Our friend, Co-Op Images, is a non-profit in Chicago that focuses on bringing arts education to underprivileged youth.

Their programs range from glass blowing classes, to creating an on-air kids’ cooking show, to providing gallery space and professional exhibits for Chicago’s young artists.

Like so many non-profits, they struggle each year to come up with the funds they need to manage and implement new projects.

We hope that you will take a look at the three fundraisers they are doing, and choose the one that best fits your giving interests.  We’re sure you’ll find one of them to be a good fit!

Click here to see the details:

Chi-Town Chefs- a youth produced cooking show

So Fresh Printing- a youth run t-shirt business to support art education

Art! Art! Art!- supplies for youth arts programs

Water is the gift of life.  We hear that often - but ask anyone who has suffered months of drought and they will tell you, indeed, this truth is more powerful than we might ever imagine.

Every day we are bombarded with statistics about how many people in the world are experiencing certain hardships; twelve million are refugees, over a billion live below the poverty line and countless others are deprived of adequate health care.  But without putting a face to the statistic, we often experience a sense of resignation in the face of such unsettling facts. read more…

GiveForward wants to give a shout out to Aron “the fundraising dominator” Grossman for being the first GFer in GiveForward history to reach 100% of his fundraising goal.

This fundraising stud is raising money for the Fresh Air Fund, an organization that provides free summer vacations to inner-city kids from NYC. You can check out his page here.

Aron is one of over forty people running in GiveForward’s Run for a Reason five-mile fun run next weekend in New York City. Although Aron has admittedly never run five consecutive miles in his life, Aron decided to be like Gheorghe Muresan, and “score one for the kids.” Way to go, Aron!!

For all the ladies out there, you can catch a glympse of this big-hearted, fundraising stud at 8:30 AM on October 26th as he completes his history making, first ever, five mile run through Central Park.

Anyway, if you’re reading this Aron, we just wanted to say “Congratulations” on this monumental accomplishment. GiveForward will be sending you a congratulatory bottle of Gheorghe Mursesan cologne for your efforts.

Hey there friendly friends…I wanted to write a quick note to introduce myself, and let you know that you can expect to see me here pretty regularly to let you know how the Million4Obama campaign.  As you may or may not know, we’re trying to get a million people to give just one dollar to the Barack Obama war chest, and pledge to vote on November 4th.

So far, we’re at 464 dollars.  Not exactly a million, but it’s a real good start.  So tell all your friends, forward this link around: Million4Obama.com, and get out the vote!  It’s an important one this time around, if you hadn’t heard.

Anyhow, keep checking back on the site here, to see the fun and excitement I have to offer for your reading pleasure.  The suspense, I’m sure, is palpable…

Dear Friends,

Jane Chen, a new friend of GiveForward.org, has a social venture called Embrace that aims to provide $25 incubators to the more than 20 million premature babies born each year around the globe that do not have access to traditional $20K incubators.

Embrace is one of the organizations competing in American Express’ Members Project that will award $1.5 million to the organization that receives the most votes.

If you are an American Express cardholder, please take 2 minutes to vote for Embrace.

read more…