Adam | Saturday, March 16, 2013 at 4:37PM The Restaurants du Cœur (known as the Restos du Cœur; "Restaurants of the Heart") is a French charitable organization that distributes food packages and hot meals to the needy.
It was founded by the comedian Coluche in 1985. These annual songs by "Les Enfoirés" represent a strong tradition of French philanthropy and civil society.
Adam | Monday, September 10, 2012 at 9:56PM 
For the past 10 weeks, I’ve been learning about the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN), an award-winning, science-based watershed protection organization that engages community members to take action in order to help the salmon recover and thrive. SPAWN is a project of the Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) and the program partner for my California Naturalist Certificate program from the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The mission of SPAWN is to protect endangered salmon in the Lagunitas Watershed and the environment on which we all depend. SPAWN uses a multi-faceted approach, including grassroots action, habitat restoration, policy development, research and monitoring, citizen training, environmental education, strategic litigation, and collaboration with other organizations, land-owners, and agencies.
SPAWN offers walks to view spawning salmon, an email action alert list-serve, homeowner consultations on creek protections, seminars, training and volunteer and internship opportunities.
As a soon-to-be-official naturalist, I have come to appreciate the focus of SPAWN’s efforts around the protection and preservation of the Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), a native species to the Lower Columbia River (threatened), Oregon Coast (threatened), Southern Oregon and Northern California Coasts (threatened), and Central California Coast (endangered).
According to the SPAWN website, "Coho have declined more than 95% from historic population levels, and are a listed species under the US Endangered Species Act. Just 30 minutes from the SF Bay Area's urban centers, Lagunitas Creek Watershed is one of the most important waterways left for these wild coho salmon, supporting 10 to 20% of all wild Central California Coast Coho surviving today."
By focusing on the Coho, our instructors explain their path to and from the ocean in the course of their lifecycle, drawing upon the connections that this species has with all of the other species is meets on its journey. We also learn about how the geography and geology play an important part in connecting such a fragile web of life.
I’m amazed at how intelligent, careful, and fun the SPAWN staff are in working with the community and watershed. Many of them are expert researchers, while others are local residents that care for the life around them.
This past weekend, I volunteered on a habitat restoration as part of the capstone project for two of my classmates. We removed the awful Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) that has taken over many areas near the SPAWN office in the Lagunitas Creek watershed.
Checkout this huge invasive weed pile that we pulled, on its way to become compost:
Adam | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 8:15PM I recently watched this video (below) from Bioneers about traditional ecological knowledge. The mission of Bioneers is to inspire a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations.
The Bioneers Indigeneity Program works to promote indigenous leaders and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) as a critical path to support all people in learning to honor bio-cultural landscapes and reconnect to place-based ways. Native peoples are keepers of the earth's "old growth" cultures, living in harmony with their Native environments for thousands of years. This indigenous science offers a different way of knowing that provides a crucial complement to the tools of western science.
Over the last decade, Bioneers commitment to indigenous peoples' social and ecological issues has brought together some of the greatest indigenous leaders of our time in one place.
I originally wanted to post a presentation by Melissa K. Nelson, Ph.D. (Anishinaabe/Métis [Turtle Mountain Chippewa]), a cultural ecologist, scholar-activist, writer and media-maker, is a Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University and the President of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native American nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous cultures and their ancestral lands. She is the editor of the Bioneers anthology, Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings For A Sustainable Future and producer of the award-winning documentary film, The Salt Song Trail. She is the co-founder/co-producer of the Indigenous Forum at Bioneers and co-founder of the new Bioneers Indigeneity Program as well as serving on Bioneers’ board.
However, they password protected the video (why do they not want to share this?!?!), so I removed the link. Hopefully, Bioneers will be more share-friendly in the future.
Adam | Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 12:09PM This weekend I hosted a party and one of my guests recently started working at Twitter. We had a nice conversation about social media and technology, and how in light of recent high-profile public offerings (Facebook, Groupon, LinkedIn, Pandora, Yelp, Zynga, etc.), little has been known about how these technology companies are turning a profit, like the recent 60 Minutes profile of Groupon.
I live two blocks away from the Zynga headquarters and walk past the Twitter's new building on my way to work each morning, so technology is a community interest for me, in some ways.
And for those tech companies that offer information or tools, it's fascinating to see some great examples of non-profit tech companies that serve a social mission, making the internet more of a nonprofit space, where ads and marketing aren't influencing the user experience.
I've been thinking more and more about this conversation and so I decided to explore the mission statements of my top 10 favorite nonprofit tech companies.
They are (in alphabetical order):
1. Bay Area Video Coalition (San Francisco, CA) bavc.org
Mission: The Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) inspires social change by enabling the sharing of diverse stories through art, education and technology.
2. Craigslist Foundation (RIP, San Francisco, CA) craigslist.org
Mission: to empower people to strengthen their communities by connecting them to the resources they need to effectively engage in community building.
3. Creative Commons (Mountain View, CA) creativecommons.org
Mission: Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.
4. Electronic Frontier Foundation (San Francisco, CA) eff.org
Mission: The Corporation was formed for the purpose of understanding and fostering the opportunities of digital communication in a free and open society.
5. Internet Archive (San Francisco, CA) archive.org
Mission: to offer permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format.
6. Kahn Academy (Mountain View, CA) kahnacademy.org
Mission: to provide a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.
Note: Kahn Academy was recently featured on 60 Minutes.
7. Mozilla Foundation (Mountain View, CA) mozilla.org
Mission: to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web,
8. TechSoup Global (San Francisco, CA) techsoup.org
Mission: TechSoup Global is working toward a time when every nonprofit and NGO on the planet has the technology resources and knowledge they need to operation at their full potential.
9. Tehnology, Entertainment, Design (New York, NY) ted.com
Mission: Spreading ideas.
10. Wikimedia Foundation (San Francisco, CA) wikimediafoundation.org
Mission: to encourage the growth, development, and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to provide the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge.
Please share your favorite nonprofit tech companies with me! I can be reached at adam@badwound.org.
Adam | Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 11:43AM Yesterday's post made me think of a song that I remember loving from my childhood: "Cooperation" by Sesame Street. It's also a good reminder that Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit organization with a mission "to use the educational power of media to help children everywhere reach their highest potential."
Their projects bring critical lessons in literacy and numeracy, emotional wellbeing, health and wellness, and respect and understanding to children in 150+ countries.
Co-operation... makes it happen!
Co-operation ... working together!
Adam | Friday, March 23, 2012 at 12:14PM When I was in graduate school, I took a course on organization behavior and we had a conversation about "nonprofits acting like people," which led us to the funny image of "kids playing in a sandbox." A recent project that I've been working on has been one such example of organizations collaborating, fittingly in a park setting.
On May 12, 2012, the Stanford Alumni Association is holding the annual Global Day of Service known as "Beyond the Farm" that extends Stanford's spirit of service to communities around the world through the volunteer efforts of alumni, family and friends. As an alumnus and board member of Stanford Pride, I'm putting together a project to work at the National AIDS Memorial in Golden Gate Park (full disclosure: I'm on the board of the National AIDS Memorial, too!). We're promoting the event with the Stanford Club of San Francisco in our outreach efforts, among many other service projects in San Francisco on that day.
Our volunteers will help maintain the memorial by clearing weeds and debris, mulching and hauling topsoil, planting new trees and shrubs, and other related projects.
Grab your shovel and join me! Let's play well together in the sanbox!
Adam | Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 11:52PM Tonight, as a member of the environment circle at Full Circle Fund, I met Jill Savery, Head of Sustainability at America's Cup Event Authority. Jill is a Bay Area native, author, Olympic gold-medalist, and inductee of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. She spoke to us about the sustainability plan for the 34th America’s Cup, which will be in San Francisco next summer (2013).
(L) Melanie Nutter, Director, San Francisco Department of Environment, (R) Jill Savery, Head of Sustainability, America's Cup Event AuthorityJill explained to us how sustainability planning for an event differs from sustainability planning for the ongoing operations of a commercial enterprise, institution or community. For example, unlike a business, an event takes place in a finite and short time period, and planning can involve considering potential impacts of an event with little or no useful historical data to reference.
The America’s Cup has never been held in San Francisco or so close to shore, so organizers must predict factors such as the number of spectators that might attend, transportation requirements, and quantities of waste generated.
The Sustainability Plan provides information on how the event delivery organizations intend to achieve sustainability objectives. The following five sustainability themes provide focus for the event management:
For the America’s Cup Event Authority, sustainability means optimizing the social, economic and environmental impacts of our activities in delivering the 34th America’s Cup, to enrich the communities we visit and protect natural ecosystems.
Jill further explained while there are numerous issues affecting ocean health, the America’s Cup Healthy Ocean Project will highlight the following three areas where the project partners believe its stakeholders can have a significant direct impact:
The America’s Cup Sustainability Plan was developed by the America’s Cup Event Authority, in consultation with the San Francisco Department of the Environment, various City Departments, the America’s Cup Organizing Committee, and other relevant event delivery partners, for the events taking place in San Francisco.
You can download the plan to learn more!
As a member of the board of directors of the Educational Tall Ship Project, I am getting excited for this event as an opportunity to promote the health of our oceans, a thrilling connection to the natural world, and a friendly international competition in my community.
Adam | Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 2:29PM The Restaurants du Cœur (far more commonly and familiarly known as the Restos du Cœur; "Restaurants of the Heart") is a French charitable organization that distributes food packages and hot meals to the needy.
It was founded by the comedian Coluche in 1985. These annual songs by "Les Enfoirés" represent a strong tradition of French philanthropy and civil society.
Adam | Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 3:03PM Explore the tastes, sounds, and creatures of the night at the California Academy of Sciences during the Big Bang Gala, a special evening benefiting the Academy's research and education programs. The evening features Ira Flatow, NPR science correspondent and host of Talk Of The Nation: Science Friday; Dean Kamen inventor of the Segway and many other inventions; Salman Khan, founder and one-man faculty of the Khan Academy; and Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google.
Big Bang Gala 2012: Party After Dark
April 19, 2012
8:30pm to midnight
For adults 21+
Tickets to the Gala are sold-out (!), but tickets are still available for Party After Dark, a post-dinner celebration featuring live music by Fitz and The Tantrums, late-night bites, and an open bar. Tickets for Party After Dark are $75 ($45 of each ticket is tax-deductible). For more information call 415.379.5411 or email events@calacademy.org.
Join me!
Adam | Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 4:35PM My friends over at the One Percent Foundation are constantly coming up with good ideas. This time, they’ve found a way to mix good + games + grants.
Join us for FREE beer, basketball, and music on Sunday, March 11 from 1-4 PM at WIX Lounge in San Francisco.
Donors that sign up for Grant Madness (in advance or at the event) are entered into a raffle to win fun prizes courtesy of WIX Lounge, ScoutMob, Lagunitas Brewing Company, and Fundly!
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