UEnd Foundation

The UEnd Foundation (formerly ChristmasFuture Foundation), founded in Calgary, Canada, in 2006, is a non-religious, registered Canadian charity that helps people support the eradication of extreme poverty through online giving to development projects. The organization's stated goal is to enable and encourage individuals to refocus their Christmas spending towards funding strategic and sustainable initiatives in villages of the developing world.
UEnd focuses on the eradication of extreme poverty, working toward the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. UEnd launched to North America in November 2007, and raised $92,000 towards projects that will impact over 38,000 lives in 10 countries. Approximately 2,000 people in North America experienced a new way to give with UEnd.
History
Jay Baydala came up with the idea of UEnd in 2005, and worked with Glen Mackey, David Yarema and Lynette Stephenson to refine the core components of the organization. UEnd Foundation was incorporated in June 2006.
UEnd launched a pilot project at the Calgary Science School during the 2006 holiday season. During this time, the UEnd team created a week-long humanities curriculum focused on global citizenship, extreme poverty, and NGO’s for grades 4 to 9. Throughout the last week of November 2006 the entire school (600 students) learned the curriculum; many of the students returned home and asked their parents to redirect the amount spent on a single gift towards the selected project in Sauri, Kenya. The teachers also played a part by asking the students who intended to purchase a holiday gift for their teacher to refocus that spending towards the same project in Sauri, Kenya. This single pilot project raised over $10 000 CDN for the building of a school library as part of the Millennium Village Project. The final assessment of the community occurred in April and construction was set to begin shortly after, the team estimated it would take 5 months to complete with a slow construction schedule in June and July as the community would be involved in harvest activities. Construction has been even slower than expected.
Organizational Structure
A board of directors, currently chaired by Glen Mackey, oversees the UEnd Foundation. The board consists of Roy Moore, Adam Hedayat, Glen Mackey, Gena Rotstein, David Yarema, Evan Hu, Lorne Jaques, Peter Jamieson, Ryan McDonald, and Jay Baydala.
Approach
UEnd highlights that in North America, over $1 trillion USD is spent during the holiday season, and uses this fact as a focal point for the power of donating some of this spending towards development. The organization believes in a need for transparency and seeing evidence of the results of development projects.
Funding
The organization intends that all donor funding will go directly to the projects donors choose, commencing with Christmas 2007 launch.
UEnd's operational funding comes from private sources, including individuals, corporations, and foundations. UEnd intends to fund their operations entirely by interest revenues by year 7.
Activities
* UEnd has completed a pilot project at the Calgary Science School to raise funds for a new library as part of the Millennium Villages Project Sauri Cluster in the Kenya highlands west of the Rift Valley. Over 600 students, teachers, and parents were involved a week-long education program about extreme poverty, which was follow by a fundraising program for the 2006 Christmas season.
* DonorTrust - an open source project initiated under GPL on RubyForge. DonorTrust is a piece of software that empowers a model of lower overheads, greater transparency, and proof-of-impact feedback for the donor. In 2008, DonorTrust is participating in the Google Summer of Code program.
* School Program- UEnd has a downloadable curriculum for grades 1-9 that focuses on global citizenship. There is also a challenge open to any Canadian School called the Give Up A Gift Challenge. Please go to the website for more information www.uend.org school program
* Corporate Program- Launched in 2009, this program aims to involve people in activities that help end poverty in the workplace. It is your world and your choice.
* OneYoga is an annual event usually around the middle of November that encourages people to participate in practising 108 minutes of yoga to end poverty. Participants gather pledges online and live their practice.

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