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Book Selection

Enterprising Nonprofits
A Toolkit for Social Entrepreneurs
J. Gregory Dees, Peter Economy, Jed Emerson, Rob Johnston
Hardcover, John Wiley & Sons, 2001
ISBN: 0471397350
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Enterprising Nonprofits helps nonprofits embrace the methods of social enterprise – the adoption of entrepreneurial behaviors and techniques by nonprofit, community-oriented organizations. This accessible, hands-on toolbox for all levels of employees working in all kinds of socially oriented organizations features some of the best and the brightest thinkers and practitioners in the field.

Social Entrepreneurship:
The Art of Mission-Based Venture Development
Peter C. Brinckerhoff
Hardcover, John Wiley & Sons, 2000
ISBN: 0471362824
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To survive in today's world, nonprofit organizations must keep pace with changes in technology, the needs of those they serve, and the requirements of funding sources. Part of the Mission-Based Management Series, this book shows how a nonprofit organization can grow and develop by adopting many of the strategies and attitudes of the nonprofit sector.

Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, Hindus and Muslims in India
Ashutosh Varshney
Paperback, Yale University Press, September 1, 1996, $19.95
ISBN: 0300100132
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What kinds of civic ties between different ethnic communities can contain, or even prevent, ethnic violence? This book draws on new research on Hindu-Muslim conflict in India to address this important question. This comprehensively researched book examines how civic ties between Hindus and Muslims in different Indian cities serve to contain, or even prevent, ethnic violence. Scholars have hailed Varshney's book as a major breakthrough, while the United Nations has already adopted his method to study Muslim-Christian violence in Indonesia. The Open Society Institute, part of the Soros Foundations Network, which promotes democratic principles and human rights issues, has distributed 170 copies of the book to staff members around the world. And it has been talking, along with other foundations, with Mr. Varshney about extending his research to other ethnic and religious flashpoints, from Eastern Europe to Nigeria. "By carefully studying riot-prone and peaceful cities, this new model has a persuasive analysis and explanation of why violence occurs," said Samuel P. Huntington, chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies

Visionaries:
People and Ideas to Change Your Life
Jay Walljasper, Jon Spayde and the Editors of Utne Reader
Paperback, New Society Publishers, September, 2001
ISBN: 0865714452
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Meet more than 60 fascinating people whose ideas and wisdom will change our world in the 21st Century. Featuring Bill Moyers, Alice Waters, Thich Nhat Hahn, Starhawk, Bobby McFerrin, Noam Chomsky, and many others – brought to you in a way that only Utne Reader can.

Artisans and Cooperatives:
Developing Alternative Trade for the Global Economy
Kimberly M. Grimes
Paperback, University of Arizona Press, October, 2000, $19.95
ISBN: 0816520887
To survive in today's world, nonprofit organizations must keep pace with changes in technology, the needs of those they serve, and the requirements of funding sources. Part of the Mission-Based Management Series, this book shows how a nonprofit organization can grow and develop by adopting many of the strategies and attitudes of the nonprofit sector.

Local Heroes:
Changing America
Tom Rankin
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co, October, 2000, $29.95
ISBN: 0393050289
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Local Heroes Changing America provides a permanent record of Americans engaged in public life at the end of the twentieth century. The book includes an audio compact disc containing excerpts from community interviews.

Everybody Loves a Good Drought

P. Sainath
Paperback, South Asia Books, September 1, 1996, $26
ISBN: 0140259848
Mumbai-based P. Sainath is Asia's leading development journalist, writing frequently about issues such as poverty and the effects of industralization on India. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen describes him as "one of the world's greatest experts on famine and hunger." Through his work on the livelihoods of India's rural poor, Sainath has changed the nature of the development debate in his own country and across the world. His landmark book, "Everybody Loves a Good Drought," is a devastating portrait of Indian government economic policies gone awry. The royalties from this book fund the "Countermedia Prize for Excellence in Jounalism." The prize is meant for journalists whose (often outstanding) work gets ignored or even appropriated by the larger press at the State or national level.
Elected an Ashoka Fellow in 1994, Sainath received international recognition after he spent two years in the poorest districts in India, reporting about the daily struggles of the citizenry. He covered everything from agriculture subsidies to starvation deaths. That work formed the basis for his book.
He has won numerous awards for his reportage, including the European Commission's Natali Prize in 1994 for articles related to development and poverty as well as working and living conditions of vulnerable social groups. In November 2001, he won the Boerma Journalism Prize from the United Nations Food and Agricutural Organization – the most important award in development journalism. Describing Sainath's work, University of California journalism lecturer Conn Hallinan says, "He does the kind of reporting American journalists only think about doing. I don't know anybody who's better at it."
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The Water Harvester
Mary Witoshynsky
Weaver Press Ltd (Zimbabwe) $18.95 - Paperback, 2000
ISBN: 0 7974 2123 8
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Zvishavane, in southern Zimbabwe, is an arid yet starkly beautiful terrain where small-scale farmers struggle with fragile soils and erratic rainfull for often fruitless returns. Yet it was here that Ashoka Fellow Zephaniah Phiri had the wisdom, vision and strength of character to transform a resource-starved subsistence plot into a fertile smallholding. This book is Mr Phiri's story. It is more than a simple environmental story; it reveals the family survival strategies of a man with immense courage, wisdom and generosity. Distilled by Mr Phiri's sage reflection and told in his own words, the story is imbued with his idioms, his rhythms and his experience. One feels refreshed-inspired by this champion of human dignity; a man whose endurance enabled him to found one of the first indigenous NGOs in Zimbabwe - the Zvishavane Water Project. From here Mr Phiri is able to convey the power of self-reliance throughout the often neglected small-scale farming sector of southern Africa. Far beyond this broad community, the book invites readers to celebrate the boundless potential for human fulfilment.

Inner Realities:
Notes from the School of Life
J.M. Sampath / Insight / ISBN: 8190099310
Price: RM 30.00
The birth of a relationship arises at the point where the observer and the observed get related through an emotional and/or intellectual association. Through these relationships, a world of existence is born. This is the point where an individual starts oscillating between the polarities of life such as sorrow and joy, pleasure and pain. The stanzas and quotes featured in Inner Realities: Notes from the School of Life stem from author J.M. Sampath?s relationship with various individuals over the years. The individual still moves forward despite the pain of struggle. Sampath writes from the heart and the subconscious, each entry being at once intensely personal and universal: Sampath?s daily struggle is a mirror reflection of all those around us and the fears and struggles we face each and every day.

Discovery
J.M. Sampath / Insight / ISBN 8190099302
Price: RM 114.00
Designed as a tool to help individuals look deep within themselves, Discovery aims to introduce basic human values to individuals and initiate a process of self-enquiry that takes care of the need to learn.
From this self-enquiry, the learner will then discover facets of the same value and, in the process, widen one?s understanding of each value or value-related attribute, quality or trait.
Discovery consists of a story album of 100 illuminating stories and parables with questions facilitating three levels of learning, a general play chart modelled on the ancient snake and ladder game, 11 theme-based charts to provide a broader perspective and deeper understanding of significant issues, and a users? guide.
J.M. Sampath is a consultant and a Fellow of Ashoka Innovators of the Public International. He is the developer of several self-help instruments, including "value profile" instrument and "vision-values" instrument. He lives in India.

Towards Financial Self-Reliance
A Handbook on Resource Mobilization for Civil Society Organizations in the South
Richard Holloway / Paperback / Published February 2001 / 236 pages / ISBN:1853837733
Price: 14.95 British pounds
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This is a clear and practical guide aimed at the managers of civil society organizations, including non-governmental organizations, citizens? movements, cooperatives, trade unions and other grass-roots organizations primarily in developing countries, on how to mobilize funds and other resources and in doing so become financially self-reliant. The author examines a numerous and varied options, covering earned income, local foundations, governmental sources, foreign agencies, the corporate sector, microcredit, the internet and social investments, setting these within a strategic overview of planning and management effectiveness.

Sanjoy's Assam; Diaries and Writings of Sanjoy Ghose
Sumita Ghose / Hardcover / Published 1998
Price: $20.00
Sanjoy was an Ashoka Fellow who was abducted and killed in India in 1997. At the time of his imprisonment, he was listed as a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International. Sanjoy's main goals were to build a volunteer development culture that recruited young people away from the violent secessionist movements and taught them to find peaceful, long-term solutions to their problems through constructive and active social involvement.

The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back
Bill Shore / Hardcover / Published June 1999
Price: $15.37
Bill Shore is the founder of Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit devoted to raising funds for antihunger and antipoverty organizations worldwide, and his book showcases the stories of some of the social entrepreneurs he has come across in the course of his work. These leaders and many others, Shore argues, represent a kind of symbiosis between the need to improve oneself personally and the drive to transform the community. The "Cathedral Within" also contains an excellent resource directory of community organizations where readers can begin their own process of giving back.

Grassroots Leaders for a New Economy: How Civic Entrepreneurs
are Building Prosperous Communities
Douglas C. Henton, John Melville, Kimberly Walesh, McCracken / Hardcover / Published March 1997
Price: $29.95
Grassroots Leaders for a New Economy explains the unique leadership qualities that set civic entrepreneurs apart, and illustrates how these leaders can emerge from all levels of private, public, social, and civic organizations. The book shows how civic entrepreneurs forge powerfully productive linkages at the intersection of business, government, education, and community, and it demonstrates how they operate at the grassroots level to create "collaborative advantages" that make it possible for their economic communities to compete on the global stage. It shows how civic entrepreneurs motivate and network to organize for action, set priorities, and mobilize resources to get things done. Finally, they demonstrate how to sustain cross-sector collaboration over the long haul for the good of the community. Grassroots Leaders for a New Economy offers step-by-step guidance and practical advice.

Life Beyond Aid: Twenty Strategies to Help Make NGOs Sustainable
Lisa Cannon / 1999
Price: $27.50 including shipping / $30 outside the U.S.
This book will help NGO managers face the challenge of how to become more sustainable. Each section includes learning exercises to help select and implement appropriate strategies. Case studies show how Southern African NGOs and CBOs have made themselves more sustainable by generating income, reducing costs, and getting staff and board members involved. To order, send check or money order to CBI/Ashoka, 1700 N. Moore St., Suite 1920, Arlington, VA 22209, USA. For further information, contact cbi@ashoka.org

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
Muhammad Yunus, Alan Jolis / Hardcover / Published 1999
Price: $16.80
Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with miniscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone. The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business.

The Price of a Dream; The Story of the Grameen Bank and the Idea That
is Helping the Poor to Change Their Lives
David Bornstein / Paperback / Published 1999
Price: $22.00
The author "effectively conveys a picture of the daily work of the bank. His observations of the villagers are moving without ever being sentimental. In the process of telling their stories, he has not only provided the history of a groundbreaking institution, he has illuminated the lives of people that few of his readers are likely to meet for themselves. We are the richer for having made the journey with him." (from Smithsonian Magazine, September 1997)

The Rapids of Change: Social Entrepreneurship in Turbulent Times
Robert Theobald / Hardcover / Published 1987
Price: $16.95
Theobald's core argument is that significant numbers of largely unseen social entrepreneurs have moved beyond unreasoning optimism and deadening despair to realistic hope.

The Business of Heart: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing
Michael J. Glauser / Hardcover / Published 1999
Price: $19.95

Em Memoria Chico Mendes: A Tribute On the Ten Year Anniversary of His Death
Jacqueline Bishop (Illustrator) / Paperback / Published 1998
Price: $25.00
A ten year labor of love, this collection of paintings and memoirs and writings by Jacqueline Bishop and others, documents the effort of Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper and former Ashoka Fellow in of Brazil, to stop the destruction of the rain forests. After his murder in 1988, Jacqueline Bishop has made a portrait of him every year and collected a wealth of information about his life, work, and death. There will never be another Chico Mendes. From a remote jungle he touched the inner landscapes of human consciousness. Mendes understood the language of the animals, plants, rivers, and men, and he incorporated into his speeches the ancient traditions of those who live in an intimate relationship with nature. There still exists an unspoken global network, a telepathic connection of imaginary vines growing from the dying forest where he was born, where he lived, and where he was murdered. The volume includes 16 full color prints. In English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest
Andrew Revkin / Paperback / New edition 2004
Price: $16.00
A well-researched and deftly written account of the life and times of Mendes, the Brazilian rubber tapper and grass-roots environmentalist who was murdered in 1988 by ranchers intent on their short term gain. Chico's life story and legacy are more relevant than ever, particularly in the wake of the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang in the Amazon. Revkin, an award-winning journalist has written a deeply affecting book about the life and death of this courageous, passionate man. This new edition is updated through 2004, including a resource guide.

Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor (Ecology & Justice Series)
Leonardo Boff, Phillip Berryman (Translator) / Paperback / Published October 1997
Price: $17.60
This book represents Brazilian priest Leonardo Boff's most systematic effort to date to link the spirit of liberation theology with the urgent challenge of ecology. Focusing on the threatened Amazon of his native Brazil, Boff traces the ties that bind the fate of the rain forests with the fate of the Indians and the poor of the land. In this book, readers will find the keys to a new, liberating faith.