Not bad, but what's the catch? Well, I don't think it's a catch, but another way members can earn credits is by taking surveys and playing trivia games. Everywun could do a much better job of explaining how everything works on the website, but, as far as I can tell, this information is sold. This might be a turn-off for some, but there are a few things to consider. First of all, participation in these point-earning activities is optional. Second, information is never tied to an individual and is only used in the aggregate, so there should be no privacy concerns. Third, although Everywun is structured as a for-profit entity, it donates 70% of its revenues (even before expenses) to charity. And not all of this information is used by businesses for private profit. I just completed a survey that will help a cancer-related organization revamp its name to better reflect the impact it makes–and I earned 500 Everywun credits, enough to buy two meals for people or to plant five trees.

Founder Dan Jacobs created the organization after overcoming a battle with a life-threatening illness and realizing that he had no option but to work to improve the world; I'm comfortable that the good intentions are there.

But whether the impact is there is another question. To be sure, Everywun has, as of today, coordinated the donation of 6,499 trees, 76 malaria nets, 1,948 meals for children, 4,594 meals for animals, and 546 books for children. Or rather, it has coordinated the donation of the equivalent of those items: there is no discussion of this on the website, but it's entirely possible that the donated funds are not earmarked for these specific uses. The website does not reveal what these contributions amount to in dollars.

Everywun has an ambitious mission of giving "every person in the world…fun, easy, and cost-free tools to make their lives, others' lives, and the world better." For the moment, I'm skeptical that it can achieve this level of scale and impact, or even whether such a broad goal can be supported with this model.

But then again, someone once said in response to critiques of microfinance guru Mohammad Yunus, "I like what he's doing a lot more than what you are not doing."

In other words, it's good that someone is at least trying new models. Time will tell which ones will have great impact and which ones will not. Progress will only come, as it always has, at the expense of many attempts.

In any case, Everywun is another way for one to give without "giving away." And, as I saw in my experience with Kiva, there's nothing like participation to learn what it's about. Click on the badge below to see for yourself and post a comment to let us know what you think!

Note: I'm not sure how long this will last, but, in a tweet yesterday, Everywun extended an invitation to earn 500 extra credits by entering "#NCVS" (for National Conference on Volunteering and Service) when registering.

I have but one request to make of Opportunity Collaboration:

I applaud the bias for action in the facilitation of this event, but I also strongly encourage an explicit effort to share as fully as possible the information, experiences, and insights that arise from the Opportunity Collaboration. Openness and transparency are core to the "Opportunity Collaboration paradigm" and, indeed, will be so to any successful societal paradigm of the future. Let us commit to those principles beginning now.

I'll be watching for more updates from Opportunity Collaboration; perhaps this is already in the plans. Let's hope so–the organizers could kick off the 2009 holiday season early with an invaluable gift to the world. After all, a solution to poverty will necessarily involve both those whom it affects and those who are implicitly part of the problem (i.e., the non-marginalized of society). If you can't bring the world to Opportunity Collaboration, you can surely bring Opportunity Collaboration to the world.

Charter schools, run independently of the traditional public school system, are able to tailor their programs to community needs and have become a rallying cry for the education reform movement. According to the Stanford study,

As of 2009, more than 4,700 charter schools enroll over 1.4 million children in 40 states and the District of Columbia. The ranks of charters grow by hundreds each year. Even so, more than 365,000 names linger on charter school wait lists. After more than fifteen years, there is no doubt that both supply and demand in the charter sector are strong. In some ways, however, charter schools are just beginning to come into their own…[and there is] every expectation that they will continue to figure prominently in national educational strategy in the months and years to come.

Unfortunately for this adolescent movement, the study shows that independence alone does not improve student performance. In fact, "37% [of charter schools] deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their student would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools." Roughly half showed no differential in performance. Only 17% of charter schools delivered superior results when compared to traditional public schools.

But these are general statistics for a data set that varies widely, and the researchers note many encouraging findings, like the fact that "charter students in elementary and middle school grades have significantly higher rates of learning than their peers in traditional public schools," and it is only in high school or multi-level schools that students lag. The study also finds that charter schools perform better than public schools when it comes to teaching students in poverty.

In the end, this report card won't get the charter school movement onto the honor roll, but the study will indeed help the movement "come into its own" by improving accountability. Acumen Fund would approve.