Nicholas Kristof’s 2022
Holiday Impact Prize
Supporting little-known organizations
working to make the world a better place.
Thank you to all the supporters who contributed to Nick Kristof’s 2022 Holiday Impact Prize, which awarded an astounding ~6 million to three nonprofit organizations and connected more than 1,500 volunteers to two more. You can still read Nick Kristof’s 2022 “holiday gift guide” column and support the 2022 honorees by following the “learn more” links below.
Donation Opportunities
The 2022 Holiday Impact Prize featured three donation opportunities: one Grand Prize winner and two runners-up.
One Acre Fund
Invest in Farmers and Grow Opportunity
Smallholder farming is the primary livelihood for 70 percent of Africa’s population living below the poverty line, yet most of these farmers lack the tools and training to maximize their harvests. As a result, they find themselves trapped in a continuous cycle of low yields and hunger—a vulnerable position only worsened by increasingly extreme weather events.
One Acre Fund supplies farmers with the financing and training they need to grow more food, earn more money, and improve their resilience. With more productive farms, smallholders can feed their families and sell any surplus. And by planting valuable and more diverse crops, like trees, they can build assets over time while mitigating the effects of climate change.
One Acre Fund serves 3.4 million farmers across six sub-Saharan African countries—which translates to more than fifteen million total farm family members permanently out of starvation poverty. Your donation will help farmers build a pathway to food security and economic prosperity for their families and communities.
Vision To Learn
Help Students See a Path to Success
About one in four children in the U.S. naturally need glasses. But in low-income communities, most children do not have the glasses they need to see the board, read a book, or participate in class. Vision To Learn is working to ensure that all kids have the glasses they need to succeed in school and in life.
The organization partners with school districts to conduct vision screenings and deploys mobile clinics to school campuses to provide eye exams and glasses to every student in need, all free of charge to the child and their family. Vision To Learn has helped 330,000 of the nation’s hardest-to-reach children in more than 750 low-income communities across the country get glasses that can turn their lives around. About 85 percent are Black and Latino children and more than 90 percent are from families who live in poverty.
Research shows that students who are provided with the glasses they need do better in school and have better life outcomes. Your contribution will give more children the opportunity to learn, grow and succeed.
Success for All Foundation
Reading, Succeeding, and Exceeding
The Success for All Foundation (SFA) was founded on the belief that learning to read early is the gateway to a child’s academic success. For over three decades, SFA has helped administrators and teachers transform elementary schools by focusing on achieving grade-level performance in reading for every student, regardless of background.
SFA uses a powerful, research proven approach that combines cooperative learning with quarterly assessments, high-dosage tutoring, and family engagement. Three years of the program is enough to cut racial achievement gaps in literacy in half, and by 5th grade, SFA students are on average a full grade level ahead of their peers at similar schools. To date, SFA has served more than three million children and supported 6,000+ schools in 42 states, Canada, the United Kingdom.
Your donation will help more children lay the foundation for a lifetime of accomplishment. Every child should know the joy and power of reading, and SFA is committed to making this a reality.
Volunteer Opportunities
The 2022 Holiday Impact Prize featured two volunteer opportunities.
Welcome.US
Be a Bridge to Safety
Welcome.US is a new national initiative that empowers everyday Americans to play central roles in helping refugees rebuild their lives in the United States.
The non-governmental, non-partisan effort seeks volunteers from all corners of the country to welcome and support newcomers seeking safety and refuge here. Through Welcome.US, you can connect with a Ukrainian or a Venezuelan family and sponsor their resettlement in the United States once they are fully vetted and approved for travel by the U.S. government.
Sponsors set newcomers on a path to independence and successful integration into the local community—from helping a family set up their new home to offering advice on day-to-day tasks like school enrollment, applying for jobs, grocery shopping, doctor visits, and the like.
Sponsorship not only provides critical support to refugees, but uplifts entire communities in the process. Sign up to be a sponsor and give a family the chance to rebuild their lives while enriching yours.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
Mentors Make a Difference
For over a century, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has been making meaningful, professionally supported matches between adult volunteers (“Bigs”) and youth (“Littles”), ages five through young adulthood nationwide.
These positive one-to-one mentoring relationships have a direct and lasting impact on the lives of young people, helping them achieve higher aspirations, greater confidence, and better relationships.
Professional staff from the organization carefully build and support each match, striving for connections that are not only safe and well suited to each Little’s needs, but also harmonious and built to last. As a result, Littles are empowered to ignite their potential as they grow in their self-esteem, earn better grades, and develop a lifelong friendship with their Big.
When you volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, you are investing in a young person’s future. Your guidance has a positive impact on the lives of young people in your community, and communities across the country.
Focusing Philanthropy is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that believes donations should be made with the same level of strategic intent, information, and confidence as other investments. The organization targets serious human challenges that individual donors can successfully address, chooses tactics that are demonstrably effective, identifies confidence-inspiring implementing partners, conducts ongoing monitoring, and assures substantive reporting. These services are provided free to both donors and partners in an effort to scale interventions that work. Donations are fully tax deductible, and Focusing Philanthropy covers all administrative costs and replenishes credit card transaction fees so that 100% of funds contributed go to implementing partners.