Living in the modern world can be downright depressing. Wars, crime, poverty, and recession stare out at you from the front page of the newspaper every single day. At times like these, I need reassurance that while the world may be in a rough patch, there is a lot of great stuff going on.

Here are four cool nonprofits who have provided me with reassurance lately. Why do I call them cool? It's a combination of factors. For me, cool nonprofits are tightly targeted at a specific problem, use interesting methods to solve that problem, and attract enthusiasm from donors and volunteers. They are getting stuff done instead of waiting to be asked. These four organizations are quite different, but taken together they illustrate some core lessons about how to change the world.

Four Nonprofits...

Farm Rescue helps family farmers get through crisis situations like illness or injury by mobilizing volunteers to plant or harvest crops. Farming is incredibly time sensitive, and most family farmers can't financially cope with a missed season. Farm Rescue was started by one man, volunteering his efforts during his time off from his own job. Today Farm Rescue serves farmers in North and South Dakota as well as eastern Montana and western Minnesota.

Little Geeks is a Canadian charity that works in the Toronto area to provide computers and internet connections to low-income families. They accept donations of equipment, safely recycling what they cannot use, and volunteer Repair Geeks prep the donated systems for donation. Mentor Geeks work with families to set up the computer and go over basics such as internet safety. Then they provide telephone and email tech support for a minimum of six months.

The Gretta Foundation is a new organization with a goal of providing scholarships for in-country nursing education to people in developing countries who want to be part of their community's health care workforce. The Gretta Foundation will provide the support that nursing students need to complete school and replace the many nurses who have left to work in more affluent countries. Students who receive scholarships will commit to serve in their own countries for a period of time once they have become licensed.

Hour Children is located in Long Island, NY, and it describes itself as a "multi-faceted family service organization that provides housing, permanent and transitional, and a wide array of supportive services that transform the lives of women and their families involved in the criminal justice system." Basically, they take care of children whose mothers are in prison, and they take care of the moms before and after they're released so they can get back to taking care of their children. Hour Children was established in 1995, and they've helped over 7,000 families since then.

...Three Lessons...

The first lesson we can draw from these nonprofits is Do What Moves You. When trying to figure out how to help, either with our time or with our money, sometimes we get overwhelmed by all of the needs. We try to figure out what the worst problem is, what the greatest need is, and we get locked up trying to pick between all of the problems in the world.

The folks behind these four groups each picked something that spoke to them. The founder of Farm Rescue has farming in his family background. The people involved in Little Geeks really like computers. The Gretta Foundation was started in honor of the founder's mother, who was a leader in nursing education. For the people of faith behind Hour Children, their mission was motivated by a religious calling to serve the vulnerable among us. There's plenty to be done in the world. Find an opportunity that involves your passion and your knowledge and jump right in.

The second lesson we can learn is that Small Is Beautiful. Start with one farm, one donated computer, one student who needs help, or one family in crisis who needs support. When we're trying to save the world, we don't have to save the entire world in one day.

In fact, real world-saving comes in small packages. Imagine what would happen if one day, half of the people in America reached out to someone in need and offered whatever help they could. And then the next day, it happened again. And then the next day. We are lucky to have large national and state nonprofit organizations that work on a large scale. They are treasures. But small nonprofits are also treasures, and usually they're treasures that began even smaller, when one person did a good deed for their neighbor.

The final lesson we can learn from these folks is that Everyone Matters. One family farm might not seem like a big deal in the national economy, but the success of that farm matters a great deal to that family and that community. It's easy to say that kids can just use computers at school or the library, but having a computer in the home is the best way for a family to develop the digital competence that's increasingly required to fully participate in American society. Training one nurse in a developing country might not seem like a big deal, but giving that nurse the power to heal hundreds and thousands of people in his or her community shows that one person really can make a difference. Women with a criminal record face a long road to self-sufficiency, especially when they will encounter scorn and suspicion due to their past, but they can turn their lives around when they're treated as individuals with a contribution to make.

...And One Question

As founder Alyssa Royse has so beautifully phrased it, the mission of JUST CAUSE is to shine a bright light on individuals, corporations and the change agents who are working for the greater good.

The good news for today is that there are TONS of these change agents. They're here in this post, and they're here on JUST CAUSE. If you're ever feeling depressed by the regular daily news, there's more than enough antidote in communities across the nation and online to give you hope again.

What's inspiring you lately?

[Image by Billy Alexander.]