects and fights for the rights of children who face poverty and crisis, from armed conflict to natural disasters to abuse, in more than 100 countries. In all cases, Save the Children works closely with the local community to ensure each child’s health and happiness. The content on this well-organized site is supplemented with slideshows and videos to highlight the group’s work. Visitors to this site can search for a deserving child to sponsor (and see photos) or can simply sponsor a project. Kids can even get involved by ordering a Moneybox for fundraising or entering Save the Children’s Art Contest.

St Jude Children's Research Hospital A pediatric hospital that was founded by entertainer Danny Thomas—and is now actively promoted by his daughter, actress Marlo Thomas—St. Jude’s gives new hope to children who have the toughest cases of cancer and other serious illnesses. A top research institute that also claims to be the nation’s third largest healthcare charity, St. Jude’s uses the most advanced treatments and has a history of helping children who have been deemed incurable by other institutions. Patients are accepted regardless of ability to pay, and St. Jude is the only pediatric research center that fully pays for lodging, food, and travel for patients and their families. This dynamic site offers guidance for referring physicians, information for patients and parents—including impressive multimedia presentations on various medical topics—and a directory of volunteer events.

UNICEF - United States Fund For over 50 years, American schoolchildren have been going door-to-door to raise money for UNICEF. The dimes and dollars they collect—as well as corporate and other donations—ultimately transform the lives of kids in more than 150 sites, from Afghanistan to Colombia to Swaziland. In times of war, conflict, and natural disaster, UNICEF reunites children with their parents, provides kids with nutrition and health care, keeps schools running, and helps ensure that children have safe places to play. At this information-rich, interactive site, visitors can view photo essays (with captions) or take “virtual field trips” with UNICEF celebrity ambassadors via slide shows. Kids will want to visit the Youth Action Center and link to Voices of Youth, where they can play educational games, discuss issues with other kids, enter contests, and find out about local events.

Annenberg Foundation One of the country’s largest private family foundations, the well-respected Annenberg Foundation has focused its considerable grantmaking power on education. If this seems like a broad subject, it is, and the Foundation addresses the need for education broadly: education and youth development, arts, culture and humanities, civic and community life, health and human services, animal services and the environment are areas in which Annenberg has invested in projects and allied itself with other philanthropic institutions. The Foundation invites grant seekers, who must be non-profit organizations, to look through the files of past grant recipients and their projects to get a sense of the work they support. The scope of Annenberg’s involvement is impressive; international collaborations line up alongside local initiatives to help restructure and reform public schools.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – Education Along his wife Melinda, the famous software tycoon Bill Gates has undertaken a project that is amazingly ambitious in scope: tackling inequities in global health, education, and technology. Based on the guiding principle that every human life has equal value, the Gates personally manage their $28 billion dollar foundation which acts as catalyst by giving grants to organizations (governments, private sector and non-profits) that aim to create positive long term change. The Foundation’s education initiative aims to dramatically raise the national high school graduation rate – across the board. A variety of scholarship programs are bolstered by the Foundation’s careful research on successful educational strategies and constant evaluation of its own work.
It’s hard to believe the scale and vision of this enterprise, but the modest-yet-focused tone of the Foundation’s web site helps us believe that this work could be as profoundly influential as Microsoft has been.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – Libraries Along his wife Melinda, the famous software tycoon Bill Gates has undertaken a project that is amazingly ambitious in scope: tackling inequities in global health, education, and technology. Based on the guiding principle that every human life has equal value, the Gates personally manage their $28 billion dollar foundation which acts as catalyst by giving grants to organizations (governments, private sector and non-profits) that aim to create positive long-term change. The Foundation’s Global Libraries initiative seeks to bridge the “digital divide,” both nationally and internationally, through no-cost access to information technologies in public libraries and grants for replacing older computers. As public libraries are often the first and only place that many people can have access to computers, these simple and direct plans may change many lives in a profound way.

Learning Disabilities Association of America This is the largest national organization dedicated to advocacy for individuals with learning disabilities and supporting their families. The LDA is a non-profit volunteer organization that has over 200 state and local affiliates in 42 states and Puerto Rico. According to the site, the membership, composed of individuals with learning disabilities, family members and concerned professionals, advocates for the almost three million students of school age with learning disabilities and for adults affected with learning disabilities.

Proliteracy Wolrldwide This organization is teaching thousands of people to read throughout the United States and in more than 60 developing countries. But ProLiteracy Worldwide doesn’t stop there. The group also uses literacy as a foundation to improve people’s health, education, economic independence, and human rights. Those who would like to learn to read and write—as well as those who would like to volunteer teach—can click on “Find a Program” to locate opportunities in their community. The organization’s quarterly newsletter, LiteracyAdvocate, is available online and runs uplifting stories about how the group’s work is changing lives in the U.S. and abroad. This site is chock-full of information, even if some is a bit embedded.

Scholarship America Believing that “college doesn’t happen by chance,” Scholarship America has awarded over $1 billion to deserving students who have the drive - but not the dollars - to get a college degree. The organization spearheads community-based scholarship fundraising, helps companies set up tuition reimbursement programs, and more. Students seeking financial help can use the site to find a chapter in their area, while community leaders can start a local chapter. Visitors can also peruse the group’s newsletter, The Scholar.

Teach for America This project addresses head on one of the most intractable problems of our society: the education gap that divides the nation along socioeconomic and racial lines. Wendy Kopp, a 21-year-old Princeton graduate, designed Teach for America as her graduate thesis. The idealist then went on to implement her plan to offer quality education to low-income communities by recruiting hundreds of top college graduates committed to teaching in inner-city schools. Teach for American has had a definite impact, for the students who receive the attention of committed teachers, for the schools that now have a steady supply of highly qualified teachers, and for society in general that is learning that idealistic action can change things. In a sign that Teach for America has become a force to be reckoned with, Wendy Kopp was recently interviewed on the Colbert Report!

Open Society - Arts Initiatives Financier-philanthropist George Soros envisions a world where respect rules—respect of the individual and respect of the institutions of democracy. The Open Society Institute, Soros’s contribution towards shaping this world, is a grant-making foundation that “aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform.” It does this through financial support of local and international projects (including photographic projects), but also by implementing a range of initiatives that deal with issues that are truly impressive in scope: freedom and democracy, human rights, education, public health, and access to care, as well as transparency and access to information. If these goals seem improbably ambitious, check the Web site for a list of the organization’s accomplishments and works in progress - viewable by issue area or geographic region - and be impressed. Visit the Resource Center to read in-depth reports and analysis. Individuals and organizations seeking funding should visit the Grants, Scholarships, & Fellowships page.

Participant Media This independent movie production company “ believes that a good story well told can truly make a difference in how one sees the world.” They have backed this belief with some very strong feature films, including “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which in turn, have inspired an associated web site, TakePart, where the issues addressed in Participant’s films are presented as campaigns that can and should be acted upon.

TakePart TakePart, formerly Participate, makes the activist in all of us want to get past our good intentions and take some action. TakePart presents issues related to current Participant films such as sexual harassment, dependence on foreign oil, and the decline of the independent spirit of journalism. Each issue is treated as a campaign and articles and discussions about the topic are bracketed with ways to take action and links to supporting organizations. An outstanding example of e-activism.