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| July / August 2008 |
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Full Circle Fund Leaders Drive the Search for Innovative Solutions to Reduce Oil Dependence
On June 26, the Department of Energy announced they would grant $5 million to the Freedom Prize Foundation, an organization co-founded by Full Circle Fund Board Chair, Josh Becker, and run by former Community Fellow and member, Karen Hanson. The Freedom Prize will award innovators using existing technologies to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
The Freedom Prize is an excellent example of Full Circle Fund members playing a leadership role in the community. Karen stated that she has drawn inspiration from her experiences on the Environment Circle. Both models focus on "elevating good ideas that are at an inflection point that could really make a difference in society" and "using a combination of policy and business levers to achieve change"
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Environment Circle chooses grantee finalists
After months of late night meetings, extensive research, and tough decisions between top candidates, the Environment Circle has chosen the grantee finalists for 2008 Grant Cycle:
- GRIDs Alternative - an organization installing solar electric systems for low-income homeowners using volunteers
- Green Cities California - a best practices website to provide easy accessibility to policy documents, performance measures and media outreach tools for greening cities
- Imagine H2O - a start up organization fostering innovation in water by aggregating thought-leaders and providing a central hub for start up organizations working in water innovation
- MOMS-Dollar Store Detox Program - a program of the grassroots organization to get imported lead-filled toys and baby products off the shelves of national discount stores
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Members strategize for organization's future at Annual Member Retreat
 Ninety Full Circle Fund members anf their families came to Monterey for a beautiful weekend in June for the Annual Full Circle Fund Member Retreat, a time for members to take a step back from their grant projects and evaluate how to make Full Circle Fund a stronger organization with a greater impact. The weekend provided an exciting environment conducive for team building, exchanging ideas, developing best practices and seeking collective ownership for the organization's future.
Along with circle breakout sessions, capacity building activities, and a little social time, Peter Sims, co-author of bestselling book True North, spoke to the group about authentic leadership and former grantee Sister Petra Chavez shared her moving grantee perspective.
Member Josh Wilson noted about the retreat, with "connections, big ideas and open-minded discourse, members really demonstrated the great promise Full Circle Fund represents."
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Full Circle Fund ED shares learnings with corporate philanthropists
 Amy Lesnick, Executive Director of Full Circle Fund, joined a prestigious panel at the Annual Corporate Philanthropy Summit & Awards on Thursday, July 17, to speak about skill-based volunteering, an emerging trend of which Full Circle Fund sits at the forefront.
Over the years, Full Circle Fund has accumulated a vast repository of institutional knowledge on effective cross-sector partnerships and the best practices that enable them to be successful. When asked how to ensure that skill-based volunteer engagements are effective, Amy recommended the following: 1) Instill a culture in your volunteer corp that embraces and respects diverse perspectives and can leverage the skills, resources, and experiences of both nonprofit and private sector team members 2) Clearly define the project's scope, measurements of success, expectations, and milestones 3) Ensure that the project is core to the nonprofit's strategic objectives and that everyone is committed to invest the time and resources to ensure success.
Amy was joined on the panel by Full Circle Fund partners, Gwyneth Borden, IBM; Juliana Deans, Deloitte; Joel Bashevkin, Taproot Foundation; and moderators John Power, The Volunteer Center and Colin Lacon, Northern California Grantmakers.
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New Members Encourage others with Matching Gift Challenge
 In true Full Circle Fund form, two of our newest members, Sarah Wigglesworth and her husband Asiff Hirji, are leveraging their membership for greater impact. Not only is Sarah very active in the development of the Global Economic Opportunity Circle (co-leading the launch), but also the couple is encouraging other new members to get involved. They have pledged a one to one matching gift challenge for five members (up $25,000) who want to get involved on the ground floor of the Global Economic Opportunity Circle. To take advantage of Sarah and Asiff's challenge, members must join before October 13th.
"I am really excited to be a part of the new Global Economic Opportunity work group," Sarah shares. "Full Circle Fund has shown they can gather the best minds and networks to address pressing social problems in the San Francisco Bay Area; we believe that we can broaden our impact by providing or strengthening tools for self-empowerment for people and organizations beyond our own backyard."
Our thanks to Sarah and Asiff for providing this wonderful opportunity for others that would like to get involved in Full Circle Fund!
Niroga project
The Niroga Institute is a fast growing, three year old non-profit with the ambitious goal of providing high quality, low cost yoga instruction to an entire generation of at-risk youth in the East Bay. The potential benefits of this approach to improving the student readiness, emotional maturity, and physical and mental health of these young people has inspired a half dozen Education Circle team members to make individual commitments of time, connections and talent to various initiatives focused on strengthening Niroga's fundraising and marketing capacity and overall business model.
One exciting aspect of this engagement slated to begin in September is a large scale pilot implementation of Niroga's classroom-based yoga program at El Cerrito High School in Contra Costa County. The ultimate purpose of this and related large scale pilots will be to generate credible data proving the efficacy of Niroga's approach to building life skills in disadvantaged youth.
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Sept 9 
Deloitte, like Full Circle Fund, recognizes the importance of investing in our future leaders. Full Circle's emphasis on matching business skills with philanthropy directly aligns with Deloitte's strategic focus on building trust in the community.