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The Skoll Forum: Looking back – moving forward

The Skoll World Forum 2008 has drawn to a close – I feel energized, stimulated, encouraged, inspired – and utterly exhausted. How many times in the last few days have I repeated the words: /betterplace – an internet platform for philanthropy. / /We link those who want to give to those in need of receiving. [...]
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The Art of Raising Money

Recently the New York Times brought an article about new research concerning the economics of philanthropy. John List and Dean Karlan, both economics professors at the University of Chicago and Yale respectively, conduct real-world experiments in order to find out what works in philanthropy and what doesn’t. One of the experiments concerned matching gifts, the idea that a donor [...]
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Fighting Landmines – The Hero Rat

This is one hot link tipp I just got from Line – who is currently attending the Skoll World Forum in Oxford: Rats have a very fine sense of smell and are can be trained for landmine detection. A great idea, and a fun website. Go check it out now! Adopt a rat! P. S.: [...]
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“We are here” – The Skoll World Forum 2008 in Oxford

The start of Skoll World Forum 2008 has been as unpredictable and refreshing as the (much discussed) weather in Oxford. The rain was drizzling down on the front door steps of the Said Business School as newly arrived delegates gathered to complete their registration and begin the first of a 3 day forum on Social [...]
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They come in the name of helping

Last night I saw “They come in the name of helping”, a film (coming to me via Global Giving. The film originally appeared in Peter Deitzs blog about micro-philanthropy, which features individuals, organisations and platforms using Web 2.0 applications to enable micro-donations and social change) by 22 year old Political Science student Peter Brock. Shot [...]
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Whose Internet is it?

A few weeks ago I posted an internet traffic map on this blog, which depicted in a visually striking way who connects to whom through the web. After looking at the map, a member of our team suggested that we quit our jobs and wait until internet access was more evenly spread. It is estimated [...]
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betterplace – moving from the governmental district to artsy kreuzberg

It was never boring. Outside, there was always something going on – police, the street being blocked due to some VIP (very important politician) visiting, sirenes, blue light. There were so many convois of big black cars with tinted windows. Of course there were also loads and loads of tourists, sitting in double decker busses, [...]
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Experience giving!

  The part I really love most about my work at betterplace is the feedback project managers are sending us (I might have written this before, but that’s the way it is). Normally they do so by e-mail, blogging or uploading photos on their project blog. Not so Ann Wambua, who runs Cecil House in a [...]
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betterplace and Yahoo!Taiwan

I just noticed that Yahoo! Taiwan registered on our platform betterplace. Already two Yahoo! employees have added their profiles to the company’s. And they even donated money to a Project that supports the Quechua Indians in Peru. Amazing – it seems as if they have undestood the concept without support. And this is exactly what [...]
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Moneytransfair

A member of our team, Hannelore, pointed me to a great new website: www.geldtransfair.de The site – commissioned by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation –  compares the conditions for money transfers from Germany to developing nations. Its first version includes only six countries, but Geldtransfairs potential to lower transfer costs and thus fight poverty [...]
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