Change Agent
Charitable works, NGOs, nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and ordinary people with great ideas on how to make a positive change in their communities and around the globe.
Ioby helps environmental groups in New York City work locally and invest in the community (Courtesy of Dowser.org)
Earth Day: Ioby (In Our Back Yard) brings climate change efforts down to the grass-roots
Each year on Earth Day, there are programs and events encouraging awareness of global environmental concerns. But some widespread problems, like climate change, can seem so massive that it’s difficult to know how individuals and grassroots groups can really make a difference, or where to start.
Ioby (In Our Back Yards) is a New York City-based organization that uses an online crowdfunding platform to support local, community-based environmental projects. By working at the neighborhood level, ioby hopes to emphasize the concrete ways that people can tackle global environmental problems at home.
Dowser: What is unique about ioby’s mission as an environmental organization?
Erin Barnes, co-founder and executive director: It’s part of the values that we have as an organization to work locally and be invested in the community. Ioby, the name, comes from the opposite of “nimby” (Not In My Backyard).
We started the organization because we felt like the environmental movement had long been concentrated on places where people don’t live. We felt that the interaction between people or communities and the environment was meaningful.
Every project we support through our site has to meet our environmental criteria. They have to be doing something that benefits the community too.
Why use a crowdfunding model, rather than the standard nonprofit model of grants and donations?
A lot of people feel compelled to do something for the environment but they have limited options: replace this lightbulb, buy this bamboo cutting board, and so on. Pretty empty transactions. We wanted to harness this energy and redirect it toward projects that are creating impact and need support.
So we met with the CEO and Founder of Donors Choose, Charles Best, and told him our ideas, and he was encouraging. Then we met with other leaders in the environmental movement and asked whether using an online funding platform to fund grass-roots work would be helpful, and they said it would.
Next we reached out to grass-roots groups and asked if they thought our platform could be useful to help them raise funds. And then, to our surprise, they asked if they could also use it to find volunteers online, so we’re incorporating that major change to our platform in our site re-launch this week. We’re making it easier for volunteers and project leaders to find each other.
As to running ioby itself, we’re a little over 90 percent funded by foundations and hopefully we’ll become self-sustaining over time. We’re in our second year of operation now.
What’s something that you’ve been challenged or surprised by in the last month?
It’s been a reminder of how lucky we are to work in the environmental community in NYC that other environmental organizations have been incredibly generous in helping us get off the ground. In the last month we’ve had the opportunity to host an event called the Wild & Scenic Film Festival along with other local environmental organizations. We feel that so much of our success is due to working with these amazing organizations.
What are some future directions for ioby?
Right now we’re expanding on a public art project in which New Yorkers are re-imagining our city by putting up signs that suggest ways the urban landscape can be improved.
The global environmental movement need to be about every single person taking part in solving global issues like climate change, and we want to make sure that nobody is held back from that. So the re-imagination series is about everybody taking ownership for their neighborhoods and considering ways it can be made better for the ecosystem, and stating that through a public art display.
We’ll be putting up a downloadable PDF of the sign on the website just before Earth Day weekend so that anyone can join the re-imagination campaign.
What are some small ways that people everywhere can take action to improve the environment?
Talk to your neighbors about how your area can be more green - literally more green - a more enjoyable place to be, and what you can do to make it better: keep an eye on the sidewalks, make sure there is not garbage in the treebeds. Remember to recycle, and compost to reduce trash that needs to be picked up.
Take care of the space around you. You can do a lot on your block.
What if we don’t know our neighbors?
If you don’t know your neighbors, you could attend block parties and public events, or simply spend time outside of your apartment meeting people and getting to know them. Just something as small as saying "hi." And go seek out your local community garden or park, since those people are already making a difference.
Interview has been edited and condensed.
This interview first appeared on Dowser.org.
GALLERY: Earth Day 2011
The '60 minutes' CBS news program reported in April that some of the schools supposedly built by Greg Mortenson – a globally known spokesperson for girls' education and author of the bestselling 'Three Cups of Tea' – do not exist or were constructed by other organizations. (ZUMA Press/Newscom)
Greg Mortenson's 'stumble': Three cups of trouble for other charities, too?
What's likely to be the fallout from the "60 Minutes" broadcast Sunday on Greg Mortenson, author of the 2006 best-selling book "Three Cups of Tea"?
The program charged that he had distorted aspects of his personal story and his work building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (You can watch the "60 Minutes" report here.) It claims that some of the most touching tales in Mortenson's book are "appear to be either greatly exaggerated or made up out of whole cloth."
The "60 Minutes" piece also says that many of the 170 schools that Mortenson’s charity, The Central Asia Institute (CAI), allegedly built in Pakistan and Afghanistan either don't exist, were built by others, or are not being used as schools.
The CAI website has posted several documents from both Mortenson and its Board of Directors that take issue with the "60 Minutes" report. The board issued a statement that includes the following:
"Through his work empowering communities in some of the most remote areas in the world, and through his successful books that share the stories of his experiences, Greg has accomplished the real and extraordinary work of bringing education to girls and boys in Pakistan and Afghanistan who otherwise would have no educational opportunity to enable them to help themselves and their communities. It would be truly tragic if the sensationalized allegations against him were to harm the future of this crucial work."
Mortenson may be one of the most famous philanthropists in the world, speaking frequently on book tours and in interviews with news media. The Monitor's PMAD profile of Mortenson appeared Dec. 9, 2009 ("Key to Afghan crisis: tea and education"). Veteran freelance journalist Todd Wilkinson was able to catch up with the peripatetic author on a quick visit home to Bozeman, Mont. The piece centers on how Mortenson's understanding of Afghan culture has helped the US military work more effectively in concert with Afghan villagers. Though Mortenson is quoted several times, much of the story comes from other sources in Afghanistan, including US military spokespeople and a US congresswoman.
A Monitor story April 18 noted that "fallout from the questions surrounding development spending in Afghanistan and Pakistan could also create difficulties for other aid workers."
The story quotes another subject of a Monitor PMAD profile, Asher Hasan, founder of Naya Jeevan, a nonprofit which provides low-income workers access to affordable health insurance. "A lot of potential philanthropists or donors will think twice about investing in Pakistan.... People will view foreign organizations more cynically. They will think they are using these stories for their own self-enrichment.”
Sara Jensen, another development worker in Afghanistan, said: “Greg was a golden boy for people who were not normally involved in development. It made them feel good ... that there were people out there fighting on their behalf for women’s right to education.... I think and hope that people will be disappointed, and that they will demand increased accountability and transparency.”
Alanna Shaikh at the UN Dispatch blog ("3 Lessons to Learn From Greg Mortenson and L'Affair Cups of Tea") argues that "it’s not a sign that we should give up all efforts to support good work in the world. There are plenty of good charities out there, and there was no shortage of early signs that CAI wasn’t one of them." Among the warning signs at CAI: a small, tight-knit three-member board with insufficient oversight; no clear evaluation of the CAI's work on its website; and no explanation on the site of why they chose to build schools.
A Reuters story suggests that cash-strapped US states are unable to keep a close-enough watch on charities like Mortenson's. "In the for-profit sector, the line between what is illegal and what is merely bad judgment is clearly defined: [Bernie] Madoff committed fraud and is in jail," said Mark Kramer, co-founder of nonprofit consulting firm FSG and author of "Do More Than Give: The 6 Practices of Donors Who Change the World." "When one takes on the moral weight of running a charity, however, the rules are less clear," he said. "Unlike the for-profit sector, the scandal doesn't depend on whether something is illegal – merely whether it sounds bad."
Meanwhile, a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper says Mortenson will be sued by the Pakistani tribesmen who Mortenson says kidnapped him. They now say he was a welcomed guest.
Mortenson is currently in a hospital in Bozeman, Mont., awaiting heart surgery. The Montana attorney general says he is opening an inquiry into Mortenson's charity. "While looking into this issue, my office will not jump to any conclusions – but we have a responsibility to make sure charitable assets are used for their intended purposes," Attorney General Steve Bullock says.
Will the the controversy over Mortenson deliver a severe blow to other nonprofits working in developing countries? Are greater efforts needed to provide transparency and accountability among charitable organizations?
What do you think?
April 16th marks the anniversary of the death of Pakistani rug-slave-turned-activist Iqbal Massih who championed work against child labor and inspired the work of GoodWeave, a market-based solution to child labor in South Asia’s textile industry. The GoodWeave label on rugs assures consumers that no children were employed in its making and that the product was certified by GoodWeave’s rigorous licensing process. (Robin Romano (2007) www.RomanoPhotography.com)
Unraveling child labor from hand-made rugs: Q&A with Nina Smith of GoodWeave
April 16 marks the anniversary of the death of Pakistani rug-slave-turned-activist Iqbal Massih who championed work against child labor and inspired the work of GoodWeave, a market-based solution to child labor in South Asia’s textile industry. The GoodWeave label on rugs assures consumers that no children were employed in its making and that the product was certified by GoodWeave’s rigorous licensing process.
GoodWeave-certified producers comply with an extensive certification standard and undergo monitoring of their facilities. Importers of GoodWeave textiles pay a small royalty fee that GoodWeave and partner organizations use to educate and rehabilitate former child weavers. Below, Dowser talks with GoodWeave executive director Nina Smith about the organization’s holistic approach and how it seeks to honor Iqbal’s memory.
Dowser: What role did Iqbal’s story have in inspiring you to work against child labor?
Smith: I had a background in international news media and early on in that career took an extensive trip through Latin America, where I had some personal experiences with low income indigenous women weavers who were desperate to sell their work. A light bulb went off for me that something was wrong with the system if people like me might pay far less to someone than it should really cost for them to be paid fairly. That led me into thinking about a business to link producers of goods to the end users who buy them, and to try to tell the stories of people who make products to consumers to help them make equitable choices. At that point in the early 1990s the fair trade movement was just getting started, and I got involved with them. I was offered a job to work in India with Tibetan refugee producers in India making crafts. After about a year there I came back and got further involved with the fair trade organization to figure out what my role could best be.
I read the story of Iqbal in a Vanity Fair article in 1994 right after his murder and we were just getting launched under the name of Rugmark, and it reminded me that there are serious labor rights and human rights abuses in supply chains. I thought the model being developed here was really perfect because it’s working against a focused issue (child labor) in a focused marketplace (carpets and textiles) with consumers you can easily communicate with.
RELATED: Bangladeshi women wins rights for child workers
How has GoodWeave evolved as an organization?
Our recent re-brand is a physical manifestation of our evolution toward a holistic antipoverty model. In the early days no one was doing what we did and we were developing and improving a model, but as time went on we could work more on bringing transparency and rigor to the work on the ground we do, and how to make this work owned by all stakeholders. We couldn’t just work on child labor in a void – it’s so intertwined with other labor issues so forced labor, wage issues, health and safety issues, and even environmental issues. We’ve developed a new certification standard that looks at six other issues beyond and intertwined with child labor.
What do you think are the primary drivers of child labor common in the areas where you work? Which of those drivers can GoodWeave work against and which are more difficult to change?
Many issues are intertwined and changing within child labor and we have to – and do - work with all of them. The key drivers are poverty – because parents can’t afford to put food on the table or educate children they do things out of desperation, like taking a loan against their child –, lack of access to education, and political unrest and the bigger issues it drives. The global economy effects labor in so many ways. Right now in Nepal people are so desperate for sustaining jobs that make workers are going overseas to the Middle East and Nepal itself is actually lacking in skilled weavers, which makes them more likely to take on children. Consumers in the United States are buying cheaper products and countries that have always produced higher end products are losing market share. The key thing that we do is we decidedly remove demand for products made by child labor, and issues can be solved when we remove demand.
How does changing consumer demand alter labor conditions?
In many ways. A company may stop buying rugs unless they are child-labor free. Consumers drive their demands for fair labor practices back onto the market. The more we can license companies into our system, the more certified products there are to sell, and the more funds we can generate for our rescuing and education programs for former child workers which streamline children into local school initiatives and ideally deter them from the sector.
What do you mean when you say you rescue a child from child labor?
When a company licenses the GoodWeave certification they agree to operate under our random inspections – three strikes against them and they lose the certification. Most of the children we rescue are identified when a company first joins us. When child labor is found in any of our locations the children are removed and provided with opportunities and choices so that they can go right into rehabilitation programs which are run by local partner NGOs.
I understand that child labor in the handmade rug industry is down 75% since you began your work. What are your metrics for GoodWeave's success and how have you measured them thus far?
First we measure success in the marketplace by the uptake of our certification in the business community. 15-20% market share of the total industry would mean success to us, and we’re measuring our market growth year to year. We also look at the kind of actors that are adopting us. It used to be smaller high end rug companies but it’s changing. We’re launching publicly at Macy’s in a few months, which feels like a huge success for us.
Do the changes in your partner companies reflect your goals and reflect an interest in this kind of certification?
The initial companies to sign on with us were those predisposed to social responsibility, and we did feel that going for companies at the high end of the market was very important because it was the products people saw as the highest quality. Over time we’ve watched larger, more complicated companies sign up. Those take longer and need a stronger business case to come on board. We’ve gotten to the point where we can demonstrate a clear business case for GoodWeave and show evidence that it helps sales and at minimum it doesn’t hurt. We’re moving into a space where we’re getting companies that are motivated much more purely for business reasons; for risk mitigation factors, because all their competitors are doing it, or because consumers actively want it.
What are the biggest obstacles you face in your work and how do you work to overcome them?
We want to grow but a scaling plan always needs to be focused on insuring integrity and quality. We’re about to receive some funds to go into Afghanistan, which is an important rug-producing country that could use the work that we do. This will be a real value-add for the products coming from Afghanistan. Still, working there is going to be a challenge to keep it to the same standard as other places where we work.
There are still a lot of big players out there in the textile industry that aren’t getting involved in this work, and if they did it would make it a lot easier. One other challenge is that there’s so much need in the communities that we work in that we can’t fulfill. We think that if we can shift the demand to child-labor-free products we can eventually change individual lives, but at the same time we’re working one-on-one with children in tough situations who are aging out of our system. We’re looking to partner and improve on how we can help them move on to college or the next thing.
What does remembering Iqbal on April 16th mean to you?
Iqbal’s story moved me to the point of wanting to work on this and prevent other children from being in bondage as child labor. He escaped child labor and started becoming an activist for other children still on the looms. He won the Reebok human rights award in the early 1990s and [was] murdered for his activism when he returned to Pakistan. He’s a true martyr for this cause. Telling his story reconnects me emotionally to this cause and helps me remind other people why this work that we do is so important. There are about 250,000 children working today the way that Iqbal did. Faces and stories and names are what really connect people to issues, and remembering Iqbal reminds me why I do what I do.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
This interview originally appeared at Dowser.org.
Hilton Kelley stands on a playground in front of the Motiva oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. Kelley has just received a $150,000 Goldman Environmental Prize for his efforts to fight pollution in the community. He left a burgeoning career in Hollywood in 2000 and moved back to his hometown after seeing its plight. (Carmen K. Sisson/Cloudybright)
Welcome to 'Change Agent'
It's National Volunteer Week. What better time to launch a new blog about helping others.
A "Change Agent" stirs things up. She or he isn't satisfied with the world the way it is. Things can be changed for the better. Problems await solutions. People are capable of finding them.
For two years the Monitor has been singling out one individual somewhere in the world each week to highlight as a person making a difference. We're about to publish our 100th profile in the "People Making a Difference" series online and in print: Hilton Kelley, a winner of this year's Goldman Environmental Prize.
Internally we call these stories PMADs. The idea was conceived by former Monitor editor Richard Bergenheim. Our current editor, John Yemma, did a great job of explaining the role of PMADs at the Monitor last fall in his Editor's Blog.
This Change Agent blog hopes to build on and supplement these PMAD stories with more dialogue on how nonprofit groups, social entrepreneurs, and other motivated individuals are helping others. We'll be pointing out good stories about PMAD-like doers both in the Monitor and elsewhere on the Web. We hope to post occasional exclusive interviews with PMADs here, too.
And Change Agent will be a venue for guest bloggers, for top social entrepreneurs, web journalists, and people working on projects to help others. Among the contributors will be the writers at Dowser.org, founded by David Bornstein, and Pamela Hawley, the founder and CEO of UniversalGiving.org.
Who are the Change Agents in your community and what makes them successful? What can we learn from each other? What are the best ways to get started in making a difference? Do you have an inspiring story to share?
Let's have a discussion.
-- Greg Lamb, editor of the Monitor's "People Making a Difference" feature
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