GIVING BACK

Stride Center

AMOUNT: $2500

As an innovative social enterprise, The Stride Center's mission is to empower men and women facing barriers to employment to achieve economic self-sufficiency. We provide a comprehensive career development program that includes job skills training, credentials, career coaching, work experience, and job placement assistance.

Jeans 4 Justice

AMOUNT: $2500

Jeans 4 Justice believes in a community-driven model of social change that first brings awareness of an issue, educates on how to be an active bystander, and finally empowers participants as leaders in the movement to end sexual violence. They also believe in the infinite power of the individual, and that transformation and leadership happen from the inside out. When one person commits to making a shift in their own life by making powerful, compassionate and loving choices, they create a ripple around them that can cause change throughout generations.

BUILD

AMOUNT: $2500

Every year in the United States, 1.3 million young people drop out of high school. How many is 1.3 million? It is as though the entire city of San Diego dropped out of high school. Every year. Year after year. Unless something drastic changes, within a decade, the number of dropouts will have exceeded the entire population of New York City. Most of these young people drop out because they’re bored. Knowing this, BUILD addresses the crisis with a four-year, hands-on entrepreneurship training and college preparation program that makes school engaging and relevant—and consequently motivates students to succeed.

American Red Cross

AMOUNT: $2560

The American Red Cross exists to provide compassionate care to those in need. Their network of generous donors, volunteers and employees share a mission of preventing and relieving suffering, here at home and around the world, through five key service areas: disaster relief, supporting America's military families, lifesaving blood, health and safety services, and international services. We choose to donate to the Red Cross for this release because of the extra help needed with Hurricane Sandy relief.

Ronald McDonald House Charities - In Memory of Alex Teves

AMOUNT: $2850

Alex gave his life protecting the people he cared about during the shooting during the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado. His family requested that any donations would go to the RHMC in honor of Alex. One of our Inflectionites wanted to give a voice to Alex Teve's cohort and family at the University of Denver where he graduated from a month prior to the incident. RMHC provide families stability and resources so they can keep their child healthy and happy. Whether those problems involve how to stay near and support a hospitalized child, how to afford staying together in another city while a child is undergoing treatment, or even getting basic medical and dental care in a vulnerable community.

VOICES

AMOUNT: $2800

VOICES brings together more than 40 partnering agencies to provide housing, education, employment and wellness services to transitioning youth, ages 16-24. Created and run by former foster youth, VOICES is the first organization of its kind in the nation.

Alliance for Smiles

AMOUNT: $2750

Alliance for Smiles organizes and sends surgical teams to sites for two week missions. A surgical team is comprised of approximately 15 medical volunteers, supported by approximately 5 non-medical volunteers. During a mission 70 to 100 under-served children receive surgery for cleft lip & palate anomalies. The AFS team works side-by-side with local medical practitioners to exchange ideas on proper medical techniques and procedures, as well as to provide follow-up care.

The International Education Exchange

AMOUNT: $2700

The International Education Exchange believes in the power and impact of education. We believe in a world where all children, in all nations, have equal access to the highest quality education.

Wounded Warrior Project

AMOUNT: $2650

The Wounded Warrior Project tries to raise awareness and enlist the public's aid for the needs of injured service members, to help injured service members aid and assist each other and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet the needs of injured service members.

St. Anne's

AMOUNT: $2600

St. Anne's mission is to build brighter futures for individuals we serve. We provide quality, comprehensive services to at-risk teenage girls and young women, most of whom are pregnant and/or parenting, children and their families. Guided by our spiritual beliefs and our century of experience, we are committed to excellence in our programs, service with compassion and advocacy for those in need.

Khan Academy

AMOUNT: $2550

The Khan Academy is an educational organization, created in 2006 by Mr. Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT with the stated mission of "providing a free world class education to anyone, anywhere". The website supplies a free online collection of more than 2,600 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, microeconomics and computer science.

Global Way Makers

AMOUNT: $2500

Global Way Makers works with various partner organizations around the world towards several humanitarian causes such as the building, staffing and maintenance of orphanages; relief of abject poverty; efforts to end human trafficking and funding of micro-business opportunities and scholarships.

Consumer Federation of America

AMOUNT: $2450

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) is an association of non-profit consumer organizations that was established in 1968 to advance the consumer interest through research, advocacy, and education. Today, nearly 300 of these groups participate in the federation and govern it through their representatives on the organization's Board of Directors.

Best Buddies

AMOUNT: $2400

Best Buddies is a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

As a result of their involvement with Best Buddies, people with IDD secure rewarding jobs, live on their own, become inspirational leaders, and make lifelong friendships.

Family Independence Initiative

AMOUNT: $2350

Maurice Lim Miller, a 20 year veteran in social service started The Family Independence Initiative about a decade ago to assure jobs and security for the low-income families. After reflecting on his own family's story of climbing out of poverty he researched the histories of immigrant, migrant, and indigenous communities in the United States who managed to move from intense poverty to a more stable middle-class standing. The common thread was that people turned to family and friends, pooled resources, and followed the example of those in their circle that began to succeed. The Family Independence Initiative is based on this premise: mutuality and self-determination are key in achieving self-sufficiency.

Kiva – Loans that change lives

AMOUNT: $2300

Kiva.org is a micro-lending website for the working poor, empowering individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe, starting with as little as $25. Founded in 2005, Kiva's mission is to connect people, through lending, to alleviate poverty. Thus far, Kiva has lent money to hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs across 53 countries and currently, those loans have a 98% repayment rate.

Inflection has made a donation to Kiva.org (and not a direct loan to any specific entrepreneur). Kiva uses such donations to cover their operations

Edesia – Global Nutrition Solutions and Plumpy'nut

AMOUNT: $2250

Headquartered in Providence, RI, Edesia is a non-profit producer of ready-to-use foods that have revolutionized the treatment and prevention of malnutrition in the developing world. Above and beyond production, Edesia's role is to foster research for the development of new nutritional solutions and to support expansion of production capacities in developing countries.

Plumpy'nut® is a ready-to-use therapeutic food, endorsed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, and is proven to treat severe acute malnutrition with astounding success rates. It is an energy-dense paste made with peanuts, milk powder, sugar, vegetable oils, and a fortified vitamin and mineral mixture.

The Trevor Project

AMOUNT: $2200

The Trevor Project was founded by the creators of the award winning short film, "Trevor" (about a gay 13-year-old boy who, when rejected by friends because of his sexuality, makes an attempt to take his life) - when film creators realized that youth that find themselves in the same crisis as Trevor do not really have a crisis and suicide prevention lifeline to turn to for help. The Trevor Project's mission is to end suicide among LGBTQ youth by providing life-saving and life-affirming resources including their nationwide, 24/7 crisis intervention lifeline, digital community and advocacy/educational programs that create a safe, supportive and positive environment for everyone.

Heartland Family Service

AMOUNT: $2150

"Heartland Family Service" is serving the metro Omaha communities since 1875. Each year, they help more than 36,000 individuals: children who are removed from unsafe homes; teens who made the wrong decisions about alcohol, drugs or crime; and low-income families — mostly women and children — who fall into homelessness; and many more who need a helping hand to get back on track.

Over the years, the agency has matured into a leadership role in this community on the cutting edge of research, service and collaborations.

Direct Relief International

AMOUNT: $2100

Founded in 1948, Direct Relief International is California's largest international humanitarian nonprofit organization. Direct Relief provides medical assistance to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty and disaster - at home in the US and throughout the world. Since the year 2000, Direct Relief has responded to a wide range of urgent and ongoing health emergencies, by providing more than $1.4 billion in essential material resources - medicines, supplies and equipment, including more than $225 million in assistance in the United States.

A massive earthquake (magnitude 8.9) hit Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011, resulting in a tsunami that struck the Japanese coast, wiping out towns and killing thousands of people. These events knocked out power and backup systems at the coastal nuclear power plant that started spewing radiation – still an on-going situation. More than 11,000 bodies have been recovered, but officials say the final death toll is expected to exceed 18,000. Hundreds of thousands of people remain homeless, their homes and livelihoods destroyed. By one estimate, the damage would amount up to $310 billion — the most expensive natural disaster on record.

Direct Relief will use 100% of the funds received for Japan exclusively for programmatic activities related to Japan. They've already committed an initial $600,000 in cash to the effort and offered $15 million in medical inventory, if needed, to assist with trauma care and health conditions related to injuries and exposure.

United Cerebral Palsy

AMOUNT: $2050

United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) was founded in 1949 by parents of children with cerebral palsy and is a service provider and advocate for children and adults with disabilities. Since its inception, UCP has been committed to change and progress for persons with disabilities and strives to ensure a life without limits for people with disabilities.

Cerebral Palsy is a broad term used to describe conditions whereby a brain trauma adversely affects a child's motor abilities. The United Cerebral Palsy Association estimates that more than 500,000 Americans have Cerebral Palsy. Most common form of Cerebral palsy is characterized by stiff or permanently contracted muscles or by uncontrolled, slow, writhing movements.

The backbone of UCP is the services that are provided by their affiliates. Affiliates' services are tailored to the needs of their communities and some examples include: Housing, therapy, assistive technology training, early intervention programs, individual and family support, social and recreation programs, community living, state and local referrals, employment assistance and advocacy.

One Acre Fund

AMOUNT: $2000

"One Acre Fund" was started in 2006 and has served over 30,000 farm families thus far − mostly in Kenya and Tanzania. They empower the farmers by providing them with the tools and the modern know-how to grow more.

The organization serves small-scale farmers and they measure success in their ability to make farmers more self reliant and prosperous. They are a metrics driven organization with objectives of reaching a lot of people, generating high-quality impact, and doing it as cheaply as possible On the average, they have helped double the farm income for these farm families. They do not give handouts, but instead help farmers through a community and education based approach.

JumpStart – Learning to Learn

AMOUNT: $1950

"JumpStart – Learning to Learn" provides training to empower caregivers with essential life skills that allow a family to live with their child's Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis and help the child thrive. The Organization was started in 2004 by Dr. Bryna Siegel of UCSF to meet the critical need to empower parents with knowledge and understanding of their child's condition and its treatment, and to improve the overall capacity of community service agencies to employ best practice techniques in the treatment of Autism.

San Francisco Foodbank – November 2010

AMOUNT: $1900

Inflection donated $1,900 to the San Francisco Foodbank, helping towards the foodbank's goal of delivering Thanksgiving food to more than 35,000 families in San Francisco and Marin.

The SF Food Bank is a critical link between food and people as they provide food for the needy through 400+ nonprofit partners including over 200 neighborhood pantries, soup kitchens, senior centers, homeless shelters and youth programs. SF Food Bank collects millions of pounds of food from various sources (growers to grocery stores) and trucks the donated food to their own warehouse. This is a large operation with multiple tractor trailer loads of produce coming in throughout the week. Volunteers sort, repack and shelve over 350 tons of food at SF Food Bank's warehouse every week. Food from the Food Bank is also prepared at soup kitchens and packaged into bag lunches for school and summer programs. In all, they serve over 147,000 people each year!

American Cancer Society

AMOUNT: $1850

Inflection donated $1,850 to the American Cancer Society for the focus area of "Breast Cancer" as October is a National Breast Cancer Awareness month.

The American Cancer Society is a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the ACS has a presence in more than 5,100 communities nationwide. The American Cancer Society strives to help prevent cancer, save lives, and diminish the suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and service.

Floods in Pakistan (CARE)

AMOUNT: $1800

Inflection donated $1,800 to CARE to benefit the victims of the devastating summer floods in Pakistan.

CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.

This year, the heavy monsoon rains have flooded the Indus river and its tributaries and an estimated one-fifth of Pakistan is underwater and rains continue to fall – typically, rains would continue throughout September. According to the UN, 20 million people have been affected and 6 million are in urgent need of food aid -- more than double the number of people affected by the 2004 tsunami and the Haiti earthquake combined. In the wake of this flooding, CARE and their local partners are reaching out with relief camps, food, emergency supplies and medical care.

National Stroke Association

AMOUNT: $1750

The charity selected for this release was the National Stroke Association, as May 2010 is National Stroke Awareness Month. Established in 1984, National Stroke Association focuses its efforts on stroke prevention and achieves its mission to lower the incidence and impact of stroke by developing compelling community outreach programs, calling for continued improvement in the quality of stroke patient care, and educating both healthcare professionals and the general public about a stroke. The Association reaches out to people who want to learn more about stroke, have survived a stroke, know someone who has suffered a stroke, or care for a stroke survivor.

FACE AIDS

AMOUNT: $1700

Inflection donated $1,700 to FACE AIDS. Founded in 2005, FACE AIDS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to mobilizing and inspiring students to fight AIDS in Africa. It aims to build a movement of students seeking to increase global health equality. Working with Partners In Health (PIH), a respected health and social justice organization working to provide healthcare for the poor in nine countries, FACE AIDS runs income-generating projects with HIV associations in the Kirehe District of eastern Rwanda.

The Tzedakah Project

AMOUNT: $1650

Inflection contributed $1,650 to "The Tzedakah Project". This charity was suggested by Rebecca Notowitz whose son, a 7th grader, is participating in this project at his school. Tzedakah (Hebrew: צדקה) is a Hebrew word commonly translated as "Charity". In Judaism, Tzedakah refers to the religious obligation to perform charity, and philanthropic acts, which Judaism emphasizes are important parts of living a spiritual life. (From Wikipedia)

"The 7th Grade Tzedakah Project" is a fundraising (for charities) activity run by teachers at Joshua's school, Ronald C.Wornick Jewish Day School, and it has gone on for several years.

Darius Goes West Foundation and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

AMOUNT: $1600

Inflection donated $1,600 to the "Darius Goes West" foundation. This foundation was suggested by Alai Tseggai who grew up with many of the folks associated with the foundation, including "Darius". DGW is a foundation focused on raising awareness and raising funds to find a cure for the "Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy" (DMD), the number one fatal genetic disease that affects children worldwide.

Oxfam Haiti Earthquake Relief

AMOUNT: $1550

Inflection donated $1,550 to the Haiti earthquake relief efforts through Oxfam (and formally began its "Release for Charity" program). In the wake of the devastating earth quake that rocked Haiti on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, Oxfam is delivering essential aid to people living outdoors in crowded camp settlements.

The Caring Bridge

AMOUNT: $500

Members of Inflection in Palo Alto and Omaha wore Choose Hope wristbands and donated $500 to tribute Maggie Mangiameli, the mother of Member Services Director, Michelle Steinbeck. Maggie was diagnosed with brain cancer in June of 2009.

Salvation Army Omaha, Toyland Days

AMOUNT: $1800

Members of the Inflection team in Omaha were able to make the holidays a joyful time for families by shopping for children of various age groups to be sent to TOYLAND − a place where low-income parents can select gifts to give to their children.

The Family Giving Tree

AMOUNT: $1000

Inflection fulfilled the holiday gift wishes of 50 local children though The Family Giving Tree's annual Holiday Wish Drive. Each member of the team was given the wish card of a child or two, followed by a group trip to the local toy store to pick up the gifts.

JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge

Six members of Inflection participated in the 3.5 mile JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge run in San Francisco. The San Francisco YMCA Kids to Camp Fund was the beneficiary of the race.

San Francisco Food Bank Apple Corps

AMOUNT: $350

The San Francisco Food Bank collects, sorts, repackages, and distributes thousands of pounds of food every day. Inflection participated in monthly and quarterly volunteer activities of food sorting and packaging at the San Francisco distribution warehouse.