On 1 January 1999, Travis Gale (aged 17) and Stephen Bonaconsa (aged 27) left Johannesburg on a mission to cycle across four continents and raise R1 million for children living with, and affected by HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal. They pedalled out of Johannesburg, riding mountain bikes equipped with panniers, carrying the basic requirements for an adventure. They rode unsupported. No Instagram or Facebook. It was just the two of them and the open road. The pair successfully cycled over 16 000 kilometres, across four continents, through 16 countries, raising R1.7 million for their cause.

When asked to share about his experience, Travis very rarely spends time talking about the start or the finish of the tour. The stories Travis shares are from The Middle. It’s The Middle that tests us with challenges, yielding a multitude of emotions. It’s The Middle that involves the raw and often painful need to dig deep, to push through the barriers that stand in our way, and show ourselves what we are capable of. The Middle is what we, as human beings, were designed for. We can all pitch up at start lines. We can all celebrate a finish. But no finish is without a Middle and every Middle is where WHO WE ARE is revealed.

This book, The Middle, includes eight stories, drawn from eight key days of a world cycle tour, which will encourage and equip people through The Middle; the territory we must navigate in pursuit of our goals.

Social entrepreneurship is growing and is at the top of the UK government's agenda for improving the provision of welfare services to individuals and communities. This book introduces students and practitioners to the current policy context of UK social entrepreneurship and the focus on those skills practitioners need to initiate, to develop, and to run enterprises in this field. It is first text to bring together the different insights of academics and practitioners of social entrepreneurship. It shows how to identify community need, to work in partnership with the intended recipients of a service, to finance enterprises, and to manage organizations through their various developmental stages. The book provides readers with the ability to reflect on how these key skills operate in the real world by the presentation of case studies from the UK, the US, China, and India.

Charities in Britain contribute over GBP40 billion to the economy. More than a million people serve as trustees in a wide range of not-for-profit organisations. Yet there are almost no books to help them perform this important task. In this book, the author brings a fresh perspective to the role of trustee. He provides a range of practical advice to help and guide you to become a successful and confident trustee, including tips on developing strategy, handling governance issues, forming good communications and ensuring you are informed about what is happening within the charity. There are chapters on finance and on handling fraud. Written in a jargon-free style, it should become the go-to book for those who want to put their skills to use serving as a trustee in a not-for-profit organisation.

Economics for Nonprofit Managers and Social Entrepreneurs updates the world's first textbook in nonprofit economics, and shows how economics contributes to better managerial decisions on social matters. A pioneering textbook for nonprofit and social managers, this second edition adds risk analysis, game theory, and behavioral economics to the managerial tool kit, along with analysis at the margin, opportunity cost, elasticity of demand and supply, market power, and cost-benefit analysis, with numerous timely examples. This text is essential for nonprofit managers and social entrepreneurs, and of interest to all economics students.

Wouldn't charity governance be so much easier if it wasn't for all of your fellow trustees? Being knowledgeable and experienced as a trustee is important, but having the ability to interact effectively with your fellow board members, that is where good governance really starts. Get it wrong and, very quickly, you've got a battle on the board. Working in sustained harmony towards a common goal can be a tall order for many trustees. Debra Allcock Tyler's approach to this challenging subject is characteristically engaging as she adopts a different ABBA tune as the theme for each chapter. Frank and with real-life examples firmly to the fore, she mixes leadership theory with practical advice delivered straight from the shoulder. It includes: * Understanding the trustee role * Working with fellow trustees and the CEO * Compliance and regulation * Dealing with information and understanding the money * The psychology of decision-making * Managing risk and handling crisis So, if you are a trustee or about to become one, you will benefit from the insights and hard-won wisdom distilled in this book. If you want to be the dancing queen (or king) of good governance and avoid a waterloo for your charity, then this book is for you.

Opening novel avenues of knowledge in the study of African philanthropy and development, this incisive book provides a critical assessment of philanthropic responses during crisis and non-crisis periods. It explores how collaboration between multilateral institutions and philanthropic organisations during a crisis can be harnessed and replicated to address the continent's developmental challenges during non-crisis periods. Combining empirical insights with cutting edge theory, this forward-thinking book investigates the activities of high-net worth individuals, foundations, and corporate actors working with governments to create shared value. Through individual case studies and comparative analyses across diverse sectors and geographies, chapters demonstrate how shared value is crucial to building resilience in societies through philanthropy. The book ultimately makes a call for deeper and more meaningful forms of collaboration among the key actors in society: governments, the private sector, high-net worth individuals, and multilateral institutions. This highly innovative book will be an essential resource for researchers and academics interested in development studies, the sociology of organisations, and social policy in developing countries. Its empirical grounding will also inform policy responses in crisis and non-crisis periods.

Economics for Nonprofit Managers and Social Entrepreneurs updates the world's first textbook in nonprofit economics, and shows how economics contributes to better managerial decisions on social matters. A pioneering textbook for nonprofit and social managers, this second edition adds risk analysis, game theory, and behavioral economics to the managerial tool kit, along with analysis at the margin, opportunity cost, elasticity of demand and supply, market power, and cost-benefit analysis, with numerous timely examples. This text is essential for nonprofit managers and social entrepreneurs, and of interest to all economics students.

Between the Mountain and the Sky shows us the goodness that is possible when a single person--regardless of age--takes action to help another and, in the process, changes the lives of hundreds. Maggie's story begins in suburban New Jersey, in a comfortable middle-class family that supports her decision to travel the world during a gap year before starting college. During her travels, the trajectory of her life alters when she has a surprise encounter with a Nepali girl breaking rocks in a quarry. Maggie decides to invest her life savings of five thousand dollars to buy a piece of land and open a children's home in Nepal. That home becomes Kopila Valley Children's Home, and eventually, the nonprofit Maggie launches, the BlinkNow Foundation, also starts the Kopila Valley School, which provides tuition-free education for more than four hundred students. Maggie and BlinkNow's work have been recognized around the world for their innovative, sustainable work. However, this book isn't a how-to for fledging philanthropists or nonprofit founders--it's a coming-of-age story about a young woman suspended between two worlds, as well as the love, loss, healing, and hope she experiences along the way. And Maggie's inspiring, intimate tale shows readers an important truth: the power to change the world exists within all of us.

In 1998 John Wood was a rising executive at Microsoft . Then a trip to Nepal inspired him to set up schools and libraries in the developing world. Fuelled by the same drive that made him a top executive, Wood took his business acumen into the charity sector and created Room to Read, a stunningly effective organisation that has created a network of more than 2,000 schools and libraries throughout Asia and Africa in only six years. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World chronicles John Wood's incredible journey, his first years at Microsoft, his life-changing decision to leave, and the adventure that followed. Wood shares the methods he uses to manage Room to Read, taken from the boardroom of one of the world's most influential companies and applied successfully in a very different setting. His story is an inspirational example of how to create success on your own terms and change your world. After earning an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management, John Wood joined Microsoft in 1991. He quickly ascended to become Microsoft's director of business development in China and the surrounding regions. In 1999, he founded Room to Read, a charity that promotes literacy throughout the developing world. He lives in San Francisco.

Grants fundraising is a significant and highly competitive income source for charities, contributing over GBP3 billion of income from UK trusts and foundations alone. This guide shows you how to maximise the value of grants fundraising for your charity. By adopting a holistic view of fundraising, it takes into account all of the elements of the grant-seeking process rather than over-focusing on the proposal-writing stage.This title will make essential reading for all grants fundraisers whether new to the area or not.

Just days after September 11, 2001, Kenneth Feinberg was appointed to administer the federal 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, a unique, unprecedented fund established by Congress to compensate families who lost a loved one on 9/11 and survivors who were physically injured in the attacks. Those who participated in the Fund were required to waive their right to sue the airlines involved in the attacks, as well as other potentially responsible entities. When the program was launched, many families criticized it as a brazen, tight-fisted attempt to protect the airlines from lawsuits. The Fund was also attacked as attempting to put insulting dollar values on the lives of lost loved ones. The families were in pain. And they were angry. Over the course of the next three years, Feinberg spent almost all of his time meeting with the families, convincing them of the generosity and compassion of the program, and calculating appropriate awards for each and every claim. The Fund proved to be a dramatic success with over 97% of eligible families participating. It also provided important lessons for Feinberg, who became the filter, the arbitrator, and the target of family suffering. Feinberg learned about the enduring power of family grief, love, fear, faith, frustration, and courage. Most importantly, he learned that no check, no matter how large, could make the families and victims of 9/11 whole again.

This timely book examines how nonprofits can prepare for and respond to serious threats, such as pandemics, economic recessions, terrorist attacks and other potentially catastrophic events. Reliant on donors, regulators, government funders and dedicated staff and volunteers, nonprofits are often vulnerable and unprepared to navigate such crises. Making a frank assessment of the risks these organizations face and how to enable them to become more resilient, Dennis Young and Elizabeth Searing develop multifaceted strategies involving balance sheets, cost and income structures, human resources, networks, technology, entrepreneurship, and information systems. Practical recommendations based on research are offered to managers for assessing risk and developing resilience strategies appropriate to their own organizations. The innovative use of templates for executive briefings, dashboards, and stress tests are included in a new management paradigm for building healthier and more effective nonprofit organizations for the future. The insights and tools on how to develop and manage resilient organizations makes this an excellent resource for nonprofit managers and trustees, foundations and government funders. Researchers, teachers, and students will also gain a greater understanding of how current research drives the resiliency paradigm and how to move research on nonprofit resilience forward.

Timeless wisdom on generosity and gratitude from the great Stoic philosopher Seneca To give and receive well may be the most human thing you can do-but it is also the closest you can come to divinity. So argues the great Roman Stoic thinker Seneca (c. 4 BCE-65 CE) in his longest and most searching moral treatise, "On Benefits" (De Beneficiis). James Romm's splendid new translation of essential selections from this work conveys the heart of Seneca's argument that generosity and gratitude are among the most important of all virtues. For Seneca, the impulse to give to others lies at the very foundation of society; without it, we are helpless creatures, worse than wild beasts. But generosity did not arise randomly or by chance. Seneca sees it as part of our desire to emulate the gods, whose creation of the earth and heavens stands as the greatest gift of all. Seneca's soaring prose captures his wonder at that gift, and expresses a profound sense of gratitude that will inspire today's readers. Complete with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, How to Give is a timeless guide to the profound significance of true generosity.