This recent incident is just the latest reminder of the intolerant climate that has been created by the demagogues and fear mongering pundits of the right-wing. To ensure that Tides can respond to other moments, we are launching the Tides Civil Discourse Fund.

This first appeal for the Civil Discourse Fund is an urgent one.

On August 28, 2010, the nation will celebrate the 47th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech delivered by Rev. Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial. In a shameful attempt to co-opt Dr. King's legacy, FOX News personality Glenn Beck will deliver a "I have a plan" address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to thousands of Tea Party activists.

As a counterpoint to Beck's event, Celebrate the Dream will bring together thousands of people on the National Mall and will feature a striking art installation with the words and images of Dr. King. This beautiful exhibit will honor the true intent of the hundreds of thousands who participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Dr. King's greatest speeches will play throughout the day, and visitors will be able to participate — both on-site and online — by adding their thoughts on "What does the Dream mean to you?" The sponsors of Celebrate the Dream include Campaign for America's Future, Jewish Funds for Justice, the New Organizing Institute, and The Other 98%. Join us in celebrating Rev. King's legacy and celebrate the dream.

To support Celebrate the Dream through the Tides Civil Discourse Fund, donate now.

If you already have a fund at Tides Foundation, please contact your philanthropic advisor to contribute.

Visit www.tides.org/discourse for future appeals and updates as the work of the Tides Civil Discourse Fund grows and evolves.

We are stronger as a sector and society when we respectfully acknowledge our ideological and substantive differences and seek constructive ways to work together versus slurring, maligning or attacking those with a belief system different from our own.  We encourage foundations and nonprofits to join us and publicly uphold freedom of speech with a respect for divergent views.

Media Contact:

Tony Stephens
Communications and
Social Media Manager
office: 202-467-6144
cell: 917-676-5266 (after hours)
tonyS(at)independendentsector.org

We are relieved that no one other than the assailant was hurt seriously in the incident, and we are relieved that he was prevented from carrying out his misguided plans, whatever they may have been.

On occasion, the shadow of violence falls on American civic life and it should never be accepted or tolerated. Often, it is encouraged by partisan voices who label activities of which they disapprove by suggesting they are "anti-American" or some other epithet.

This incident serves to remind us that it should be the obligation of every American, especially those whose voices are amplified by the media, to foster civil discourse and dialogue among those who may disagree about public matters. One does not win an argument by inciting unbalanced people to violence. As Americans, we know we are best at solving problems when we reach broadly across boundaries for the best of ideas. Intolerance that closes our eyes defeats our aspirations.

The Tides organizations support innovative, creative nonprofit work to address social problems. We work for sustainability, better education, solutions to the AIDS epidemic, comprehensive immigration reform, and human rights. We strive to encourage every American to be as involved in public life as they can be, and to resolve differences through the honest exchange of ideas.

Making his mark in LGBTQ communities in Chicago and Philadelphia, D' Ontace Keyes is currently a Program Assistant at Youth Health Empowerment, a program of Philadelphia FIGHT. Pointing out that African American youth ages 13 to 29 make up 50% of new HIV infections, D' Ontace explains, "These statistics speak to the importance of empowering and educating LGBTQ youth, especially young men of color who have sex with men." Of his activism, he continues, "Due to all of the stigma I have experienced in my life with homophobia and being an HIV-positive Black gay man, I feel the need to speak up for myself and others in my community. My motto is empower, empower, empower!"

All three of this year's honorees have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, a fact that should serve as a call to action to prioritize homelessness and economic justice as LGBTQ issues. The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce estimates that 20% - 40% of all homeless youth are part of the LGBTQ community. Paula "Sean" McCusker's experiences with homelessness in Baltimore served as a catalyst for their* activism around the epidemic of LGBTQ youth homelessness. Sean explains, "The more I learned about how my own homelessness was part of a national epidemic, the more I became involved in organizing around the issue." Sean is currently working with Equality Maryland and the Baltimore Homeless Youth Initiative to create a youth-run drop-in center for LGBTQ youth in Baltimore.

Working with the Safe OUTside the System Collective, a program of the Audre Lorde Project, and FIERCE in New York City, Veronica Tirado has shined in her activism around violence prevention, healing and youth development. "We need to organize and the voice of LGBTQ youth must be heard," declares Veronica. She continues, "Too many LGBTQ youth experience forms of violence – verbal, emotional, sexual, and physical – and we can't normalize it. We are not being true to ourselves if we don’t do something about this now." According to a recent nation-wide survey of organizations serving LGBTQ youth conducted by FIERCE, gender-based violence was ranked as one of the most urgent issues facing LGBTQ youth.

This year's award winners showcase the importance of how ordinary people making extraordinary contributions to their communities ultimately creates a movement, through reaching out, inspiring and supporting others, building communities, and creating safer space. These vital contributions demonstrate the bravery and resilience of LGBTQ youth, especially given the current state of the economy, where critical resources for LGBTQ youth have dwindled across the country. "The Colin Higgins Youth Courage Awards program is unique in that it rewards and recognizes LGBTQ youth activists who give so much of themselves to their communities, yet they too are struggling against so many barriers in their lives," says Tierney Gleason, Program Administrator of the Colin Higgins Foundation.

Youth Courage Award recipients receive a grant of $10,000 and will be honored at The Trevor Project Gala in New York City on June 28th. The Trevor Project operates the nation's only 24/7 suicide and crisis prevention helpline for gay and questioning youth. The awardees will also receive an expense-paid trip to attend the National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change presented by the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce in February.

The Courage Awards were established in 2000 to further the spirit and lifework of Colin Higgins, the acclaimed screenwriter/director, who created such films as Harold and Maude and Nine to Five. Following his films that celebrated characters who displayed honesty and integrity in the face of adversity, the Courage Awards were created to honor ordinary yet remarkable individuals whose courage helped to educate and enlighten others about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer experience. For the first five years of the program, Courage Awards were awarded to LGBTQ youth, adults, and allies. In 2005, the program shifted its focus specifically to support LGBTQ youth. Over the last decade, the Foundation has issued 38 awards to activists hailing from 16 states and Puerto Rico. A list of previous winners can be found at www.colinhiggins.org.

Meet the 2010 Youth Courage Award Winners:

[D' ANGELO] D' ONTACE KEYES, 20. Born into an African American family in Chicago, D' Angelo learned the sting of the slurs "faggot" and "gay" coming from his classmates and his mother beginning at age 6. At age 12, D' Angelo escaped his abusive home only to encounter even more homophobia within the foster care system. Struggling with his identity, D' Angelo fought back against harassment and violence by proudly embracing his gay identity and re-naming himself D' Ontace. He pursued his passion for the performing arts and community activism, studying at the Chicago Academy for the Arts and working as the Fundraiser/Special Events Coordinator for Chicago's Youth Pride Center. At age 17, D' Ontace learned he was HIV-positive. Relocating to a new city to attend the University of the Arts, D' Ontace had to overcome homelessness and discrimination due to his HIV status, while learning to live on his own for the first time. Today, D' Ontace is a tireless activist leader in Philadelphia dedicated to providing education and working to break down stigma with LGBTQ youth, with a focus on HIV-positive young men of color. D' Ontace is a Program Assistant at Youth Health Empowerment Project, a program of Philadelphia FIGHT.

PAULA "SEAN" MCCUSKER, 20. Growing up outside Baltimore in a multicultural family and strict Baptist community, Sean fought to come to terms with their* gender and sexual identity. At 16, after coming out as Queer, Sean experienced widespread rejection, and was subsequently kicked out of the Baptist school they had attended since kindergarten. Undaunted, Sean enrolled in a public high school and pursued the right to safe space by organizing the school's first Gay/Straight Alliance. Earning a scholarship to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Sean led the LGBTQ student group and worked to implement diversity trainings around LGBTQ issues. As Sean's activist work gained momentum, financial circumstances took a turn for the worse, and returning home was not a safe option. Sean struggled with homelessness for six months, attempting to continue school without a safe place to live. Sean eventually dropped out of school and decided to pursue activism full-time, realizing that the experience of being homeless and Queer was reflective of a national epidemic facing LGBTQ youth. Sean is currently working with Equality Maryland and the Baltimore Homeless Youth Initiative to create a youth-run drop-in center for homeless LGBTQ youth. (*they/their are Sean's preferred pronouns)

VERONICA TIRADO, 18. Due to financial hardships experienced by their mother, Veronica's family became homeless when Veronica was 13 - a critical time in her life when she was struggling to define herself and take pride in her identity as a Queer-Fem. In spite of the pain and uncertainty she was undergoing, Veronica found a community to give her support, love and guidance at the Safe OUTside the System (SOS) Collective, a program of the Audre Lorde Project. Having experienced violence herself, Veronica was able to begin healing in a positive way through her work with the SOS Collective, which uses community accountability as a strategy to prevent violence directed at LGBTQ and gender non-conforming people of color in central Brooklyn. Shifting her work in a more youth-specific direction, Veronica recently transitioned her activist work to FIERCE, an organization for LGBTQ youth of color in New York. As one of FIERCE's most active members, Veronica is a graduate of the Education for Liberation Project, an educational internship program for empowerment and leadership development. She has excelled in her contributions to FIERCE's Youth Development program and played a key leadership role with other FIERCE members in organizing the first LGBTQ Youth of Color Institute at Creating Change.

About Colin Higgins Foundation
Colin Higgins (1941 - 1988), acclaimed screenwriter, director and producer of films such as Harold and Maude and Nine to Five, established the Colin Higgins Foundation in 1986 to further his humanitarian goals. In addition to the Youth Courage Awards, Colin Higgins Foundation supports organizations that build the power and leadership of LGBT youth (ages 13-24) through grassroots organizing and/or comprehensive leadership development and organizations dedicated to HIV/AIDS service, advocacy and prevention. Colin Higgins Foundation is administered by Tides Foundation. To learn more, visit www.colinhiggins.org.

About Tides
The Tides mission is to partner with philanthropists, foundations, activists and organizations across the country and around the globe to promote economic justice, robust democratic processes, and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected. Tides is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 that provides an array of services to amplify the efforts of forward-thinking individuals and organizations to make the world a better place. With offices in San Francisco and New York City, Tides provides fiscal sponsorship for over 200 groups across the country, operates and supports green nonprofit centers and granted $108 million in 2008 alone. For more information, visit www.tides.org.

Specific eligibility requirements are:

• Between ages 16-26
• Engaged in activism for social change, promoting the values of peace, human rights, economic or social justice, or freedom of expression; 
• This year preference will be given to activism for economic justice, broadly interpreted.
• Acting within the context of an organization, social movement, or larger community effort;
• Considered an inspirational leader or motivating force by others in that context;
• Work is centered in the United States;
• Able to attend award ceremony in Berkeley, CA (Oct.-Nov.; expenses paid).

Preference will be given to candidates who have not yet been widely recognized and who do not have personal privilege or a strong institutional base of support.

This award honors the late Mario Savio (1942-1996), who came to national prominence as a spokesperson for the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in 1964.  His moral clarity, his eloquence, and his democratic style of leadership impelled thousands of his fellow Berkeley students to struggle for, and win, more political freedom, inspiring a generation of student activism.  Savio remained a lifelong fighter for human rights and social justice. 

Nominations are due by June 30, 2010.  Nomination forms and additional information are available at www.savio.org or e-mail: savio at sonic dot net.

"As an emerging field, fiscal sponsorship can raise questions of regulatory compliance for funders and programs struggling to understand the true nature of the relationship between a fiscal sponsor and its projects," said Thomas C. Layton, President of the Wallace A. Gerbode Foundation. "The new guidelines help people navigate the territory of fiscal sponsorship and learn about best practices to consider when evaluating fiscal sponsors."

Fiscal sponsorship is practiced across the country to enable individuals and organizations to start new programs without establishing a new, separate nonprofit organization. As the charity of record, fiscal sponsors receive charitable donations and grants for their fiscally sponsored projects and may be legally and financially responsible for all project activities, depending on the model of fiscal sponsorship that is employed. The mechanism of fiscal sponsorship allows social innovators to focus on achieving their missions rather than establishing and maintaining the administrative infrastructure of an organization.  

The new fiscal sponsorship guidelines can be used by funders to better understand the relationship fiscal sponsors have with their projects so they can fund fiscally sponsored organizations with confidence.  They can be used by potential projects to better understand the relationship between project and sponsor and as a way to vet potential fiscal sponsors before engaging in a formal relationship. Organizations acting as fiscal sponsors can utilize the guidelines to help educate themselves and their boards of directors to improve their operations and enhance their ability to serve their projects effectively.  

Two separate sets of guidelines have been released: one focused on comprehensive fiscal sponsorship, the second focused on pre-approved grant relationship fiscal sponsorship. They can be downloaded free of charge at the links below:

Guidelines for Comprehensive Fiscal Sponsorship

Guidelines for Pre-approved Grant Relationship Fiscal Sponsorship

About The National Network of Fiscal Sponsors

The National Network of Fiscal Sponsors (NNFS)  was formed in 2004 when the leaders of six fiscal sponsor organizations from across the country came together to discuss the opportunities and challenges of fiscal sponsorship and its place in the nonprofit sector.  The initial group included Community Partners, Colorado Nonprofit Development Center, Community Initiatives, Earth Island Institute, Third Sector New England, and Tides Center. While the models and missions of various fiscal sponsors differ, the members of NNFS have common questions and aspirations to ensure responsible use of the tool of fiscal sponsorship. NNFS has worked collaboratively to define and build the relatively unknown, and sometimes misunderstood field of fiscal sponsorship within the nonprofit sector.  Today, NNFS has grown to over 60 active members with a list of over 200 practitioners and affiliated organizations and conducts quarterly Hot Topic Calls and an Annual Gathering in the fall.

Media Inquiries:

Heidi Hernandez Gatty

Tides

415.561.6322

hgatty@tides.org

The $10,000 Pizzigati Prize honors software developers who, in the spirit of open source computing, are fashioning exceptional applications that aid activists and nonprofits in their efforts to make the world a better place.

Tides — a partner to forward-thinking philanthropists, foundations, activists, and organizations worldwide — hosts the prize selection process.

This year’s Pizzigati Prize winner, Yaw Anokwa, will be accepting the award in Atlanta today at the NTEN 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference. He’ll be accepting on behalf of a team of University of Washington doctoral students who have crafted, in Open Data Kit, an open source application that unleashes the mobile phone’s social change potential.

The 28-year-old Anokwa and his fellow developers Carl Hartung and Waylon Brunette began their work on Open Data Kit in 2008. Released last spring, the software turns cell phones into tools for collecting data “in the field” and moving that data, with just a few finger swipes, to central Web-based servers or local computers.

With Open Data Kit, grassroots activists can capture and export text, photos, video, audio, barcodes — even location. This imaginative software, observes one of this year’s Pizzigati Prize judges, “empowers anyone with a little technical acumen, anywhere in the world, to collect data in regions where it’s hard to assess needs or document injustices.”

A grassroots researcher outfitted with Open Data Kit can, as one profile of the software has noted, “snap pictures of a deforested area, add the location coordinates, and instantly submit that information to a global environmental database.”

“At the heart of ODK,” notes Pizzigati Prize winner Anokwa, “is a simple idea: make data collection easier.”

Open Data Kit makes that collection easy by letting grassroots groups replace a variety of traditional tools — paper survey forms, cameras, audio recorders, GPS units — with a mobile phone technology that operates independently of any particular mobile phone model.

The Open Data Kit software builds upon Google’s Android, the first comprehensive open-source platform for mobile devices. There have been nearly 2,700 downloads of the free software, and visitors to the Open Data Kit Web site have come from over 140 countries.

Among the current users D-Tree International, the Boston-based nonprofit that nominated Anokwa for the 2010 Pizzigati Prize. D-Tree has put Open Data Kit to work in Tanzania, on a project that’s helping health aides reduce the high rates of serious illness and premature death from preventable and treatable diseases.

Additionally, the University of California's Human Rights Center is using Open Data Kit to investigate war crimes and human rights violations. Over one month-long period, the software enabled Center researchers to conduct and complete some 1,800 in-the-field surveys.

In Brazil, activists from an Amazonian tribe are using Open Data Kit to monitor deforestation and deter illegal logging.

In Kenya, community health workers from the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) are going door-to-door with Open Data Kit-enabled phones to test for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria and offer personalized health counseling. The software is helping AMPATH reach households with an estimated 2 million people.

Originally from Ghana, Yaw Anokwa first grasped the impact technology can have on social change when he spent six months in a Rwandan village working on a medical record system. “I witnessed,” he says, “how making medical data available electronically could change the fortunes of the very poor.”

Later, back at the University of Washington in Seattle, Anokwa started a group called Change to gather together interested parties from academia, government, industry, and the nonprofit sector “to learn from each other and collaborate on projects.”

“My work with Change has taught me that developers who have spent time ‘on the ground’ collaborating with organizations are more likely to succeed,” notes Anokwa.

That time “on the ground,” he adds, needs to be continuous, not just a series of front-end interviews. Software developers, to succeed at the grassroots level, have to be constantly getting feedback on their work from the people who are using it.

“We spend time in the field with our users,” says Anokwa, “and iteratively build features based on observation.”

These ongoing observations explain why the Open Data Kit interface features, for instance, very large and high contrast buttons.

“Most of our users,” Anokwa notes, “work outdoors, can't afford glasses, and have calloused fingers that don't work well on touch screens.”

Anokwa will be using the $10,000 Pizzigati Prize to deepen Open Data Kit’s interaction with users.

“The beauty of open source is that innovation often happens at the edges of a project and very quickly migrates to the core,” he notes. “We've already seen some examples of this with developers building their own tools, implementers creating training guides, and users suggesting new features.”

“We’ll use the prize award,” says Anokwa, “to support these innovators in our community to ensure Open Data Kit's sustainability.”

The Pizzigati Prize judging panel includes three previous winners of the Pizzigati Prize — Darius Jazayeri, Barry Warsaw, and George Hoteling — and two veteran professionals who have each earned wide respect within the nonprofit computing world, Joseph Mouzon and Erika Bjune.

The deadline for next year’s Pizzigati Prize will be February 1, 2011. Applications forms and background information will be available later this year at the Pizzigati Prize Web site.

About The Pizzigati Prize
The Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest is an annual award for open source software developers who add significant value to the nonprofit sector and movements for social change. The Pizzigati Prize honors the brief life of Tony Pizzigati, an early advocate of open source computing.

Born in 1971, Tony spent his college years at MIT, where he worked at the world-famous MIT Media Lab. Tony died in 1995, in an auto accident on his way to work in Silicon Valley.

To learn more about the prize and its judging criteria, visit www.pizzigatiprize.org.

About Tides
Tides, the Pizzigati Prize selection process host, partners with philanthropists, foundations, activists, and organizations across the country and around the globe to promote economic justice, robust democratic processes, and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected.

A nonprofit founded in 1976, Tides provides an array of services that amplify the efforts of forward-thinking individuals and organizations. For more information, visit www.tides.org.

Media Contacts:

Christine Coleman
Tides
415.561.6384
ccoleman(at)tides.org 

Nicole Puller
Tides
415.561.7885
npuller(at)tides.org

SAN FRANCISCO, January 26, 2010 – As nonprofits continue to face an increasingly challenging economic climate, Tides (www.tides.org), one of the country’s leading nonprofit infrastructure providers, today released Shared Services: A Guide to Creating Collaborative Solutions for Nonprofits – a new guide that helps nonprofits increase their operational efficiencies by establishing and operating shared services programs.

Shared services programs help nonprofits consolidate their “back office” operations and administrative functions. Fostering collaboration among multiple organizations allows nonprofits to streamline and minimize overhead costs through shared workspaces, financial and human resources operations, and IT support. This in turn enables nonprofits to increase their purchasing power and operating efficiency, and focus more resources on delivering high-quality services and achieving their missions.

The first publication for nonprofit executives looking to create shared services programs, Shared Services is filled with step-by-step guidelines, case studies, and sample documents. Based on the best practices of professionals across the nonprofit and philanthropic world, the 84-page guide helps nonprofits build their own successful shared services program, achieve greater financial stability in their cost-saving and planning measures, and thrive in changing and uncertain markets.  

“In these challenging times, effective infrastructure and operations is not merely a matter of convenience, but a matter of survival for nonprofits,” said China Brotsky, Tides Senior Vice President. “Tides is delighted to serve as a resource to the nonprofit sector and provide this Shared Services guide to help nonprofits increase their operational efficiency, focus on their core competencies and create economies of scale through innovative, long-term strategies.”

Shared Services was developed by The NonprofitCenters Network – a program of Tides – in collaboration with Third Sector New England with support from The San Francisco Foundation and the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Shared Services: A Guide to Creating Collaborative Solutions is available for purchase at: www.nonprofitcenters.org/shared-services-guide.

The cost for the one-of-a-kind guide is $24.00 for NonprofitCenter Network members and $56.00 for non-members. A special early purchase discount rate is available until February 12, 2010 at $18.00 for NonprofitCenter Network members and $42.00 for non-members. Enter the discount code SSGUIDE2010 at www.nonprofitcenters.org/shared-services-guide. A free 11-page preview of Shared Services is also available for download.

Tides provides grantmaking services, nonprofit management services, and strategic consulting to nonprofits, social innovators and institutional and individual funders across the country and around the globe. Tides is the largest fiscal sponsor in the U.S. offering its 200+ fiscally sponsored projects a comprehensive suite of shared back-office services, a legal framework, and capacity-building support to enable them to operate more efficiently and effectively.  More information about Tides’ nonprofit infrastructure resources and services is at www.tides.org.

More information about the NonprofitCenters Network, which publishes guides, studies, and reports based on best practices gathered from an international community of nonprofit center leaders and shared services providers, is at www.nonprofitcenters.org.
 

About Tides
Tides actively promotes change toward broadly shared economic opportunity, robust democratic processes and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected. Founded in 1976, we offer an array of services that amplifies the efforts of forward-thinking philanthropists, foundations, activists and organizations to make the world a better place. With offices in San Francisco and New York City, Tides provides fiscal sponsorship for over 200 groups across the country, operates and supports green nonprofit centers, and granted more than $101 million in 2009 alone. For more information, visit www.tides.org.

About The NonprofitCenters Network
The NonprofitCenters Network – a program of Tides – is a community of leaders and professionals from the nonprofit, philanthropic, financial, real estate, and public sectors. Offering training, consulting, educational resources, and connections to help nonprofits create and operate shared facilities and services, our mission is to increase the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector by supporting the development and ongoing operations of multi-tenant nonprofit centers and other quality nonprofit workspaces. Our vision is a future when every nonprofit organization has access to the workspace it needs to support and sustain healthy, vibrant communities. To find more information, articles, and sample documents, please visit our Resource Center at www.nonprofitcenters.org/resources.

Contact: Diana Samarasan, Director

Telephone: 617-261-4593

Email: dsamarasan(at)disabilityrightsfund.org

BOSTON, MA – The Disability Rights Fund (DRF) – a collaborative among donors and disability activists to support the human rights of people with disabilities around the world – announces 65 new grants totaling $1,382,050 to Disabled Persons' Organizations in eleven countries; 27 of these grants are to current grantees. Since its founding in 2008, DRF has gifted over $2.7 million to 87 different organizations in fourteen countries. DRF currently supports work in: Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru; Ghana, Namibia, Uganda; Bangladesh, India; and 14 Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

The grants support Disabled Persons' Organizations to raise awareness about the rights of people with disabilities, build coalitions and networks, and develop advocacy and monitoring activities, in connection with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  

DRF grantees share the goal of advancing the rights of people with disabilities at the country-level. Recent recipients include:

• A grassroots organization of women with disabilities addressing violence against women in Northern Uganda.
• An emergent Nicaraguan group of deaf blind people.
• A national umbrella organization in Papua New Guinea, campaigning for CRPD ratification.

The full grantee list will be posted on the DRF website, www.disabilityrightsfund.org/grantees.html and is available upon request.

"The CRPD is creating opportunities for the disability rights movement around the world; this new funding will significantly augment those efforts," stated DRF Co-Chair, William Rowland. DRF Director, Diana Samarasan, added "People with disabilities and DPOs around the world are raising their voices to claim rights long denied to them. DRF grants support and strengthen these calls for ‘nothing about us without us."

All grantees are selected after a rigorous review process which includes review by DRF’s Steering Committee, a committee composed of donor representatives and people with disabilities from the Global South.

DRF's donors include: an anonymous founding donor, Aepoch Fund, American Jewish World Service, the Australian Government’s International Development Assistance Agency – AusAID, the UK's Department for International Development, Open Society Institute, and The Sigrid Rausing Trust.       

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The Money Well Spent Fund issued an open call for letters of inquiry in May 2009 and received more than 150 applications.  After a rigorous review process, the following six organizations were ultimately recommended for funding:  

• East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA - HC): A $1,060,000 grant to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of funding for FP/RH in East, Central and Southern Africa by increasing political commitment; strengthening donors and partners’ collaboration, coordination and contribution; integrating family planning with other health services; and strengthening health systems and service delivery mechanisms.
• Equilibres & Populations (E&P): A $353,000 grant for advocacy to increase UNITAID’s contributions to FP/RH. E&P will work closely with French stakeholders and the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition to convince UNITAID to allocate more resources to reproductive health supplies and services and to improve the efficiency with which those funds are used.
• Gender Action: A $200,000 grant to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of World Bank and African Development Bank funding for FP/RH and HIV/AIDS. Gender Action plans to produce an in-depth monitoring report and an online tracking database that will facilitate civil society advocacy focused on improving World Bank and African Development Bank funding and eliminating harmful user fees and loan conditionalities.
• IPAS, Inc.: A $300,000 grant to demonstrate, through research and policy dialogue, the significant health-system and hospital savings of providing safe abortion care services in Nigeria and Malawi. Ultimately, this work will offer care that respects women’s reproductive-health needs and reproductive rights; reduce the number of women’s deaths and disability from unsafe abortion; and improve the use of resources within health systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Pathfinder International: A $800,000 grant to improve the funding environment for family planning in Tanzania, with the overall goal of higher modern contraceptive prevalence and improved reproductive health indicators in Tanzania. Pathfinder will pursue three overarching strategies: increasing national focus on FP/RH within key policies and strategies; capacitating district governments to allocate more funds for FP/RH; and leveraging AIDS funds in support of FP/RH.
• Poverty Alleviation Crusaders (PAC): A $64,100 grant to promote transparency and accountability in the FP/RH sub-sector in Nigeria by mobilizing civil society groups to demand that government and donor agencies be more transparent in their disbursement and expenditure of funds.
  

About the Money Well Spent Fund
The Money Well Spent Fund is a funding program supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and operated by Tides Foundation. The fund helps ensure that resources for family planning and reproductive health in sub‐Saharan Africa are well spent. The purpose of this program is to identify and fund primarily advocacy and policy‐related activities, based in evidence and oriented to solving specific problems to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of expenditures of funding in the family planning and reproductive health sector.

About Tides
Tides provides support for a variety of institutional grantmaking efforts including funding collaboratives, global grantmaking programs, and other grantmaking infrastructure.  Our global work on women’s health includes the Tides Africa Fund and the Africa women’s program of the HIV Collaborative Fund for Treatment Preparedness.  In the United States, Tides has the Reproductive Justice Fund and the Catalyst Fund.

Tides actively promotes change toward broadly shared economic opportunity, robust democratic processes and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected. Founded in 1976, we offer an array of services that amplifies the efforts of forward-thinking philanthropists, foundations, activists and organizations to make the world a better place. With offices in San Francisco and New York City, Tides provides fiscal sponsorship for over 200 groups across the country, operates and supports green nonprofit centers and granted more than $108 million in 2008 alone. For more information, visit www.tides.org.