A visit I made to meet a potential donor last week was reported on in Tactical Philanthropy. See the post, Kitchen Table Philanthropy and see how the world of philanthropy is shifting to become more personal and informal.
Many thanks to both Sara and Sasha.
HHI is proud to be a part of ChangeXchange – check this out!
ChangeXchange, Springboard Innovation’s new online initiative, introduces emerging and proven social ventures to community members and funding organizations alike to allow them to help fill the biggest gap of innovation—seed funding. It also provides a pathway for citizens who want to make a difference. By exploring project profiles, users then “invest” in their chosen project. Their return? Social profit.
Sustaining the good: ChangeXchange unites the core values of Springboard Innovation– sustainability, innovation, and community – and provides a true springboard for launchers of social innovation. The idea is to provide seed funding only to nonprofit organizations that have integrated sustaining strategies into their business plans, building a new kind of change organization that won’t have to spend its time writing grants to make a difference. It can stay focused on mission.
Micro-philanthropy: ChangeXchange allows anyone, regardless of financial or social background, to become an investor in positive social change. This means that you can be a key part of the most cutting edge and innovative solutions to problems in your own community! Micro-philanthropy is now king.
HHI is the first organization to be featured for our sustaining strategy. I ask you to take a few minutes to read about our sustaining plan on ChangeXchange and then invest in HHI. Your investment will make you an investor who is committed to seeing HHI move beyond fund raising and towards greater financial independence. This allows HHI to focus our efforts on serving more women and children in need.
This holiday season HHI has been given the gift of a matching challenge grant from the James R. Greenbaum Jr, Family Foundation. The challenge is that the match applies to all new donors and to any dollar amount over the previous giving level of a previous donor, up to $50,000! We have until December 20th to complete this challenge, at which point our new funds will be automatically doubled by the Foundation. This means that HHI will achieve about half of our year’s fundraising in a very short time. More importantly, it means that HHI will continue to be able to offer our training and support in orphanages, to foster mothers, pre-school teachers, creche center workers and even village mommies who have requested the training from HHI Trainers.
Many of you already know, HHI is a very small, yet very efficient and very powerful organization. We do not have paid marketing staff, paid fundraisers, work in fancy offices or bare any other such unnecessary expenses – yet to date, we have led 128 Trainings in early childhood development, for 1,812 women, who are now providing more nurturing and supportive care to 15,159 orphaned and vulnerable children! Pretty amazing by anyone’s measures.
Due to our early success, and our impressive effectiveness, we have already had conversations with some of the world’s largest non-profits and government groups – UNICEF, World Vision, Family Health International, Medical Teams International, Catholic Relief Services – and the largest early childhood development program on the planet, India’s ICDS, has been successfully using HHI’s training for their teachers for more than a year in India. The other groups are interested in learning and applying HHI’s model within their own systems as well, it makes sense, allowing them to strengthen and streamline their own child health programs.
So, your donations, your support are leading to a global tide shift for child health programming. HHI is proving to be “The Little Program That Could”, and we will soon reach beyond borders, beyond India – our potential is limitless, because our intent is to place our model in the hands of others and support them to spread it to the women and children in the greatest need all over our world… consider the impact!
Please join us now by making a donation now.
Other ways to get in on the match –
I just received the most beautiful and serendipitous email I think I have ever seen! I can not do justice in describing this, other than to simply share it with you. TO introduce the players – Teresa is a long-time friend of volunteer for HHI and she is living in Japan; Gracie is Adam and Amber’s new baby in the Netherlands.
Here is the story as written by Teresa…
This month an incredible thing happened, and I want to tell you the story. Gracie was born February 6, 2008 in the Netherlands. Her American parents, Adam and Amber invited a spiritually diverse circle to nurture Gracie as Godparents, including myself. The Briggles are involved in a community in Amsterdam called the Netherlands Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. http://www.nuuf.nl/ This past winter the NUUF decided as a church community to give Gracie a welcoming gift in the form of a donation to her favorite children’s charity. The Briggles chose Hands to Hearts International, a worthy cause for whom I volunteered in HHI’s founding years. As a massage therapist herself, Amber is particularly inspired by the powerful effect of therapeutic touch for these babies who do not have such a loving circle of providers. And I think Gracie enjoys the massage techniques highlighted on the recently-created HHI DVD!
On June 1, NUUF announced the recipient of this special donation on behalf of Gracie. It so happens that on the same day, the church fellowship had special visitors from Portland: Mark and Carol from the First Unitarian Church in Portland. The Slegers are dear friends of mine and knew about my involvement with HHI. But perhaps they didn’t know how HHI was being mentioned that day in the Netherlands: that it was my Godchild being honored with such a gift. What an incredible coincidence! We are so privileged and blessed to have such loving connections around the world: on that June day the Slegers were visiting Amsterdam, the Briggles were vacationing in Greece with Godmother Elizabeth; Godmother Teresa was living in Japan; other Godparents were sending love from America; and the Netherlands Unitarian Universalist Fellowship was honoring Mary Grace with the gift of love for children in India!
When I told Gracie’s mother about the amazing coincidence, Amber wrote “yes, please tell Laura that I (er, gracie) am donating to HHI because I know YOU, and you have told me about this organization for a few years now, and this is a great way to support the work that she is doing and which I believe is extremely important and loving and needed. Please tell her that a BABY donated to her organization.
I thought you all would take delight in this amazing story. Blessings to Gracie and to the many children who will be served by Hands to Hearts. May all children receive the love and dignity they deserve.
Teresa
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What a heart-warming idea in action, Babies for Babies! I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start my day today.
Laura Peterson
Hands to Hearts International
“Beer for Babies” was HHI’s third annual fundraiser in Portland, supporting our work on behalf of disadvantaged women and orphaned/vulnerable children in developing countries. Our work is very serious, the name of our benefit was for those with a sense of humor and who appreciate the alliteration value of a catchy name. Anyway, the night was filled with great conversation, overwhelming generosity and the inspiration guest appearance of the Bach family, who recently adopted their little girl, Sikha, from an HHI orphanage in India.
George openly shared their story of mystery and discovery, of finding their new daughter. They traveled to the SW state of Kerala, India to meet and adopt Sikha. The Bach’s were braced for the unknown, given that they had heard so many horror stories of institutions – the conditions of them and how they can potentially and permanently warp young lives. They told the story of their amazement, surprise and relief to find Sikha being cared for in an HHI orphanage where they witnessed the caregivers rubbing children’s backs and singing them lullabies as they drifted off to sleep at night. They found that Sikha and all the other children were truly cared for and that she had formed strong bonds with her caregivers. Sikha had formed strong attachments and she grieved to leave the orphanage, the only home she had known and where she felt safe and nurtured. This grief process was hard on everyone (including the orphanage caregivers), but the silver lining in this is that once a child learns to form an attachment, they can transfer that connection and they have developed that capacity to serve them for the rest of their lives, in all of their relationships.It is sometimes hard for me, and I am sure for others, to really see the impact of HHI’s work, but meeting Sikha and seeing her safely snuggled in the arms of her 2 over-joyed parents, it is so obvious and now so tangible!
My deepest thanks to all that participated in creating this event, to those who believe that we can and do make a difference in the lives of others. You gathered your friends, family and colleagues and you all brought a tremendous turn-out of kindness, generosity and fun. The event was a huge success and has ensured that HHI has the resources we need to continue full-tilt in India – and soon beyond!
