If you own cable television or listen to the radio, surely you’ve heard all the hoopla over Oprah’s new girls’ school.

I think her project is great.  A lot of young girls will have an opportunity to get a quality education in a safe (very comfy, I might add) environment thanks to Oprah’s two new schools, The Seven Fountains Primary School and The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. 

In honor of Financial Literacy Month around the nation and here in our fair region, today’s blog is brought to you by the symbol $ and the letter S (for Save). 

Voila some facts, issues and thoughts that highlight the need for increased financial literacy and awareness and the potential impact it could have on individuals, communities and even our nation as a whole. 

A few weeks ago, in response to my post inspired by Oxygen’s new series, Who cares about girls?," one of our readers left a comment, saying, "I have two young daughters so I worry as much as anyone about what the kids are going through these days–but there are problems and then there are PROBLEMS.  Fairfax ain’t India.  That said, maybe something on the importance of the father/daughter relationship?" 

Today, I was most fascinated to come across a blog post at The Chronicle of Philanthropy titled, "Why Women are Held Back in the Nonprofit World."

I was even more fascinated to see that it was based on actual research, and not just the anecdotal tidbits and random theories I’ve long used with my friends to try to explain this phenomenon.

What does a person that generally has an opinion about something say when she has the opportunity to say anything?

While the nonprofit and funding communities have intensely discussed reporting on inputs and outputs for years, the evaluation community has been squabbling over outcomes, objectives, goals, results and impact.

As a self-professed excellent student (I had my first Franklin Planner at 17 and used to like nothing better than getting a new Trapper Keeper ready for a new school year), I expected Philanthropy 101 to be a cakewalk.

I mean, isn’t that what 101 means?

Well, last week I raged, somewhat, about the lack of educational awareness among public schools on women’s history during National Women’s History Month. 

So, I did a little something about it.  Not much, but hey, it’s a start.

When Jihane Achi from Piola restaurant in Arlington got in touch with us about hosting an International Women’s Day fundraiser on our behalf, explaining that she and her husband (who owns the restaurant) wanted to contribute 50 percent of the proceeds of all dessert sales on International Women’s Day (and the week leading up to it) to The Women’s Foundation as a means of giving back to the community, I knew that this could mean only one thing.