According to Nonprofitist.org's post, How Many International Nonprofits Can You Count? there are 1.4 million nonprofits in the United States. Charity Governance reports that, "For the period from October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2007 (fiscal year 2007), the IRS received 85,771 applications for recognition of Section 501(c)(3) status." That's a lot of nonprofits, many that are doing similar work and competing for funding from foundations and individual donors. To celebrate, and learn about best practices in nonprofit collaborations, the Lodestar Foundation has launched a $250,000 Collaboration Prize:

"Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth."--Helen Caldicott

Women in the Indian subcontinent have proven to be some of most effective harbingers of socio-economic change at the grassroots. No surprise that governments and NGOs often target rural women for growth-oriented projects. In fact, there are banks that exclusively target women for loans. Only recently (and most famously) the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, was on the Colbert Report explaining why 97 percent of the bank's borrowers are poor women and how they have proven they can handle money better than men.