Chefs prepare food at the co-op restaurant Colors in New York City, started by former employees of the Windows of The World restaurant at the World Trade Center that was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Across the US workers are starting employee-owned businesses, from health-care co-ops to general stores. (Keith Bedford/Reuters/File)
11:42 am ET -How manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and others are doing business the cooperative way.
People Making a Difference (View all)
- Difference Maker Dave Valle plays on a new field: microloans that help to end poverty
- Changing the world, McDonald's style: 5 great social franchises
- Dana Frasz wants to see a Food Shift – away from waste
- Geeks to the rescue: How to save the world in 54 hours
- Oklahoma City tornado: more ways to help
- An art museum uses technology to lure young patrons
- Steve Jobs widow: How is Laurene Powell Jobs spending her wealth? (+video)
- Actor, dressed as woman, feels Egypt's sexual harassment
- Difference Maker He serves breakfast – with a side order of respect – to the homeless
- How mussels could help clean polluted waters
More People Making a Difference
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Sharing good news helps break down the myth of our own powerlessness
Scary stories of kidnappings and explosions lead our news feeds, but there are plenty of empowering stories of progress – if we look for them.
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US Navy ship to sail the Pacific on a humanitarian mission
The US Navy has been sending its vessels on humanitarian missions since 2006, when it sent the hospital ship USNS Mercy to the Philippines, Indonesia, and other Asian countries.
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Two extraordinary African women tell their stories
As disabled women refugees, Dahabo Hassan Maow and Aitm Caroline Ogwang faced tremendous obstacles. But they've overcome every one and now advocate for other women in need.
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Detroit calls on its Do-It-Yourself Department
A growing number of volunteers, some affluent, some just average guys riding their Toros, perform services, such as mowing the parks, that Detroit can no longer afford.
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Difference Maker He brought Christianity into the streets to promote civil rights
Episcopal priest Malcolm Boyd has taken the message of Christianity outside the walls of church to champion minority rights and show that God is everywhere.
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Mobile phones unleash farmers in Uganda
The information farmers in Uganda provide via mobile phones does more than just help them order and pay for supplies. It allows the collection of data that will help them sell their crops, build a credit history, and receive other services, such as crop insurance.
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India seeks new ways to fund energy-efficient lighting
Replacing even a couple of conventional light bulbs with CFLs results in huge cost savings for poor families in India. But with carbon markets failing new ways to fund bulb replacement are being sought.
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Chris Bradshaw ships books to Africa to help make the impossible possible
The African Library Project has sent 1 million books overseas and built 1,000 libraries in nine different countries.
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Poverty-fighting 'elephant' boosts farmers in India
Hardy 'elephant' or Napier grass has proved to be a cheap and nutritious fodder for livestock in poor and drought-prone areas of India.
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Joshua Williams found his purpose in life – at age 5
Middle-schooler Joshua Williams is the founder and president of Joshua's Heart Foundation, a Miami-based organization dedicated to combating hunger and helping individuals improve their quality of life.
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Difference Maker Seiji Yoshimura rushes to natural disasters to help
Inspired by the work of an American missionary long ago, Seiji Yoshimura helps out at disaster sites across Asia, including in his native Japan.
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Protecting land rights using Wikipedia-style maps
Building data bases of land ownership, Wikipedia-style, would be a cheap and easy way for poor, rural communities to compile a record of property rights and land use, reducing corruption and helping to lessen illegal land grabs.
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$10M gift to restore slave quarters at Thomas Jefferson estate
A gift from a philanthropist will recreate Mulberry Row, which housed slaves at Monticello, the plantation of the author of the Declaration of Independence and the words 'all men are created equal.'
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Saudi Arabia launches first campaign to stop violence against women
Abuse of women has been a taboo subject, but in a bold first step a new advertising campaign encourages female victims to come out of hiding.
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A different road out of poverty: saving instead of borrowing
Microloans get all the publicity, but the key to upward mobility for the world's poor may be to rely on simple savings plans, which offer a debt-free way to build wealth, make investments, and better one's life.
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Civic Accelerator boosts young businesses who want to do good
The program funds five for-profit and five nonprofit startups, then throws them together to teach each other the best ways to get a social venture to succeed.
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Ben Affleck will live on $1.50 to support charity (+video)
Ben Affleck supports Live Below the Line by taking on the challenge of living on $1.50 per day, just as 1.4 billion people around the world must do every day.
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After Boston Marathon bombing: Faith in Watertown
A pastor at a suburban church in Watertown, Mass., reflects on the Boston Marathon bombing, the pursuit of a terrorist suspect to her town, and how her congregation lived through a nightmare to emerge 'filled with a mighty spirit … a holy one.'
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LeanIn.Org pushes women to stick with career ambitions
LeanIn.Org, founded by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, 'plans to focus on very practical and actionable skills that women can use in the workplace and that men and women can use to combat gender biases,' says its president, Rachel Thomas.
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EcoZoom builds a market for clean cookstoves in developing economies
In impoverished areas, people spend $1 to $2 per day to burn charcoal or wood to cook food, a huge expensive for them. A clean-burning cookstove cuts that cost by more than half.








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