Echoing Green News

The 2008 Echoing Green summer interns have hit the ground running here at our offices on Manhattan's west side. They've quickly grown accustomed to Echoing Green's unique culture, where City Year's Michael Brown or One Acre Fund's Andrew Youn might stop by at some unexpected moment. They bring a fresh vibe to the office space, and have told me that it means a lot to be supporting so many amazing social entrepreneurs.

Echoing Green was honored to host a presentation for our staff by Leisure Education Specialist, Alison Link this week.  Alison is an adjunct professor, international presenter, consultant and specialist in leisure education. Her organization “The Leisure Link” helps individuals and organizations plan their leisure lives as they plan other aspects of their lives in order to get the most out of both leisure and life.

Echoing Green's 2008 Fellows

After much anticipation, we are proud to announce the 2008 Echoing Green Fellows! This year’s class of twenty-seven social entrepreneurs is not only one of the youngest in recent history, with nine fellows under twenty-six years old, but it is also one of our largest. The group currently represents nineteen start-up organizations targeting social issues around the world in the areas of community improvement, economic development, education, the environment, health, human rights, and legal advocacy.

Chuck Harris

Thank you, thank you, and thank you! We are thrilled to announce the successful completion of Chuck’s Challenge, our recent online fundraising campaign. In two short months, we raised over $25,000 online from seventeen committed supporters of Echoing Green. This group includes many old friends, but remarkably, more than 40 percent are first-time donors. Thanks to each of you for helping to fund a 2008 Echoing Green Fellowship. And, of course, a special thank you to Chuck Harris for posting the initial challenge grant.

6/18/2008 UPDATE: Thank you to everyone that responded.  The event is now full.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone in Boston.

It was uplifting to see social entrepreneurship emerge as a recurring theme at last week’s Harvard Center for Public Leadership's "Conversation on Leadership and the Next Presidency,"moderated by David Gergen. Echoing Green's Cheryl Dorsey spoke on a panel that posed provocative questions on leadership to the next president.

After receiving nearly 1,500 applications for our fellowship program this past fall, Echoing Green has narrowed this record-setting pool to thirty incredible finalist organizations. More than 200 social change experts, business leaders, and Echoing Green alumni from all over the world have spent the last two months reviewing applications and interviewing candidates. And now, their hard work and deep analysis make us proud to announce the following organizations as 2008 Echoing Green Fellowship Finalists:

We’re excited to announce the launch of a new online campaign: Chuck’s Challenge. This campaign is built on the notion that we ALL can do something to spark social change. At the end of it all, together, we will raise the funds to support a 2008 Echoing Green Fellow.

We were thrilled to see yesterday’s issue of The New York Times Magazine, all about the things we love—social entrepreneurship, microfinance, philanthropy and how to change the world by giving.

When we helped Social Edge launch the New Entrepreneurs podcast series several months ago, we had no idea what to expect. Each week, Patrick O’heffernan conducts a short interview with an Echoing Green Fellow. We’ve heard great anecdotal feedback from our listeners, but this week, we were astonished to discover that Apple has selected the New Entrepreneurs series as a feature on the homepage of their podcast store (thanks to Jason for the screenshot).