Women and girls are the key to sustainable development and have the capacity to resolve myriad crisis that plague our world.  I applaud the many insightful articles in today’s The New York Times Magazine with the cover “Why Women’s Rights Are the Cause of Our Time” (emphasis my own).  I have been an advocate of the perspective highlighted in these pieces and I encourage you to read all of them.  As Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn wrote in their 21st century manifesto, there is growing recognition among leaders from all sectors – public and private – that supporting women and girls throughout the world is the solution for many of the world’s problems.  As Mark Landler wrote in his piece... more

My husband Jerry Dunfey and his brothers are the founders of Omni/Dunfey Hotels International and their Wayfarer was the hotel where all the media gathered in the 1960s when the New Hampshire primary campaign first began to be covered on television.  In fact, even as news coverage expanded and media from around the world gathered in NH at many hotels, the Wayfarer was still the place where many continued to congregate in the bar and in the Dunfey hospitality suite.  So, we’d known Walter Cronkite for a long time.  On the tenth anniversary of Anwar Sadat’s assassination when I was serving as NYC City Commissioner for the United Nations, Consular Corps and International Business, we held a special screening at... more

The speakers at 10 Downing Street included our host Sarah Brown, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Anne Aslett of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Dillon Woods of the Donald Woods Foundation (DWF) who each explained why they support the comprehensive services provided by DWF, all created with shared ownership by the residents in the Mbashe area of South Africa’s Eastern Cape. They believe as I do that only through an engaged, empowered multi-faceted approach do local communities achieve self-sustainability. I have learned over decades of work that whether you are a business, an NGO or a government when you follow the guidance of local leadership, help strengthen local capacity and collaboratively address problems from multiple angles, you can create sustainable success. DWF does exactly this... more

I attended the preview screening for “Black in America 2, Soledad O’Brien Reports”, a CNN four-hour documentary that premieres on July 22 with “Tomorrow’s Leaders” and July 23 with “Today’s Pioneers.”  I encourage you to watch this two-part series as it features extraordinary programs that serve as highly successful and replicable models. While I was inspired by all six, I was particularly touched by an initiative Malaak Compton-Rock started at the Bushwick Brooklyn Salvation Army Community Center called Journey for Change. Thirty children were chosen to participate.  First they served their own community and then had a two-week service trip to a South African township. Read the Journey for Change blog to see what these kids have learned and what they... more

I am not surprised by today’s story in The New York Times about Russians not clamoring to see President Obama as people have in other countries.  While even the U.S. still has to grapple with zenophobia, closed nations with state-controlled media are even more distrustful of “the other.”  My Bubby and Zayde (grandmother and grandfather in Yiddish) escaped the Tsarist pogroms with my then-young uncle Mersh.  More recently, we’ve seen how Chenchens, and Ossetians and Abkhazians have been treated by Russia.  We have a long way to go in our own country, but at least we have the advantages of an open society where we freely can voice dissent.  But I believe whether here or in other nations, ethnic violence is based... more

I gave the Graduation Commencement Speaker at Southern New Hampshire University’s International Program of their Graduate School of Community Economic Development today. The students are practitioners from around the world who already have made significant contributions to development efforts in many nations. With the Masters of Science in International Community Economic Development they received at this degree ceremony, they will leverage their ability to achieve even greater accomplishments. After an excerpt of my remarks, also watch video clips of graduate speeches.  Also post your comments about successful economic development efforts, whether by corporations, governments or NGOs. Keeping with the spirit of international cooperation fostered in this graduate program, rather than choosing a single student to make commencement remarks, a group did a... more

I am honored to be one of those interviewed in the full-length documentary “Barack Obama: People’s President” that also features interviews with other media analysts, scholars, journalists and activists. In this 40-sec video excerpt from the film, I speak about the campaign’s innovative strategy of connecting on-line social networking with off-line community organizing at the local, state and national level. I am a strong advocate for people from all sectors – public and private – to utilize this type of integration to increase their ability to achieve their respective missions. DVD of the film is available at Choices.

Development does not take place in a vacuum; it is intertwined inextricably with every aspect of the comprehensive institutional integrity. The whole always is greater than the sum of the parts: leveraged synergy advances specific sub-objectives. We will explore how to create and sustain horizontal and vertical collaboration for integrated organizational leadership. With guest panelists Kofi Boateng, COO of Africa America Institute, Bill Bohnett, Board member of Synergos Institute and Kona Goulet, Devlopment Director of EnlightenNext we explore this topic in the NYU graduate course I created and teach annually. Watch two- to three-minute video clips of each and if you have interest in seeing more of the discussion contact us.

We explore how, regardless of your organization’s size, length of time in existence or level of expertise, you can begin to utilize or expand upon your current use of the myriad web-based options that can increase the effectiveness of your organizational initiatives and help you sustain them. Guest panelists Danny Moldovan, Change.org; Sarah Durham, Big Duck ; and Frankie Cheung, DonorsChoose.org describe various strategies and tools for different needs, depending upon capacity.  Watch two- to three-minute video clips of each and if you have interest in seeing more of the discussion contact us. Also post your comments on how you use the internet to advance your cause-related strategies and initiatives, whether you are with a corporation, a foundation, a government or any other public or private... more