Your Mark On The World

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Sara Jones is perhaps the most American-sounding name one can imagine. She is as American as her name sounds. Raised in the United States by her adoptive white family, she admits that because of her Korean heritage she has been accused of being a banana--yellow on the outside but white on the inside. Last year began, however, with an itch to find her biological family. Knowing little more than that she had been adopted from Korea, she began her search. The one other clue she had was a faint scar from having a tattoo removed from her arm when she came to the U.S. Recreating the tattoo with a marker, she shared photos of her arm with the markings on social media. Much faster than she anticipated, she connected with her brother, who has the same tattoo on his arm. She learned that her father had given her up for adoption after her mother left. He had tattooed himself and the three children with the same, simple tattoo: a cross above four

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Samyr Qureshi, the co-founder and CEO of Knack, is scaling up the tutoring platform to serve more students. Knack helps schools to match students who have recently completed a course successfully with students who are taking the course to get the help they need to learn the material. Both students benefit from the experience and schools find this to be an affordable way to improve student outcomes. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to become a hero now.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. As a young professional--a trader at Citigroup--Rhoden Monrose felt a tug to do more good in the world at real scale. He also recognized that others in the Millennial generation had a similar passion for good but weren’t always getting the same opportunities older professionals did. He created CariClub to match young professionals with nonprofits to serve as associate board members, offering the same sort of counsel and connections that their older peers provide on traditional board. The innovative model provides a win to employers (who pay a fee for their employees to participate) in that they get more engaged employees who are building valuable experience at the same time they give back. Young professionals win as they get an opportunity to learn and develop new skills and a broader network even as they give back to their communities. Nonprofits win as they receive an infusion of young talent and perspective. Be a hero! Join the e

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Most teenages find themselves facing important life decisions about where to go to college or trade school. Kids who find themselves on the wrong side of the law or in the foster care system often face starker questions, like where to sleep tonight or how to find food to eat. Such youth face additional challenges in the form of drugs and alcohol that allow them to self-medicate to avoid the pain associated with lives turned upside down, often by circumstances beyond their control. More Than Words is a social enterprise that sells books but does so much more. The nonprofit employs youth who have been involved with the criminal justice system or foster care, teaching them life skills that can mean the difference between surviving as an adult outside the system and not. Founded by Jodi Rosenbaum, the organization is proving to be such an effective intervention that when Boston brought Amazon executives to the city to show off all it had

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2FkG0of. Michelle Thimesch, 55, CEO of Crowdfund Mainstreet and her business partner Jenny Kassan, both attorneys, have a track record of social entrepreneurship themselves. They are passionate about reducing the funding disparities between male and female-led companies and between white and minority-led companies in America. So, when Thimesch invited Kassan to join her in launching Crowdfund Mainstreet, a Regulation Crowdfunding platform governed by FINRA, it was an easy decision. Their mission is to help triple-bottom-line companies and small businesses, especially female-led and minority-led ones, to raise the money they need to be successful. Kassan, for her part, has a long history of working with female entrepreneurs to raise money from nontraditional sources, using whatever exemption from registration made the most sense. Sometimes she helped entrepreneurs

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Dr. Kevin Shurtleff, a tenured professor at Utah Valley University, has developed a prototype of a system that will remove algae from water during an algal bloom and then convert it to energy. While the energy produced cannot financially support the operation, there are reasons governments would pay to remove the algae. Public safety and environmental benefits may justify paying to have the algae removed. Once removed, it can be converted to energy. Kevin is looking for partners to commercialize the idea. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to become a hero now.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2Rs9QgY. Uniti CEO Lewis Horne, 34, thinks selling his nimble little electric cars will be like offering sneakers to a world full of people walking around in big, clunky clown shoes. With the UN’s October IPCC report suggesting we may have less than 12 years to radically reduce carbon emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change, finding ways to make wholesale shifts in consumer behavior is a central premise for this Swedish startup. To make that shift over the next decade, Horne notes that hundreds of millions of internal combustion engine-driven cars will need to be removed from the roads and replaced with efficient electric ones. Uniti, which has 18 employees and is pre-revenue, is in the midst of a £30 million (about $38.1 million) capital raise, including about £1 million (about $1.27 million) available to the public via a crowdfunding campaign on

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Regenerative agriculture is suddenly sexy. Practitioners have been advocating its use for more than a decade but only recently has it begun to catch media attention and with it the public imagination. Why now? Some might say that it is because we are just waking up to the gloomy reality that the planet and every person on it are at risk even if regenerative agriculture is successfully implemented and are almost certainly doomed if we don’t. Kevin Doyle Jones, co-founder of GatherLab and John Steven Bianucci, director of impact for Earth’s New Ways, are among the activists preaching the gospel of regenerative agriculture and they are finding an increasing number of adherents. Regenerative agriculture is not just organic but involves other techniques, like no-till planting and rotating grazing animals on the land, to help the soil retain moisture and carbon, improving yields and Be sure to watch the full interview with Kevin and John S

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. When Jake Teitelbaum was fighting cancer, he hated wearing the hospital-issued socks and instead brought bright socks from home. It gave him a way to manifest his fighting spirit. Having recovered, he’s launched a social enterprise called Resilience Gives, which helps people like Jake himself to design a flashy pair of socks and then sell them to their friends to raise money for a charity of their choice. So far, he reports raising $117,000 from the sale of more than 14,000 pairs of socks in 72 different designs, each one for a charity. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to become a hero now.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. On November 27, 2018, I hosted the second annual #GivingTuesday #GTstreamathon. We had five segments with CaringCrowd or people raising money on the platform. I am proud to be associated with CaringCrowd because its global health mission aligns so well with mine. John Brennick, the co-founder of CaringCrowd joined me to talk about CaringCrowd and together we visited with two of the people who were raising money on #GivingTuesday. First, Philemon Padenou joined us to talk about his work with Code to Hope. “Our mission is to fight poverty by giving future leaders the tools they need to empower their communities.” Next, John and I visited with Stephanie Bowers, the founder of Jakes Diapers, an organization that provides reusable cloth diapers to mothers in the developing world who are often forced to make difficult choices between food and disposable diapers. Later, I visited with Ethel Yang of Operation ASHA. Operation ASHA uses a dat

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Mark Courtney, CEO and founder of 121Giving, which helps nonprofits raise money and in-kind donations. The platform gives nonprofits an opportunity to buy goods they need at a discount as well. The company is presently raising investment funds using its own platform. Preliminary Interview with Mark Courtney, the Founder and CEO Of 121Giving. Crowdfunding Page: https://goo.gl/41Tk5Z Facebook: facebook.com/121Giving/ Website: 121giving.com 121Giving supports crowdfunding or fundraising for Donations, Pre-sales/Rewards, Equity or other investment instruments excluding coins or tokens, Coins or tokens, We are considering all factors right now which are private. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to become a hero now.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Noah Gainsburg has been volunteering at the St. Francis Neighborhood Center for years, mentoring and tutoring youth there. In recent years, he’s become a star fundraiser as well. Christi Green, the executive director at the Center, says Noah is an extraordinary young person who is making a big difference. She particularly admires the confident way he interacts with and tutors the younger kids who are so differently situated. Noah explains that he believes his experiencing the challenges of dyslexia helps him to relate to others, regardless of their trials. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to become a hero now.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2Sa1mYW. Water.org, the nonprofit resulting from the 2009 merger of Matt Damon’s H2O Africa and Gary White’s WaterPartners, has completed an $11 million impact investing pilot project and has already closed on $33 million in a new fund that they hope will reach $50 million. The transition from an entirely philanthropic approach built around drilling wells and building toilets to an investment model is motivated by a desire to reach more people, White, 55, the CEO says. “Frustration with the pace of our impact led me to try something entirely new.” The resulting model does not require Water.org—or WaterEquity, the new entity it formed to make and receive water, sanitation and hygiene or WASH-related impact investments—to make individual loans to consumers in their target markets. Instead, WaterEquity provides investment capital to microfinance companies that provi

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2EpM26y. Dr. Michelle Harrison, the founder of Shisur Sevay, says, “There was a moment where I said to myself, ‘So, you’ve always been a critic, see if you can do any better.’” After visiting Kolkata, she repeatedly heard that there was a category of unadoptable girls for whom nothing could be done and short, miserable lives are all that they could hope to experience. Harrison couldn’t believe that “nothing” was the best that could be done and set out to prove it. Her home, which she describes as “non-institutional,” suggesting a smaller scale and more homelike atmosphere, now houses about 15 girls, about half of whom have a significant disability. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2EpM26y. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to b

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Nicholas Metropulos, 19, leads Fishing for Families in Need, a nonprofit organization founded by his brother more than a decade ago. The organization teaches children about the environment and responsible angling. As the name suggests, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit also provides fish to hungry families. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to become a hero now.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Cynthia English founded Global Scribes to create an international peace movement for youth that empowers them to make a difference starting wherever they are. With members in 44 countries, the organization is off to a good start. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can continue to be shared! Visit heroes4good.org to become a hero now.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2UvrOxP. Investing in regenerative agriculture has the potential to address not only the food supply but also climate change, peace and conflict resolution and the water supply to boot. This impact investing strategy could be the biggest lever for creating positive change available to investors today. It also appears to generate healthy financial returns. Craig Wichner, 49, founder and managing partner for Farmland LP, a fund manager that invests in converting conventional farmland to regenerative, organic farming. “It has so many benefits to the environment, to human society,” he says. “But we're also demonstrating that you can grow a great, healthy, wonderful food and be more profitable than conventional agriculture systems.” Farmland LP acquires traditionally managed farmland, typically used to produce commodity crops and converts it to organic using regenerat

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2SGOidw. Nonprofit Providence St. Joseph Health, the third largest health care system in the United States, traces its roots back to the Sisters of Providence and the Sisters of t. Joseph of Orange. Their missions were to serve all members of their communities, “especially the poor and vulnerable,” says Aaron Martin, 49, executive vice president and chief digital officer. That motivation now guides the system’s $150 million health care impact investment fund. Martin, who had no health care experience before joining Providence, now leads its efforts to improve health outcomes and improve service levels using technology. Investments are made via Providence Ventures, a fund created by the parent and funded entirely by it to accelerate the digital mission. So far, the fund has invested in 13 companies, two of which were Providence innovations that are being spun out

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. As the plant-based economy booms, Måns Ullerstam’s vision of a cleaner, more sustainable environment that is no longer threatened by climate change is beginning to gain credibility and legitimacy. Måns is raising funds on FundedByMe to allow his Kale United to invest directly in and provide other support to startups focused on the vegan community. Investments may go to virtually any player in that ecosystem from the farmers to app developers if they enhance the movement. For Måns, the important impact of a vegan lifestyle is environmental. He acknowledges that not killing animals to eat them tends to extend their lives and that a vegan diet is recognized by many scientists as being more healthy, but his focus is on the environmental benefits--especially climate change. Agriculture produces more carbon than any other sector of the global economy. Reducing consumption of meat and dairy has more potential to mitigate climate change than

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin. Christian Harrison was still a child when his older sister Kasee went missing. It would be decades before it was determined that she was one of Gary Ridgway’s 71 victims. Regarded as the most prolific serial killer in American history, he received a sentence of life in prision in exchange for information about unsolved murders, including the location of remains. While many of the victims’ family members decried the deal as failing to adequately punish him for his heinous crimes, Christian arrived at a different conclusion. He argues that “closure” is not an event that survivors experience upon execution of a perpetrator but that it is a process that occurs largely independent of the perpetrator’s punishment. Please be sure to watch the full interview in the player at the top of the article to understand Christian’s perspective on the death penalty. Be a hero! Join the elite group of supporters who ensure that stories like this can con