D-Rev produced a high-quality prosthetic knee for $80 and developed an ultra-low-budget device to treat jaundice.

Philanthropic leaders featured in The Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 list offer insights into how to succeed in environments in which being precocious often isn’t seen a virtue.

As part of The Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 special feature, Paul Schmitz takes on myths and hype about millennials.

She’s addressing the causes of climate change by placing AmeriCorps members with local governments throughout California to work on energy projects.

His business degree at Northwestern and experience as a management consultant have helped him teach hundreds of thousands of farmers in East Africa to improve their productivity.

The Army veteran was appointed chief development officer for the city after demonstrating his leadership at three civic-engagement groups.

The leader who guided Livestrong through its darkest days has moved on to a nonprofit in Ohio, where he is working to turn a regional cycling event into a national fundraising powerhouse.

After rocking the philanthropy world with the sheer size of their pledge, the Facebook co-founder and his wife outline an unusual plan for the money that has raised hopes — and a few eyebrows.

The president of the Minnesota Council on Foundations is always inviting, encouraging, and equipping grant makers to reposition themselves for impact in the years to come.

The nonprofit-leader-turned-researcher, whose organization helped inspire the Giving Pledge, wants to make community philanthropy more effective by educating donors.

Building corporate partnerships and traveling the globe to find new funding sources comes naturally to this young fundraising leader at the Museum of Modern Art.

A study found that a fundraising message designed to make people feel good about giving outperformed one appealing to a sense of social responsibility.

A blogger uses startling honesty and whip-smart humor to say things many nonprofit workers wish they could say.

Equally at home navigating the halls of power and standing arm-in-arm with protesters, he is an influential voice for justice in St. Louis.

While volunteering in college, he got angry seeing people in coal country who werer eager, even desperate, for employment. Then he found a way to relate to them — and put them back to work.

The managing director of My Brother’s Keeper Alliance helped create a free-standing nonprofit based on White House efforts to improve the lives of minority boys and young men.

The social-impact-bond pioneer played a leading role in establishing two of the seven U.S. pay-for-success projects now in operation.

His early research related to extraterrestrial life was fun, but this scientist found more fulfillment analyzing crisis-line data to multiply the efficiency of counselors.

The leader of a community finance nonprofit serving one of the poorest regions in the nation takes extra steps to make sure the people most in need are getting help.

She brought a financial windfall to Des Moines University by focusing on the basics and building relationships with neglected donors who were ready to be wooed.

The founder of Welcoming America is helping Dayton, Ohio, and other communities see the value in embracing newcomers.

The leader of 92nd Street Y and founder of Giving Tuesday thinks and cares deeply about how power is distributed and used within organizations and within society.

She is exploring her next career steps and exploring interests, including racial justice, after building the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network into a national powerhouse.

The teen mother got her first nonprofit job at 17, counseling young women on the streets of San Francisco. At 26, she won a MacArthur “genius” grant for her methods of helping poor young women of color.

To raise larger donations, small charities need to pay more attention to quality, not quantity, when cultivating donors, according to a new study.

After serving at the White House Council for Community Solutions, he returned to his hometown and helped found an organization that recruits young professionals to improve life in Baltimore.

Counseling the rich is a natural fit for someone whose résumé features leadership roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and J.P. Morgan Private Bank.

The founder of ProInspire is boosting results through fellowship that brings outstanding workers from companies like Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, and Google into nonprofits.

Philanthropy has long suffered the reputation, rightly or wrongly, that it is a stuffy, formal field of conservative approaches. No more. The nonprofit world today is getting pulled in all directions by a host of new ideas about how work for the common good can be carried out and financed.

In an email to The Chronicle, the wife of the social-media pioneer Mark Zuckerberg describes the couple’s ideas on how they will distribute billions of dollars to philanthropic efforts.

The young philanthropist said in an email interview with The Chronicle that she and her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, will measure progress over decades to achieve desired results.

With a single voice, the merged group could get policy makers and the public to pay more attention to how charities and grant makers can best help the neediest.

If the couple finds a way to show the richest 1 percent how to involve the public in the distribution of great wealth, then they will truly make a difference in the world.

In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar examines extraordinary people who commit their lives to doing everything they can to help strangers, even if it means sacrificing a kidney or working in a war zone.

Paying a third party to compensate its top leaders is a blatantly transparent attempt by the nonprofit to avoid disclosure and a sign of the organization’s Wall Street culture.

Putting emphasis on aiding donors and recruiting young supporters helped a Jewish federation expand its donor base.