I had the good fortune to spend some time with former President Jimmy Carter, yesterday, at a gathering in Menlo Park, CA.  I was impressed with his achievements, but also for his authenticity, compassion and commitment to those less fortunate. In the 28 years since he was president, Carter has arguably achieved more good than he was able to while holding the most powerful office on Earth.

After leaving office in 1981, Carter and his wife Rosalynn, founded The Carter Center whose tagline is "Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope."  He says the role of The Carter Center is to help where governments, institutions and other organizations are not.  Their achievements are too many to list here, but range from nearly eradicating Guinea worm disease (from over 3.5 million cases to less than 4,000 today), to monitoring elections in developing nations, helping to resolve conflicts in Bosnia, Haiti and elsewhere, working toward peace in the Middle East, supporting mental health programs, building homes for the poor around the world, standing up for women's equality, and much, much more.  Well deserving of his 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.  In the past two weeks alone, 85 year old Carter has been in 8 different countries, is in the middle of writing his 26th book, and sounds like he has no plans to slow down. 

He calls his gatherings like the one I attended, "conversations", as he spent the majority of his time answering questions from the roughly 150 guests.  He addressed questions about refugees (we need to do more to help, and understand that what many in the US call "illegal immigrants" are in fact, themselves, refugees), Iran (isolation and threats simply drive them toward developing nuclear weapons), and some of the controversies he's been involved in, such as the title of his 2006 book, "Palestine Not Apartheid" (his intent was to raise awareness of the terrible conditions faced by Palestinians in Gaza, not label Israel as running an Apartheid state), and how he and Rosalynn severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention (because the group, "like many of the Great Religions", puts women subservient to men, and "those kind of decisions, promulgated by religious leaders in the name of God, are picked up by men who want to abuse women in other ways, and used as an excuse" resulting in further injustices to women in society.)

I asked former President Carter how the average person could best help human rights around the world.  His response was threefold: 1) Support organizations that are working in the field to further human rights, such as Amnesty International and (he included somewhat apologetically), his own Carter Foundation.  2) Teach our children and those around us the importance of human rights and get them involved in activities where they can interact with, and help, "people who are different from us"  and 3) Recognize that the term "human rights" around the world means more than just Freedom of Speech, and the liberties that we tend to associate with the term here in the US, Japan and Europe. "Human Rights" for much of the world is about having basic needs met with clean water, food, and health care.  It's important to "help the suffering people who don't have the right to drink a clean drink of water. That is just as much help as it is to try to promote Freedom of Speech in America where you'll always have Freedom of Speech."

I walked away from the evening inspired, humbled, and with tremendous gratitude that President Carter has chosen to devote his life in the service of others. At the end of the evening I jokingly asked him if only former US Presidents were able to live such an extraordinary life, to which he laughed and replied "no, anyone can do this". And while there's no question he gets incredible opportunities the rest of us will never have, I think he's also correct that each of us, in our own way, can have an extraordinary impact on others if we live our lives filled with compassion, gratitude, and the belief that we can make a difference.

As a father of two elementary school children, I’m particularly excited about Care2’s new "America’s Favorite School" contest. We’re partnering with GreatSchools, an independent, nonprofit organization that improves education by inspiring parents to be involved, to promote this fun new way for communities to rally around their school. And when the virtual dust settles after voting ends on November 8th, the top school will win $20,000!

Parents and educators know that test scores only tell one side of the story for a school. Every day in every school across the country, committed teachers, parent volunteers, student leaders and caring communities go that extra mile to make our schools the special places our children need to learn, grow and thrive.

With our country's ongoing economic problems, schools across the nation face deep budget cuts this fall, and parents are understandably concerned. A recent GreatSchools poll found more than three in five parents (61%) believe the quality of education in their school will suffer because of cutbacks.

Now is a perfect time to support America’s schools. At the heart of every great school are passionate individuals giving it their all to help educate and inspire our children.  Our mission at Care2.com is to help people make the world a better place, so we’re excited to be able to reward the teachers, parents, students and communities that are making an extraordinary difference.

Care2 will be awarding $36,000 to schools across the United States through this contest. We are committed to ensuring that all schools, regardless of demographics and average community income, have the opportunity to win; so, we'll be awarding a cash prize every week to a randomly selected school. And, in addition to the grand prize awarded to the school with the most votes, Care2 will award a total of $11,000 to the four schools in second through fifth place.

We're off to a great start, with schools in NYC and CA leading the pack.  That said, the leading schools got most of their votes over a few days of concerted efforts - so the race is still wide open for schools that can get the word out in their communities.  The winning school isn't necessarily going to be the biggest - it's going to be the school that best rallies its supporters and gets creative to spread the word online.

Whether you’re a mom to a first grader, the grandfather of four, or a young person with fond memories of your elementary school, you can vote today and spread the word to help your favorite school win.

• Faster page loads (yeah!)
• Better navigation that highlights pages you’ve completed (yeah!)
• A framework that will allow us to do more frequent updates (we'll keep you up to date as to how your donations are making an impact).
• A fresh look and feel.
• A Top Clickers page to honor all of you fantastic clickers.
• A new Click To Donate to help wolves.
• Susan G. Komen fund is our new Click for a Cure partner!

Today, a local high school was shaken when a former student detonated a pipe bomb in the school. Thankfully, no injuries have been reported.  Friday night, another local student committed suicide on the train tracks, near where two others ended their lives weeks apart last spring, and where another suicide was narrowly averted.

These kind of tragedies seem to becoming more common all around the country.  It scares me as a parent, and saddens me as someone who feels everyday is good and we all have so much to look forward to.  As a society, we are failing miserably to protect and nourish our most precious assets:  our children.

We see fingers pointed in all directions.  There’s too much pressure on kids these days.  The family unit has broken down.  There’s less community support.  Parents are working too much to spend quality time with their children.  Mass media is bad influence, etc.     And I’m sure there are many other contributing factors.  But you know what?  The pressures and challenges on our children are only going to get worse.  The world is getting flatter, change is happening faster, and children are going to continue to be exposed to more challenges earlier and earlier.

So what are we going to do about it?  I believe a big part of the answer is something we don’t hear much talk about:  Make “emotional state management” a mandatory part of the K-12 curriculum.  Huh? Our schools are understaffed and overburdened, and I’m talking about some new mind control program? Here’s what I mean:

Have you ever noticed the diversity of responses to a situation?  To take an extreme example, imagine a bomb goes off.   One person’s response may be to want to hunt down and punish the person responsible.  Someone else may just sit and cry or want to hide from society.  Another person sees the fragility of life, and is thankful for their friends and family.  Yet another may organize a non-violent peaceful response to prevent future tragedies.   It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a bomb blast, a rainy day, a bad grade or a lost job  - individuals react differently to the same event -  yet some responses are far better for the individual and society than others. 

What determines the response?  State of mind – which is a result of our beliefs, values, focus, and physiology.  As the range of reactions shows, our response is not a reflection of the event, our response is a reflection of ourselves.  And while reptiles have no control over their response, higher minds like humans do.   Most people just don’t realize they have this power.  For the vast majority of us, someone needs to teach us.  I’m not talking about positive thinking or self-discipline –  I’m talking about understanding what makes us happy and learning the simple skills to empower ourselves.  Problem is, most of our parents didn’t exactly know how to make themselves happy or know how to weather storms with grace… and fewer still teach such skills to their children. 

So we spend our time in school learning history, math and theory, but no one teaches us how to stay positive, energized and fulfilled through life.  Thus, the smartest kid in class is seldom the most successful in life – and it’s often that popular kid who wasn’t so good in school who ends up seemingly having everything go their way in life.  After all, math and science can help you get a job, but if you’re not prepared to weather the inevitable rough patches in life, all that education doesn’t matter.

As you can garner from my little rant, this is one of my pet peeves. I’ve been privileged to have attended some of the “best” schools in the country, and I can tell you they did almost nothing to help me deal with adversity, be happy, and feel passionate about life.  I’m grateful for what they taught me, but they left a gaping hole in educating their students – which makes all the difference between success and failure.  In my 20s, I learned personal emotional management techniques through reading and attending seminars (Tony Robbins is the best teacher I ever had) which allowed me to overcome my fears of failure and start Care2. 

My point being, let’s teach our kids what’s most important.  Tough times are a guarantee.  So let’s arm our kids with the skills and knowhow to live happy, productive, fulfilling lives.   The tragedies we’ve seen here in recent days are preventable, but only if kids are taught how to channel their frustrations to produce good outcomes.  And in so doing, we’ll have created the most empowered and optimistic generation we’ve ever seen.

If anyone knows of any school systems that are teaching students how to manage their emotional state, I’d love to hear about them!

Care2 had a staff outing last weekend to see The Cove, a new documentary that sheds light on the atrocious dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan. It's an issue that Care2 members have taken action on before; just this year, Care2's partner Blue Voice hand-delivered more than 5,000 letters from Care2 members, demanding that the slaughter be stopped, to the Japanese delegate to the International Whaling Commission at their meeting in Portugal. And we've collected more than 150,000 signatures on other petitions against Japan's dolphin killing.

The Cove shows how Ric O'Barry and Louis Psihoyos secretly document Japanese fishermen corralling unsuspecting dolphins into a small cove in Taiji that's hidden from public view. The fishermen separate out the best specimens to be sold to dolphinariums -- and cruelly slaughter the other 23,000 for meat, which is then sold across fish markets in Japan, often labeled as “whale meat.”  And few people in Japan know it's happening -- or that the meat they're eating contains toxic levels of mercury.

The Cove is a documentary with the suspense and thrill of an Oceans 11 style “Special Ops” team. The New York Times has described it as, “unfolds like a spy thriller...one of the most audacious and perilous operations in the history of the conservation movement."  O'Barry was once the dolphin trainer for the 1960s TV series Flipper .  After spending years with dolphins, he realized how terrible human captivity is for these intelligent creatures, and became one of the world's leading dolphin activists. Psihoyos is a top nature photographer and founder of the Oceanic Preservation Society. The rest of the team is made up of underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers, adrenaline junkies and  world-class free divers. Utilizing state-of-the art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in  fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide.

Watching the team in action is enough to make anyone want to be a dolphin activist -- and that's where Care2 comes in. We partnered with the production company, Take Part, to develop a petition targeting President Obama, Vice President Biden and Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki, asking them to address the dolphin slaughter in Japan. The petition is also available in Japanese for Japanese citizens to sign and send letters to the Prime Minister and Minister of Health. At the end of The Cove, there's a message urging people to take action, either on their web-enabled mobile phones with the mobile version of the PetitionSite or by visiting a URL with a link to the action. And it's been a success so far -- already, more than 20,000 people have signed the petition.

We also created widgets in both English and Japanese that contain all of the signers to the action and more information on The Cove. You can paste the widget on your Facebook or MySpace profiles or your blog and encourage your friends to take action, too. You'll get the opportunity to grab the widget code after you've signed the petition.

If you haven't seen The Cove yet, I urge you to do so -- and bring friends with you so they feel the same drive to become an activist for our planet that you do. The film is a provocative mix of investigative  journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery that adds up to an urgent plea for hope. 

This is a movie that will make a difference and shut down the dolphin slaughter – but only if we all take action, sign the petition, and make our voices heard.

When I started Care2 over 11 years ago, my goal was literally to create an engine for good – an organization whose output was “goodness” -  so that the more good it did for the world, the more income it would make.. and that, in turn, would pay for a bigger/more powerful engine for doing more good – in a truly virtuous cycle.

I’m pleased to report, so far so good!   With 11 million members, Care2 is now the largest online community for good, we partner with over 400 nonprofit organizations, and we employee about 50 people plus a large and growing blogger network.  As more people use the Care2 platform to make the world a better place, the more our sponsors pay, and the more content and services we’re able to add.

At the time of incorporation, I chose the structure of a “C Corporation” – the standard, multi-shareholder corporation.  There were many benefits to this model:  I could get investors, attract and motivate the best employees with stock options, and have the freedom to operate and refine the model free from restrictive grants and funding cycles that most nonprofits face.  From my perspective, the for-profit model had nothing to do with greed or ethics – it was simply the best vehicle for doing good, given the platform we were building.

In fact, the for-profit model was attractive to me for another reason:  I strongly believe that Business needs to be a driving force for good if we’re to get the world out of the mess we’re in.  Business is an incredibly powerful force – so if we can harness that power for good, we can change the world. I wanted Care2 to be the shining light to show others it’s possible to “do well while doing good.”

To date, there are painfully few examples of financially successful social enterprises… which means investors are (generally rightfully) wary of investing in startups that aim to make a positive social and environmental impact.  I was fortunate enough to find a few investors that believed in me, but most folks still believe they should invest their money for profit, and *donate* their money for good – and they don’t believe it’s possible to do well while doing good.  And that’s a shame.

The problem with being a C Corporation though, is that a lot of people inherently distrust corporations. “You’re for profit? Then you’re not for real. Clearly you’re doing something devious” is the message I’ve been told directly or indirectly time and time again.  Basically, “Nonprofits good. For-profits bad”.  That’s rubbish, and old-school thinking, but I know it’s still a wide-spread misperception.

Of course, the only real difference between a for-profit and nonprofit organization is a tax code – there are plenty of nonprofits that aren’t exactly making the world a better place, and there are some for-profit companies that are.  I was out to prove the doubters wrong, and show the world that a C Corporation really could do good… but even I didn’t like the label of being a “for profit” company.  It just sounds a bit crass, and it’s too simplistic.  Sure, to be a sustainable force for good we need to generate profits, but Care2 is about so much more than that – after all, we don’t put profits above all else – we do well because we treat our employees, customers, partners and other stakeholders well.  Which is why I was attracted to the concept of the “B Corporation.”

B Corporations are a new kind of company which use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.   Think: “For Benefit” Corporation.    To be eligible for B Corp status, a company must pass a social and environmental screen, and modify its articles of incorporation. Essentially, the B Corp structure gives companies the right to consider all their key stakeholders if the company is purchased.   In contrast, a standard C Corporation has a legal obligation to sell to the highest bidder – even if that is to the detriment of employees, local service providers, the environment, or other stakeholders.  I’m confident no company would ever buy Care2 if they weren’t committed to our mission (they’d have to be crazy not to, because if they violate our mission our members would leave, and there would be no value left).  That said, if Care2 were to be acquired someday, I want to be able to consider more than just the share price, and I’m pleased to say our Board of Directors has voted unanimously to adopt the B Corp principles.

When we became a B-Corp last December, there were just over a hundred B Corporations. Today,  there are 190, representing $1 billion in sales in 31 industries.   B Corporations include an impressive list of socially responsible leaders:  Seventh Generation, Method Products, CleanFish, ShoreBank, GoodCapital, BetterWorldBooks, Numi Organic Tea, New Leaf Paper, and many other social enterprise pioneers.