Madera Group

Last month, President Barack Obama spoke to people of Ghana about opportunity, responsibility, and the important role each of them has in determining their country’s future. His message was clear: “The world will be what you make of it.” Obama’s words challenged and encouraged the people of Ghana to take control of their own destiny – Africans have already shown their capacity and commitment to making change, and now is the time for them to use those tools to create new opportunities for themselves, he said.

During the month of July, The Madera Group has collaborated with the William J. Clinton Foundation to launch an online matching gift campaign.  For every donation received, President Clinton will match each dollar through a personal gift of up to $150,000 until July 31st at midnight. The campaign has been promoted through a series of special messages sent from President Clinton, staff member Charmaine Pattinson in Zambia, and long-time Clinton Foundation supporter Barbara Streisand.

VolunteerMatch has launched its first ever blog for the nonprofit community called Engaging Volunteers: The VolunteerMatch Blog for Organizations, which is targeted at the VolunteerMatch membership of more than 75,000 nonprofit professionals and the greater community of organizations that work with volunteers.

The Madera Group supports United4Iran.org’s global day of solidarity on Saturday, July 25th. Untited4Iran is a non-partisian group of individuals working to end the widespread and systematic violations of the people of Iran’s human and civil rights. In just three weeks United4Iran participation has grown to over 110 cities worldwide.

The Madera Group is excited to announce that its client, California Attorney Joyce Tischler of the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), will be honored with the Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award by the American Bar Association Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) Animal Law Committee in Chicago next month.

This month, the Madera Group continues our work with Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, launching a new “campaign within a campaign” to help increase enrollment in their program, Make Mine a Million $ Business. Founded by social entrepreneur and author Nell Merlino (who created “Take your Daughter to Work Day”), Count Me In helps women entrepreneurs grow their businesses by providing (for free or at very low cost) a suite of online tools, webinars, national and regional events, and access to business development experts.

I am in San Francisco for the national conference of WBENC, the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, giving the keynote address at lunch today.  As I prepare to speak I am overwhelmed with the importance of women getting together, reaching out and venturing out to talk with other business owners about how they are handling the dramatic changes in the marketplace, the economy and their family lives.

Change.org has launched 

a new career service and online marketplace for social change jobs called Jobs for Change.  They’ve created the site in partnership with more than a dozen nonprofits, including Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, AmeriCorps Alums, Echoing Green, Network for Good, and Encore Careers.

The Clinton Foundation and Madera Group launched a new video about the Clinton Foundation Millennium Network’s work to inspire young philanthropists to become the “How Generation.”

In January of 2009, the two founders of the Diabetes Hands Foundation, Manny Hernandez and Andreina Davila, asked the Madera Group to help them envision and execute the next steps in their organizational growth.