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This year at the United Nations Foundation we have been focusing on the idea of “Going Bold”, inspired largely by our founder and chairman Ted Turner’s $1 billion gift to work toward the goals of the UN. We cannot have this conversation without including the work and impact that Bill Gates has made through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This morning, our global community joined in a conversation about people power and social good via Twitter at the World Economic Forum in Davos, quite literally changing the shape of the conversation.
Follow our live Twitter coverage of a special session on technology, social media, and mass-participation on Thursday, January 24 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
On January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 300,000 people and leaving more than one million homeless. With support from millions of individuals around the world, a host of institutions and organizations — the UN and the UN Foundation among them — reached out to help the Haitian government with the difficult process of recovering and rebuilding.
Every year from about 2006 to 2009 India was faced with over 500 polio cases. But, in 2009, some new initiatives were introduced that looked at narrowing in on population segments that were being missed.
“Beyond the mountains, more mountains,” a well-worn Haitian proverb goes, in a nod to the outsized challenges this half-island in the Caribbean has faced for as long as anyone can remember. Topping that list is the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, displaced 1.5 million, and racked or razed some 300,000 buildings.
It’s not every day someone is bold enough to give away one-third of their net worth to help make the world a better place. But when Ted Turner donated $1 billion 15 years ago to help the United Nations tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges, it inspired a new wave of philanthropy.
Happy New Year! Thanks to your support, the United Nations Foundation has been helping the United Nations change lives by improving global health, promoting sustainable energy, empowering women and girls, and advocating for a better world for the past 15 years.
Around this time of year, a lot of people are already struggling to keep some of the resolutions they made just a few days earlier.
But some resolutions are too important to break. Fifteen years ago, Ted Turner made a bold commitment to donate $1 billion to help the United Nations tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. In the time since, his donation — and the additional support and the resolution of partners like you — have helped change countless lives through the work of the UN Foundation.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies recently created a video featuring Malawi’s first female president, Joyce Banda, talking about the importance of women’s health and empowerment.