This week, in New York and across the US, we saw the potency of crowdsurge in getting the Board of Susan G Komen for the Cure to overturn its decision to defund Planned Parenthood for breast-screening services provided to low-income women (around $600,000 last year).  Of course a $250,000 Challenge Grant to Planned Parenthood from Mayor Bloomberg in the wake of the Komen Board’s decision may also have helped sway the Board’s about-face.  Meanwhile over $3 million in new pledges have poured into Planned Parenthood.

The firestorm of fury that upended the Komen Board decision was a signal that Boards are increasingly subject to the democratizing influence of social media — where people can mobilize millions in people power and in dollars for the cause.  I’d earlier selected a Susan G Komen for the Cure bank card (the only one focused on helping women whereas there were multiple choices for sports, for animals, for the environment) and I’d felt good about that choice at the time.  Now I’m rethinking that decision.

One fact pivotal to the work of both Komen and Planned Parenthood:  in the US, and in many other countries, breast cancer is the second leading cause of death due to cancer, after lung cancer (American Cancer Society).  One fact important to the grant Planned Parenthood receives from Komen:  routine breast cancer screening can reduce deaths by up to 30% (World Health Organization).  One fact critical to the work of Planned Parenthood:  according to The Guardian Weekly, somewhere in the world, a woman dies every 8 minutes because of an unsafe abortion and these numbers are on the rise. (The Lancet)

The decisions by boards of humanitarian organizations are ones that can literally mean the difference between life and death of those they purport to serve.  That’s why the democratizing influence of social media is so welcome in holding Board Members to account for the public mission to which they commit with their time, resources and – expected — ethical decision-making.

It seems that we are in a unique moment of history and we have such deep and rich choices before us both individually and collectively.

 “Changing the structure and rules of the global economy will require a mass movement based on messages of compassion, justice, and equality, as well as collaborative and democratic processes … If we stay positive, inclusive, and democratic, we have a truly historic opportunity to build a global movement for social justice”
Medea Benjamin

A couple of weeks ago I had the deep pleasure of spending time with Dr. Kiran Martin, Founder of Asha, an NGO working to improve the health, living conditions and prospects of slum dwellers in Delhi. Qualified as a pediatrician, Dr Martin founded Asha in 1988 to tackle the numerous problems faced by Delhi’s slum dwellers. Under her leadership Asha has spent more than 20 years working in partnership with slum communities, providing an ever expanding range of opportunities which enable people to help themselves.  Today Asha works in the areas of healthcare, community empowerment, financial inclusion, education and environmental improvements which benefits about 350,000 people in nearly 50 slum communities.  While spending time with Dr. Martin, I proposed the development of a learning lab for students to better understand Asha’s social change model so that communities in other countries may also benefit and so I’m working with her to introduce this model to one of the world’s leading universities.

Increasingly I’m feeling that younger people need to have the tools and understanding to know how they can ask the right questions and test models of success in order to achieve the tipping point of gender equality, justice and prosperity. So, I’ve created a gender and development lab model designed to facilitate deep learning about what undertaking a gender inclusive approach means in practice.  It’s something I’d hope in time might be introduced to colleges so that students know how to create a gender budget and to ask the kind of questions to ensure that the views and voices of women and girls are heard as much as those of boys and men in the design and delivery of policies and programs.

“The unexpected I expect in 2009 will be called Lily the Red. She will be a student leader, and she will be to the youth protests of 09 what Danny the Red (Daniel Cohn Bendit) was to those of 1968. I don’t know where she will pop up – maybe Berlin, maybe Berkeley, maybe Beijing, or perhaps all three. Her views are likely to be in some sense of the left, but crises of capitalism also have a tendency to throw up radicalism on the right too. The Greek student protests are a taste of things to come. Across the world we are producing more university graduates than ever before. This year most of them won’t get jobs. Don’t be surprised if they look for another world.”
Timothy Garton Ash – The Guardian Weekly, 2 January 2009

Meanwhile, at work, we’ve reached the half way mark in investments to buy stakes in those institutions that provide loans to people who live on a few dollars a day.  It seems that the only way to reach the 2.8 billion people around the world with no access to financial services is to tap investor capital and so this fund is designed to ensure that micro-lenders stay true to a mission of serving impoverished women.

There’s enormous potential for such investments to make a definable difference to the lives of women and their families.  In this same spirit, I’ve been invited to join a women’s trip to Israel and the West Bank later in the year with a view to creating a women’s fund focused on building capital in the West Bank or with enterprises where Israelis and Palestinians are working together.  One can only imagine the seminal peace-building work that could flow from such a venture.

We live in amazing times.

Outside I can see people ice-skating in the park.  My foot is too newly healed to go join them. However, I can see an old fashioned merry-go-round out there too and the tinkling music is irresistible.  I feel like a kid – and yet it feels good to be sliding from the heavy stuff and, for a moment at least, allowing a rocking horse to take me for a ride.

Jane Sloane