What Makes Extreme Do-Gooders Tick?
"From protecting our natural environment to improving our children's education to combating global poverty and disease, we've come to rely on extreme do-gooders to tackle the world's toughest problems. Few of them will make as much as they could in the private sector. They may lose a relationship with a loved one to their work, or miss their kids' big moments. All of which raises the obvious: Why?... posted on Aug 18 2011, 4,778 reads

Her Heart Was Bigger Than This Room
It is a tragic story, but one that touches and inspires. For her 9th birthday, instead of getting presents for her, Rachel Beckwith asked loved ones to donate to charity:water, a nonprofit bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Her goal was $300, enough to give 15 children access to clean water, but she only got to $220. A month later, tragedy struck, when her fami... posted on Aug 17 2011, 10,688 reads

Sacred Giving and Receiving
Giving has long been a central part of American Indian cultures. It may be a means of giving thanks, of bringing the people together, of gaining honor, of distributing material goods so that all may survive, or of teaching. Giving away things informally is also common in American Indian communities in times of good fortune. And yet, in much of the twentieth century, American Indian giveaway practi... posted on Aug 16 2011, 35,985 reads

The Horse Whisperer
"Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see," says Buck Brannaman, a cowboy who travels around the U.S. helping horses with "people problems." The documentary film, Buck, follows Brannaman from an abused childhood to an incredibly successful relationship with horses. In the film, the animal-human relationship becomes a metaphor for facing the daily challenges ... posted on Aug 15 2011, 5,853 reads

7 Ways to Have More by Owning Less
Stuff. We invariably accumulate it and often times develop a certain emotional attachment to it. To some extent, it's the effect of increased marketing, but it is also our own conditioning. Fortunately, new digital platforms and cloud-based tools are making it increasingly easy to have many of the things we want without actually owning them. Because, as Wired founder and notable futurist Kevin Kel... posted on Aug 11 2011, 91,236 reads

The 3 Stages of Generosity
How do you think about generosity? In this recent TEDx Talk, Nipun Mehta shares his experiences with generosity, broken down into three stages: Give, Receive, and Dance! When you give, you find that the compassion felt around you is contagious and it, in turn, creates a community. When you receive, you discover abundance, you realize generosity exists in so many different ways. And finally, when y... posted on Aug 09 2011, 5,167 reads

Going Beyond Profit
The simple for-profit model that has guided business practice in the past appears to be shifting towards a new paradigm. Profitability is important, but only when it serves the more fundamental goal of creating value for others through our gifts. And when a company's strategy loses touch with this key principle, the potential for true value-creation is also lost. In this article, Decision Analyst ... posted on Aug 08 2011, 14,305 reads

Sister Cyril's Compassionate Vision
As principal of Loreto School in Calcutta, Irish Catholic nun Sister Cyril has worked some real-world miracles. Her school serves 1500 female students, of which 721 are so poor that they need food, medicines, and even money to meet the rent. By bringing children together like this, she is showing a way for middle class schools to integrate the poor living around them into their educational mainst... posted on Aug 07 2011, 7,572 reads

The 'Before I Die' Project
Artist Candy Chang had an idea to turn an abandoned property in New Orleans into a sort of collective performance art piece in which all are invited to participate, simply by declaring what is important to them. Participants are invited to complete the sentence "Before I die I want to ..." Chang has provided chalk, a large-scale blackboard, and the necessary permits. A thought-provoking piece of p... posted on Aug 06 2011, 16,044 reads

Kind Kids
Every parent wants to raise a kind, helpful child. But how? A recent study in Germany suggests that it might be easier than we think. According to the study's authors, humans have a strong predisposition toward altruism, evident from the time they're toddlers. The researchers found that it was surprisingly simple to motivate young kids to act on their altruistic instincts. When toddlers were subtl... posted on Aug 04 2011, 12,853 reads