New York City and AIDS

Based on the most recent HIV/AIDS epidemiological data from federal, state, and city health departments, the New York City-based group Harlem United reports the following four statistics:

- 50% of new HIV infections are among Black men and women
- 1 in 3 HIV-positive New Yorkers is a woman of color
- Harlem residents are almost 3 times as likely to be HIV-positive as other New Yorkers
- 1 in 4 New Yorkers who are HIV-positive don’t even know it.

If you think these are scary, you’re not alone. There are dozens of groups here in New York that are working to promote a comprehensive New York City policy agenda when it comes to HIV/AIDS. Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) is one of them. Started in 1982, GMHC’s mission is to reduce the spread of HIV disease, help people with HIV maintain and improve their health and independence, and keep the prevention, treatment and cure of HIV an urgent national and local priority. The GMHC Hotline responds to over 35,000 phone calls and internet requests a year. They have dozens of other Programs and Services available as well.

GMHC’s New York City efforts fall into three categories: prevention, housing and essential services, and testing. Prevention efforts include decreasing new infections among young women of color and young men who have sex with men. They aim to secure funding streams for HIV prevention and services and expand sex education and gay-affirming intervention with youth in school. Their housing and essential services efforts including passing the HIV/AIDS Service Administration (HASA) for all, and making necessary changes to HASA’s housing placement services as recommended by the NYC Office of the Comptroller. They hope to expand HIV testing while maintaining written informed consent.

If you’re interested in reading GMHC’s Federal Policy Agenda, click here.

And since it’s hard to talk about any issues these days without a discussion of where Obama and McCain stand on it, you can click here to review each of their HIV/AIDS policies.

Foundations and Web 2.0

On Friday I posted about a grantee that had embraced Web 2.0 techniques and platforms. Well, the Web 2.0 experience is not just limited to grantees, in fact, some of the most important developments in the internet have as much an effect on Foundations themselves. Along that line I thought I’d post a bit about a new report called, “Come On In. The Water’s Fine. An Exploration of Web 2.0 Technology and Its Emerging Impact on Foundation Communications”.

The report, which was released in time for last week’s Communications Network Conference in Chicago, was written by David Brotherton and Cynthia Sheiderer of Brotherton Strategies. The two spent a year exploring how foundations are using (or not using) new media. The report is one of the first systematic explorations into Foundations and their uses of technology. The Executive Summary shows that many foundations are in fact already embracing new communication tools, everything from “interactive Web sites to podcasts to blogs and wikis to social networking applications.”

There are some great tips for Foundation’s including in the report; they include assessing your organization’s appetite for innovation, recognizing and garnering the resources required, leveraging the great work of others (most of the best Web 2.0 tools you need have already been build and employed by other organizations), and to go slowly and build on successes.

Every foundation should take the time to read the report, and make sure they are part of the adoption of new media tools, even if they require cultural or operational shifts. It’s no secret that sometimes new technologies can raise concern among Foundations who are worried of losing control of their own messages, but the use of new media applications and tools is crucial to engaging new audiences, and building stronger alliances with potential partners. Perhaps most importantly, it can bring greater transparency and accountability, two things which traditionally haven’t been the strong suit of Foundation’s.

The report, which was made possible by support from The California Endowment, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is an important first step into the exploration of how Foundations will adapt and change to the 21st Century.

For Overbrook, we’ve started slowly, trying to figure out what makes the most sense given the Foundation’s size and programmatic interests. Web 2.0 is certainly not a one size fits all method. We started our blog earlier this summer as a method of communicating about the work of the Foundation and its grantees. We are also having fun connecting with others on Twitter, a social networking and microblogging service that uses instant messaging, SMS or web interfaces (you can follow me at ElzbthMllr). This is just the beginning of the changes that technology can bring - we’re just trying to keep up.

Breakthrough

Figuring out how to use social media effectively is one of the biggest challenges that nonprofits face today. Sometimes it’s even tricky to point to specific successful examples of how organizations have integrated social media into their overall programmatic strategies.

Well, look no further than the organization Breakthrough, an international human rights organization based in New York and India that uses education and popular culture to promote values of dignity, equality and justice. Earlier this year, Breakthrough announced the launch of a new video game called I Can End Deportation (“ICED”). ICED is a great example of how innovation and technology can further a social cause. This game puts you in the shoes of an immigrant to illustrate how unfair immigration laws deny due process and violate human rights. These laws affect all immigrants: legal residents, those feeling persecution, students and undocumented people. The object of the game is to become a citizen of the United States. It’s been played over 100,000 times since its launch in February.

After playing it for a minute or two, you realize that the game itself is really a platform for a larger discussion. There are a lot of additional resources available, including the ICED Curriculum, the ICED Game Discussion Guide.

ICED has been featured in overwhelming amounts of press including: MTV News, Game Daily and has been covered on popular blogs. To read Mallika Dutt’s piece in The Huffington Post about immigration and the release of ICED, click here. Notable is the attention the game gets from social networking sights like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook.

The message of the game is clear: When we let government deny due process and human rights for some people, we put the freedom of everyone at risk.

Can NYC be the new Fiji?

According to a WNBC article, consumers can now buy New York City tap water in lieu of popular bottle brands, such as Fiji and Voss. Founded in June 2008, Tap'd NY draws its water from the city's public water system and purifies it using reverse osmosis.

Craig Zucker, the founder of Tap'd NY said that his for-profit business emphasizes the message that water should be kept local--that shipping water into NYC from more exotic locales is an insult to the city. Zucker's company only pays the city water bill for its product. Twenty-ounce bottles of Tap'd NY are found in Manhattan stores for $1.50 (Fiji water costs at least about $2.45 for a twenty-two-ounce bottle).

It seems like the company has tapped into a cheap source of high quality water, poised to cater to urbanites with an addiction to bottled water. Remember Elizabeth's earlier blog that addressed Elizabeth Royte's book Bottlemania and the skyrocketing bottled water business. Royte's book particularly addresses the rise of bottled water despite the benefits of drinking from the tap. Royte discusses the discrepancy between living in a country where more than 89 percent of tap water meets or exceeds federal health and safety regulations, and living in a country in which more than 25 gallons of bottled water were consumed per capita in 2006.

The main question that now comes to mind is: Why would people buy water they could get for free? According to the company's manifesto, we should drink tap water whenever possible and buy local bottled water when tap is not convenient. The company also asks that consumers refill bottles and recycle when they are done. It will be exciting to see how consumers react to the new bottle on the shelf with such a unique business model.

Carbon Offsets

In line with the Foundation's effort to practice what it preaches, I mentioned yesterday our intention to purchase carbon offsets against all carbon emitted into the atmosphere for this past weekend’s Retreat. In early 2008, the Foundation started purchasing offsets for all staff travel including flying to meetings, conferences, site visits etc. Currently our travel agency purchases these offsets through an organization, Native Energy, in amounts equivalent to the amount of carbon emitted from travel. Based upon participants’ driving and flying to the retreat this year, we used the Native Energy’s Carbon Calculator to determine how much carbon was emitted as a result of our travel to Vermont. Staff calculated that Retreat travel emitted 8.399 tons of carbon into the atmosphere. It cost a total of $108 to purchase offsets for this carbon emission. For a detailed explanation of carbon emissions and how carbon offsets are growing as a strategy for reducing those emissions click here.

While carbon offsets are growing in popularity, the carbon market is new and there is not an official standard to follow, some carbon credits and retailers are of dubious value. The lack of regulation in carbon markets is spurring creativity and innovation in some areas; but, it has also created a “cowboy free-for-all” that requires caution from those attempting to purchase legitimate offsets. But there are many ways to look for credibility when purchasing offsets. Standards are emerging and being used in the voluntary carbon market. Third party certifications from the Rainforest Alliance and other organizations are also helping purchasers assess the value of carbon offsets in the market. Interested in checking for credibility? Check out a publication put out in 2006 by Clean Air Cool Planet (a New Hampshire based Overbrook grantee) called A Consumer’s Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers. The guide is comprehensive and digestible and provides valuable information about the different qualities of carbon offsets.

A special thanks to both Christine Terada and Carolynn Johnson at Overbrook who have helped with this process all year long!

We're Back!

We’re back from the Retreat. We had a great three days up in Vermont and all managed to survive without cell phone service. Thank goodness for WiFi and gorgeous sunny weather!

It was a very busy but rewarding three days. We couldn’t have done it without enormous amounts of help from so many people, including the support of the staff of both Overbrook and Middlebury College, as well as many of our great guest speakers including well-known Environmentalist Bill McKibben and Rob Pratt of the Cambridge Energy Alliance. It was truly a joint effort.

We’re off to do some follow-up to the weekend, including purchasing carbon offsets from Native Energy to offset the travel.

The Dangers of Plastic

Everyone remembers the famous line in The Graduate, when Mr. McGuire tells young Dustin Hoffman that the future is in plastics. Well, it seems like at least one part of the future, our health, could literally be in plastics. The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it backs a study that links bisphenol A (BPA) to health complications such as heart disease and diabetes in humans. The common plastic additive is a hormone disrupter that can be found in almost everybody and it poses the most risk to pregnant women and babies. In a study of 1,455 Americans published online today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, adults with the highest BPA levels were more likely to have cardiovascular problems, diabetes and signs of stress in their liver.

The chemical, used in everything from polycarbonate plastic bottles to the linings of metal cans, is one of the highest production-volume chemicals in the world. Two million tons are produced annually, with demand growing up at up to 10% each year. Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have detected it in the urine of 93% of Americans tested. Polycarbonate plastics are rigid and translucent, and are usually marked with a recycling label #7.

Concern about BPA has spread in the past year, pressuring major retailers and manufacturers to take BPA off the shelves. Wal-Mart and Toys R Us/Babies R Us have begun to phase out products that contain BPA and most baby bottle-makers now offer BPA-free alternatives. PBM Products, which makes baby formula for major retailers is also working to remove BPA from its metal formula cans.

In USA Today, John Peterson Myers, a BPA expert, says that BPA is so ubiquitous--used in everything from "carbonless" paper receipts to water pipes--that consumers cannot completely avoid it. Myers believes that having the industry stop using the chemical is the only way to protect vulnerable children.

In the meantime, Enviroblog offers the following tips to consumers:

• When possible, and especially if you’re pregnant and when feeding a young child, limit the amount of canned food in your diet.
• Avoid using old or scratched polycarbonate bottles. If you're in the market for a new water bottle, look for stainless steel water bottles that do not have a plastic liner.
• Don't use plastic containers to heat food in the microwave. Opt for ceramic, glass, or other microwavable dishware.
• Soft or cloudy-colored plastic does not contain BPA.
• If you're formula feeding your infant, consider using powdered formulas packaged in non-steel cans. Also, choose baby bottles made from glass or plastics that don't leach BPA (like polypropylene or polyethylene).

Vermont Bound

Staff will be heading up tomorrow night to Ripton, Vermont for The Overbrook Foundation's annual fall retreat. This year it's going to be a big one, in addition to all our Board of Directors, this year we'll be joined by the entire family, including multi-generations. We are looking forward to staying at Middlebury's Bread Loaf School of English.

We have a lot of great activities planned for the weekend. We'll be starting Friday afternoon with a tour of Bread Loaf with Middlebury Professor John Elder, including a visit to Robert Frost's Cabin and Noble Farm. Saturday morning half of our group will be at Shelburne Farms for its Fall Harvest, while the other half will be visiting a nearby Vermont Family Forest. The afternoon will be devoted to reviewing the Foundation's program initiatives. We also have several activities planned for younger generations that will introduce them to various aspects of philanthropy. Saturday evening Jack Byrne, the Director of Sustainability at Middlebury, will show the Foundation several of Middlebury's environmentally friendly facilities, including the Axinn Center at Starr Library. We'll finish up the weekend on Sunday with a regularly scheduled Board of Director's Meeting, where we will have the chance to hear from Bill McKibben.

It's going to be a busy 72 hours! Wish us luck and good weather! We'll be back on Sunday.

One Million Users: September 10, 2008

Catalog Choice hit a milestone this morning with its one millionth user! Started in November 2007 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation and the Ecology Center, the website offers a free way for merchants and consumers to cut down the amount of unwanted mail-order catalogs. The project is sponsored by The Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, and the Kendeda Fund. The service has come a long way, as it worked to improve the site and gain the trust of both consumers and merchants. Responses from users and catalog companies have been great, as they have given us helpful feedback to provide the best service. Thanks to users, merchants, media press and outreach, there are currently about 300 participating merchants, including some of the largest mail-order companies in the nation.

So what's the big deal? Well, each year 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. According to the Environmental Defense Fund's Paper Calculator, the yearly distribution of catalogs is equal to 53 million trees to make 3.6 million tons of paper. Energy used to produce this volume of paper is 3.8 trillion BTUs, enough to power 1.2 million homes per year. Its contribution to global warming is 5.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equal to the annual emissions of two million cars. Finally, waste water discharges are equal to 53 billion gallons, enough to fill 81,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Imagine how much of that impact is wasted when catalogs are immediately tossed into the recycling bin or trash (gasp).

Catalog Choice continues to cut down the amount of unnecessary impact produced by unwanted catalogs. And with one million users opting out of over 13 million catalogs, we seem to be moving in the right direction! The website hopes to celebrate the millionth member with a guest appearance on the blog, if that person so chooses. Catalog Choice sends the following message on its blog site:

What continues to inspire us is how fast we reached a million members. But it is not a mystery - it is due to lots of hard work by everyone involved.

1. It is our easy to use solution designed by our killer development team.
2. It is a result of hard work by our partner organizations, NWF, NRDC and the Ecology Center, who have help spread the word to the media.
3. It is a thanks to so many of our members who used our Invite a Friend feature to invite over 435,000 friends.
4. It is thanks to our dedicated readers of the blog who jump into the comment section to answer questions and clarify the facts about the confusing process of honoring mail preference requests.
5. It is the power of social media and citizen bloggers that has helped spread the word to so many Americans and driven our natural search result to the #2 spot on Google’s list.
6. It is because hundreds of merchants have been open to accepting our mail preference requests in a secure and automated fashion. I know the “Bravo Merchants” will appreciate your support this holiday season.
7. Most of all, it is because no one wants to waste time, money or natural resources; and that is what Catalog Choice aims to accomplish for consumers, merchants and the environment.

Congratulations and keep up the good work!

OneWebDay: September 22nd, 2008

Who ever thought of an Earth Day for the Internet? Well, Susan Crawford did! I first heard of OneWebDay at the 2008 National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis this past June. The idea of OneWebDay is to focus attention on a key internet value (this year it will be online participation in democracy) focus attention on local internet concerns, and create a global constituency that cares about protecting and defending the internet. It’s an “environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem”.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming pretty clear that an environmental movement for the Internet is necessary. The Internet is under great pressure from all angles, including access providers who want to track what everyone is doing online and use it for their commercial advantage. We’re also suffering enormous digital divides and lower-income and rural communities don’t have adequate or consistent connectivity.

In 2008, OneWebDay is going to mobilize more people in more cities than every before and they are even going global.

If you’re in the city on Monday, September 22nd, come to Washington Square Park from 11:45am to 2pm (at the Teen Plaza on the Southeast part of the park). You’ll hear from Moderator Sree Sreenivasan (Columbia Journalism & WNBC-TV), plus Larry Lessig (Stanford), Craig Newmark (craigslist), City Councilwoman Hon. Gale A. Brewer, John Perry Barlow, and others. And if you’re not in New York, click here to find out what events are going on in your city.

OneWebDay is a unique platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet’s future.

The Constitution Project

We’ve been a light on blogging this week as we’ve been busy putting together the Foundation’s Fall Retreat Books. But now that they are safely on their way out the door, I thought I’d tell you about the recent work of an Overbrook Foundation grantee, The Constitution Project. On September 2nd, The Constitution Project drafted and obtained signatures for a letter which urged Texas Governor Rick Perry to put off an execution. That letter is referenced in this article published in yesterday’s New York Times.

The letter was which signed by 22 prominent former judges and prosecutors and sent to Perry concerns the case of Charles D. Hood - a man who was scheduled to be executed in Texas for murder despite evidence that his trial was tainted by a romantic relationship between the judge and prosecutor in his case.

The Constitution Project drafted and organized similar letters from judges and other influential leaders in a number of capital cases --- including the case of Troy Davis, a Georgia death-row inmate who received a 90-day stay of execution in July 2007, thanks, in part, to a letter urging the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency that they drafted and placed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on behalf of former federal judge and FBI Director William S. Sessions.

This kind of work allows The Constitution Project to become acquainted with new unlikely allies and educate them about their work and the issues. This in turn allows them to expand the pool of voices that it marshals on behalf of constitutional safeguards and civil liberties.

It's sure nice to see groups bringing together influential voices from across the political spectrum to prevent gross injustices.