The Peace Corps/Honduras program has six primary projects: business development, child survival and HIV/AIDS prevention, water and sanitation, protected areas management, youth development, and municipal development. We collaborate with the government of Honduras, Honduran and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and communities throughout the country. Our program works in concert with the poverty-reduction strategy developed by Honduras and the international donor community. This type of integrated community development program makes Peace Corps/Honduras a traditional post in many ways. Community development and integrated rural development have been around conceptually for at least 40 years and were especially popular from the mid-1960s until about the late 1970s. We all have learned a lot since then about human capital, social capital, dependency and empowerment, and sustainability. We know that development takes a long time, with consistent work in an auspicious setting, which we do our best to provide through excellent site selection. Despite the traditional appearance, Peace Corps/Honduras' approach to, and work in, HIV/AIDS prevention, municipal development, business and information technology, protected areas management, and youth development put us very much in the vanguard of Peace Corps programming worldwide. Our objective as community development facilitators is not to teach the people of Honduras -American values but to help them help themselves within their own cultural framework.

This accessibly written book presents a picture of generosity that is unique in its breadth. American Generosity is distinguished by its comprehensive approach to answering the what, how much, who, where, and why of giving. The authors consider multiple forms of generosity. They focus on three especially important forms of giving: donating money, volunteering time, and taking political action. But they also look at activities like giving blood and bodily organs, material possessions, relational attention, and participation in environmental activism. Their striking and sometimes counterintuitive findings are based on data from the Science of Generosity initiative, which combines a nationally representative survey of adult Americans with in-depth interviews and ethnographies. From the interviews, case studies are selected to illustrate core themes. The analyses examine multiple dimensions of resources, social status, regional cultural norms, different approaches to giving, social-psychological orientation, and the relational contexts of generosity. The authors conclude that giving is supported by "circles of generosity," which ripple outward in their reach to giving targets. The practical implications include tips for readers who want to increase their own giving, and for parents modeling giving to their children, spouses desiring alignment in their giving, and friends and community members seeking to support other people's giving. Also on offer are explicit fundraising ideas for nonprofits, foundations, and religious leaders. In American Generosity we find a broad yet nuanced explanation of giving that transcends the usual categories of sociological study to address the simple but confounding question about charity-who gives and why?

Finally, a comprehensive resource for Friends of the Library groups to use to design programming intended to invite ALL segments of the community into the library. Inside, you'll find information about advertising, overcoming obstacles, setting up a Teen Council, as well as 201+ "recipes" for programs, series, library exposure and fundraising. The ideas and plans presented can be scaled up, scaled down, or modified to suit individual needs. They can also be utilized by civic organizations, schools, churches, community centers, or anyone else seeking to get people together for fun, entertainment and education.

IRS oversight of charitable organisations helps to ensure they abide by the purposes that justify their tax exemption and protects the sector from potential abuses and loss of confidence by the donor community. In recent years, reductions in IRS's budget have raised concerns about the adequacy of IRS oversight. This book describes the charitable organisation sector; describes IRS oversight activities; determines how IRS assesses its oversight efforts; and determines how IRS collaborates with state charity regulators and U.S. Attorneys to identify and prosecute organisations suspected of engaging in fraudulent (or other criminal) activity. This book also provides an overview of recent changes affecting tax-exempt and charitable organisations, while also discussing issues that may be of legislative interest in the future.

For much of its post-contact history, Guatemala was a colonial state, in which kingdoms and the church were the sole sources of legitimate power. The compensation for colonial administrators was in the form of land grants and control over the people living on those lands. Colonial administrators were expected to collect taxes on behalf of kingdoms, and the expectation was that a portion of the taxes collected would be used by the administrator for personal expenses. Guatemala gained independence from Spanish colonial rule on September 15, 1821. During the second half of the 20th century, Guatemala experienced a variety of military and civilian governments, as well as a 36-year guerrilla war, which led to the massacre of more than 200,000 people and created approximately 1 million refugees. Ninety-two percent of the deaths were attributed to the Guatemalan military. In 1996, the government signed a peace agreement formally ending the conflict. Although the signing of the peace accord ended the internal armed conflict, the causes of the war are deeply rooted and tenaciously resistant. Former combatants and perpetrators of the massacres often live side by side with the victims and their families. A continued high level of violence and crime is an unfortunate part of the ongoing struggle of all Guatemalans to recover from the trauma of war. Guatemala is a constitutional, democratic republic. The current constitution became effective in January 1986. It was suspended by President Jorge Serrano from May 1993 until his ousting in June of that year. The executive branch consists of the president and vice president, elected through a popular vote every four years, and cabinet members appointed by the president. There is a unicameral congress; members are elected by popular vote every four years. Supreme Court members, who serve five-year terms, are appointed by the president of Guatemala and the outgoing president of the court. Suffrage is universal for Guatemalans over the age of 18, excluding soldiers on active duty in the armed services. The country is divided into 22 departments. Guatemala held general elections in November of 2011 and chose a new president, congress, and municipal authorities. The election process was carried out peacefully and transparently and President Otto Perez Molina took office on January 14, 2012. New municipal governments have also taken office at the local level.

This is the inspirational story of how an older Australian couple, Trish Clark and Iain Finlay...both authors in their seventies... built a proper road to a remote and impoverished village in Northern Laos. While working on an internet project of their own in Luang Prabang, the World Heritage-Listed former Royal Capital of Laos, they befriended a young waiter, Chanthy, who was studying at night school. They began helping him, first with his English, then with his college fees and accommodation. His parents, relatively poor subsistence rice famers, pleased at this unexpected boost for their son, asked Trish and Iain to visit their village, NaLin, about three hours south of Luang Prabang, down the Mekong River, or four hours by dirt road. After a brief weekend stay in the village, during which they were treated to a traditional baci ceremony in their honor, they came away wondering what they could do to help the villagers, whose average daily earnings were little more than three dollars. At the time there was no electricity, no running water...except for that from a mountain stream to three or four outlets in the village, no health facilities, no proper sewerage system and a fairly under-resourced primary school. But worst of all, a shocking five kilometer quagmire of a track was all that provided the only connection to the outside world in the rainy season, either to the Mekong River, or to another dirt road in slightly better condition, leading to the District Center of Muang Nan. So Trish and Iain decided to try to tackle something in which they had absolutely no knowledge or expertise. They decided to build a proper road to the village of NaLin. This book traces more than two years of the trials and tribulations experienced in their efforts to raise funds in Australia and elsewhere in order to build the road...of the setbacks and disappointments as expected sources of funding did not eventuate or dropped away...of elation when generous donors came up with substantial, no-strings-attached contributions...of optimism as they engaged a Lao senior Roads Engineer to carry out a preliminary GPS-based assessment and a survey of the road...but also of caution as they made first contact with Lao government bureaucracy in the form of the Department of Public Works and Transportation, as well as with a road building contractor who undertook to build the road into, through and beyond NaLin village. Throughout all of this, as Trish and Iain shuttled back and forth between Australia and Laos, the young Chanthy, now working as a salesmen in a Luang Prabang handicraft shop...his English improving all the while...became the linch-pin of the whole project, working with his father, as well as the village headmen...not only of NaLin village but of two other even poorer villages, Houayhe and Phujong, further up the track, which were keen to benefit from the planned improvements to the road. Then, in early May 2013, they finally had enough money in their fund to do the job, and a contractor who could do it. So on May 9th, after a flight to Laos and an all-day session signing contracts in the Department of Public Works in Muang Nan, the big equipment; an excavator, a grader, two 10-ton trucks and a water truck rolled out on to the road to NaLin and began work. But there was drama developing, as a replacement for a broken part on another piece of equipment, the heavy roller, did not arrive and all the work done on the road was threatened by the fast approaching wet season rains. But when a replacement roller is found and leased from another company, the work resumes and the road is finished on time, just before the rains set in. With a traditional baci ceremony to thank the spirits of the netherworld, there are celebrations all round, as smiling villagers take in their new road and the changes it will bring for them. A small project... a world of difference.

The age of international philanthropy is upon us. Today, many of America's most prominent foundations support institutions or programs abroad, but few have been active on the global stage for as long as Carnegie Corporation of New York. A World of Giving provides a thorough, objective examination of the international activities of Carnegie Corporation, one of America's oldest and most respected philanthropic institutions, which was created by steel baron Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding." The book explains in detail the grantmaking process aimed at promoting understanding across cultures and research in many nations across the world. A World of Giving highlights the vital importance of Carnegie Corporation's mission in guiding its work, and the role of foundation presidents as thought and action leaders. The presidents, trustees, and later on, staff members, are the human element that drives philanthropy and they are the lens through which to view the inner workings of philanthropic institutions, with all of their accompanying strengths and limitations, especially when embarking on international activities. It also does not shy away from controversy, including early missteps in Canada, race and poverty issues in the 1930s and 1980s related to South Africa, promotion of area studies affected by the McCarthy Era, the critique of technical assistance in developing countries, the century-long failure to achieve international understanding on the part of Americans, and recent critiques by Australian historians of the Corporation's nation-transforming work there.This is a comprehensive review of one foundation's work on the international stage as well as a model for how philanthropy can be practiced in a deeply interconnected world where conflicts abound, but progress can be spurred by thoughtful, forward-looking institutions following humanistic principles.