 |
 |
| September / October 2009 |
|
Global Economic Opportunity Circle Selects Inaugural Grant Portfolio
In November 2008, the "father of microfinance," Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus spoke to Full Circle Fund with sage advice as we launched a new circle addressing economic opportunity. Since then, members of the Global Economic Opportunity Circle have engaged in a significant period of of issue-area exploration, inquiry, and research (known as the Grant Cycle). During this cycle, Members sought out a unique group of potential partner organizations that are working locally, domestically, and abroad. Through presentations, interviews, and analysis, they vetted the organizations and potential projects based on Full Circle Fund's grant criteria for qualities such as strong leadership, a willingness to partner, and a scalable, sustainable, replicable solution. In the end, Members voted to engage with La Cocina, Self Help, and SIRUM.
 Continue reading...
Environment Circle Grantee Launches Green Policy Best-Practices Website
 As cities across the nation and the world move to green their practices, an urgent need has emerged for a centralized repository of information including best practices, research findings, and legislation examples. That's why Full Circle Fund selected Green Cities California (GCC), a collaborative of 11 of the most environmentally progressive jurisdictions in the state, as an Environment/Energy Circle grant partner in 2008. Their goal was to create an interactive, easily accessible, free online repository of best practices in sustainability policy that cities and counties can download and adapt for their communities. We are excited to announce that
www.greencitiescalifornia.org launched yesterday!
Continue reading...
Full Circle Fund Hosts White House's First CIO: Vivek Kundra
 One of the goals President Obama laid out for his administration is modernizing information technology so that our government runs in the most secure, open, and efficient way possible. To this end, he created the official position of White House Chief Information Officer, and enlisted Vivek Kundra. Vivek made a trip to Silicon Valley in mid-September to see innovation happening at a local level, share more about his vision, and announce the launch of apps.gov, a new White House cloud computing strategy. While Vivek was in town, Full Circle Fund convened a group of our members, grant partners, investors, corporate partners, entrepreneurs, and social innovators to meet Vivek and exchange ideas.
Continue reading...
Ed Circle Grantee Opens Education Finance Debate with New Report
 On September 29th, Full Circle Fund hosted a double header to spread the word about Education Circle grant partner, EdSource, and their new report "Local Revenues for Schools: Limits and Options in California". The report clarifies the complex layering of policy, lawsuits and stakeholders that determine how California public K-12 schools are funded and emphasizes that the current education budget crisis can not be solved without looking upstream to greater budgeting problems within California.
Continue reading...
HP
 HP's global citizenship is rooted in its founding values and is critical to its success. HP understands the importance of cultivating strong leaders, forging strategic partnerships, and investing in innovative solutions to drive lasting change. That's why this Bay Area corporate leader is partnering with Full Circle Fund in the form of both a financial contribution and involving at least one HP leader in Full Circle Fund project work.
"We are incredibly impressed with Full Circle Fund's ability to identify leading social entrepreneurs and provide them with the strategic connections, funding, and capacity-building support needed to scale their models and maximize their impact," said Camilla Nelson, Program Manager, Global Social Investment. "At the same time, Full Circle Fund is re-defining engaged citizenship, pushing the field of philanthropy, and cultivating the next generation of community leaders."
 Continue reading...
PACE
Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) is an independent, non-partisan research center based at the University of California Berkeley, the University of Southern California, and Stanford University. In September 2009, PACE and Full Circle Fund hosted two Alternative Teacher Compensation seminars, in Northern and Southern California, in anticipation of the U.S. Department of Education's Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF). The TIF is a $200 million grant program to fund school districts' performance-based teacher compensation systems. Full Circle Fund has been making significant progress with PACE as a partner on the Alternative Teacher Compensation Project, under the Systemic Change umbrella in the Education Circle.
More about the project...
|
|
 |
November 18 - Joint Impact Circle Event: 
It's a pleasure to partner with Full Circle Fund, an organization that embodies what we need more of: actively engaged citizens who don't think of problems as something to sit back and complain about, but as opportunities to get involved with and find solutions.