In The Blue Sweater we follow Jacqueline on her journey from an idealistic 20-something out to change the world who learned some hard lessons in reality, to a world-changer who is truly making her dent in the universe.

The book starts out in the concrete jungle of New York City, where Jacqueline starts her career as an international banker at Chase Manhattan. We follow her career as she has stints in South America and Africa and finally back to the US where she founds the Acumen Fund. She now works to find ways to eradicate poverty through innovative businesses that have the poor as their customers. How’s that for an innovative solution?

What follows are three lessons I took from the book.

Start.
We often find ourselves waiting for the exact right time to do something, especially when it’s something big. I know I’m guilty of that. Here’s some advice that Jacqueline got right before she started her work at the Acumen fund, after she had spent a number of years over in Africa:

“Don’t wait for perfection”. Just start and let the work teach you. No one expects you to get it right in the very beginning, and you’ll learn more from your mistakes than you will from your early successes anyway. So stop worrying so much and just look at your best bets and go”.
Such great advice. There is one truth you will never escape – you’ll never get there if you don’t take the first step. So start. Right now.

Understand people and culture

The people in Africa gave Jacqueline a very hard time when she first went to there to help. Why? She, and the people who sent her, didn’t understand the people or the culture there. Here’s and example: UNICEF once hired an expensive Italian designer to create a poster campaign aimed at convincing women to vaccinate their children  with simple written messages accompanied by gorgeous photographs. They were perfect, except for the small fact that there was an extremely low female literacy rate in Rwanda. Ooops!

Remember if you haven’t walked a mile in a person’s shoes, it is hard for you to understand them, and impossible for you to move them to action.

The solution lies in simplicity on the far side of complexity
Oliver Wendall Holmes once said that I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

This simplicity often comes in the form of a third alternative to two seemingly conflicting ideas. For Jacqueline, the issue became more and more clear as time went on. Charity alone, wasn’t the answer. The market alone, wasn’t the answer. Jacqueline’s key insight was that change could be created by finding solutions where the poor were the customers, not the recipients of handouts. It’s a dramatic paradigm shift, and the results are dramatic as well.

By Steve Cunningham

This is the last article in a series of four. The first article presented the theory. The second explained how to embrace change rather than simply enduring it. The third article was a detailed example of the author’s application of the theory in her own life. This article includes practical guidelines, the drip, trickle, and flood, for implementation in your own life.—ed.

Break down an element of behavior that will be necessary to make the change into the smallest repeatable part. Then do just that tiny little thing every day. For example, losing weight requires eating less and moving more. So, taking the moving more part of the equation, find some small, minute behavior change that you can do every day. Buying sneakers will get you started but it is generally not something you would do daily as part of the behavior change. However, putting on those sneakers is something you would do daily. So as part of your grand plan to lose weight you decide that the smallest unit you can do daily is to put your sneakers on. That’s all. Just do that every day.

The reason this works is that it isn’t a big enough change from what you are already doing to provoke resistance. “Heck, I’m only putting my sneakers on.” And then once they’re on you may decide to do a little more. But do not do too much, as this will provoke resistance. Just be consistent at putting your sneakers on every day. After a few weeks of that you can up the ante—maybe you’ll take 2 marching steps. Whatever it is, do it every day.

Do the physical drip activity and combine it with a corresponding mental activity. For example, “I enjoy moving my body—it feels good to work out.” Run this through your mind over and over every day. What you want to do is change your old mental ruts to new, more useful ruts (ruts are good as long as they take you where you want to go). Your brain is like modeling clay and you are remodeling it. Read The Mind & The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force if you want to know more.

Make one big decision that necessitates many, many subsequent actions. For example, hire a personal trainer and give that trainer a key to your house and permission to roust you from your bed. Pay the trainer an amount of money that makes you feel as if you must follow through or you have wasted a serious amount of money. And to really flood, give your next month’s rent/mortgage payment to someone to hold on your behalf. If you make your weight-loss goals, that person pays your rent/mortgage. If you don’t make your goals, the money goes to charity and you have to find additional funds.

By Jule Kucera

In difficult economic times, we hear a lot that is negative and angry. Does a negative attitude change our financial situation or motivate us to make changes for the good? Or does it just make us more angry and bitter, unable to take steps to make things better?

In the past I’ve allowed negative feelings about finances paralyze me with fear. I wanted to crawl into a black hole and sleep and not come out until everything was better.

But nothing would get better until I took positive steps. My very first step was to stop dwelling on the negative and focus on the positive. I started journaling. I wrote it all down; just purged the negativity. It felt as though I’d thrown it all in the trash.

The next step I took was to journal my ‘challenges’. Try referring to any problem you’re facing as a challenge. A challenge sounds like something that can be overcome, dealt with. It has a positive feeling to it.

After making a list of challenges, I wrote down what my ideal result or solution to it was. Then I put a target date down for overcoming the challenge.

Soon I had an extensive list of specific actions and dates. I began tackling them, one at a time. Each week I would review my list, make notes, and put the actual date of completion down.

Reviewing what I accomplished gave me the incentive to keep moving forward. By my target date I had accomplished my goal! My whole outlook on life changed. In less than one month I went from wanting to crawl into a dark hole to feeling excited about life, work and what the future held. I went from inactivity to feeling inspired.

Instead of feeling negative and angry because of the difficult economic times, let’s focus on the positive. Each time you think a negative thought, immediately think of one thing you are happy about—family, friends, the sunshine. Let’s see what a difference it can make in our lives. I don’t think it means all our problems will disappear. I do believe a positive attitude can help us overcome our challenges and be happy in spite of them.

Keep a journal. I continue to write down challenges and very specific steps I need to take to accomplish them. I continually review them, making notes and writing down the actual dates of accomplishment. It’s such an encouraging feeling to review my journal regularly and see what all I’ve accomplished.

If you need help changing a painfully negative outlook, please consider seeking professional help. You do not have to live with emotional pain and negativity.

By Sue L Canfield

Sorry, Charles Dickens. It’s certainly not the best of times, but it’s also not the worst of times. Despite everything going on in the world now, you can make it better. Yes, you can, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money or time to do it. Here’s how I found out.
During lunch one day in 2005, my friends and I commiserated about all the huge problems facing us—the wars, crime, poverty, climate change, and more. We felt helpless every time we turned on the news.
But that day I decided that instead of thinking about all the big problems I couldn’t solve, I would look for small problems that I could solve. I committed to doing a nice thing once a week. Not every day, because I’m not that nice. But once a week was a realistic goal for me.

So I picked Monday, my hardest day, because Mondays need the most help. I started a website, DoOneNiceThing.com and posted a new idea each week. Then I sent an email to sixty friends. Word spread by word of mouth and word of mouse. Now Do One Nice Thing has members in ninety countries, and my first book, Do One Nice Thing (Crown Publishers) will be released in May.
I experienced a profound change: I actually started looking forward to Mondays! Helping others feels good, but doing it on a regular basis feels REALLY good. I call our members Nice-o-holics because when they start doing nice things, they get hooked.

Working together we have
• Mailed more than seventy tons of school supplies to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and
Iraq, who give them to local children so they can study
• Sent countless books to schools, libraries, and hospitals
• Contributed numerous gifts for foster children, whose birthdays are often forgotten
• Donated tens of thousands of packages of pasta, cans of food, and other food items to food banks, and much more.

I’ve been asked, with so many people out of work or on tight budgets, isn’t it unrealistic to expect people to help each other now?
Actually, it’s the opposite. There are many ways to help that don’t cost a dime, and helping gives us the emotional lift we need now more than ever. In fact, unemployed people are turning up in astonishing numbers to volunteer at food banks, homeless shelters, and nonprofit organizations of every kind. Rather than sitting home alone and feeling like victims, they are using their free time to make a difference.
In the coming month, I’m going to post a series of unique projects the unemployed can easily do – like making “Doggy Pinatas” out of empty paper towel and toilet paper rolls, to comfort animals in shelters, and collecting box tops to raise money for an Appalachian school.
The truth is you don’t need a lot of money to help someone. All you need is a compassionate heart. Maybe we can’t solve the big problems – yet, but by working together we can solve a lot of smaller ones. By helping, we give people hope, and that makes us hopeful too. Won’t you join us?

Give someone a compliment. Email, write, call or tell someone you enjoyed their meal, article, sermon, product or service.

What’s in your closet? Donate clothes, books, sports equipment, art supplies and other things you don’t need to shelters, schools and recreation centers.

Organize your friends or co-workers to get together to clean up a park, make get-well cards for sick children, form a carpool or dinner tree to help out a harried friend, or bring cans of food for the needy instead of gifts for your birthday.

Debbie Tenzer
Founder, Do One Nice Thing
www.DoOneNiceThing.com

My friend Vinod Savanth is an animal lover with a heart as big as Texas. He treats his three dogs well and is a responsible pet owner.
He has a long commute, as many of us do. And on that commute, he frequently sees dogs and cats injured by cars.
Traffic is so heavy where he lives that no one stops to help.

If Vinod lived in my city, he could call animal control and a truck would come by and take the animal to the local pound or humane society.
Animals that don’t survive would be collected for sanitary disposal.

Vinod doesn’t live in my city, though. He lives in Bangalore in Southern India.
He took last week off from work to file paperwork to start a non-profit animal rescue service for his city, the first of its kind. WWW.K9CareService.org
He purchased and modified vehicles using savings and is implementing a plan that he put together over the course of several years.

Vinod is fulfilling a dream… and meeting a need uniquely suited to his gifts and passions.

What need do you see that is uniquely yours to fill?

Write a list of needs that you are passionate about.
Find an organization that services that need and give one week’s “coffee money” to that cause.

Ask that organization what volunteer opportunities are available where you could help.
www.volunteermatch.org is a great place to match your interests with needs.

Is there an unmet need that you have a huge passion about that no one else seems to be meeting?
Ask a related non-profit what it would take to help them expand their services.
What would it take to meet that need that your heart is connected with?
 It may mean starting your own non-profit!
www.wikihow.com/Start-a-501c3-Nonprofit-Organization is an article that discusses the steps to create a non-profit.

By James Todd

As a result of a rising population, extreme poverty and an HIV pandemic, the shocking statistic is there are over two million babies currently orphaned in Uganda. There are babies every day and every week, abandoned in toilets, in bus stations or at the roadside, and they’re left to die.

In the Ugandan capital, Kampala, all the existing babies’ homes are nearly 50% over capacity. The very youngest of Uganda are part of a system that’s failing them at every turn, creating a heartbreaking tragedy of immense proportions.

ChildsiFoundation is a UK charity run by an inspirational woman, Lucy Buck, that’s aiming to stem this tide of abandonment. Her aim is to build a new orphanage in Kampala able to work with other local organizations, to help abandoned babies, and to provide a way of rebuilding the family units they so desperately need to survive.

ChildsiFoundation is using the internet to build a tribe, a community of people internationally, to create the orphanage and generate a powerful groundswell for change.

As Lucy puts it, ‘Our aim is to create a connection between orphans in need of a home with people who are willing and able to help them. We want people to support our charity because they feel a connection with the children and the web is the perfect tool to create that connection. We are going to build a babies’ home in Uganda together, providing a safe haven, medical care and educational facilities for young children before placing them into secure and happy families. The success of this project relies entirely on an online community’.

It doesn’t take a special person, you don’t have to be brave or crazy, or have endless time or countless cash. As long as you care, you make a difference to ChildsiFoundation, and time, money and love, they all help. Only £200,000 is needed, that’s 200,000 people donating a £1 each. The more the word spreads, the more chances ChildsiFoundation and these babies have to survive.

If you believe that children are our future, then there’s a lot of little things that you can do to help build a brighter horizon for them this way.

Spread the word about ChildsiFoundation on twitter or on facebook. Just donating your time and love like this will make a big difference.

Buy a brick for the orphanage, or get involved in one of ChildsiFoundation’s many fundraising campaigns. There are fun things to do like Speed Dating Meetups and recycling clothes via ChildsiFoundations’ Undressing for Uganda campaigns.

Make a one-off or monthly donation through the website.

By Anne Mc Crossan

Love is contagious. The more you get, the more you want to give. Where can you turn to get yourself infected?

Your husband, wife, or life partner offers you love. So do your friends and family members. But any fear that they don’t really mean it gets in the way of receiving as much love as possible.

The secret is this: Expect Love. Watch for signs of it. Watch for them the way you watch for the first bit of green pushing up out of the earth in the spring or for a baby’s first tooth. Take note whenever you spot them.

And get over the idea that you need to guard against a withdrawal of love by testing for it all the time. You can only test for a dozen or so of its many varieties, and you’re going to overlook all the others while you’re running your tests.

Don’t say, “If you loved me you would be more careful with our money.” That dear person you welcomed into your life for his or her extraordinary optimism or appreciation of beautiful objects may not offer frugal love, too. Separate your money if you must to feel safe, and Expect Love without trying to predefine it.

And don’t try, “If you loved me, you would forgive me for being late to your big day.” Forgiving love is delightful, but no more so than high integrity love or get-it-done love or creative surprises love.

Expect Love. The expectation alone attracts more of it. Filled with love, you can change the world.

Let go of one of your love tests. Let some more love in.

Keep a private love journal. Aim to document at least three acts of love received daily. It will change your life. Gratitude felt increases happiness, even without an increase in things to feel grateful for.

Teach your children — and other people’s children — to Expect Love.

By Patty Newbold

Right now, 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water.  Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.
Many communities in developing nations often have a plentiful supply of clean water just below the ground, but no way to get to it.

charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. They give 100% of the money raised to direct project costs, funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years.

How can you get involved?

DONATE – $2o can give a person in Africa clean, safe drinking water for 20 years.  100% goes to direct project costs.
Contact   www.charitywater.org

FUNDRAISE FOR A WELL – charity:water are currently building a fundraising application to include an extensive set of tools to help you in your fundraising campaigns.

VOLUNTEER – Answer a few questions and sign up to become a charity:water volunteer

GET YOUR SCHOOL INVOLVED - Help a school in need. Bring the charity: water initiative to your campus and help raise awareness about the water crisis facing kids just like you.

Source: www.charitywater.org

Pat Tumulty was tired all the time. His appetite was off, and his blood pressure was high. But, he hated going to the doctor and always put it off. His insurance had a high deductible, and since he only earned $9 an hour, paying for a doctor would be hard.

When he finally went for a physical, the doctor found problems. After a series of tests, Pat found out he had kidney disease, and $14,000 worth of medical bills. Why? He thought he had insurance, had been paying the premiums faithfully. But, since he was buying six-month policies (hoping to get a better job that would provide coverage), the insurance company insisted his illness was a “pre-existing condition” and wouldn’t cover his bills. ( Time magazine March 12, 2009)

Michelle Morse, a student at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, had colon cancer. Her doctor recommended she leave school for treatment, but, at the time, she would have lost her coverage under her parents’ insurance. So, she stayed and went for chemo treatments between classes. She died three years later. Her mom reported that one insurance company executive “told her indignantly that the company had already paid out a lot of money for Michelle.” She retorted, “I would give up my life for you not to have to pay one cent for my daughter.” (Nicholas Kristof, The NY Times March 1, 2009)

The United States “has the best health care” in the world — if you can afford to pay for it. Half of all bankruptcies in the US are triggered by medical bills. (MSNBC) And, American children under age 5 are more likely to die then children in Spain, Portugal, or Slovenia. The World Health Organization found that American women are at a higher risk of dying than those in Greece, Spain, or Germany. (Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, March 1, 2009)

We spend $6,800 per person (about twice the level of spending in Canada or most of Europe) to get second-class results. (Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, March 1, 2009)

What can we do about it?

A Facebook group modelled on whitehouse2.org – offer solutions to fix healthcare, vote suggestions up and down, send the top 10 to the White House

Share the burden, encourage saving. One company, called Famous Supply, increased the deductible employees had to pay and required employees to pay a monthly premium for insurance. At the end of each year, workers who didn’t submit any claims got 2/3 of their premiums back, as a bonus.

Insist on reform. Lobby your representatives. Insist on standards for conducting expensive tests (like MRIs) or limits on numbers of embryos implanted during in vitro fertilization. Insist that insurance companies become more efficient (mine sends me 7 letters each year when I renew my policy – and some of them contradict each other). Demand easier (and broader) access to primary health care, check ups, and clinics that are less costly than emergency room visits.

By Jodi Kaplan