Calvert Foundation

What
• Calvert Foundation seeks to blend financial and social returns through Community Investment.
• Calvert offers innovative financial products and services that channel flexible, affordable capital to underserved communities.
– Calvert Community Investment Notes allow investors to dedicate a portion of their investment portfolio to social investing
• Investor can choose note amount, term, and return rate from 0-3%
– 15% of investors choose 0%
• Investors also select a geography and use for investment (ie., international microcredit, US housing, social enterprises, etc)
• Investment is pooled and placed in a professionally managed portfolio of affordable loans to over 200 leading nonprofit organizations and social enterprises working in over 100 countries
• Calvert investments focus on affordable housing, microcredit, small business funding, developing community facilities, and social innovations

Where
• Use of investment capital in 2006:
– 32% International microfinance
– 29% Community development financial institutions
– 20% Affordable housing
– 19% Other

Giving and Learning More
• For more information see: http://www.calvertfoundation.org/

What is the What?

Thought I'd throw out a recommendation for a book I just finished reading: 'What is the What' by Dave Eggers. The book is a novelized history of one of the Sudanese Lost Boys, Valentino Achak Deng. It is suppossedly true except certain details that Valentino was unable to remember.

The so-called Lost Boys refers to a large group of Sudanese boys who were orphaned or separated from their families during Sudan's civil war, largely in the late 1980's and 1990's. Most walked hundreds of miles across Sudan to a refugee camp in Pinyudo, Ethiopia, and later, Kakuma, Kenya. Their struggles, the horrors they witnessed, and their mass resettlement to the United States is covered through Valentino's experiences in 'What is the What.'

I found the book to be eye opening and a valuable source of context on the foundational problems confronting Sudan today. Furthermore, I found the insights into the day-to-day lives of refugees- their struggles, boredom, reactions to aid workers, relationships with their fellow refugees, etc.- to be capitivating. Definitely worth the read.

Also, all proceeds from book sales go to support The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, which aims to support Sudanese immigrants to the U.S. and to rebuild Southern Sudan.