We founded Make It Better to connect and help our audience amplify their philanthropic efforts. We found this leads to more connections and ideas, a heightened feeling of community, more money raised by good people, and better business for everyone. It’s a virtuous circle. To amplify this feeling of good will, we established our annual Philanthropy […]
Almost everyone likes dogs—the cuddling, the love. SitStayRead, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the love of learning and improving literacy proficiency for at-risk kids, capitalizes on that idea. Dogs allow SitStayRead (SSR) to tackle the sobering issue of childhood literacy with a positive spin: they address reading fluency in a fun way by incorporating reading […]
Most recently updated: December 2020 Imagine fleeing your home because of war, terror or persecution, only to find yourself in a foreign land with few resources. For the many refugees who come to the Chicago area each year, RefugeeOne provides crucial assistance during that difficult transition. The Chicago-based resettlement organization helps refugees find housing, acclimate […]
Crushers Club is a most improbable and quite remarkable story. Mother of three Sally Hazelgrove moves her family to Englewood—one of the most challenging neighborhoods in the country—because she feels called to help. Gang banging and shootings abound there; opportunities to escape that life do not. Hazelgrove asks young males loitering on street corners what […]
Horizons for Youth is an organization that believes that every child, no matter his or her academic ability or socioeconomic background, can graduate from college and successfully pursue a career. They believe the key is the right personalized support. “People come to our program with a wide variety of academic abilities and personal experiences,” says […]
Susan Steel was given a timestamp of 12 months on her life in January of 2008. She was battling melanoma, and at the time she had already completed three years of intensive treatment at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. It is the world’s largest and top-funded melanoma clinic. Steel is a now a […]
In much of the United States, access to health care is often taken for granted. But in many South American countries, that access is far from a given. That’s where Solidarity Bridge comes in. Their mission is to train, equip and empower the medical communities in Bolivia and Paraguay to serve the most needy. This […]
Phalen Leadership Academies (PLA) is a dream come true for parents in underserved urban Indianapolis. This nonselective charter school partners closely with parents and provides an outstanding, differentiated grade school education to a student population that is largely eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. The curriculum includes art, music, physical fitness and significant use of technology. The school […]
Most recently updated: December 2020 Growing up in Jamaica, Mary McLaughlin often ate breadfruit, which she describes as tasting like a bagel when it has been baked or roasted. Today, McLaughlin, along with her husband, Mike, and a team of volunteers, is using that same breadfruit to combat hunger and environmental issues around the world […]
Because we take our mission to amplify best philanthropic practices very seriously, we launched our Philanthropy Awards three years ago. Since then, our Make It Better Philanthropy Awards have recognized 17 outstanding nonprofits in education, athletics, social service, arts, health and more—based on the results of voting by our Academy of Judges, made up of […]
