social entrepreneurship

While running your venture, you'll probably be giving presentations. Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds is the master of this art, and explains everything you need to know in "Presenation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery." In his book, Garr shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. He challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today's world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. He shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

For even more tips on presentations, check out Garr's website!

Conscious Lifestyle is proud of the amazing mentors it matches with each of its ventures, and Grace Simmons is a good example of these high quality individuals.

A Summa cum laude graduate of Boston College with degrees in Political Science and Philosophy, Grace is now a student at Harvard Business School. In college, she was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa during her junior year, and was named “Most Outstanding Graduate.” Her professional experience includes such positions as Private Equity Associate with PRTM Management Consultants; Special Assistant to PRTM’s Global Managing Director; and co-leader of a Quadrennial Net Assessment mandated by Homeland and National Security. Her leadership experience includes a one-year tenure as President of the BC Undergraduate Government; membership on the Advisory Board for a Catholic Church initiative sponsored by the BC President; and acting as a delegate at the US Naval Academy Leadership Conference. Grace is also active in community service: she is a Board Member for the BC Alumni Association, a member of the Junior League of Washington, an Executive Liaison for Americans for Informed Democracy, and a member of the American Legion Auxiliary. In her free time, Grace enjoys running, hiking, letter-writing, piano-playing, and traveling and serving abroad.

We are lucky to have such wonderful individuals as Grace and her peers as Conscious Lifestyle mentors!

Congratulations to Adi Segal of the Green Camp Initiative on his recent media coverage in The Jewish Standard!

The article lauds Adi for his success at implementing a recycling program, which uses bins with logos he designed; switching to greener cleaning products, light bulbs, and paper products, all at minimal cost thanks to his innovation; adding courses on eco-friendliness to the camp curriculum; and encouraging campers to bring their own reusable water bottles.

Read the full article here.

Conscious Lifestyle is proud to be partnering with Slow Food on Campus, the student engagement initiative by Slow Food USA. Slow Food is "a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world." Slow Food has over 85,000 members and a presence in 132 countries.

The partnership was formed to support new projects by Slow Food on Campus chapters. These chapters understand the importance of both lifestyle and institutional changes, so they are a perfect fit for Conscious Lifestyle.

This summer, three Slow Food on Campus chapters will be selected as Conscious Lifestyle ventures and receive up to $1000 in seed money, web space, social entrepreneurship mentoring, workshops and conferences. The money and mentoring will go to a variety of initiatives, such as supporting an on-campus garden or farmers’ market, bringing speakers to campus, or hosting an amazing home-cooked locally grown dinner.

The three projects selected to receive the Youth Venture will be recognized and celebrated at Slow Food Nation in San Francisco in August.

Congratulations to Adi Segal, the Green Camp Initiative Coordinator, for all of his successes with Camp Ramah in the Berkshires!

Adi Segal has united with the staff at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires to form a commendable community-benefiting venture, which emphasizes the deeply-rooted Jewish value of environmentalism. The Initiative works to make the Berkshires Camp, and other sleep away camps, more environmentally sustainable through educating and leading by example. It raises awareness about environmental issues; increases conscious activism among staff and campers; and decreases the amount of waste (i.e. solids, water, energy, etc.) produced in the camp, thereby reducing its Eco-Footprint. It strives to reach all 600 campers and 200 staff members so that they will leave camp with a new eco-friendly mindset, bringing the message of environmentalism home to their communities.

Already, the Initiative has instituted a recycling program, introduced green cleaning products, replaced all light bulbs with CFLs, switched to post-consumer recycled paper, and reduced the plastic drinking cup usage by over 25,000. In addition, each age group will have programming dedicated to environmentalism; these eco-friendly courses will include Torah study, trash audits, and sustainable farming.

Camp Ramah in the Berkshires is the first camp to be inducted into the Green Flag Schools program and the Rutgers Environmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement, which will allow Camp Ramah to buy green products at a discounted price. With the Camp Ramah's and Adi's combined dedication to sustainability, the environment is sure to continue to benefit!

Found through The Freechild Project, Youth Venture, and AASHE and its newsletter

Ellen Dougherty Activist Fund
The Fund provides grants of up to $2,000 to women nineteen and under who propose to develop and lead projects focused on activism and social change.
Deadline: August 15

Right to Learn Grants Program
Right to Learn is giving away up to $5,000 to groups that work to improve their schools.
Deadline: August 31

Pay It Forward
$500 Pay It Forward mini-grants are designed to fund one-time-only service-oriented projects identified by youth as activities they would like to perform to benefit their school, neighborhood, or greater community. Projects must contain a “pay it forward” focus—that is, they must be based on the concept on one person doing a favor for others, who in turn do favors for others, with the results growing exponentially—to be considered in the grant making process.
Deadline: September 15

Tyler Prize
The University of Southern California invites nominations for the John and Alice Tyler Prize, an award for environmental science, energy, and medicine conferring great benefit upon mankind. Prizes are awarded for: the protection, maintenance, improvement or understanding of an ecological or an environmental condition anywhere in the world; the discovery, further development, improvement, or understanding of known or new sources of energy; and medical discoveries or achievements with such worldwide implications that they significantly benefit environmental aspects of human health. Living individuals or public or private institutions of any nation, are eligible for nomination.
Deadline: September 15

The Captain Planet Foundation
The Captain Planet Foundation awards between $250 and $2,500 for hands-on environmental projects for youth ages 6-18 with appropriate adult supervision. Winners are notified four months after the deadline, so please plan carefully.
Deadline: September 30, December 31

Mollie Parnis Dress Up Your School Awards
Through the awards, Citizens Committee offers grants of $500 to $3,000 to support student led projects that beautify schools or neighborhoods immediately surrounding schools.
Applications are accepted twice a year.
Deadline: September 30

Healthy Sprouts Awards to Support Awareness of Nutrition and Hunger
As a way to encourage the growth of health-focused youth gardens, NGA recognizes outstanding programs via the Awards, sponsored by Gardener’s Supply company. These awards support school and youth garden programs that teach about nutrition and the issue of hunger in the US.
Deadline: October 15

President's Environmental Youth Awards The Environmental Protection Agency has sponsored the Awards since 1971. The program recognizes young people for projects, which demonstrate their commitment to the environment. Projects submitted in the past have covered a wide range of subject areas including recycling programs; constructing nature preserves; major tree planting programs; videos, skits, and newsletters that focused on environmental issues; and environmental science projects. To be eligible, a student or students, sponsored by an adult, must submit to their local EPA regional office evidence of a completed project as defined in the President's Environmental Youth.
Deadline: October 31

Sophie Prize
An award of $100,000 will be given to an individual or an organization that in a pioneering or a particularly creative way, has pointed to alternatives to the present development and/or put such alternatives into practice. The Sophie Prize will honor efforts to promote changes in the world that are necessary in a long-term perspective.
Deadline: November 1

Virginia Mini-Grant Program
The Virginia Mini-Grant Program supports community-based efforts to strengthen environmental education and to promote stewardship of Virginia's waterways. These are intended to be one-time, start-up grants, and preference is given to modest local projects. Please also consult the new mini-grant program being administered by Virginia's Office of Environmental Education by visiting http://www.vanaturally.com/classroomgrants.html.
Deadline: December 1

Mix It Up Grants
The Southern Poverty Law Center awards Mix It Up Grants for youth-led projects that work at knocking down social boundaries within school communities. This project must bring different groups together to work together, and should be an ongoing effort. Applications are accepted anytime and you will be notified after four weeks if your project has been accepted.
Deadline: register online now

mtvU Grants
If you've got an original idea about how to make the world--or your campus, neighborhood, or town--a better place, mtvU Grants want to help you make it happen by providing: up to $1,500 to launch your new organization or initiative; an opportunity to be featured on mtvU News; and exclusive access to helpful resources and tools in cooperation with Youth Venture.
Deadline: anytime

SAGE-Youth Venture Grants
Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship and Youth Venture offer Social Enterprise grants for young people, ages 12-20. A venture can be any youth-created, youth-led organization designed to provide a positive lasting benefit in a school, neighborhood, or community.
Deadline: anytime
Contact: Curtis DeBerg at CDeBerg@csuchico.edu

International Young Eco-Hero Award
Have you been working to preserve the world around you? Have you been teaching others how to protect the environment? Have you been doing an environmental research project? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then you are a Young Eco-Hero. All Eco-Heroes serve as role models, showing others that each individual is important and can make a difference. Action For Nature is proud to honor the work of young people between the ages of 8 and 16 who have done creative environmental projects. The winners of AFN’s International Young Eco-Hero Awards program receive a cash prize and a special certificate, as well as public recognition on our website and elsewhere. Applications will be online soon.

Prudential Spirit of Community Awards
These Awards honor young people in middle level and high school grades for outstanding volunteer service to their communities. They give $1,000 and an all-expense-paid trip with a parent or guardian to Washington, D.C.
Applications will be online soon.

The BRICK Awards
These Awards are the premier awards for young social change-makers in the United States and Canada. BRICK Award winners are social change-makers who recognize a problem in their community, envision a solution, and take the steps necessary to make that dream a reality. Simply, BRICK Award winners build a better world, BRICK by BRICK. Since 1996, The BRICK Awards have honored the nation’s finest young world-changers. Winners represent the best in their field or issue and are rewarded with a huge community grant and a special televised award ceremony. Know how athletes have the Olympics and singers have the Grammy’s? It’s about time world-changers had their special night too. BRICK Award winners get a shot at $25,000 in scholarships and grants to support their projects and organizations. The BRICK Awards are open to U.S. and Canadian leaders ages 25 and under. Applications will be online soon.

Youth Community Service Awards
This Award recognizes exemplary service and community involvement rather than academic achievement. Recipients of the Yoshiyama Award for Exemplary Service to the Community leave a lasting impression in their community - many, though not all, have started projects and programs, or taken on challenges, that relate to the corporate citizenship, philanthropic, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) priorities of the Foundation and Hitachi, Ltd. - improving the wellbeing of economically and socially isolated Americans. The Award is accompanied by a gift of $5,000, dispensed over two years. Recipients may use the Award at their discretion. Applications will be online in December.

Found through Youth Venture, AASHE and its newsletter, Conference Alerts, and Americans for Informed Democracy

HMF International Film/Media Festival and Conference
HMF seeks to tap into the power of the media—film, both documentary and narrative; art and music; print, web, television, and photojournalism—and extend their influence more broadly, so that humanitarian issues are not just covered in brief articles, commercials, profiles, or soundbytes, but can be explored and given context, so that their importance is more widely known. With greater knowledge, more people in positions of authority and influence can then also be drawn in as part of the dialogue, so that such issues are not just lamented, but perhaps some constructive and creative answers can be illuminated among those with the greatest capacity to make a difference. The Conference will cover the media’s role in humanitarian histories, events, issues and crises; the role that the media has played and perhaps should play in the work of the UN, NGO’s and other agencies who help to support populations in need and are affected by certain issues or crises; the future role of the media with the advent of new technologies, the possibilities inherent in the web, and how these new possibilities can be utilized by those seeking to bring further attention to the public sphere regarding issues of humanitarian importance; the role of the artistic media in revealing the nuances of issues of humanitarian importance and the significance of “celebrity” involvement; the role of print, television, web, and photojournalism and its importance in the humanitarian sphere.
Dates: December 10th-14th
Deadline: August 1 for presenters; December 1 for attendees

AASHE 2008: Working Together for Sustainability--On Campus and Beyond
AASHE will host its second biannual conference, AASHE 2008: Working Together for Sustainability – On Campus and Beyond. AASHE 2008 will offer an opportunity for every sector of higher education in the United States & Canada to come together to demonstrate how colleges and universities can lead the way to a sustainable future. Goals of the conference include advancing sustainability on campus and beyond through partnerships and collaborations, increasing the integration of social responsibility and social justice into mainstream campus sustainability, promoting new pathways for elevating sustainability education and student leadership development, magnifying the role of campuses as responsible members of communities, both local and global, and to involve a wider range of participants in advancing sustainability in higher education. Students, administrators, faculty, staff, community members, and business are encouraged to attend. During the conference, AASHE will also host a two-day tradeshow, Sustainable Solutions Expo: Green Solutions for Campuses, Businesses and Institutions. Admission is included with conference registration. Discounts are available for students and AASHE members.
Dates: November 9th-11th
Deadline: August 29

Global Youth Enterprise
Making Cents International will convene practitioners, donors, educators, youth, members of the private sector, representatives of governments, and other partners in youth enterprise, entrepreneurship, and livelihood development for the Global Youth Enterprise Conference. These conference participants are part of a growing community committed to investing in young people, and the innovations necessary to ensure programs and policies achieve greater impact, sustainability, and scale. Making Cents supports this community regularly meeting to share lessons learned, promising practices, and new ideas that create economic opportunities for young people. This year's conference themes are Market-Driven Approaches and Effective Methodologies and Practices for Monitoring, Evaluating, and Conducting Impact Assessments.
Dates: September 15th and 16th
Deadline for late registration: September 1

2008 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo - Revolutionary Green: Innovations for Global Sustainability
The U.S. Green Building Council will host its Greenbuild 2008. USGBC’s Greenbuild conference and expo is an opportunity to connect with other green building peers, industry experts, and influential leaders as they share insights on the green building movement and its diverse specialties. Speakers include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, E.O. Wilson, and Janine Benyus. The conference will feature over 100 educational sessions, LEED workshops, off-site educational sessions. Students, universities, and professionals are invited to attend.
Dates: November 19th-21st
Deadline: September 8

CFP - Fifth World Environmental Education Congress
The Organizing Committee of the Congress invites submissions for abstract proposals. The presentations may be in the form of a poster, oral, or round table presentation, or a workshop or NGO forum. Themes include relationships between ecology and economy; the issue of sustainability; questions of fairness in socio-ecological issues; environmental health; urban challenges; greening colleges and universities; and school and community. Each participant is limited to a maximum of two proposals.
Dates: May 10th-14th
Deadline for presentation submission: September 30
Deadline for presenter registration: February 1

Good and Green
This conference gives you the opportunity to catch up on the very latest green marketing info and know how. It is the only event focused on green marketing solutions and insights for Fortune 100-1,000 companies and their agencies! Attendees will receive invaluable research, case studies, strategies and techniques. They can also expect some new marketing ideas and insights, as well as surprise entertainment value from Planet Green. Presenters include The Daily Green.com, The Natural Marketing Institute, Ketchum Public Relations, Denise Waggoner from Getty Images, and Earthsense. There will also be a Partnership Panel, from which attendees will learn to correctly identify and develop great partnerships successfully. Good And Green is the place for senior brand marketers to touch base, connect, learn and share insights from their green marketing journey.
Dates: December 3rd and 4th
Deadline: register online now

Green Community College Conference
The National Council for Workforce Education Board of Directors will host the Green Community Colleges Conference: Sustainable Campuses and Programs. Presentations will be given on sustainability initiatives, energy programs and opportunities, and workforce curriculum and faculty development.
Dates: October 18th-21st
Deadline: register online now

Pop!Tech 2008: Scarcity and Abundance
For the twelfth year, the Pop!Tech Conference will again convene a network of 600 remarkable thinkers, doers, leaders and global change agents in science, technology, social innovation, business, environmentalism, globalization, media, education, and many other fields for a four-day exploration of ideas shaping the future. This year, we will pay particular attention to the 21st century dynamics between systems based on scarcity and those based on abundance, in areas ranging from digital social networks to environmentalism, from biology to business, from peacemaking to politics. We’ll chart the core scarcities that humanity will face in this century, and how a wealth of new innovations, new bottom-up approaches to collaboration, and new insights into collective wisdom might hold the key to addressing them. As always, there will be incredible performances, jaw-dropping technology demonstrations, spirited discussions, formal debates and surprises throughout. We will leave each other with an inspired sense of our challenges, our potential, and the dynamics of positive change.
Dates: October 23rd-25th
Deadline: register online now

Slow Food Nation 2008 This event is the first-ever American collaborative gathering to unite the growing sustainable food movement and introduce thousands of people to food that is good, clean and fair. The first annual event of Slow Food Nation takes place on Labor Day 2008 in San Francisco with enjoyable, accessible and educational activities for all Americans. Slow Food Nation is dedicated to creating a framework for deeper environmental connection to our food and aims to inspire and empower Americans to build a food system that is sustainable, healthy and delicious.
Dates: August 29th-September 1st
Deadline: register online now

UCB, U Washington Summer Institute in Sustainability
The University of British Columbia and the University of Washington Extension are pleased to invite participants to the Summer Institute in Sustainability, a 5-day intensive program that will provide intellectual perspectives and practical skills to integrate sustainability as a core value within an organization, and develop programs that represent best practices in sustainability planning. The program provides participants with a combination of lectures by sustainability experts and practitioners, on-site excursions to UBC’s sustainability initiatives, case studies featuring five of UBC’s signature sustainability programs, and applied work sessions focusing on sustainability planning.
Dates: July 20th-25th
Deadline: register online now

United Students Against Sweatshops Summer Conference
This summer, hundreds of students from throughout the US and Canada will be gathering in Boulder, Colorado for this conference. Attendees will be participating in skill building workshops, strategizing around winning our campaigns, hearing from workers, participating in anti-oppression trainings, and meeting up with students from hundreds of other schools.
Dates: August 8th-10th
Deadline: register online now

State of the World Forum
The Forum, in partnership with Wisdom University and Olmstead Productions, is convening a new State of the World Forum in 2009 designed to draw attention to the emerging power of the cultural creatives and the enabling technologies required to shape constructive change in the face of the growing crisis of global warming. The application will be posted soon.
Dates: November 9th-15th
Deadline: registration materials will be available online soon

“Creating Global Change: How Youth are answering the question, 'What can I do?'”
Interested to know how you can make a career out of social change? How you can continue to work for poverty reduction and social justice after your time at college? This summer, AID and the Student Movement for Real Change will be hosting a conference to address these questions. Attendees will get an opportunity to speak with young social entrepreneurs, national organizers, and new media activists—learning from them about how to create global change as youth. For details, contact kristen@aidemocracy.org.

Global Health Conference in DC: "Mobilizing and Engaging Communities in Global Health"
This conference promises to be informative and filled with take-home actions you can do. For more details, contact christine.g@aidemocracy.org.

Daniel Zoughbie is an inspiring social entrepreneur. As a student at UC Berkeley he launched the
Global Micro-Clinic Project, which "seeks to empower people to prevent and manage diseases in economically depressed and conflict-ridden areas of our world."

Daniel has won a variety of awards for his humanitarian work, including the Marshall Scholarship. Mostly recently, he was selected as a BRICK Award winner and is currently up for the big prize of $100,000, which will be given at the Teen Choice Awards. Check out the video below and vote for Daniel today.

Conscious Lifestyle is proud of its ventures and wants to keep them all up to date on each other. All our ventures can learn from each other and take pride in the differences they are each making for people, animals, and the environment.
The Columbia EcoReps venture had a busy, productive year! In response to Mayor Bloomber’s PlaNYC, which includes the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30% over the next decade, Columbia’s Environmental Stewardship Office launched the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Council for the University in March 2008. The Council consists of individuals from the facilities, communications, and finance offices and from myriad academic departments. Its job is to identify important principles and goals for lessening the University’s environmental footprint. The Council is currently setting up taskforces and working on campus to make heating more environmentally-friendly, increase use of alternative fuels and energy, manage grounds more effectively, and ensure a sustainable food supply. Also during the Spring 2008 semester, Columbia EcoReps initiated the "Do It in the Dark" energy challenge, which measures energy use in each dorm on a monthly basis and rewards the dorm that shows the greatest decrease in energy consumption with an eco-friendly study break.
The EcoReps have big plans for the future, too! Columbia is putting the finishing touches on its first green dorm suite in Woodbridge Building: it should be habitable by August 2008. Three Woodbridge apartments have been transformed into models of environmental-friendliness for future renovation projects; over the next two years, all of Woodbridge will be renovated. The apartments will save huge amounts of energy by using Forest Stewardship furniture; Energy Star refrigerators, gas stoves, and light fixtures; shower heads with a 2 gallon per minute flow; sinks with a 1.5 gall per minute flow; dual flush toilets; occupancy sensor lighting; a boiler that runs on biofuel; and Bonded Logic insulation. Moreover, the apartments will have low or zero Volatile Organic Compound paint and caulking; cabinets certified by the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association Environmental Stewardship Program; Vetrazzo counters; Crossville EcoCycle tiles; National Gypsum drywall; access to recycling centers; and plywood, interior doors, and oak flooring certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
The Woodbridge apartments will be a pilot project to test the possibility of entirely green residence halls. In an article in the "Columbia Spectator," Scott Wright, head of Housing and Dining at Columbia, said that the suite will hopefully set "the standard model for all of our initiatives now." The EcoReps hope that if the apartments are successful, then entire dorms will follow their lead, and that there will eventually be an official EcoRep room in each building on campus.
Aside from the renovations, the EcoReps will also take part in The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education's 2nd biennial conference, entitled AASHE 2008: Working Together for Sustainability--On Campus and Beyond. The conference will occur in November in North Carolina. Hannah Lee of the Columbia EcoReps and Acadia Roher of the Barnard EcoReps will present a workshop on

• Collaborations to advance education and research for sustainability
• Service learning projects to advance sustainability
• Co-curricular learning, such as peer-to-peer outreach and community service
• Funding for sustainability-related research; and
• The growing role of sustainability research centers and institutes

The workshop is entitled "Peer to Peer Sustainability Outreach Programs: From A to Z," and it will allow current program coordinators, and those who are interested in starting a program on their campuses, to hear from coordinators of established programs on everything from how to start a program on campus, to best practices of administration and management, to evaluation methods.
The Barnard EcoReps, Columbia EcoReps' neighbors, are also doing great things. They have pilot green residences, too, one of which was renovated using all recyclable materials, and has Eco-Cem floors and walls and Energy Star-approved appliances. A special interest group of Barnard EcoReps will live in this green suite next year to test its durability. The plan is to soon renovate with sustainable materials kitchens and bathrooms in twenty more suites.
Congratulations to the Columbia and Barnard EcoReps on your great work!

Be sure to check out more information on the Columbia and Barnard EcoRep chapters and on social entrepreneurship, and be in touch with Conscious Lifestyle. We love to hear what you're doing and accomplishing!

Last Christmas was Michelle Finholdt’s worst. Shortly before the 2007th anniversary of Christ’s birth, Minnesota’s Supreme Court ruled that Finholdt’s nonprofit agency was too much like a for-profit business, meaning that come April 15th, she would be expected to cough up $16,000 in property taxes for the first time since founding the Under the Rainbow Child Care Center in 1994. She probably prayed for a holiday miracle, but even St. Nick isn’t foolish enough to go flying around with that much cash on hand.

As the New York Times dutifully reported last week, nonprofits are becoming increasingly business-like across the country, and the questions are piling up like dorm room laundry. Are these agencies doing anything for the pubic good? For the ones who are not, should they really be given a considerable tax-exemption for doing so? And festering underneath the questions is growing pressure for some non-profits to start anteing up.

In two consecutive nights this past May I found myself at a pair of annual fundraisers hosted by nonprofits, one dedicated to family justice, the other to housing. Both causes were innocent enough, but the spacious SoHo office, the trendy Chelsea event center, the open bars, the caterers, the expensive suits, the models, the pricy gift bags and the unmistakable scent of cash made both agencies come off as more hypocritical than a god-fearing atheist. If these types of organizations want to contribute to the common good, so be it, but let’s stop bullshitting around. They are semi-businesses at best, certainly not pure charities, and I’m glad that at least one supremely wise court in Minnesota is beginning to make the distinction.

Most of the nation’s 1.6 million nonprofit organizations enjoy 501(c)3 certification, a rectangular piece paper allowing them to claim large tax exemptions each spring, something for which most American homeowners would likely sell the family pet, a nice heirloom, or perhaps a third or fourth-born child. In return, say the states, these same agencies are expected to perform utterly altruistic services in the name of public wellbeing.

Yet, as I witnessed first hand, the term “nonprofit” can be wildly deceiving, conveying an image of selflessness and goodwill, when in reality a whole host of largely undeserving organizations are blessed with the 501(c)3 holy water and then turning their backs on the priests.

Under the Rainbow could be the least nefarious example, a daycare that charges all families the same market-rate price regardless of their clients’ ability to pay. It may be not-for-profit, but what does it do for the public good that a for-profit daycare does not? Nothing. Certainly not $16,000 worth of good.

And on the other end of the rainbow are the large, private universities. Sure, their students occasionally volunteer in nearby communities, but the institutions themselves offer far less, preferring instead to ignore local residents and gobble up surrounding land like a bunch of Israeli settlers. Try explaining without sounding insane how Harvard, boasting an endowment bloated past the $30 billion mark and yearly returns of fifteen percent, is a “nonprofit” institution dedicated purely to public charity.

To the relief of Cambridge and Boston residents however, Massachusetts officials are tackling the issue by earnestly debating a bill that would levy a 2.5% tax on any university with endowments in excess of $1 billion, a sum deemed adequate for an organization supposedly devoid of profit. Should it move forward, the legislation will take nine separate ivory towers by the ankles, including Boston College, Boston University, MIT, Williams, and others, and shake them down for a fraction of the spare change they’ve been hoarding for years under the nonprofit moniker.

But in between the lowly daycares and the powerful universities are a slew of other non-profits where the line between pure charity and sinister deception isn’t so stark and the threat of government intervention far less severe.

Consider a private elementary school where New York’s richest pay $22,000 each year for me to teach their five-year-old kids. Or a mental-health advocacy agency that compensates its executives with six-figure salaries and throws wildly lavish parties each May. Are such organizations really deserving of their nonprofit status and a comfortable tax shelter when so obviously not in need? When does this perverse game end?

Indeed, not all non-profits are so questionable. Certainly groups like the NAACP and the ACLU contribute immensely to our collective wellbeing and ought to be rewarded for doing so. So too should the thousands of smaller organizations (ahem…Conscious Lifestyle) that sincerely struggle for the greater good.

As for the others, the essentially for-profit, sometimes ostentatiously so, businesses hiding under the fluffy 501(c)3 sheepskin? The Under the Rainbows and the Harvards? Well, if Minnesota and Massachusetts are any accurate barometer, soon they’ll all start dreading and loathing April 15th like the rest of us.

The following is a guest post written by Nick Fuller-Googins, a 25-year-old Brooklynite tasked with the well-being and edification of 17 six-year-olds in Manhattan. Nick will be hopping on the next train west. You can find all of his ramblings at his blog, thirteenam.