Jennifer's Social Responsibility Page

On this page, I have collected resources related to social responsibility, including information on socially-responsible investing, charitable organizations, and volunteering. I hope you find them useful! Contents:

• Socially responsible mutual funds
• Socially responsible clothing
• Worthwhile organizations including how to reduce junk mail, phone calls, and email
• Charitable organization ratings
• Volunteering

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Socially Responsible Mutual Funds

Note: I am not endorsing any of these funds, necessarily.

• Good Money's list of socially responsible funds
• Co-op America, whose site includes information about socially-responsible investing
• Gaeia Ethical Investment pages
• SocialFunds.com
• Calvert Group, offering money market, bond, and stock funds
• Citizens Funds, offering money-market, bond, and stock funds, including an international fund
• Pax World, offering money-market, bond, and stock funds
• Domini, offering money-market, bond, and stock funds
• Women's Equity Mutual Fund, a stock fund
• Ariel, offering bond and stock funds
• Portfolio 21, offering an international stock fund

If you are interested in environmentally-responsible investing, you might also want to read The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, by Michael Brower and Warren Leon, which carefully examines (in great depth) the environmental impact of nearly everything we do as a society, and suggests ways to reduce that impact.

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Socially Responsible Clothing

Most of the clothing available in regular retail stores in the developed world is made by people who do not have basic worker rights or who are not earning a living wage. Here are some resources for finding alternatives:

• Global Exchange's Sweatshops information page, where you can learn about fair labor principles and sweatshops
• Co-op America's Responsible Shopper web site, where you can look up specific brands and see how they rate
• CorpWatch's Corporate Research Guide, a list of suggestions on how to research a specific company's environmental and social practices
• SweatShopWatch's Shop with a Conscience guide
• Specific retailers that look interesting to me:
  • Justice Clothing
  • No Sweat Apparel
  • The Working World
  • Traditions, which has a retail store in Olympia WA, and email/phone ordering
  • Esperanza Threads (organic cotton clothes)
  • Just Shirts
  • Union Jean Company
  • Union House - make sure the items are marked union-made, however!

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Worthwhile Organizations

These are non-profit groups that I am a member of, or donate time or money to, because I think they are doing worthwhile things. Check them out!

• Literacy Source - offers ESL classes and individual literacy tutoring in Seattle
• Room to Read - partners with rural communities in developing countries to build schools and libraries, publishes children's books in under-served languages, and gives scholarships to girls in rural areas of developing countries so they can finish high school
• Washington CASH - provides micro-lending and training to help lower-income individuals start small businesses
• King and Kitsap Red Cross Language Bank - offers free volunteer interpreters and translators for individuals and community organizations in over 70 languages
• Human Rights Watch - monitors the world-wide human rights situation and advocates for making it better
• Real Change - publishes a weekly newspaper sold by Seattle's poor and homeless
• The Nature Conservancy - preserves natural spaces, habitat, and ecosystems
• Washington Trails Association - organizes volunteer trail maintenance on Washington State trails and maintains trail descriptions and trail reports on its web site
• Adventure Cycling Association - promotes and facilitates bicycling in the US
• Bike Works - provides bicycling-related youth programs in Seattle and recycles bicycles
• Bicycle Alliance of Washington - advocates for cycling projects and programs in Washington State
• Seattle Chamber Music Society - puts on a chamber music festival every summer and mini-festival every winter

If you want to reduce junk mail, telemarketing phone calls, and junk email from not-so-worthwhile organizations, visit the Direct Marketing Association web site, and click on "Consumer Assistance". For telemarketing, there is also a National Do Not Call Registry, and it is a federal crime in the US to make marketing calls to people who are registered on this site (effective October 2003).

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Charitable Organization Ratings

The following web sites rate charitable organizations -- also check your local public library for handbooks, and you might want to search the web for news stories about an organization before deciding to donate.

• American Institute of Philanthropy publishes a (print) rating guide to charities. Their web site lists top-rated groups for various categories of charitable organizations, top salaries, and other information. Their ratings are based on the percentage of money that goes to programs, their cost of raising funds, and their "neediness", or number of years their assets could sustain their programs. You can also order a sample of their rating guide on their web site.
• BBB Wise Giving Alliance of the Better Business Bureau offers reports on national charities on their web site. Their reports include information on the cost of raising funds, where money is going, and compensation of the chief executive of the charity.
• GuideStar offers a searchable on-line database of information about non-profits, and suggestions on how to find an appropriate organization to donate to. The free information available is fairly limited.
• Charity Navigator offers ratings based on expenditures, revenues, and financial history of organizations, and compares organizations' financial picture to their peers.

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Volunteering in Latin America and World-Wide

If you are interested in volunteering in Latin America, or anywhere else overseas, I strongly recommend you start by reading How to Live your Dream of Volunteering Overseas, by Joseph Collins, Stefano DeZerega, and Zahara Hecksher (Penguin Books). It has general information about what you might experience, as well as information on many groups that you might want to contact. Here are a few links to organizations and web sites:

• Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS). I spent a couple of months volunteering with them in Jan-Mar 2000, and would highly recommend it. They also offer Spanish classes with a socio-cultural understanding focus.
• Transitions Abroad, a magazine, lists a bunch of opportunities in various parts of the world
• WorldTeach, has opportunities to teach English as a second language around the world, including an ecotourism training program where you could teach ESL in Yucatan and Honduras
• Volunteering in Costa Rica
• NicaNet, with info on volunteering in Nicaragua
• World Links, a program aimed at connecting schools in developing countries to the Internet and technology in general
• Global Service Corps
• Amerispan
• Global Volunteer Network
• Idealist.org, which lists volunteer and non-profit employment opportunities all over the world
• If you can translate written materials from one language to another, you might consider volunteering with Translations for Progress or Kiva. Kiva also offers opportunities to travel as an overseas "Kiva Fellow" volunteer.

Volunteering in the US (mostly Seattle)

• Seattle Works, a Seattle volunteering site
• United Way of King County
• NPower Seattle and One Northwest, two groups providing technology help to non-profits, which take volunteers
• Volunteer Match (nationwide)
• Teach for America, which places college graduates in distressed schools to teach. I know several people who have had great experiences teaching with them.
• Idealist.org, which lists volunteer and non-profit employment opportunities all over the world
• If you can translate written materials from one language to another, you might consider volunteering with Translations for Progress or Kiva; you can do this from your home.

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