This quote is brought to you at the good folks at the Foundation for a Better Life. This quote is about including others. Enjoy!

“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”

- Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), educator, writer, theologian

Should government care mostly about economic productivity or the general well being of its citizens? If you find yourself asking this very question, then you are not alone. The U.S. government has very sophisticated measurements and processes to monitor economic activity such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, when it comes to measuring the general well-being of Americans, the U.S. government does not have one single measure to determine if its citizens are doing well. A quote from the Geography of Bliss summarizes this well.

GDP doesn’t register, as Robert Kennedy put it, “the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate.” GDP measures everything, Kennedy concluded, “except that which makes life worthwhile.”

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner explores this topic and others related to what makes people happy. Eric is a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio and he traveled around the world to study what makes people happy. In this book, Eric details his journey, entertains the reader with his witty remarks, and he shares what he learned about what makes people happy. A few profound things that he learned are listed after the jump. BE WARNED, these are spoilers to the book. So, if you don’t want the book to be spoiled, do not click more.

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Hey Everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts lately. The team at PosiPeople has been really busy getting PosiPeople ready for a public beta release. If you haven’t done so already, sign up to be a beta tester and you’ll see what we mean.  The team is very proud of PosiPeople!

For those of you who don’t know what PosiPeople is, it is a community-driven forum that highlights positive impact content on the web. What this means is that you, or anyone for that matter, can submit a link to the forum to anything on the web you think makes a positive impact on society and the environment. It can be an article on a news site, a video, an image, or a link to a particular product. You decide.

The only catch is that not every submission is published to the main page of the forum. Only submissions that the community votes for make it to the main page of the forum.

And, if you don’t feel like submitting anything to the forum, you can simply vote for a submission from another member of the community! Oh, and let’s not forget that you can also comment on someone else’s submission.

We look forward to opening up the forum to you soon and making a positive impact with you! Stay tuned!

If an organization is a non profit, then fundraising is one of its biggest concerns. Fundraising is the life blood of a non profit organization. Without funds (capital), a non profit can’t pay its employees or run programs that further its cause. You also may have noticed that a lot of celebrities support certain causes and charities. For example, Leonardo di Caprio is a big supporter of renewable energy and clean technology. Wouldn’t it be great if an organization could help celebrities raise money for the charities they support?

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This quote is brought to you at the good folks at the Foundation for a Better Life. This quote is about hope. Enjoy!

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American civil rights leader

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company (KKR), a famous buyout firm which stars in the book, “The Barbarians at the Gate“, is making headway to establish standards to measure environmental impact in the companies it owns. KKR is partnering with the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group, to create these measures.

According to the press release, the partnership between KKR and EDF is “aimed at creating measurement tools of environmental performance across several areas, from energy efficiency and greenhouse-gas emissions to water consumption and containment of toxic substances across all of its businesses.” If you’re interested, you can read the entire press release.

I recently wrote about Apple’s efforts to measure its environmental impact, and I think this is highly related. I think it would be fantastic if each industry could agree on a certain set of measures for their environmental AND social impacts. I think this is a step in a right direction for business in general and I’m excited to see more industry leaders like KKR take a stance on environmental and social issues. I bet other private equity firms will follow KKR’s lead.