Thank you for being an available resource for questions, and for teaching others to use their talents and resources to change the world, little bits at a time. I have been reading your book, "Grassroots," for a women's studies class I've been taking, and I have been quite inspired.

I just graduated from college, and during my time there, I started an organization called "Bound: Students for Social Justice," in which we did fundraising and promotion for various justice organizations. We worked with a lot of human rights issues, like orphan care and sex trafficking. These issues are, in my opinion, paramount to women, and relate quite differently to women than they do to men. I was successful with the group in college, but I want to do more now.

I took a job with Danita's Children (www.danitaschildren.org), a nonprofit orphanage and school in Haiti when I graduated. I work in the offices in Orlando. I'm still involved with what BOUND does, but I'm in another state and therefore somewhat disconnected. I have thought about incorporating Bound, and possibly planting chapters on other college campuses, and expand the reach of the organization to include more women's rights issues, and other global problems such as equal wage rights and environmental concerns.
I'd like to act as a conduit between organizations and the people – hosting events, etc. to keep the organizations in the spotlights of people's minds.

Do you know of any resources that could help me to incorporate? Or any other similar organizations where I might be able to find a helper or mentor that would be willing to assist me in the process or taking all my crazy ideas and making them into sense?

Thanks for being in touch and the work you are doing is impressive —both the present work in Haiti and the past/present work with Bound. My first instinct was to think of groups that perhaps already had that same function—but I realized that most campus groups that I come into contact with organize around a specific issue (sweatshops, hunger, GLBTQ, etc.) or are more specifically devoted to campus politics. There are few organizations that take this umbrella approach that you seem to be proposing. I think a resource such as that could help groups coalesce their resources — and thus potentially maximizing everyone's group/issue.

My one concern with campus groups is that they often put more burdens on students who have to be accountable both their own campus administrations and those of the national organization. So perhaps there is a way you can structure it that would make more free-flowing — or actually allowing them to be a campus group, which usually seems the most financial lucrative. Also, you might want to just try it out on 2-3 more campuses and from there assess.

I think it sounds like a great idea — we really need to have a clearinghouse of good/effective ideas so we don't resort to doing the same old things. And we need to have a place where we can be inspired about solutions not just the problems.

— Amy