“The relationship trumps the issue.”

–Premal Shah, President of Kiva, the microfinance website that connects citizen lenders with entrepreneurs around the world. I interviewed Shah for Fortune’s list of 40 under 40 in the current issue–he’s No. 31 with Kiva CEO Matt Flannery.

While Shah’s passion for microfinace drives him, it can also be a stumbling block. “Like a lot of entrepreneurs, and especially social entrepreneurs, I get pretty fired up and attached to my own viewpoints. At times when I have disagreed with someone, when the stakes are high, I can take it personally and it’s added distance between me and the person,” he says.

For more of the 40 under 40 on their mistakes, regrets and pitfalls, click here. –Jessica Shambora

“I would give up all the money I have if I could be 50. You can always make money.”

–David Rubenstein, managing director of the Carlyle Group, in the New York Times. One of America’s more low-key buyout kings, Rubenstein celebrated his 60th birthday last month, prompting him to reflect that “I could be like the pharaohs and say, ‘Bury me with my money.’ Or I could start giving it away.” The billionaire recently gave $10 million to Lincoln Center, one of  the 30 major institutions he serves with his time and money.

Rubenstein’s giving philosophy reminded us of another big giver: In 2008, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg was the largest individual philanthropist, donating $235 million (even more than the $205 million he gave in 2007). The best measure of a philanthropist is that the check to the undertaker bounces, Bloomberg said. –Jessica Shambora

Photo courtesy of Tory Burch

by Tory Burch, co-founder and creative director, Tory Burch LLC

After working in public relations for Ralph Lauren (RL) and Vera Wang, Tory Burch started her own company in 2004 as a lifestyle concept with multiple product categories including ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes and jewelry. Her products are now sold in 19 freestanding Tory Burch boutiques across the U.S., www.toryburch.com, two outlets, and 450 department and specialty stores worldwide. In July, Mexico-based Tresalia Capital invested in her company, valuing the business at some $600 million. Burch–whose Fashion Week debut in New York yesterday earned kudos from the critics–recently launched the Tory Burch Foundation to provide economic opportunities to women and their families in the U.S.

Like most mothers, my children are my top priority. I have three sons, and I cannot imagine the pain of not being able to provide for them. I feel incredibly fortunate not to have had to face that hardship. After realizing my own dream of starting a company, I wanted to find a way to help other women entrepreneurs accomplish their own goals. I recently launched the Tory Burch Foundation as a vehicle to help mothers provide for their children.

Deciding to launch the foundation was the easy part. Figuring out how to best help mothers provide for their children took a lot of work.

As I did when I launched my brand, I sought the advice of leaders in the field who could advise me. I met with Melanne Verveer, who is Ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues in the U.S. State Department, and Jeffrey Sachs, the world-renowned economist and professor. Last fall, I visited relief organizations in Haiti and was overcome by the need there. This past July, I went to India and learned about microfinance there. I was inspired by how the organizations were changing the lives of people in need. While there are millions of mothers struggling worldwide to feed and support their children, I soon realized something: I have a great opportunity to contribute here–by working to economically empower women and their families in the United States.

After months of research, I decided that the Tory Burch Foundation’s first area of focus should be microfinance. Most people who have heard of microfinance associate it with small loans given to people to buy a cow or a weaving loom or some other small income-generating asset in developing countries.

In the U.S., the loans are a bit bigger–say $5000, vs. $50 in developing countries, and domestic small business owners need additional help navigating regulatory systems. But the principle remains the same. Domestic microfinance helps low-income people–who don’t typically have access to more traditional forms of employment or financial services–support their families by starting, sustaining, or growing their small businesses.

I’ve learned that the need here is enormous. Only 2% of people who could benefit have access to microfinance services in the U.S., vs. 17% in developing countries. Said another way, a low-income entrepreneur in India may have a better shot at accessing a microfinance loan than a low-income entrepreneur here in the U.S. And that’s before the global economic crisis!

I like microfinance in particular because it isn’t charity in the traditional sense. It’s about investing in people who might otherwise not have the chance to pursue their goals. It gives entrepreneurs the opportunities many of us take for granted, and it is sustainable–loan repayment rates are typically 90% or better. It’s also incredibly important to the economic recovery of our country.

Small businesses represent more than half of U.S. jobs. When we create more small businesses, we fuel the economy and fight poverty. Research shows that every microfinance loan creates an average of two jobs. And every dollar invested returns $2 to $2.72 to the economy.  I chose ACCION USA, one of the largest and most respected U.S. microfinance organizations, to be my Foundation’s first partner. Since 1991, ACCION USA has provided more than $116 million in loans, with a 92% repayment rate.

This brings me to today.  I recently had the pleasure of spending time with ACCION USA CEO Gina Harman and a few of their clients. One of them whom I’ve come to know is printing business owner Maritza Polanco. She and her team of sales people, graphic designers and press people at Polanco Press serve many New York companies with traditional print services and creative branding solutions out of a single room.  I found her positive attitude, along with her creativity in finding new ways to serve her clients, incredibly inspirational.  Maritza has managed to maintain her success, even during the economic downturn, which is a great accomplishment. She has increased her sales through partnerships with local organizations and has even branched out into newspaper production. Like so many entrepreneurs, it’s in her blood. Her mother was a self-made business owner too.

I’ve also come to know Flor Diaz, who runs Florquidiaz Bridal Shop in Queens–although “bridal shop” is a wholly inadequate description of her business. In addition to serving brides, Flor helps Quinceañera celebrants with both clothing and event planning. (Quinceañera, or “15 years” in Spanish, is a coming-of-age ceremony that often takes on wedding-like proportions in the Latin American community.) Flor has also expanded her business outside the U.S.  She spends half the year in New York and half in her native Dominican Republic, during their party high season. While she’s gone, her husband runs the business here. She is relentlessly brainstorming new ways to expand and is considering opening another store.

Both of these businesswomen are creative and tireless entrepreneurs. They face the same questions about marketing, competition, expansion, staffing and market conditions that I do. During these challenging economic times, their businesses create jobs. Flor’s flourishing business not only helps fuel the economy. It also helps support her four children too.

This is a bit longer than the average Postcard, but I hope it gave you a sense for why I want to invest in women like Maritza and Flor. They have transformed their lives by accessing the financial services that many of us take for granted and are setting a great example for other women. I would love any suggestions you might have for how the Tory Burch Foundation can do more. Please visit my website at www.toryburchfoundation.org and drop me a line with any ideas.

On April 21, President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. What better day than today to spotlight businesses that reflect the late Senator’s mission to expand national service. More and more companies–IBM (IBM), UPS (UPS), Target (TGT), General Electric (GE), Citigroup (C) and Pfizer (PFE), among them–are aiding not-for-profits by having their employees share skills. Done right, this sort of volunteerism can be win-win-win: image-enhancing for the company, morale-boosting for employees, and generally good for the world.

A Billion + Change (“Great Talent for the Greater Good”) is the national program through which corporations pledge to expand their volunteered professional services to the nonprofit sector. Another member, besides the companies above, is Deloitte, whose CEO is committed personally. Here’s Deloitte CEO Barry Salzberg’s take on the value of volunteerism:

Photo Courtesy of Deloitte LLP

Recently, I was sitting with several dozen inner-city teens, talking with them about college and careers. It was a free-wheeling conversation. I was peppered with questions–including, “How can I get your job?”

I left absolutely convinced that as a result of that session, at least one kid who otherwise would have missed going to college will, in fact, be going. Let me tell you, it made my day, if not my week.

And it reminded me of an often overlooked way to meet people’s needs, particularly in these hard times as non-profit organizations are seeing double-digit drops in funding–as demand goes through the roof. I’m talking about skills-based volunteerism. That is, donating high-value, professional skills–for free.

Our company, Deloitte, recently conducted a survey on corporate volunteering. We found that 91% of respondents agreed that skills-based volunteering would add value to training and development, especially in fostering leadership and business skills. But only 16% of companies offer skills-based volunteering as an option for employees. Only one out of six.

Given the obvious need out there and also given President Obama’s impassioned call for national service, we’ve gone way beyond surveying about volunteerism. We’ve pledged $50 million in services–that’s right, $50 million worth of our employees’ time–over three years to help non-profit organizations boost their effectiveness.

Deloitte employees are donating skills in such areas as IT, marketing and personnel management at all sorts of non-profit organizations. For me, education is a special passion. I wasn’t the first in my family ever to go to college–my older sister claimed that honor. But I know what a profound difference it made in my life and in the lives of my two sons. So I work with a non-profit called College Summit.

College Summit, in fact, brought me and those inner-city kids together. The organization’s goal: to take kids–many from families in which nobody has ever gone to college—and get them into college. The approach: Create a ‘college-going culture’ in high schools where college-going rates are low. We provide cash, lots of volunteer hours from our people, and pro bono work on systems that give principals and schools districts much better data about their students’ progress.

Through personal experience, I’ve learned that skills-based volunteerism is one of those double bottom-line investments. It helps non-profits build capacity to serve more people with greater efficiency–which makes the non-profit more attractive for corporate support. That’s the no-brainer benefit. The less obvious benefit is the real-world training for our people, especially our younger people. We do valuable, low-cost training and we also do some good for the world.

Barry Salzberg, with Deloitte for 32 years, has been CEO since 2007.

“Find someone to be successful for.”

– Barack Obama in his speech to Arizona State University grads on Wednesday in Tempe, Arizona. He borrowed the phrase from an ASU engineering student who said that watching video of the people who would benefit from the medical devices she was designing, “made us want to be successful for them.”

The President acknowledged that while many graduates might not know what they are going to do with their lives, they have an important role to play in the lives of others: children, senior citizens and the homeless. “None of them care how much money is in your bank account, or whether you’re important at work, or famous around town – they just know that you’re someone who cares, someone who makes a difference in their lives.” A powerful reminder for the rest of us too. –Jessica Shambora

by Jessica Shambora

It’s a given that when corporations suffer, so do the charitable groups that rely on them for support.

Amidst the financial crisis, many strapped non-profits face funding losses as the need for their services rises. And unlike their counterparts at for-profit corporations, not-for-profit execs haven’t had the proper leadership training do what’s needed — restructuring, staff cuts, even mergers with other organizations. A recent study by Bridgespan Group shows a major talent deficit in the non-profit sector: It anticipates job openings for 24,000 senior managers throughout 2009. It’ll be harder than ever to fill the holes, Bridgespan contends.

Fortunately, leadership advice is universal — applicable to non-profits and corporations alike — and American Express (AXP) CEO Ken Chenault is happy to hand it out. Chenault, chief since 2001 and on the boards of Procter & Gamble (PG) and IBM (IBM), is one of Warren Buffett’s favorite leaders; Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) owns 13.1% of American Express.

In late April Amex held its second non-profit leadership academy, a week-long program that offers training and development courses to 24 rising stars from non-profits nationwide. Participants included leaders from the American Red Cross, Feeding America, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I had the chance to hear Chenault address these leaders-in-training.

When I arrived at American Express headquarters in lower Manhattan, the participants were in the midst of a role play, practicing their “influence tactics.” Using strategies like “coalition-building, legitimizing and rationalization,” they attempted to win a fictional $50 million endowment. The exercise led to some insightful observations: “The business world uses all nine strategies, while the non-profit world tends to use a personal approach,” one participant noted.

Once Chenault arrived, he perched comfortably on a stool among the academy’s attendees and began by explaining that he knew a thing or two about leading through crisis. Only nine months into his stint as CEO, with the World Trade Center across the street from American Express’s headquarters, 9/11 happened. Chenault’s leadership skills were put to the test. He proved himself then and again recently: Last Friday the government announced that American Express had passed the bank stress test and was well-capitalized enough to survive the recession.

Leadership is one of the most written about subjects, but it doesn’t need to be complicated, Chenault says. He abides by a quote from Napoleon that he summarizes this way: “The role of a leader is to define reality and give hope.” In other words, Chenault says, “How do I construct a vision to engender hope and motivate people to reach challenging objectives?”

To start, Chenault emphasizes that during times of crisis leaders must be visible, communicate constantly and maintain their composure.

Born leaders do exist, he believes, but if you don’t work at it, you can’t attain the followership needed to be successful. You get there through feedback and training. Recalling his first 360-degree review at Amex, Chenault said it was humbling to learn that he had work to do on his listening skills, a trait he says he’s praised for today.

Chenault also shared what he looks for in a leader:

• Integrity is critical in uncertain times. “Not just being honest, but a consistency of actions and words.” Chenault advises avoiding those who shade what they say depending on who they’re talking to.
• Encourage people to speak up and state their point of view. “I look for those who let people see they can disagree and give different perspectives. You want open dialogue and constructive confrontation or you risk group-think.”
• Be a team player and collaborate. This is often misunderstood. “It’s not just about being nice. A good teammate says ‘Here’s what I’m going to do to help you to improve.’” It’s about putting the team ahead of individual egos.
• Execute. “Be personally accountable. Don’t have a long list of excuses why you couldn’t execute an idea.”
• Engage people by demonstrating authentic concern. “The different decisions you make impact the success of the organization and the livelihood of employees. They want to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
• Adaptability. Chenault looks for willingness to change the business model. He cites another favorite quote from Darwin: “It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptive to change.”

“I can’t think of a more important role than to be a leader of a nonprofit,” Chenault told the group in closing. “Your resources are limited, and the most valuable resource you have are your people.”

This is a short post on a Friday to close an inspiring week. I told you about going to the Time 100 gala on Tuesday evening. What a high. The biggest names there were influential women, starting with Oprah, who wrote the piece about Michelle Obama in the Time 100 issue. At the dinner, the First Lady talked about social entrepreneurship and the best-of-breed innovators, like Donors Choose, whom we can learn from in the philanthropic space.

There at the Time Warner Center Tuesday night, Oprah paid tribute to one of her grade-school teachers, while New York Times columnist Paul Krugman directed his tribute at his wife, Robin. As Krugman, in his columns, has been consistently doubtful and tough on the Obama Administration’s efforts to stave off the global financial crisis, she could have urged him to tone down. She did the opposite, Krugman said. She urged him to be “more forceful.”

I was also inspired this week when I went over to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) headquarters and saw one of its senior women, chief investment officer Ina Drew, interview Jamie Dimon. The session was off the record, so I can’t share what Dimon said. But I’ll tell you again what I’ve said before: The guy is as tough and realistic as CEOs come. He proves that leadership really matters, especially as we dig out of this global crisis. According to yesterday’s stress-test results from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, JPMorgan Chase, unlike its biggest rivals, doesn’t need to raise more capital.

Dimon heartily urged his audience — the senior women of JPMorgan Chase — to read his letter to shareholders in the recently released annual report. He pretty much wrote the letter himself–painful to write, he told them.

So I read the letter, 28 pages long. I encourage you to read it as well. Especially since Warren Buffett praised Dimon’s letter last weekend at the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) annual meeting in Omaha. From a guy who knows how to write a letter to shareholders, this may be the best endorsement of all. Click here to read Dimon’s letter. Besides the requisite numbers and interesting background on JPMorgan’s two big acquisitions, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, it’s got poetry, of sorts, as well. Dimon riffs on the duty of taking TARP funds, even though JPMorgan neither needed nor wanted the government’s aid. He praises the Obama Administration for acting “quickly and boldly” and reminds investors what President Theodore Roosevelt said almost a century ago:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Keep striving and enjoy the weekend!

I’m on the run in Washington, following meetings at the White House yesterday and a spectacular “Most Powerful Women Evening With…” dinner that Fortune hosted on Monday night in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the State Department. We had eight U.S. Senators with us–including our speakers, Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas–and scores of women leaders, a touch of royalty (HM Queen Noor, who is stunning), plus 32 rising-star women from across the developing world.

These international women leaders were the real heroes of the evening–all participants in this year’s Fortune/U.S. State Department mentoring partnership this year. To talk about MPWomen and reaching out globally, I led a panel with Time Inc. (TWX) CEO Ann Moore, Goldman Sachs (GS) Managing Director Dina Powell (both of them mentors), and a former mentee in the program, Maria Pacheco.

Each week, Time Inc. does a Q&A called “Four Questions” with a different editor. The company happens to have done the “Four Questions” with me this week and the mentoring program is featured front and center. The Q&A just popped into my inbox as well as the inboxes of staffers across Time Inc. And it strikes me that, well, I should share it with you. So, enjoy!…

Four Questions: Pattie Sellers, Editor at Large, Fortune & Chair of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit

Q: The Fortune/U.S. State Department Mentoring Partnership kicks off this week. Can you tell us what the program does for the women invited to participate?

Pattie: The mentoring program, now in its fourth year, brings rising-star women from across the developing world to the U.S. for the month of May. We pair these women–mostly businesswomen in their 30’s–with participants of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Ideally, the mentor and mentee learn from one another. As Avon (AVP) CEO Andrea Jung, who has mentored every year, says, “By the end of the program, you shouldn’t be able to figure out who is the mentor and who is the mentee.”

Q: Is there one mentee from the past or present that really made an impression on you and why?

Pattie: We’ve had so many remarkable mentees. One of them, Maria Pacheco, was part of panel (with Ann Moore) that I moderated at our “Most Powerful Women Evening With…” dinner in Washington on Monday. Maria is a social entrepreneur from Guatemala who connects business women in rural communities with marketplaces around the world, so they can sell their crafts and other goods globally. Maria was a mentee in 2006, our launch year, with Kathy Bushkin Calvin at Ted Turner’s UN Foundation. Maria says that the experience changed her life. Since then, she’s helped the UNF with several of its programs, and the UNF has helped Maria dramatically expand her Guatemalan efforts.

Q: What is the most surprising trait among Fortune’s Most Powerful Women?

Pattie: They’re more normal than they were a decade ago. Seriously, look at Xerox’s (XRX) Anne Mulcahy and a lot of the other female Fortune 500 CEOs (there are only 15 of them, so it’s an easy bunch to examine): Practically all of them are normal–not extreme characters as the last generation of female CEOs had to be. They tended to be brash and tough to a fault. Carly Fiorina was the end of that era. Now she, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), is planning to run for the U.S. Senate in California. Meg Whitman, who was CEO of eBay (EBAY) and another former No. 1 on our Most Powerful Women list, is running for governor there.

Q: Besides your own, which is your favorite Time Inc. brand?

Pattie: Sports Illustrated. It’s not the magazine that I read the most, but it’s one I read to learn to be a better writer. I really admire SI for its profiles and great narratives. Both sports and business are about competition–winners and losers, triumphs and failures–and we writers at Fortune can learn a lot from the best stories in SI.

Q: Who is an up and coming female executive that you think is a future CEO?

Pattie: When Ursula Burns, the president of Xerox, succeeds Anne Mulcahy as CEO of Xerox, it will be the first woman-to-woman handoff ever in the Fortune 500. Another one to come: Liz Smith succeeding Andrea Jung at Avon. But that’s further off. Burns and Smith are both terrific managers who have learned from standout CEOs.

Photo courtesy of Marcena Peterson

By John Wood, Founder & Executive Chairman of Room to Read

Here’s a quick history quiz. If someone mentions Andrew Carnegie, what image immediately comes to mind? Greedy capitalist union-busting robber baron? Benefactor of thousands of community libraries? Or both? No matter what people think of old Andy’s business ethics, historians agree that Carnegie’s focus on creating community libraries is one of the greatest philanthropic legacies of all time.

When Carnegie grew up in 19th Century Scotland, books were considered to be a luxury item, accessible only to the rich. The poor, who made up the majority of the population, could not hope to better themselves through reading. Carnegie thought this was blatantly unfair, and late in his life he decided to do something about it. The result: more than 2,500 libraries across North America that have paid dividends for tens of millions of people, for several generations.

Fast forward by a century, to 1999. I am a burned out Microsoft (MSFT) executive who plans the ultimate escape: an 18-day, 200-mile trek in the Himalayas. No cell phone, no email, nothing to stand in the way of breathing the mountain air and trekking for hours a day to an awe-inspiring 18,000-foot pass along the Nepal/Tibet border.

On the first day of the trek, fate had me cross paths with an “education resource officer” who invited me to join on his inspection route of the local schools. He introduced me to some children–more than 400–sitting on the dirt floor of the school’s library. In addition to no desks, the library also had no chairs, no shelves, and most importantly, no books.

Not wanting to be obnoxious, I said to the headmaster: “This is a beautiful library. Thank you for showing it to me. Just one question: Where exactly do you keep the books hidden?” He pointed to a cabinet in the back of the room with a prominent padlock. The school had so few books, he said, that they were treated as precious treasures. Unlocking the door, he showed me the meager supply: 20 books.

Even more depressing than the quantity was the quality. The few books the school owned had been left behind by well-meaning backpackers who wanted to help. But when you trek the Himalayas, you generally don’t have extra room in your backpack for a copy of Cat in the Hat or Clifford the Big Red Dog. Consequently, the piece-meal library consisted of a Danielle Steel romance novel (complete with the bodice-ripping cover), James Joyce and Umberto Eco.

The headmaster noticed my concern, and explained: “We are too poor to afford education. But until we have education, we will always be poor.”

That’s when it hit me. This was just like Andrew Carnegie’s youth. Over 100 years later, nobody had acted to solve the exact same problem. My mind traveled to all the places I’d visited where kids had asked me for something as simple as a book or a pencil. Post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. The Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Post-apartheid South Africa. I already knew the statistics: over 800 million people across the developing world lacked basic literacy.  That is one out of every seven human beings, and 98% of them are in the poorest countries. But it took this little school in the mountain town of Bahundanda, Nepal to take these dry statistics and make them into a reality I could visualize.

A spark was lit, and the spark soon became a bonfire.

After acting on the headmaster’s request and traveling back to the school a year later with 3,000 books on the back of six rented donkeys, I was overwhelmed by the wide eyes and bright smiles of the students. They were so excited to see, for the first time in their lives, brightly-colored children’s books. Within two months, I had quit Microsoft to devote my life to what people told me was a crazy idea: I would try to become the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world by equalizing access to books and educational resources.

Less than a decade later, the organization I founded, Room to Read, has opened more than 7,000 libraries and 765 schools. We have placed more than five million books into the hands of eager young readers in Cambodia, Laos, India, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zambia. Over three million children have access to this network.

Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg. Today, over a billion kids lack access to a proper library. This seems a moral failure of our world. Books are the ultimate way to help people to help themselves, to offer them a hand up rather than a hand out. All of us who are well off almost inevitably have our education to thank, and it seems logical to pay this gift forward by reaching out to kids who can take control of their own lives if they gain an education via the gift of literacy.

At Microsoft, we used to say “Go Big, or Go Home!” With so many kids in the developing world craving education as the ultimate ticket out of poverty, it seems an opportune time to think big about helping them. If a generation of business and philanthropic leaders were to do for the developing world what Carnegie did for the U.S., it would be one hell of a legacy to leave. For over a century, the world has avoided emulating one of the most successful charitable investments of all time. Rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, why not instead aim for a successful version 2.0?

So I am going to propose a challenge to another billionaire entrepreneur – do you want to join forces, and become the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world? Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com (AMZN), Larry Ellison at Oracle (ORCL), George Soros , Sergey Brin and Larry Page at Google (GOOG)– can we talk?

John Wood is Founder & Executive Chairman of Room to Read, a San Francisco-based NGO dedicated to changing the world through education. With the help of corporate donors like Credit Suisse Group, Goldman Sachs (GS), Qualcomm (QCOM), Scholastic (SCHL) and Microsoft, his team has spearheaded the construction of over 750 schools and 7,000 libraries with five million books serving three million children across the developing world. He is the author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, which was chosen by Amazon.com as one of the Top Ten Business Narratives of 2006.

“We have all felt pain, but we can all do more. And doing something in a time like this is much more important.”

–Sandy Weill in Tuesday’s New York Times, on his decision to move forward on a $170 milion gift to Weill Cornell Medical College. The former Citigroup (C) CEO, who had already given $200 million to the school, had planned to give those extra millions posthumously. But as Cornell confronted budget troubles and a sinking endowment, he opted to show his goodwill now. Good for him, given his own declining wealth in Citigroup stock, which is trading at $2.76 a share. “My activities in the not-for-profit center seem to have a lot more staying power than what I accomplished in the for-profit area.” Indeed. –Jessica Shambora