An Amazing Resource

Tools 4 Development helps you make the world a better place.  Click here to find templates, resources and how-to guides to shorten the learning curve, and get-on with your international development work.

A Great Resource About Africa

The African Leadership Transitions Tracker aims
to start a broader conversation about leadership transitions
and what they mean for the region and beyond.

The Brooking Institute's new resource - The African Leadership Transitions Tracker  - is amazing. This easy to use tool summarizes changes in the Head of State in every African country from independence to today. The interactive timeline is easy to use and intuitive... Click here to try it. 

ASAP's passion for learning and understanding Africa remains strong. We continue to collaborate with the programs we created in  Zimbabwe and Malawi; which operate sustainably and independently today, continuing to cultivate self-reliance for families. 

Thanks to the Church of Christ Youth Ministry

Jacob Richardson, Jason Cagle, Jade Dale, Hannah Adams, Richard Harp (Youth Director), Joshua DeCaeny and Paul Anderson, put their faith into action at “Tools For Empowerment”

These volunteers from the Church of Christ Youth Ministry sacrificed their Saturday morning, and did an amazing job preparing tool kits for vocational school graduates in Haiti. Their Ministry plans to volunteer each quarter, giving youth in Haiti the tools for success! Click here to read more.

You can help too! Click here for more info on how to volunteer. ASAP needs more groups like The Church of Christ Youth Ministry.  Working together at "Tools For Empowerment", our compassion will provide the tools for success to families in Haiti and throughout the developing world.

"Go Local" for Success

“Only those who live in the daily reality of the country can help you understand the local culture and context.”

This has always been ASAP's guiding principal - and why our programs in Zimbabwe and Malawi continue to operate sustainably today.

But in Haiti, five years after the 2010 quake, many feel local ownership of international efforts has been crucially bypassed. Foreign aid groups must "go local" in order to understand the situation before setting up shop.

 Click here to learn more.

Happy New Year from ASAP

Click here to enjoy ASAP's New Year Video.

Our hearts are filled with gratitude. Thanks to all of you who generously donated your time, made an in-kind donation or supported ASAP with a cash contribution. Because of you, 2014 has been an amazing year.

Thank you again and best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2015!

To make your year-end donation Click here.

Happy Holidays

Hatch has Hatched

The Rockefeller Foundation has launched Hatch, an innovative platform to help organizations craft, curate and share powerful stories. Click here to start improving your storytelling so others will better grasp the true impact of your work. 

Savings Groups for Orphans & Vulnerable Children

Growing Resilience: Financial Services for OVC Populations is a webinar series that reviews and explores the approaches of Savings-led micro finance initiatives as a means of building the economic circumstances of orphans and vulnerable children and their caregiver. Click here to learn more and to register for a webinar. 

Malawian Mixon Fauweki to Attend Global Entrepreneurship Summit

This Bicycle Will Charge Your Cell Phone!

It's Global Entrepreneurship Week-the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare. The 5th annual three-day Global Entrepreneurship Summit, which begins tomorrow in Morocco, will feature Malawian Mixon Fauweki as one of the fifteen GIST - The Global Innovation through Science and Technology - finalists. Click here to learn more about Mixon's brilliant bicycle cell phone charger.

It's Compassion Week - Embrace the Revolution

Compassion is the principled determination to put ourselves in the shoes of the other.

Click here to learn more about activities this week.

Click here to sign The Charter for Compassion; a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life, and lies at the heart of all religious and ethical systems.

We believe a compassionate world is possible when every man, woman and child treats others as they would wish to be treated - with dignity, equity and respect. We believe all human beings are born with the capacity for compassion, and it must be cultivated for human beings to survive and thrive.We believe a compassionate world is possible when every man, woman and child treats others as they would wish to be treated - with dignity, equity and respect. We believe all human beings are born with the capacity for compassion, and it must be cultivated for human beings to survive and thrive.

Click here to read ASAP's Autumn Newsletter.

Food For Thought

The Rockefeller Foundation's beautiful new annual publication,  Insights,   explores "emerging issues of consequence". Click here to download Issue #1 now.

From NGO To Social Enterprise

ASAP Works to Exemplify Self-Relaince

Cordaid, ASAP's initial Savings Group project partner in Malawi, has taken a bold step. Today, Cordaid is operating as a Social Enterprise instead of a Non-Governmental Organization. To learn more about this shift toward a more sustainable, diversified funding base and better results, click here.

To exemplify self-reliance, ASAP has always operated a Social Enterprise.  At "Tinovaka" -  carpentry-with-production training center in Zimbabwe , ASAP provided vocational training, school furniture for rural schools, created employment, and generated our own operating support. For Social Entrepreneurs looking for investment, Rudolf Steiner Foundation Social Finance is offering an introductory Fall webinar on Nov. 5th.

Vote For The World You Want

The current Millennium Development Goals expire next year. The UN wants to know what you think. Where shall humanity focus resources and energy in the next fifteen years to make the world a better place?
Click here to vote now.
To learn more about our progress on the existing goals, click here.

Tools You Can Use

From planning to scaling, DIY has tools you can use.

Development, Impact & You is an incredibly useful web site. DIY contains tools to help trigger and support social innovation. Click here to learn more.

Educating Girls - FREE Course

With an additional year of education, a girl can earn up to 20 percent more as an adult.

From October 6 - November 23, Teachers Without Borders is offering a free course on Educating Girls. 
The course will examine (a) research: the data around the education of girls, as well as analyses, images, and stories; (b) relationship: how new learning about girls’ education relates to our practice; and (c) results: the capacity to make a measurable difference in and for our classrooms, our communities, and the world. 

Click here to register.

Now Available

Jeffery Ashe's new book is a "must read" for everyone interested in Savings Groups.

Click here to order on Amazon or peruse a few chapters.

What Works

The Skoll World Forum features  a special series on evaluation.

+	Annie Duflo from Innovations for Poverty Action on the power of randomized evaluation.
+	Using the Moneyball approach to measuring impact is dangerous because it can lead donors to seek out only the most easily provable results, write Caroline Fiennes of Giving Evidence and the Skoll Foundation's Ehren Reed.
+	How Grand Challenges Canada uses their theory of change to drive bigger impact in global health.
+	Tanya Beer and Julia Coffman from the Center for Evaluation Innovation rethink accountability for adaptive initiatives.

Theory Of Change?

The Smile of Empowerment?

Is this empowerment?

How do we know when a person becomes empowered?

How is it measured? How do you know it has been achieved? There is no definitive answer.

According to Nina Strandberg,  The Project Manager for the Foundation of Women’s Forum,"Empowerment is like obscenity, you don't know how to define it, but you know when you see it." 

Some contend the best way to measure empowerment is to ask those directly affected by the project. Can you walk into a rural village and ask 'do you feel empowered?’
Click here to learn more about approaches to measuring empowerment.