Around the world, 1.1 billion live in extreme poverty. Although the circumstances for many people around the world remain dire, there is reason for hope. According to USAID, the number of children in schools is rising, more people have access to clean water and child mortality rates are falling. These positive outcomes are the result of a new roadmap that aims to leverage the resources of governments, foundations, civil society organisations and corporations to spur economic growth. While the roles of different sectors vary considerably, one thing is clear: traditional approaches to aid and charity are being abandoned. Corporations are putting the brakes on donation programs that don't produce enough business or social results. Andrew Watt, president and CEO of Association of Fundraising Professionals, an organisation working to advance philanthropy throughout the world, describes Flint, Michigan as an example of the emerging collaborative approach to social change. "Its city boundaries retracted by about 30%, they had population flights, they had massively high unemployment and huge levels of people going through the detention system," says Watt. "In spite of these hurdles, through partnerships between the city, corporations and NGO's, probationary services and education services, the community is beginning to thrive again. They are educating a work force, they are helping to re-establish people in the community when they come out of detention, they are helping those people to develop skills and create products and to develop a manufacturing basis to rebuild the tax base." Corporations will continue to make social change a priority because it's good for business. Many of the world's most influential leaders in the not-for-profit sector agree that there is an urgent need to move beyond traditional relationships between corporations and charitable organisations. Creating systemic, transformational solutions to the world's most pressing social issues involves businesses sharing resources and knowledge with stakeholders from all sectors and not having a cookie-cutter approach to complex problems. The gLAWcal Team POREEN project Friday, 8 August 2014 (Source: the Guardian)