Foundation Beyond Belief

foundation-beyond-belief05.gif

This charitable foundation raises money for selected humanitarian relief agencies and organizations. The main goals are to improve education, fight poverty, increase access to healthcare, and defend basic human rights throughout the world. The foundation also sponsors Volunteers Beyond relief, a network of humanist volunteer teams. Another major project is Humanist Crisis Response, which raises funds to assist relief efforts for humanitarian crises as they occur.

Guided by the principles of secular humanism, their mission is to:

  • Unite the humanist community in volunteering and charitable efforts.
  • Advocate for compassionate action throughout the world.

They forward their mission through these programs:

  • Grants: providing an avenue for humanists to regularly give to highly qualified and vetted charities in a number of cause areas.
  • Disaster Recovery: providing humanists an avenue to donate to a qualified and vetted charity in the event of a disaster and sending volunteers out to help rebuild after a disaster strikes.
  • Service Corps: An international volunteering program supporting and strengthening local, well-established nonprofits to improve lives.
  • Volunteer Network: supporting secular groups in doing service activities in their local communities with our Beyond Belief Network.

In short, Foundation Beyond Belief is humanity at work.

Foundation Beyond Belief is a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation accomplishing its mission through four programs:

HUMANIST GRANTS

Each quarter their Humanist Grants staff selects four charitable organizations, one in each of the following cause areas:

  • Education
  • Poverty and Health
  • Human Rights
  • The Natural World

You can contribute a monthly automatic donation in the amount of your choice, then set up your profiles to indicate how you would like your contribution distributed among the four categories.

Carefully selected for impact and efficiency, their featured beneficiaries are secular organizations. At the end of each quarter, all donations designated for their featured charities are forwarded, no percentage is retained by FBB, and a new slate of beneficiaries selected.

DISASTER RECOVERY

In cooperation with the American Humanist Association, the Humanist Disaster Recovery (HDR) program serves as the focal point for the humanist response to disaster events. HDR Drive raises funds for disaster recovery, and HDR staff has developed the first organized humanist disaster recovery volunteer program in the US, HDR Teams.

SERVICE CORPS

DSCN0057-1024x768.jpg

The Humanist Service Corps (HSC) is an international volunteering program run by Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB). HSC is a logical extension of FBB’s Humanist Grants program, which provides catalyst grants to small organizations with a track record of effective, data-driven innovation. HSC expands upon this idea by providing assistance in the form of volunteers to a smaller subset of such organizations.

The Humanist Service Corps currently supports Songtaba and BIRDS, women's rights organizatios in northern Ghana. Songtaba's mission is to end the local, entrenched custom of accusing women of witchcraft and forcibly exiling them into lives of extreme poverty, isolation and desperation. While more than 90% of Ghanaians believe in witchcraft, witch-hunting primarily occurs only in Ghana’s highly impoverished Northern Region. In collaboration with Songtaba and BIRDS, HSC volunteers work to improve conditions in the witch-camps, empower women to become effective advocates for an end to gender-based violence inside and outside the witch-camps, and provide greater access to healthcare and education in the surrounding communities so that witchcraft is no longer used as an explanation for tragedy.

VOLUNTEER VIA THEIR BEYOND BELIEF NETWORK

The Foundation sponsors over 100 humanist volunteer teams through their Beyond Belief Network (BBN). These local humanist groups bring people together to improve their communities. Learn more about BBN, or fill out the team application form for your local group.

Troy Moss