Last week, we reported that almost a majority of Americans want companies to focus their charitable efforts on domestic rather than global issues, in response to a recent national cause marketing survey. One company has taken that growing sentiment to heart.

Yesterday, IBM announced that it has opened their "Smarter Cities Challenge" grant program to new applications for 2012. The challenge is a three-year, $50 million grant program in which IBM's top technical experts and consultants provide actionable advice to urban centers.

Winning cities receives a $400,000 grant in talent and technology and will have a team of IBM experts at their disposal who will provide "recommendations for successful growth, improved delivery of municipal services, more citizen engagement, better efficiency --- and a higher quality of civic life."

The goal of the program? To help cities tackle long-standing problems in face of increasing budgetary and operational challenges, IBM vice president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs Stanley Litow explained last year.

"Cities are vitally important to society and the economy," said Litow in a news release. "But they have enormous challenges and need the innovation, creativity and technical know-how to tackle long-standing, tough issues and plan for the future. We're excited at the prospect of helping city leaders address the most demanding challenges of our time and make their cities even more livable."

What does it take to get selected? Key factors for a successful grant application include "strong city leadership, willingness to collaborate with many stakeholders, and the desire to make their cities smarter and more efficient," according to the company

To give you better idea of how other cities framed their challenges, here are a couple of efforts currently underway:

St. Louis, Mo., saddled with a high crime rate, has undertaken significant leadership and day-to-day operational changes to improve public safety. Measures include more formal and rigorous collaboration among the courts, police department, mayor's office, prosecutors and corrections officials. The goal is to use data to make more informed and nuanced criminal justice decisions.

Milwaukee, Wis., leaders, the city's private sector and local urban agriculture organizations are establishing an Urban Agriculture and Aquaponics Council to advance the aquaponics industry, an eco-friendly approach to agriculture that recycles water from fish farms to nourish crops without the use of soil. Participants want to collaborate more effectively to make food healthier and more profitable, available and affordable -- and in the process, create opportunity and local jobs.

To find out more or to submit your city for consideration, visit IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge website. The deadline for 2012 grant applications is Dec. 16.

Good luck!

In honor of World Polio Day, read our interview with Itzhak Perlman from earlier this year.

Original post date: 2/1/2011

Polio is one of the most feared childhood diseases of the 20th century for having left millions crippled -- has just about met its match.

Violinist Itzhak Perlman, who is also a polio survivor, has teamed up with Rotary International for "This Close." It is an aptly titled awareness campaign, says Perlman, as the world is "truly this close" to completely getting rid of the disease.

Indeed, since taking polio on in 1985, Rotary has helped to immunize 2 billion children in 122 countries, slashing polio rates by 99%. From a staggering 350,000 polio cases each year in the 1980s, there were only 1,000 new cases in 2010, according to Rotary's Carol Pandak, a manager in their PolioPlus division.

"This Close" is part of Rotary's End Polio Now initiative and its $200 Million Challenge, an effort to raise money to match $355 million in challenge grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

I caught up with Perlman last week by phone to learn more about "This Close," which kicked off on Monday.

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Apple harvesting has long been a favorite fall tradition for many Americans.

One food bank in Henderson County, N.C. -- one of the nation's leading apple-producing counties -- is putting a new spin on this local tradition this Saturday thanks to an unexpected donation of harvesting rights to a six-acre apple orchard.

"With this donation, we hope to bring in more than 200,000 pounds of apples this harvest season," says Joshua Stack, communications manager for MANNA FoodBank. "With chronic food insecurity affecting more than 100,000 people in our mountain region, this apple harvest will represent an important bump in our food distribution."

To ensure that their goal is met, MANNA has aligned its apple harvesting efforts with another fall tradition -- Make A Difference Day. Taking place on Oct. 22, Make A Difference Day "provides a powerful call-to-action to join us in this important work," Stack says.

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By Melinda Gates, co-chair and trustee of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Originally appeared on The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation website, Oct. 17, 2011

Today I'm excited to welcome some of the world's foremost experts and advocates to Seattle for the foundation's second Malaria Forum. As we head into this exciting day, I can't help but reflect on the tremendous progress we have made in building public support to end malaria since the last forum four years ago.

We have seen a tremendous outpouring of support and innovation from all corners of the world. We have seen that everyone can make a difference, no matter their location.

Take social media. Beginning with the Twitter Race to 1 million followers --which raised nearly 100,000 mosquito nets for Malaria No More--the malaria fight has consistently broken new ground in the use of social media. Only 28% of people in the US thought of malaria as a serious global health problem in 2006. Today, it's more than 50%.

[Read more from USA TODAY's Kindness blog: Ashton Kutcher's mosquito nets ensure 'malaria no more']

The UN created a powerful group of social media advocates called the Social Media Envoys , each of whom take an action on Twitter each month.

And we're seeing great promise using communications technologies in malaria endemic countries too.

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While reading about Make A Difference Day in sister publication USA WEEKEND last October, Judi Leonard of Milpitas, Calif., had a stroke of inspiration.

A life-long animal lover and proud parent of an adopted cat, she knew that the local Humane Society of the Silicon Valley had many older dogs and cats in need of a loving home but stood little chance for adoption, given their advanced age.

She decided that she wanted to do something to help these senior pets, but where to start?

To get the ball rolling, Leonard shared her idea with the organization, and before she knew it, she connected with Jan Stevenson, a long-time Humane Society volunteer. Together, they launched Seniors 4 Seniors, a Make A Difference Day project featuring fundraisers and an adoption event on Make A Difference Day this Oct. 22, which will utimately achieve Leonard's goal of finding these senior pets a home.

"Our mission is to find 'forever homes' for the older pets by pairing them with the young at heart for companionship and unconditional love," partner Stevenson says. "From my standpoint, the biggest impact is help the public realize how adoptable senior animals are and how enriching they can be to a senior person's life."

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When it comes to corporate efforts to give back, Americans want their companies to go local.

Indeed, in response to a recent cause marketing survey from Cone Communications, nearly half of Americans respondents (47%) say they want companies to focus their philanthropic efforts -- including money and time -- on national rather than global issues.

Interestingly, citizens globally were split on the issue: 33% requested a local focus and 30% favored global.

Here's a related question for you: Out of the following options, can you guess what the majority of American respondents want companies to take on?

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It's no secret that challenging economic times are difficult for businesses of any size. They are doubly challenging for non-profits. Not only is the need even greater, they are also tasked with the challenge of bringing in crucial funding when donors are giving less. Tough.

But now imagine having to deal with these challenges as a small or medium-size -- and likely, lesser-known -- non-profit. Really tough.

Tom's of Maine launched its "50 States for Good" contest three years ago with the specific goal of lending a financial hand to smaller non-profits that are having big impact in their communities. Yesterday, the company announced their 2011 winners, and it couldn't come at a better time. The six winning non-profits, as voted on by the public, will share $150,000 in funding, and as a judge for this year's competition, I can say for certain that these groups are making a big impact despite their size.

Just ask Dr. Jackie Cole, a full-time veterinarian who -- in her free time -- founded the Galveston Island Tree Conservancy after Hurricane Ike destroyed over half of the island's tree canopy in 2008. So far, Cole's organization, which was named this year's "50 States for Good" $50,000 grand prize winner, has succeeded in replanting 8,000 of the 40,000 trees that were lost.

"There is nothing quite like losing half of the tree canopy to highlight how important trees are to a small community. Thanks to the incredible support of the community and our passionate volunteers, we are well on our way toward replanting these precious trees," says Cole, who serves as president. "We are example of what Tom's is trying to do with this award -- identify and provide support to people who are doing good work in their communities. We are absolutely thrilled, as this support will contribute greatly to our five-year reforestation plans."

Congrats to Cole's organization and the rest of the following winners:

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From pink-clad NFL players to pink-infused city fountains, everything seems to be going pink this October.

And rightfully so. With the arrival of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this perky color, traditionally worn as a ribbon, is responsible for generating hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over the past 20 years to fight and find a cure for this disease that is responsible for thousands of deaths among American women and men each year.

One woman who is not shy about her affinity for the color pink is fashion designer Betsey Johnson. Not only is it one of her brand's signature colors, it is also a color she proudly wears this month as a 10-year breast cancer survivor.

[Photo gallery: Other famous survivors of breast cancer.]

But this pride did not come easy at first, Johnson says.

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By Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO, Reading Is Fundamental

In 2009, only one-third of fourth graders performed at or above the Proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 15 year-old students in the U.S. ranked 14th out of 34 countries in reading. And there's only one book for every 300 children living in poverty in this country.

Do those statements bother you? I am outraged by them. We are losing a significant part of a whole generation of children by not providing the necessary tools to build strong literacy skills, and my anger is genuine that our nation is allowing this to happen! At the same time I'm not surprised that our children are being outpaced by their peers in China, Singapore and our neighbors to the north in Canada. As our economy continues to struggle, many families are faced daily with the tough and very real decisions of buying basic necessities like diapers and food or items like books. Sadly, books fall into the "luxury item" category, and that is totally understandable.

Knowing these literacy facts, you may be surprised to know that many of the nation's literacy programs, the most fundamental element of our education and economic systems, have been gutted through federal budget cuts. And Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation's largest children's literacy nonprofit, is one of the victims of these short-sighted cuts.

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Today may be the last day of Hunger Action Month, Feeding America's annual awareness campaign created to generate support for the millions of Americans struggling with hunger, but here's a way to inspire kids to get engaged in fighting hunger among their peers year-round.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) launched the Ending Childhood Hunger Video Contest earlier in September, asking children to show the country what they or their peers are doing or would do to innovatively help end childhood hunger in their school or community. This must be accomplished in two minutes or less.

The prize? The winning videos will be showcased online and "will serve to inspire students across the country to take action on the issue of childhood hunger," according to a news release.

Know someone who might like to enter? Here are all the details they'll need:

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