All People Making a Difference
- Solar power: cheap electricity for world’s poor
More than a billion people worldwide lack access to electricity. The best way to bring it to them is to provide ever-cheaper, clean, locally produced solar power that can replace dirty and dangerous kerosene.
- Five private companies helping to reduce hunger
Pepsico, Kraft, Cargill, Land O' Lakes, and TNT Express are among many companies that have created nonprofit divisions to help alleviate hunger in developing countries.
- Question Box helps people Google can't reach
Millions of people in the developing world lack internet access and the ability to 'Google' an answer to their questions. Question Box provides a simple solution.
- What women really want for Valentine's Day: more freedom
The biggest Valentine's Day gift to women would be more freedom to make their own choices about when and how often to give birth, says Worldwatch Institute president Robert Engelman.
- Charlie Weingarten finds fresh ways to champion selfless acts of philanthropy
A member of a philanthropic family founded Explore.org to inspire selflessness and lifelong learning.
- Five reasons to serve others
When you serve, you discover that often the most important things you have to offer are not things at all, says the founder of Servicespace.org
- Paddling down the Colorado River to surface its secrets
Will Stauffer-Norris and Zak Podmore traveled 1,700 miles to assess the state of the beautiful but threatened Colorado River.
- Thistle Farms cultivates a better alternative to life on the streets
Episcopal priest Becca Stevens founded Thistle Farms – which makes bath oils, candles, and thistle paper – to help women in trouble reboot their lives.
- Can Facebook pursue a social mission and go public at the same time?
Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is about more than making money – it has a 'social mission to make the world more open and connected.' Are the two goals compatible?
- As tensions over wealth gap rise, the rich are giving more
The top 50 charitable donors gave more in 2011: Are the super rich feeling the sting of public opinion?
- Difference MakerDeng Fei goes beyond journalism to right wrongs in China
Once a top investigative reporter in China, Deng Fei now writes a popular microblog that moves readers to action.
- Super Bowl puts spotlight on philanthropist's life
Myra Kraft's good works inspire Patriots football players and the New England region.
- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman urge fans to help Africa
In a show of corporate social responsibility, DC Comics unleashes its superheroes on the problems in the Horn of Africa
- Super Bowl pizzas give US troops a taste of home
Through Pizzas4Patriots Mark and Kent Evans send thousands of pizzas to US troops stationed overseas on Super Bowl Sunday and the 4th of July.
- Alison Smith works to reform campaign finance by using public funds
She helped pass a campaign finance reform law in Maine where candidates qualify for public funds and are beholden only to voters.
- John-Paul Maxfield aims to put nutrients from food waste back into the soil
Waste Farmers collects organic waste and creates organic agricultural products like fertilizer, potting soil, biochar, and compost tea.
- Difference MakerTony Boursiquot rushed home to Haiti to become a 'defender of the weakest.'
After the 2010 earthquake, Tony Boursiquot hurried home to help save Haiti's next generation.
- How Haiti is fighting poverty by killing cash
With many of Haiti's physical banks destroyed, Haitians are beginning to rely on their cell phones as 'mobile wallets.'
- New California law combats human slavery
California law requires companies to make clear what they are doing to rid their foreign suppliers from the use forced labor or human trafficking.
- Dylan Harris sends adventurous travelers inside 'pariah' nations
North Korea and Iran are among the destinations for Lupine Travel, which offers a first-hand view of countries most of the world shuns.