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Sharing skills during the holidays

Ambika Kandasamy, Shareable.net — Dec 23 2011 - 12:08pm

With the holiday festivities swiftly approaching in a year marked by global protests over economic inequality, people in the Bay Area are turning to alternate, community-based means of exchanging goods and skills. Collectives like the Timebank help people circumvent buying gifts with money during the holidays. “The systemic way in which the economy works undermines every good that we try to do,” said Mira Luna, co-founder of the local nonprofit Bay Area Community Exchange, an organization that has been facilitating trades of talents and commodities using time rather than money as the currency. “There’s a lot of underutilized resources and a lot of needs out of there.”

S.F. food providers scrambling to find money to pay for fresh goods as federal funds disappear

Amy Graham, SF Public Press — Nov 22 2011 - 3:51pm

Because of the economic meltdown, an increasing number of San Francisco residents are finding themselves hungry and in need – and the agencies that would normally help fill those bellies are drastically cutting what they can provide. San Francisco social service agencies face another hard-hitting blow, as the San Francisco Food Bank, which supplies more than 400 local organizations with the majority of their food, is still reeling from the loss of federal funding.

Activists say ditch banks, go to credit unions on Nov. 5

Niema Jordan, Oakland Local — Nov 2 2011 - 1:20pm

Did you know that this Saturday, Nov. 5, is Bank Transfer Day? If you've seen the Facebook event, which has more that 58,000 RSVPs, or the Twitter page, then you've seen the red, white and blue mask, and have probably read the following: "Together we can ensure that these banking institutions will ALWAYS remember the 5th of November!! If the 99% removes our funds from the major banking institutions to non-profit credit unions on or by this date, we will send a clear message to the 1% that conscious consumers won't support companies with unethical business practices."

Facing cuts, nonprofits forced to lobby City Hall to save immigration program

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Aug 17 2011 - 3:33pm

Year after year, private organizations strategize and line up clients to push for last-minute ‘add-backs’

For clients at Self-Help for the Elderly, the citizenship classes taught by volunteer instructor Joanne Lee are a perfect fit: Classes are held at a convenient Chinatown location, senior clientele are easily accommodated and the material is taught in both English and Chinese. It has worked out well for students Sammie Xu, 69, and Nancy Zhang, 64, Chinese immigrants who are studying for their naturalization exam. Before enrolling in classes at the social services agency, the married couple tried others in which teachers only provided instruction books without guidance or taught classes only in English.

Burning Man organizers eye move to redeveloped mid-Market Street arts district

Hank Drew, SF Public Press — Jan 28 2011 - 8:03am
In much the same way as they annually transform a desolate stretch of the Nevada desert into a week-long countercultural art festival, the organizers of Burning Man are now hoping to transform a desolate stretch of San Francisco’s Market Street.

Utopianism behind them, co-ops seek new strength helping low-wage workers

Mineko Brand, SF Public Press — Sep 9 2010 - 10:00am

Worker-owned cooperatives are growing as an alternative business model that puts the people who do the work in control. And they are getting a lot more organized than in the recent past, turning local networks into regional and national organizations. With the Bay Area still grappling with high unemployment rates and a weak economy, co-op advocates say they have a solution that is gaining momentum. Membership in the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives has grown 25 percent a year for the past two years, said Melissa Hoover, executive director of the San Francisco-based group.

‘Socially responsible outsourcing’ takes tech jobs to developing world

Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press — Aug 12 2010 - 10:41am
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A local nonprofit group is making a name for itself in the tech world by providing U.S.-based companies with low-priced online labor in developing countries. While thousands of for-profit companies have been offshoring tech jobs for years, San Francisco-based Samasource says it wants to turn online work into a tool to alleviate poverty.

Brakes put on indigent transportation program

Conor Gallagher, SF Public Press — Jun 17 2010 - 5:01pm

The homeless and disabled are facing proposed cuts to a program that provides them with transportation to pick up prescriptions and obtain medical treatment. Mobile Assistance Patrol is facing a $300,000 reduction in funds for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, which means that the transportation service will operate for shelter clients only at night.

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Worldwide micro-lender looks homeward: Q&A with Kiva.org’s Premal Shah

Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press — Apr 5 2010 - 3:15pm
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Despite high loan requests and lower repayment rates by borrowers in the country, San Francisco nonprofit microcredit Web site, Kiva, has managed to raise $765,900 since launching its pilot program this past June in the United States. Typically, the organization distributes loans raised on its Web site to microcredit organizations in developing countries that lend it to impoverished entrepreneurs. The impact of the economic downturn on small business owners set the stage for Kiva to establish a program in the U.S. last June.

Seeking to Help Budding Researchers With a Click of the Mouse

Victoria Schlesinger, SF Public Press / The New York Times — Apr 2 2010 - 12:38am

Eureka Fund, based in San Francisco, is one of a handful of new nonprofit organizations created to give the general public an opportunity to pay for scientific research that is not fully supported by government or private sources. They are part of a fledgling movement to take the idea of crowd-sourcing and crowd-financing, which has worked in arenas like small business and education, to scientific research.

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