The Exceptional Children's Foundation: A Life of Dignity and Happiness for Special Needs Individuals and Families

The Exceptional Children's Foundation (ECF) is a Culver City-based charity dedicated to providing the highest-quality services for children and adults living with developmental, emotional, and learning disabilities, empowering them to attain their highest potential. The Exceptional Children's Foundation was founded in 1946 by a group of parents of children born with developmental disabilities. Since then, the non-profit has helped tens of thousands of special needs children and adults live life with self-respect, dignity, and happiness.

Every year, ECF serves more than 3,200 infants, youth, adults, and their families, including those affected by learning and emotional disabilities, cerebral palsy, autism, mental retardation, epilepsy, and other conditions. With 15 program sites throughout Los Angeles County, the Exceptional Children's Foundation delivers fun, constructive learning activities that nurture self-esteem and new skills. The organization runs two Early Start Centers that provide therapeutic early intervention for infants and children up to 3 years of age.

Social Advocates for Youth: Hope and Support for the Youth of Sonoma County

Based in Santa Rosa and Sonoma, California, Social Advocates for Youth (SAY) is a non-profit organization focused on providing support, hope, and opportunities to children, youth, and families. For more than four decades, SAY has been creating a caring community where everyone can grow, thrive, and succeed.

Founded in 1971 in a two-room office in downtown Santa Rosa, Social Advocates for Youth was launched as a response to youth advocates and community leaders who were concerned about the lack of child abuse prevention and intervention services available. SAY currently offers community, counseling, and crisis programs throughout Sonoma County. The non-profit serves at-risk and high-needs individuals through age 25, including runaway and homeless youth, young parents, kids who are at risk of gang involvement, kids who need guidance in completing their education and finding a job, former foster youth and homeless young adults, youth who may be having a hard time transitioning from teen to young adulthood, and children who have been abused.

Since early 2004, SAY has run the Dr. James E. Coffee Teen Shelter on Ripley Street in Santa Rosa. Open 24 hours a day, 364 days a year, the shelter offers a respite for families in crisis as well as reunification services for homeless and runaway youth and their families. Short-term shelter, food, counseling, and referrals are provided.

Opening in the near future is the SAY Dream Center, which will be housed in the former Sutter Warrack Hospital building, also in Santa Rosa. The Dream Center will focus on four core areas of services: job training and employment, affordable housing, educational support, and health and wellness. It will be a place where the youth of Sonoma County have the hope, opportunity, and support to reach their full potential and dreams.

SAY's other programs include family and individual therapy, school-based counseling, functional family therapy, street outreach, tattoo removal services, and more.

OnBehalf: Supporting the Injured Vets of Iraq and Afghanistan

One of the highest-rated non-profits in New York City, OnBehalf in an all-volunteer organization that aims to raise money and professional services for the wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Founded by four USAR combat vets in 2005, OnBehalf provides cash for eligible military families as well as connects injured men and women with professional services, items, or advice generously contributed by small businesses and professionals from around the country.

The process begins on OnBehalf's website, where a wounded vet or military family can be nominated for assistance by anyone. Once their application is approved, OnBehalf will issue a financial grant, and if necessary, consult its Thank a Vet Network on Facebook for individuals and businesses who might be able to volunteer their services. If appropriate, OnBehalf's ScoreForce team will also identify and contact local businesses in a veteran's hometown that might be able to lend a hand.

Over 90 percent of contributions to OnBehalf go directly to veterans.

The Progeria Research Foundation: Finding a Cure for Progeria

The Progeria Research Foundation (PRF) is the only organization in the world solely dedicated to discovering the cause, treatments, and cure for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, commonly referred to as a premature aging syndrome or simply progeria. Progeria is a rare and fatal genetic disease of accelerated aging in children. Few kids with progeria live past the age of 13. PRF's mission is to find treatments and the cure for this disease and its aging-related disorders.

In 1998, Drs. Leslie Gordon and Scott Berns' only son, Sam, was diagnosed with progeria at 22 months old. They immediately started to collect as much as information as they could on the disease, but quickly learned that there was an enormous lack of medical data and resources dedicated to progeria. They also realized that there was no place for these children to go for medical help, no place for families and doctors to consult for information, and no source of funding for professionals who wanted to do progeria research. So together with friends and colleagues, Gordon and Berns launched the Progeria Research Foundation in 1999.

Since then, hundreds of devoted volunteers have joined the cause. With the exception of the PRF staff, everyone involved is a volunteer. PRF's board of directors, board of advisors, clerk, treasurer, corporate officers, committee members, lawyers, accountants, translators, fundraisers, graphic designers, and public relations reps all contribute their time, energy, and talents without pay to ensure more is spent on raising awareness and finding a cure for progeria.

Since its inception, the Progeria Research Foundation has discovered the progeria gene in 2003, conducted the first-ever clinical drug trials in 2007, raised extensive global awareness for progeria, and confirmed critical biological links between progeria, heart disease, and aging, among other accomplishments. PRF has taken progeria and the children it affects from the background and placed them at the forefront of scientific efforts and in the global spotlight.

Friends of the Children Helps Vulnerable Kids Succeed in Life

Friends of the Children is a revolutionary program transforming the lives of the most vulnerable kids. By providing at-risk children with full-time, professional mentors, Friends of the Children helps them overcome obstacles and break the cycle of poverty and abuse. The non-profit organization currently serves over 860 children in New York, New York; Portland, Oregon; Boston, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; Klamath Falls, Oregon; and Cornwall, England.

Entrepreneur Duncan Campbell founded Friends of the Children in 1993 in Portland. Though he had a difficult childhood, Campbell was able to achieve success beyond anyone's expectations. He had vowed to one day help vulnerable children once he had the resources, so he searched for the most compelling evidence to do so. Campbell collected best practices from around the country and integrated them into the foundation of the Friends of the Children program – intervene early, train and pay the mentors, and be there for the long haul.

Water Is Life Brings Clean Water to Communities in Need

Water Is Life is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving lives and transforming communities through clean water, sanitation, and hygiene programs. Water Is Life provides clean drinking water, hygiene education, and sanitation programs to schools and villages in the developing world. The non-profit also encourages others to help by donating, raising funds, and raising awareness about the global water crisis.

Over a billion people in the world don't have access to clean water. In fact, the majority of toilets in the United States contain purer water. Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death among children under the age of 5, claiming nearly 1.5 million young lives each year worldwide.

Water Is Life works closely with NGOs, local governments, and partners to ensure households, orphanages, schools, and medical facilities in developing countries like Haiti, Ghana, and Kenya have access to potable water and proper hygiene and sanitation. Thanks to the charity's efforts, hours are restored each day, enabling children to go to school and women to learn a trade, start a business, and earn an income. Moreover, clean water cuts down illnesses by almost a third.

Founder Ken Surrite got the idea for Water Is Life while he was in a hotel in Nairobi in 2007. As he turned on the shower to let the water warm up, he realized that the children he had just left in an orphanage would love to have the water that he was letting go down the drain. The phrase “water is life” kept going through his head, so he took action and started Water Is Life.

Every day, 6,500 people die from waterborne diseases, with 5,000 of them being children.

“While we may not be able to help them all, it makes a huge difference in the lives of the ones we are able to help,” says Surrite.

Bright Pink Empowers Young Women to Be Proactive With Their Breast and Ovarian Health

Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Bright Pink is the only national non-profit focusing on the early detection and prevention of breast and ovarian cancer in young women, while supporting high-risk individuals. Bright Pink believes that being proactive is better than being reactive and that prevention is better than treatment.

The organization was founded by Lindsay Avner, who, at 23 years old, became the youngest person in America to undergo a risk-reducing double mastectomy with reconstruction. Genetic testing revealed that Avner carried a mutation on the BRCA1 gene, which increased her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Having lost both her grandmother and great-grandmother to breast cancer and watched her mother fight breast and ovarian cancer, she chose to take proactive measures with her breast health. It was during this experience that Avner realized there were little resources for women in her situation, so she started Bright Pink in 2007.

Since its inception, Bright Pink has been empowering and enlightening young women to educate themselves and take action with their breast and ovarian health.

Per Scholas Brings Technology and Low-Income Individuals Closer

With great employer demand for skilled information workers, it is predicted that 3.7 million new IT jobs will be created by 2016. National non-profit organization Per Scholas is dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty by providing technology education, training, access, and job placement services for individuals in disadvantaged communities.

Founded in 1995 as a neighborhood-based effort to make personal computers more accessible, Per Scholas was one of the first organizations to work towards closing the digital gap for children and families in the South Bronx, the poorest Congressional District in the US. In 1998, Per Scholas introduced its first IT training course and trained a total of 100 people. Since then, the non-profit has expanded nationally with new locations in Columbus, Cincinnati, and the National Capital Region, while another city is scheduled to open in late 2014.

Per Scholas serves more than 400 individuals each year and has reached 4,500 to date. Recognized as one of the nation's top 100 high-impact non-profits by Social Impact Exchange, Per Scholas operates the state-licensed Per Scholas Institute for Technology, the oldest and largest professional IT workforce development program in NYC. All Per Scholas programs combine three essential components: hands-on technical skills, “soft skills” and workplace skills, and ongoing personalized support.

In 2014, Per Scholas and IT consulting firm Doran Jones launched the Urban Development Center (UDC). Located in the same facility as Per Scholas headquarters, UDC is a software testing center modeled after successful overseas testing firms. Doran Jones will provide software testing services for clients out of UDC and employ 150 Per Scholas graduates in the first 12 months. The Urban Development Center will bring more than $5 million in additional wages to the Bronx, as well as meet local business needs and enhance community development in low-income neighborhoods.

Per Scholas's partners and supporters include Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital One, ACE Charitable Foundation, and over 250 volunteers each year.