BURR RIDGE, IL (August 24th, 2004): North South Foundation, an Illinois-based non-profit organization, is immensely pleased to present the 2004 Role Model Award, Viswa Jyothi, to Nipun Mehta. The award ceremony will take place on September 4, 2004 at the Foundation's 12th Annual National Spelling Bee Championship Finals in Phoenix, AZ. Rajiv Vinnakota was the recipient of the Role Model Award for 2003. The Viswa Jyothi award stems from the Foundation's vision to identify young Americans of Indian origin across North America who can be role models to their peers in the community.

A key criterion for this award is an individual's innovative approach to solving persistent social ills with hard work, determination and commitment. Nipun Mehta's leadership and passion to make the Internet and Web World available to millions who couldn't afford uniquely qualifies him for the Viswa Jyothi award for 2004.

Problem

The purpose of technology is to enhance the quality of human life. The recent advances in the Internet and Telecommunications have improved the quality of life for many by significantly shortening the time and distances across the globe, but only to those that could afford them. It's almost as if the traditional haves and the have-nots are redefined as those with access to the Internet and those without. Nipun found a unique solution to bridge this gap.

Nipun graduated from UC, Berkeley quite young. In fact, he was a precocious teenager, and he took 40 hours/semester at Berkeley one year just to test his own capacity. Upon graduation from Berkeley in 1997, he joined the Sun Micro Systems in the famous Silicon Valley of California. At the height of the dotcom bubble, Nipun saw people becoming millionaires by the day, while the lot of the poor and underprivileged had not improved much. That bothered Nipun tremendously.

Solution

At the age of 23, Nipun Mehta started CharityFocus, a volunteer driven 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, in April 1999, to inspire the young generation of IT professionals to provide web based technological solutions to other nonprofit organizations worldwide for free. CharityFocus' slogan of 'Helping Others Help Others' clearly demonstrates the charter for their volunteers: building websites, providing technical assistance, and engaging in a wide variety of projects designed to benefit the many nonprofit organizations dedicated to public service.

Five years later, and with nearly 5,000 volunteers who donated their time, CharityFocus has served more than 1,110 nonprofit organizations, both US-based and international, with no overhead. What started as one team of four volunteers helping one nonprofit organization to gain web presence has now evolved into providing millions of dollars worth of website services to various nonprofit organizations globally, all for practically no cost. Facts and figures speak for themselves. For a sample list of projects that CharityFocus supports, visit the website at http://charityfocus.org/php-bin/projlist.php.

Viral Mehta, Nipun's brother and CharityFocus volunteer, recalls, "Nipun saw an opportunity to rekindle the fire of service where many didn't think to look, right in to the heart of Silicon Valley. Perhaps it was because Nipun himself was an exemplary technologist that he recognized what people needed most, a way for everyone to give back a little." Thus began CharityFocus. As he started to recruit volunteers, Nipun himself went through a transformation. He felt that selfless service where you are not looking for a reward was the answer for his pursuit. In selfless service, joy is the reward you get for helping others help others. Soon, Nipun quit his well paying job at Sun Micro. To make a living, he now works about three months in a year. A sleeping bag became his permanent bed. The sleeping bag, his mother thought, was just going too far. "That used to bother me, probably because I wouldn't sleep on one," she said.

To inspire others to do selfless service, Nipun had to deal with it himself first; charity begins at home. Nipun says, "Why is it so hard to give? It is because you always expect something in return for your services. You want something in return for everything you do. And when that doesn't happen, then the natural feeling is to say, yes, this is not such a good thing… However, as you look at the smile on the faces of those that you just helped, then you will recognize the positive aspects of service and you feel good about yourself."

In talking about Nipun's grit and determination, Viral says, "Imagine fifteen people spread out around the house – and others joining in remotely – accessing the wireless Internet connection and all working on a launch for a new project. Now imagine this group of volunteers still working past dinnertime, past bedtime, and past sunrise, several people heading into work directly. Web development gurus, graphics experts, a law whiz, a wood worker, project management pros, an international development consultant, a strategy analyst, teachers, and others, all bleary-eyed but all inspired. In fact, these all-nighters have become famous among CharityFocus coordinators to be a channel for 'pumped up service' every time there is a major web project to be launched. A common question at these launches is, 'How many all-nighters has Nipun pulled for this launch?' I'm not sure how better to describe the grit and determination Nipun has than to show the grit and determination it inspires in other people."

The CharityFocus website has posted some real life stories about how this concept has transformed others.

Accomplishments

In April 2004, CharityFocus launched a site to put up random banners of compassion on the web. Google joined in as a partner, along with many others. To date, over 100 million views of inspiring messages have surfaced the web through Enlightening Messages.

In January 2004, CharityFocus started a "smile" epidemic. The idea was to tag people with anonymous acts of kindness, using smile cards. In six months, 100,000 cards were printed and some have even reached Dalai Lama and the Pope!

In June 2003, cShops, started by CharityFocus, made its first sale of crafts made by rural artisan from the Gandhi Ashram in India. The operation was without any overhead -- every single penny went to the nonprofit.

Ragunath Padmanabhan, a CharityFocus volunteer, says, "Nipun has and continues to inspire and support thousands of people to commit a significant part of their lives to selfless service. This already has profound implications not only for the welfare of the poor and underprivileged, but also for the rich and privileged and everyone in between."

Nipun feels that this transformation was also necessary to close what he calls the divide between the Internet and Inner-Net. In his own words, Nipun says, "In the Internet economy, everything has to be bigger, better and faster, but to what end? With this newfound 'success', we have also found an unparalleled amount of dissatisfaction, greed, and confusion. In the Silicon Valley, dotcoms are now labeled dot-bombs. We have to make sure these bombs don't explode in our own faces. CharityFocus, then, is a bridge between the Internet and the inner-net. At a tangible level, CharityFocus volunteers build web solutions for nonprofit organizations. When these nonprofit organizations have web solutions, they'd be able to reach out to the world, reduce costs, accept online donations, and streamline many processes."

In explaining the compassion, kindness, and love Nipun exudes, Ragu says, "Nipun was waiting in DC for a friend one time. Nipun saw a man nearby desperately trying to sell greeting cards. He goes to the man, buys several cards. And, this is where he excels, he spontaneously picks a Thank You card from the cards he just bought, asks the man his name, writes it on the card and gives it to him. No price for guessing what he saw on the man's face."

Mark Jacobs, a CharityFocus volunteer says, "By creating a means for people to serve, by leading with example, by showing how service enriches the life of the giver as well as the receiver, Nipun has set an irresistible ripple effect in motion. The thousands whom Nipun has inspired to serve are in turn inspiring thousand others – a 'virtuous cycle' to combat the more familiar vicious cycles that plague our societies and our delicate environment."

In keeping with their mission of 'Helping Others Help Others,' CharityFocus acquired PledgePage.com — a struggling corporation that created ways for donors to raise money for their non-profit causes—in April 2002. This acquisition gave CharityFocus another web-centered way to be of service to those who wish to give of themselves.

In seeing CharityFocus's model at work, Jayesh Parekh, the co-founder of Sony Entertainment Television decided to hand over all operations of ProPoor.com - a South Asian NGO portal with more than 14,000 NGOs, thousands of newsletter subscribers, several offices, and a very well established brand to CharityFocus. Nipun says, "It took hundreds of volunteer hours to migrate ProPoor from a paid-staff to a volunteer run infrastructure and it continues take dozens of our hours now to keep it fully operational. Outside of the listed 14,000 NGOs, we also respond to hundreds of emails from inspired folks. Last month alone, there were 2,300 emails. Perhaps the most significant achievement is in the heart of Jayesh, the founder of ProPoor. He is now an active participant of the organization and is inspired enough to become a full time volunteer, once he shuts down all his business activities during the course of the next one year."

The fundraising legend Lynne Twist, who has raised over $150 million for humanitarian causes, said "Every organization needs significant resources for money. But well, there is an amazing organization named CharityFocus, which somehow is able to do incredible work with almost no money. Their model is excellent and I don't know how they do it." Nipun runs CharityFocus on a shoestring budget. Nipun says, "We typically run on $5K per year in administrative expenses. Last year they were a bit higher since we printed 100,000 smile cards (now, we've got a partnership with Fed-Ex). We also have many in-kind partnerships with companies like Adobe, Fed-Ex, AOL, Google, Macromedia, Sun and so on. We don't solicit donations, even internally within the organization. Money that comes from the website usually goes out to other nonprofit organizations through our Donation Club." Their annual budget of $5 thousand per year is a paltry sum when compared to the millions of dollars of free service they provide to the nonprofit organizations.

The story of CharityFocus is captivating and is frequently referred to at various business schools in the US. The CharityFocus model is being written-up as a "Case Study" at Harvard Business School; it has been presented at the University of Arizona and at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth; it was the subject of an all-day seminar at the Anderson School of Business Administration at UCLA. It has been profiled on CNN and in newspapers and magazines in the US, India, and Japan. In December 2003, Nipun received the President's community service award at the UN.

He sits on the Boards of Directors of SEVA Foundation, Airline Ambassadors and Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley. Nipun also sits on the advisory boards of the Dalai Lama Foundation and AHIMSA. In June 2001, Nipun received Jefferson Award, a prestigious national award in Washington DC for outstanding community service. In May 2002, Nipun was invited to give a talk at the Santa Fe Institute and was among a distinguished think-tank panel of speakers, including Nobel Laureate Murray Gell Mann.

North South Foundation takes great pride in recognizing Nipun Mehta as their choice for the 2004 Role Model Award, Viswa Jyothi.