Cosmetics company donates its profits to good causes

Peacekeeper Cause-metics is the only cosmetics company we know of that gives every single penny of its profits to charitable causes.

When you buy your lip gloss, eye-liner, nail polish or lipstick from the Peacekeeper online store you can be sure that some of your money will go to support women’s health or human rights issues around the world.

Schwab Foundation searches the globe for the social entrepreneurs of 2007

Last week The Independent announced that Belu Water founder Reed Paget won the 2007 social entrepreneur award.

It turns out that The Schwab Foundation and the Boston Consulting Group have been the driving forces behind the search for social entrepreneurs not just in the UK, but throughout the globe. The Independent award for the UK is just one of 22 different country awards. The winners from the other countries have been announced over the last 12 months (with a few more to come):

France: Anne-Karine Stocchetti for Gepetto – a network that delivers childcare in the home for parents that work odd hours (nights, weekends, early mornings).

Singapore: Kenny Low for CHEC – an education centre that targets youths that have dropped out of the mainstream school system.

Israel: Bilha Piamenta for Kav-Or – distance learning for children in hospital using computers and tailored software to provide education, companionship, and opportunities to play.

Germany: Rose Volz-Schmidt for Wellcome – a support network for families with newborn children, providing help and respite if the mother feels overwhelmed.

Canada: Geoffrey Cape for Evergreen – whose missions is to bring communities and nature together for the benefit of both.

India: Harish Hande for Selco Solar Light – provides access to rural solar electrification for below poverty line families.

Brazil: Sebastião (Tião) Rocha for Centro Popular de Cultura e Desenvovimento (CPCD) – romote informal education and community development through reciprocal leaning, play, games, mobile libraries, theatre and music.

Indonesia: Anton Sudjarwo for Yayasan Dian Desa – focuses on product and service innovations that enhance the quality of life of marginalised communities, as well as to set them on a path towards self-reliance.

Argentina: Gustavo Gennuso for Fundación Gente Nueva – the foundation focuses on education and enterprise development for at-risk youths.

Colombia: Alvaro Dávila for Fundación Social – the foundation uses the interest of community savings accounts to invest in for-profit business enterprises. This has helped them towards their missions of “contributing to overcome the structural causes of poverty in Colombia by building a more humane, prosperous and just society”.

Chile: Mary Anne Müller for Fundación Origen and The Escuela Agro-Ecológica de Pirque – a revolutionary educational model taking organic agriculture as the inspiration for the work undertaken with at risk youth from low income families.

South Africa: Taffy Adler for Johannesburg Housing Company – refurbishing occupied buildings and construct new ones to offer affordable, safe housing in the Johannesburg inner city.

Turkey: Mustafa Sari for Nature Observers’ Society – by reversing the extinction of a commercial species of fish Mustafa Sari came up with a new approach to fishery management which he has been using since 1996 in the Lake Van region. As a result of this approach, fishermen have seen their revenues rise from 10% to 60%.

Czech Republic: Vojtech Sedlacek for Agentura ProVas – a venture that incubates projects and businesses that employ disabled individuals; a percentage of whom are employed in highly public areas to increase the awareness of the public and policy makers.

Switzerland: Markus Gander for Infoklick – focuses on promoting activities for children.

Sign up and get nagged into doing something good

The idea behind The Nag is so simple, it’s brilliant. If we all did one simple thing every month to make the world a better place… then it would become a better place. So, when you join The Nag, you then get a ‘nag’ once a month which details what you can do this month to make a difference. You then do it. And the world gets better, bit by bit.

The design of The Nag is innovative and makes you want to join (well, it worked for me). Sign up now and give it a go.

The Independent newspaper searches for top social entrepreneurs

Back in May 2007, The Independent newspaper launched its search to find the top social entrepreneurs of 2007. The exercise was carried out in partnership with The Schwab Foundation and the Boston Consulting Group. It’s pretty close to Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Awards, but this time, from a UK perspective.

The winner will be announced later today (14th January) based on this shortlist of six:

Belu Water – sells bottled water and uses 100% of the profits to fund clean water projects.

MEND – the MEND (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition, Do It!) programme was set up to offer children and families free after school sessions for a 10-week period. The programme focuses on lasting change and has had very positive results. It has secured further funding to roll it out to 27,000 children across 300 sites by 2010.

The Hub – according to founder Jonathan Robinson, The Hub’s mission is to “inspire and support social innovators to realise imaginative initiatives for a radically better world.” The idea is based on the members club principles, but clearly it has a different raison d’être. There are six hubs (Rotterdam, Sao Paulo, London, Bristol, Soweto and Jo’burg).

Community Food Enterprise – based on a belief that eating healthy food should be a right, not a privilege, CFE provides affordable fruit and veg through mobile shops.

The Eden Project – established as an educational charity, this amazing project brings together science, art, technology and commerce by showcasing 1m plants in the world’s biggest conservatories.

Cosmos Ignite Project – its mission is to provide a cheaper alternative to 1.6 billion people without electricity who currently use kerosene for lighting.

I will post details of the winner when it is announced later.

Fast Company reveals 45 social entrepreneurs for 2008

The team at Internet mag Fast Company have recently announced the winners of their 2008 Social Capitalist Awards. I am really chuffed that awards like these exist. Though I’m not 100% sure of the ’social capitalist’ tagline. I prefer ’social entrepreneur’. But that’s not important.

What is important is the fact that they have listed 45 entrepreneurs that are really trying to make the world a better place. And they have highlighted some inspirational projects. There is a fair US bias to the results (Fast Company is American, so clearly, that’s normal), so we need to make it our aim on Web of Conscience to highlight great social entrepreneurs from outside of the US.

Out of the 45, here are the 10 that struck a chord with me:

Accion – microenterprise finance and business services in 25 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America; 97% of the loans have been repaid, which shows that it has helped the vast majority of its 3 million clients.

Ceres – bringing investors, companies, environmentalists and other key stakeholders together to build a sustainable and prosperous future.

Common Ground – Common Ground pioneered the concept of mixed-income supportive housing: affordable housing for a range of income groups with on-site social services. 93% of those they help stay in stable housing.

Donors Choose – schools submit projects that need funding to the website, and the visitors can then choose which projects to donate to. The donors then get some really cool feedback from the kids that benefit from their donations. I love this site.

Endeavor – Endeavor supports entrepreneurs in the private sector in emerging-market economies by offering them mentoring and access to connections and networks.

Network For Good – enables you to donate to 1,500 charities in one place, and keep all the info to help you when declaring your donations to the tax man. They make giving easy.

Path – Path find solutions to some of the world’s more challenging health problems. They think outside of the box and approach finding solutions from the user’s perspective.

Peace Works – the OneVoice project is designed to engage Palestinian and Israeli in civic involvement and get the moderate majority to help find solutions to the ongoing conflict.

Transfair USA – this is America’s official ‘fair trade certified’ label. If the world’s biggest economy can get behind fair trade, that would make a huge difference.

Witness – uses the power of video to highlight human rights abuses in the world.