By Michelle M. Ernsdorff, Founder, Compass to Care, a nonprofit that schedules and pays for the travel arrangements families require to seek the best cancer care for their children. “One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.” —Henry David Thoreau, poet, writer, philosopher We all have moments when we [...]

In Fall 2009, an EPIC team, led by designer Rick Valicenti of the design collaborative Thirst, created probono marketing for CASA of Cook County, a volunteer-based nonprofit that advocates for children in foster care. This month, we asked CASA’s Executive Director, Lanetta Haynes Turner, to tell us more about her work and the children she [...]

Amanda Farrar, Executive Director, Barrel of Monkeys, knows a thing or two about managing change. She and her nonprofit, which teaches creative writing workshops to children and adapts their writing into dynamic pieces of live theater, works within the vicissitudes of the Chicago Public School System. Enough said. She’s also successfully navigated the down economy [...]

When we asked Joann Chen, Program Director, Spark Ventures, what she’d been up to lately, she mentioned something about some chickens and recent trip to Zambia. We said: Tell us more, please. In this entry, Joann describes Spark’s work with a community in Zambia, including the creation of a community-managed chicken farm. They broke ground [...]