Introduction to Pamela Hawley

Pamela Hawley is the founder and CEO of UniversalGiving™, an award-winning nonprofit that helps people give and volunteer with vetted, quality opportunities all over the world. UniversalGiving™ offers a variety of ways to become involved through Projects, Gift Packages, and Volunteer Opportunities. Visitors simply choose a region (such as Africa) and an issue (such as education or the environment) and receive a list of quality ways to give and volunteer. 100% of each donation goes directly to the cause. UniversalGiving™ performs due diligence on all its projects through its unique, trademarked Quality Model™. UniversalGiving Corporate is a customized version for companies, which helps launch corporate global philanthropy and volunteer programs across the world for companies such as Cisco and BEA.

UniversalGiving™ has been profiled on CBS and in Fox Business Network, and has also been featured in BusinessWeek, WomenEntrepreneur, Oprah.com, NBC News, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The Financial Times, CNNMoney.com and Change.org. UniversalGiving™ was the 2006 Webby Award honoree. UniversalGiving™ is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, whose vision is to “Create a World Where Giving and Volunteering are a Natural Part of Everyday Life.”™

Ms. Hawley was a co-founder of VolunteerMatch, which has matched more than 4 million volunteers with nonprofits.  During her time there, Ms. Hawley also launched VolunteerMatch Corporate, a customized version for employee volunteer programs. More than 20 Fortune 500 companies became clients, providing 43% of Volunteer Match’s sustainability.

Ms. Hawley’s community service began at the age of 12, and has extended into the international realm. Her global experience includes volunteering in microfinance in remote villages of India; crisis relief work in the 2000 El Salvador earthquake; sustainable farming in Guatemala; digital divide training in Cambodia; and indigenous community preservation in Ecuador. Ms. Hawley has a political science degree cum laudé at Duke University and a Masters on scholarship at the Annenberg School of Communications, USC, in International Communications.

She speaks on a number of topics including global philanthropy and volunteerism, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship and revenue generation, and leadership at Harvard, Stanford, and USC Business Schools. Ms. Hawley has been awarded the Jefferson Award for Public Service and was accepted into the Colburn S. Wilbur Fellowship Program. Additionally, she was recently selected as a semifinalist in the 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Ms. Hawley also loves improv, dancing and her two nephews and niece.

Why I am involved: “At the age of 12, I witnessed extreme poverty in Mexico. From this experience grew a lifelong commitment to service through social entrepreneurship. In 1999, I expanded my commitment as well as my understanding of the sector through international service trips and volunteering opportunities with various NGOs.”

Contact Pamela at phawley@universalgiving.org