The current famine in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, and Nigeria that threatens the lives of 20 million people must command our attention in the sea of concerns about the political situation in the United States and Europe, as well as the ongoing fight to reduce the devastating effects of extreme poverty. Our recent blog, African Famine Relief: How to Respond?, describes some of the issues that the crisis raises for us at The Life You Can Save, as well as our recommendations for how to respond.
Wherever we each decide to give our charitable dollars, the important thing is to use both our hearts and our minds in determining our priorities and choices. As our readers know, such mindful giving has the power to transform lives in many ways, including what we see as one of the most important priorities possible--reducing extreme poverty.
This approach to giving is in our DNA, originating with our founder, Peter Singer, who has had terrific ripple-effect impact on the world, most notably in the areas of extreme poverty and animal welfare. Peter’s impact is evidence that ethics and philosophy are not obscure ivory tower subjects, but living, breathing parts of life, as New York Times columnist Nick Kristof points out in a recent piece that gives a prominent shout-out to Peter’s body of work, including his most recent book, Ethics in the Real World.
On another aspect of the “home front”, we have recently re-designed our homepage, which is having a very positive effect on donations to our Recommended Nonprofits. Thank you to our webmaster, Llamil. We will be working throughout 2017 to redesign other high traffic pages in our ongoing efforts to improve donations to our recommended nonprofits, as well as subscriptions to this newsletter and other TLYCS communications.
We have a lot of exciting partnerships in the works that should also help our reach and revenue. Please see our 2016 Annual Report and our recently completed Strategic Plan to update yourself on our results and growth goals.
Good Living and Good Giving!
