GERI BERHOLZ realised the power of mentoring children

The concept is to identify kids with leadership potential and match them with a mentor who helps them reach a long-term goal. The results have been nothing short of astonishing.



Since its inception in 2002, the lives of over 1300 kids have been transformed.




As a schoolteacher, GERI BERHOLZ realized the power of mentoring children. The creation of a Canadian chapter of Future Possibilities For Kids was a natural next step.
One success story is Kid Coach Yvon, a former at-risk teen, who, because of his work with Geri, is now the first member of his family to graduate high school, graduate college and now attend university. Yvon is well on his way to fulfilling his life-long dream of becoming a peace negotiator for the United Nations.






Future Possibilities For Kids

A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy - Paul Brest

Paul Brest visits Google to present his book "Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy".

This event took place on July 14, 2009, as part of the Authors@Google series.









Why you should listen to Paul Breast?
It's good to give a little something back. If you plan or care about a social investment, Paul Brest and Hal Harvey's book can advise you on how to develop a strategy to ensure that your money is well spent. It addresses potential and practising donors eager to know how to improve the effect of their philanthropic activities. And, with its clear view on how to strategically approach a philanthropic mission and an abundance of insights and examples from the experience of two philanthropy professionals, it does so successfully.


While there have been seminal contributions on philanthropy and strategic giving in recent years (for example by Peter Frumkin and Joel Fleishman), Brest and Harvey set out to boil this thinking down to practice, doing for philanthropists what books on business strategy do for business entrepreneurs and executives. They cover the whole range of strategic social investment, introducing readers to the pertinent topics and terminology of the field like theory of change and logic models, programme-related investments and the SROI concept, and the eternal questions surrounding social impact measurement.





Their presentation is engaging, too. For example, they present a three-dimensional model for categorizing philanthropic goals and go on to talk about 'philanthropy in the small cube' (addressing short-term, small-scale problems that affect people's quality of life) and 'philanthropy in the big cube' (the fight against long-term, life-threatening and global problems). They also invent Sally Holder, president of a hypothetical medium-sized foundation, and invite the reader to share a day in her life.

The authors discuss key issues (like specifying goals and tracking progress) repeatedly and from different perspectives, giving examples and discussing pitfalls. Reading all or only part of the book, therefore, the potential donor will gain both knowledge of, and a good feeling for, what really matters in strategic philanthropy.

Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas

With all the intensity and brilliance for which he is known, Alan Kay envisions better techniques for teaching kids by using computers to illustrate experience in ways -– mathematically and scientifically -- that only computers can.

Why you should listen to him:

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Alan Kay not only coined this favorite tech-world adage, but has proven its truth several times. A true polymath, as well as inventor, he has combined engineering brilliance with knowledge of child development, epistemology, molecular biology and more.

In the 1960s, Kay joined the computer team at XeroxPARC, where he worked on world-changing inventions like the graphical interface, object-oriented programming, and the personal computer itself. Later, at Apple, Atari, HP, Disney, and now at his own nonprofits, he has helped refine the tools he anticipated long before they were realized.

As the industry has blossomed, however, Kay continues to grapple with the deeper purpose of computing, struggling to create the machine that won't only recapitulate patterns in the world as we know it but will teach both children and adults to think, to see what otherwise is beyond them.

"One of the computer industry's most prolific inventors."

Electronic Engineering Times