This month, MADRE is featured at Pay It Forward Apparel (PIF). If you go buy a t-shirt, you can instruct them to donate 25% of the cost to MADRE or one of their other worthy causes!

The past Sunday was International Youth Day. At MADRE, we work with so many inspiring young people: former child soldiers and children of war in Colombia, young women surviving violence and disaster in Haiti and in Kenya, and so many more. We are continually in awe of their strength and spirit; for so many of us, they are a daily inspiration.

This month, MADRE is featured at PIF Apparel. If you go to their website and buy a t-shirt, you can designate 25% of your purchase to MADRE or one of August’s other featured organizations. What is particularly interesting about this partnership is that PIF calls itself “Apparel for Generation Give.” What, exactly, is Generation Give?

Generation Give is a generation of young people, mostly under 30, that donate to and participate in activism in new and innovative ways. As the first generation to engage with social media in our daily lives, we see active participation and crowd-sourcing as normal. We raise money for one another’s causes and even personal lives, helping crowd-fund for weddings and other big events, and for more dire occasions, like a friend’s surgery or other medical treatment.

We also approach engagement with our causes differently. Heavily impacted by the recession, we have less money to give, but compensate by investing our valuable time and energy. In exchange, we expect an unprecedented level of transparency between ourselves and the causes we fund. The days of writing a check and going back to our “real” lives are over.

As a 20-something, I love MADRE because the organization is dedicated to its core principles and to never compromising its beliefs. While many young people find themselves disillusioned with non-profit work, MADRE consciously puts an enormous amount of time and energy into practicing the values it espouses, treating all people with dignity and respect, including its staff. I love that we pioneered a model of partnership and sisterhood that over 30 years has proven to be the most effective way to engineer social change and is now, finally, slowly being adopted by bigger, more mainstream institutions. I also love our commitment to transparency and the staff’s dedication to letting every supporter know what causes we are funding and how their donations are having an impact, an overwhelming task given the scope of MADRE’s work. I know that as Generation Give grows, MADRE will grow right alongside it in new and innovative ways.