Microsoft alumni group is on a social-change mission

In the darkened room, a giant screen glowed with the words, "We changed the world once. Together, we can change it again."

For the 450 people assembled in a Seattle hotel ballroom last week, this is the motto of life after Microsoft. They're channeling their ambitions from software into social change, and awarding grants to fellow alumni in a kind of venture-capitalist-inspired philanthropy.

Bill and Melinda Gates may be the best known among them, but company veterans have started almost 150 nonprofits, social ventures and family foundations, generating more than $100 million a year in 100 countries around the world.

The Microsoft Alumni Foundation is keeping track. It was set up three years ago to help members connect and advance their interests in philanthropy and socially motivated business.

Those include such people as Trish Millines Dziko, who created the Technology Access Foundation in 1996 to improve math and technology skills of students of color in the Seattle area, and John Wood, who quit his job to improve education in rural villages through Room to Read.

Even more powerful than individual nonprofits is the network effect, considering there are roughly 60,000 alumni. If each of them gave $100, they could instantly raise $6 million. One aim of the alumni foundation is to help members apply their collective brain power and resources to the world's problems.

A service called Volunteer Live, a joint project between Microsoft and the alumni foundation, matches skilled volunteers with nonprofits needing help. The service can match volunteers to opportunities based on geography and standardize the way skills are defined across various nonprofits.

Last week's event to honor alumni unfolded a bit like an Academy Awards for the philanthropy 2.0 crowd. The Gateses jointly addressed the audience, speaking about the power of vaccines, family planning, nutrition and foreign aid. In evaluating nonprofits, a panel of judges looked for characteristics like innovation, entrepreneurship, selflessness and integrity, plus the ability to build "something extraordinary with limited resources."

In the end the three winners were chosen as Integral Fellows and received grants of $25,000 each for their nonprofits. They are people helping teenagers on the streets of Seattle, farmers in Ghana and humanitarian organizations all over the world.

• Richard Gold started Pongo Teen Writing to help teens who are homeless, in jail or otherwise leading troubled lives use poetry to express themselves. "In the darkest moments there is triumph and joy," he told fellow alums, because writing about their feelings and having someone listen has helped kids overcome abuse and trauma.

• Cliff Schmidt said he was inspired to work for social change by a visit to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s home in Atlanta. He was struck by a quote from King, who said "life's most urgent question is what are you going to do for others."

"I was standing face to face with his grave," he said. "That was what made me feel like he would expect something more from me than what I was already doing."

Schmidt started Literacy Bridge, surviving on a shoestring budget, to make knowledge accessible for people who can't read and don't have electricity.

• Frank Schott said he's inspired by the work of such humanitarian groups as CARE, Save the Children and World Vision, and sought to use his own skills to build tools to help them.

"I think everyone wants to use their craft to improve the human condition." said Schott, global program director of NetHope. "For me it's technology."

NetHope, a collaboration of 32 of the world's largest humanitarian agencies, scrambled to restore Internet connections for emergency workers after the January earthquake in Haiti, but it didn't stop there.

Now the organization is extending Internet connectivity into rural areas and training a pool of IT professionals through a new NetHope Academy.

Award nominee Kevin Ross talked about what motivated him to start an organization to improve science and technology skills among K-12 students in Washington state. FIRST Washington does this by helping them build their own robots and compete in teams.

At his last year with the company, Ross needed to hire 10 employees but he could find only three he felt were up to the task.

He thought about how his own experience as a tinkerer had been the best preparation for technical challenges.

Ross said he wanted to give kids hands-on experience to boost their confidence to fix things themselves, whether that meant repairing a machine or solving a fundamental problem in society.

"Part of the experience of working at Microsoft is that you own it," Ross said.

"You own the problem. I took ownership of the problem."

Kristi Heim: 206-464-2718 or kheim@seattletimes.com