Oct 19, 2009 12:20 pm US/Pacific
Portal Links Volunteers With Global Projects
Jefferson Award Winner: Pamela Hawley
(CBS 5)
Pamela Hawley is busy these days building her business, which is no simple task considering her business is changing the world.
"What my motive is: to create a world where giving and volunteering are a natural part of everyone's everyday life," Pamela explains.
So to help get people started, she's created a web site, a kind of non-profit marketplace called Universal Giving.
With the click of a button, the Universal Giving website connects people with vetted programs around the globe where you can volunteer or donate money.
Some programs bring school supplies to Central America. Others build low income housing in South Africa, support literacy projects in the Philippines, or bring clean water to villages in rural India. And so on. Each project is part of Pamela's vision.
She says, "I wanted to help people see and trust where can they give their money, where could they give of their time, where could they help change lives and have their own lives be changed."
Pamela's own life was changed when she was 12, on a family vacation to Mexico.
"All of a sudden we turned a corner and saw a cul-de-sac with all these begging, starving children," she remembers. "I couldn't believe that that existed, and it was unacceptable to me and I just started volunteering ever since that time."
She doesn't even sit down: standing at her office desk, this social entrepreneur has helped raise more than $1.5 million through the website. Most donations are under $60, and every dollar goes directly to the programs. To pay the bills she relies on corporations to hire her to make sure their charitable dollars and efforts around the world are well spent.
"We can help the companies be good social citizens," she explains.
Since starting the Universal Giving website in 2003, Pamela has helped mobilize 10,000 volunteers, making it easy for people like Michele Forte to do something she always wanted to do.
"I wanted to give but I also really want to feel connected," Michele says.
Michele used the website to help her find a trustworthy project. She spent over two weeks in Nepal, setting up a small library for children.
"The experience was phenomenal," Michele says. "It's made a huge difference in my life and I really know that for my family, my husband and I have really placed a high value on helping our kids understand about giving."
Pamela adds, "Those who volunteer know that we gain so much more than the people we are serving, we become more conscious of giving, we become humbler about what we have here."
So for helping make it easier for people to reach out and help one another in an effort to wipe out global poverty, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Pamela Hawley.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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