Even through difficult times, organizations enhance the quality of our children’s lives.

“The DC Youth Orchestra Program provides music classes and ensemble training to all students who wish to participate.  Because of the program’s unique structure and curriculum, no child is turned away and every child is challenged by being placed in a level appropriate to his or her ability.  We accept all students, regardless of experience or income level.

In the last decade, a generation of social entrepreneurs has become increasingly visible by creating self-sustaining businesses. Social entrepreneurs are similar to regular entrepreneurs with one main difference–their gains aren’t measured in financial profit, but by the impact they have on society.

Many entrepreneurs have started social enterprises, breaking nonprofit tradition by blending mission with money, referred to as “double bottom line” businesses. Jerr Boschee, executive director and founder of The Institute for Social Entrepreneurship, says for a while, nonprofits were hung up on the double bottom line because it seemed contradictory to merge doing well with doing good. But Boschee says self-sufficiency has become necessary for many nonprofit groups to operate. “We have today three times as many nonprofits as we had 30 years ago, and they’re all at the same watering hole.”

No longer limited by philanthropic donations and public subsidies, these organizations now have a way of being self-sufficient while still helping others in social need. And for some of these organizations, helping others means helping them start their own businesses.

Helping Others Get Started
Mi Kitchen es Su Kitchen is a kitchen incubator in Queens, New York, dedicated to helping struggling entrepreneurs start and develop food businesses. The kitchen offers business counseling, mentoring and support for entrepreneurs who have a line of goods, but are limited in funds and business knowledge.

“We go through the whole thing,” says founder Kathrine Gregory. “How do you market? How do you write a business plan?”

The 55-year-old food industry veteran is an entrepreneur herself and offers her know-how by partnering with nonprofits that house kitchen facilities. In 1996, Gregory started her kitchen incubator concept with an organization that had an 850-square-foot kitchen in Brooklyn. The facility was being used for job training, but operation costs were quickly eating up the funding. Gregory convinced the board to let her test the kitchen incubator concept, and the resulting profits helped turn the nonprofit into a self-sustaining business.

Today, Mi Kitchen es Su Kitchen operates in conjunction with the Consortium for Worker Education and Artisan Baking Center. With a 5,000-square-foot facility, the kitchen is used for culinary arts training, general education and ESL courses during the day. At night the kitchen transforms into a bustling entrepreneurial atmosphere, complete with a dough press, chocolate melter, and a variety of mixers and ovens.

According to Gregory, most entrepreneurs at Mi Kitchen es Su Kitchen–who pay $180 to $220 per shift to use the space–turn a profit within the first six to 12 months. The revenue made from rentals has totaled about $200,000.

“People think this is an amazing concept,” Gregory says. “It’s really a win-win, everyplace that you look.” She believes that leveling the playing field for low-income entrepreneurs is one reason her idea has hit home with the local community.

Kiva founders Matt Flannery, 30, and his wife, Jessica, also took the business partner angle with their Kiva.orgmicrolending website. The two started Kiva after traveling to Africa and learning of the enterprising atmosphere there.

“We interviewed people every day for weeks and talked about people’s business plans,” says Matt. “I thought it was fascinating that I was talking about business, business plans and scaling an inventory challenges in a place that I only associated with deep poverty.”

The experience stayed with Matt and Jessica when the two returned to California and partnered with four others, working out of coffee shops and a tiny San Francisco apartment to develop the Kiva website and concept. Their goal remains showing people the business dynamic they experienced in Africa. “It was a different take on poverty, a different take on Africa than you typically hear when you’re out here in the United States,” Matt says.

On the Kiva website, lenders can donate to entrepreneurs trying to start a business in third-world countries. Loans start at $25, which goes a long way in the third world. The entrepreneurs pay back the loans 99 percent of the time–a remarkable default rate in the finance world. “[It's] connecting as an equal or a business partner, an entrepreneur, rather than as a charitable endeavor or benefactor or taking pity on someone else,” Matt says.

And pity is something Matt says the media has thrived on for some time. “Often we want to hear about war and bloodshed and disease and that’s only a small part of the story about what goes on in a huge continent like Africa,” he adds.

Like Gregory, Matt also struggled to convince others about the viability of his idea. “One attribute of good ideas is that they challenge people’s existing mindset,” he says. “Now that I know that, I wouldn’t have put so much weight in other people’s opinions.”

Why It’s Working
Despite some skepticism, “Social entrepreneurship is really taking off around the world,” says David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, which has been translated into 16 languages. In his book, Bornstein chronicles the work of Ashoka, an international organization that helps fund entrepreneurs with innovative solutions to social problems.

According to Bornstein, the relentless won’t-take-no-for-an-answer quality of entrepreneurs is what gives them their edge in business. “They absorb the failure, they learn, they surround themselves with a good team and then they redirect.” These same attributes, when applied in the social realm, can result in community-changing solutions.

In the end, Gregory says it’s the energy of the entrepreneurs she comes into contact with that sustain her in her business. For Matt and Jessica, being part of something larger than themselves has inspired them.

“It’s not about me, it’s not about my organization,” Matt says. “It’s about people connecting to people and using technology as a conduit.”

By Jessica Chen | October 19, 2007

How good would it feel if someone just gave you $1,000?

Last fall, Oprah Winfrey thrilled audience members with these words: “You will each go home with $1,000.”

Then she said there was a catch: “You have to spend the money on someone other than your family.”

Winfrey said she wanted them to experience how good it feels to give.

They still applauded, but the smiles looked a little forced.

Yet maybe she did her audience a favor, because even though the audience had to give the money away, it could get back even more than they gave.

Stephen Post explains why in his new book, “Why Good Things Happen to Good People.”

He reveals that new science shows giving — money or time — not only feels just as good as getting, but can actually improve your health.

“Giving is as good for the giver as it is for the receiver. Science says it’s so. We’ll be happier, healthier, and even — odds are — live a little longer if we’re generous,” Post said.

“Public health isn’t just about bugs and staying away from lead. It’s about doing unto others, and at the right dose, science says it’s very good for you,” he said.

Arthur Brooks, author of the new book, “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism,” also knows a lot about the current research on charity. Brooks said, “There’s evidence that it helps people with their asthma, in cardiovascular disease, weight loss, insomnia. When people have a lot of happiness, they do a lot better in their health as well.”

Helping Others, Healing Themselves

That was true for former heart patients at Duke University Medical Center. They were asked to visit current heart patients — no particular agenda, just to listen and lend support. By doing that, the volunteers had better health after their heart attacks. A similar study at the University of Miami by Dr. Gail Ironson followed HIV patients who volunteered, like Katherine Marshall Scott, who talks to teenagers about avoiding infection, and Stephen Baker, who counsels fellow HIV survivors. These and other HIV patients who helped others had lower stress levels and higher immune resistance. Scott’s disease-fighting cells went up, from 200 to 800. Baker says he could feel how volunteering improved his health. “To get involved with someone else’s problems makes your problems look a lot less,” he said. At least five studies show that seniors who gave tended to live longer, Post said. After senior Fred Dekuyper started volunteering at a school, a small miracle happened. “I used to walk with a cane all the time, and now I don’t need the cane anymore,” he said.

Service Learning

Many high schools require their students to volunteer. It’s called service learning. And oddly, even though the charity is forced, it still brings happy results. Teachers say students who volunteer raise their grades, and get higher SAT scores. Abington High School student Jeff Rohrback said, “After service learning started, I got so involved into it, I started paying attention more, picked up my grades.” So “20/20″ decided to see whether we could find a similar effect. We put an ad on Craigslist recruiting people who were not currently volunteers. We introduced them to Post, and asked them to try it for one week.

But first, Post had them fill out a questionnaire that asked how they felt about life, like how often during the week they felt calm and peaceful. Children for Children, whose mission is to get children involved in giving, agreed to help us, as did the Salvation Army, which has many different programs, from soup kitchens to after-school activities for kids. Then off they went — bringing donated books to children at an elementary school, then reading to the kids and making scarves with the kids. One spent time in a truck handing out food to the poor. All four worked at a Harlem soup kitchen. One week later we had them answer that questionnaire again. This time their answers about how often they felt “calm and peaceful” changed from some of the time to most of the time. Post said, “In fact, just seven days of activity was a kind of a transformation.” One of our volunteers, Diana Sanchez was surprised at how strongly the experiences affected her. “They were so grateful for me doing that, but it was just peas and carrots,” she said. When asked whether it had made her feel good, she said, “It did. It did.” Sanchez also spent time with kids at a Salvation Army after-school program. “Just knowing that after work I was heading over to work with the children, just seeing them smiling — that just made me feel so great,” she said. Researchers call that “the helper’s high.”

The Helpers’ High

“The helper’s high has been measured physically,” Post said. “We know there’s an actual physiological state. It’s quite euphoric.” The helper’s high shows up in MRI brain scans. People who give money show brain activity that’s associated with feel-good chemicals like dopamine — the same brain activity that happens when you receive money. National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Jordan Grafman showed us the brain scans. “Those brain structures that are activated when you get a reward are the same ones that are activated when you give. In fact, they’re activated more,” he told us.

We asked our volunteers after their week of service who had gotten more out of the experience: the people they helped, or they themselves?

Volunteer Daniel Smith didn’t hesitate with his answer. “No brainer. Me, definitely.”

Lelani Clark also felt renewed from her single week of volunteering.

“I just felt energized,” she said. “We were so caught up in this energy of helping that it was like a buzz — like a spiritual buzz.”

Winfrey’s audience members reported that, too. After a week of giving money away, many said they were changed.

Maybe we should call it selfish to help others, because it seems to help the givers more.

“If you want to define selfishness so widely as to include the warm glow that people feel in the aftermath of selflessly giving to others, guess what, we need more of it, not less of it,” Post said.

So try it.

Get out and give your money or your time. You’ll help someone else. … And you’ll feel good, too.

By JOHN STOSSEL and SYLVIA JOHNSON

ABC News