You can change the world!

OUR PHILANTHROPIC DRIVE...

Do you believe YOU can change the world? WE DO...want to be part of it?

How often do you feel that you’d like to do something to make a difference in this world but then very quickly feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and ask yourself “how can I as one person possibly make a difference to huge issues like world hunger, global poverty, abuse of women and girls, animal cruelty, HIV and AIDS?”

What if we told you that WE BELIEVE there IS a way?

When we first started PI 5 years ago our vision was to empower women in finance and as our work got underway we realised more and more that there was no limit to this vision. The only limit was our own beliefs and imaginations. Intuitively we started to see that our work could make a real difference to the world and that was something all of us were passionate about. Once we knew it was possible we started focusing on HOW.

With backgrounds in finance, economics and investments we were looking for the philanthropic investment that was going to give us a good return!!

 In this case “a good return” meant MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN ALL THE THINGS WOMEN CARE ABOUT.

We knew that it had to be something new and different because doing the same old thing would just deliver the same results and so.....

After much research, we came to focus on two areas:

1.  Invest in adolescent girls to transform intergenerational poverty

2.  Invest in women who can change the consciousness of our society and thus our world.

They sound good words don’t they, but what do they mean and why do we think this approach will be the best place to invest our resources to create a better world?

The next paragraph will tell you why we think this will work and then HOW we intend to go about it...if you’re interested in being part of this transformation please read on and join us in creating a voice and making a difference.

WHY DO WE THINK THIS IS THE BEST PLACE TO INVEST OUR PHILANTHROPY TIME, KNOWLEDGE AND DOLLARS AND HOW DO WE INTEND TO GO ABOUT IT?

How many of these facts do you already know?

• The face of poverty around the world is a woman.
• 1.4 billion people live on just over $1 a day – 70% are women and girls
• Women do 2/3 of the world’s work but earn only 10% of the income
• Women produce ½ of the world’s food but own only 1% of the land
• 900 million adults worldwide cannot read or write – 2/3 are womenWomen are the poorest most excluded group on the face of the earth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  BUT... There IS a new world within our reach.....
  
  By investing in adolescent girls we can affect poverty before it starts.
  
  How? A report by the World Bank concluded that investing in schooling for girls in developing countries creates exponential growth for her and her community.
  
  If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.

The educated woman invests 90% of her income in her family (compared to 35% for men) . That family becomes part of the community and that community part of society and that society part of the world.

With 7 years of schooling: she’ll likely birth 2.2 fewer children and marry 4 years later in life. For each extra year of primary school, her earning can rise 20%.

So whether a girl continues in education at the point of puberty is a critical point for the world. When a girl is 12 years old there is a unique opportunity for transformation of her and the world. If she is able to take it then all the above facts can kick-in and she can lead her family on an upward spiral out of the poverty trap.

However, if she is forced to leave school and work she is likely to be pregnant while she is still a child, contract HIV and have malnourished children- the intergenerational poverty trap continues for another generation- the downward spiral continues.

Why is what happens in other countries so important to us? Because as we saw in the Mind Body Spirit Money section www.pinkinvestments.org/index.php every living organism is linked to each other – it is holographic.

This is something that affects every one of us and so too does the movement to change it. The opportunity to change it BELONGS to every one of us and every small deed, thought or intention you have will affect the total.

And that’s why we have a second area for our philanthropic focus because it’s totally linked to the first....

Many of our team have been approached by women over the years who have been seeking help to follow through their dreams and establish companies, organisations and movements.

Many of these have been pure commercial ventures but the majority have been enterprises that would benefit humanity in some way- usually by opening us up to a higher consciousness.

The help they’ve been seeking varies from how to write a business plan, to how to negotiate a loan for the business, to how do I work out the financial model for my business, how do I import or export goods, where do I go when the bank won’t lend me money?  How do I market myself? Should I be a limited company or a sole trader? Etc etc etc

This is what lead us to decide that we also wanted to.....

Invest in women who can change the consciousness of our society and thus our world.

So how do we intend to do all of this?

Well, our philanthropic values start from simply wanting to make a difference and improve the world we live in and to that end our entire site is philanthropic as it is aimed at empowering women through the sharing of free financial information. We could have chosen to stop there but our dreams of making a difference are greater than that and so our goals go even further:

We also give women a voice around the world to be able to express what they need to empower themselves. Some women need resources to support them that are not financial- ie; coaching, infrastructure, knowledge. As PI builds its community of women we intend to harness willing and available resources among our community to offer support to those who need it. 

To date our site has been funded by the members of the PI team who have invested years of their time as well as their personal funds but we are now moving to a phase where the site will be funded by sponsors so that we can expand the services we offer and the number of women we offer them to.

Some of those sponsors will be through advertising their goods and services that we believe are relevant and helpful to our PI community. We hand-pick our sponsors as they must demonstrate that their values are consistent with ours in being the “women’s champion”. As well as sponsoring our site they are invited to publicly show their commitment to women by joining our “wear your heart on your hat” campaign. They are also given the opportunity to link their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes with our specific projects to support women. 

Other Sponsors will be donations from companies and individuals who believe in the work we are doing and want to help it continue. Contact tracey@pinkinvestments.org to make a donation.

Lastly,    we have committed to donate 50% of our net profits every year to empowering women financially. This will create a fund that will enable us to offer micro-finance as well as supporting specific projects and charities that are aimed at empowering women and girls. We hope that this radical step will encourage other businesses to follow our lead. 

All of the above enables us to continue to provide free information and support to women around the world as well as make donations to the organisations we support and offer micro-finance options to those women who need financial support to get their idea off the ground.

Do you have a cause that you think we should consider and you’d like to tell us about or do you know women who need expert help or micro-finance to help get their dream off the ground? If so, please email tracey@pinkinvestments.org