Innovation – and a Personal Touch – Get Priority at New Charities

The hundreds of thousands of charities created in the past decade cater to a vast array of social needs.

But most of the groups have at least one thing in common: founders who are passionate about their desire to pioneer new approaches and help others.

Some charity founders were prompted to take action after they had weathered profoundly disturbing personal experiences. Darryl Hunt was sent to jail for 18 years for a rape and murder he did not commit. After DNA evidence proved his innocence and led to his release in February, he founded a charity in Winston-Salem, N.C., that will provide legal resources to people who believe they were unjustly incarcerated. Mr. Hunt is financing the group with some of the nearly $360,000 in damages he was awarded by the state and money he earns from speaking engagements.

In other cases, people stumbled by accident onto an idea that could change the lives of people in need. Diane Kennedy was pursuing a degree in psychotherapy when she worked in a program that gave prisoners the opportunity to help train horses. Deeply impressed by the way the animals helped the convicts learn that physical force is not the best way to influence behavior, Ms. Kennedy founded Medicine Horse, a Boulder, Colo., charity that uses horses to help people with mental difficulties and other problems learn to avoid destructive behavior.

Some leaders founded charities as a way to show their gratitude to those who helped them escape tough circumstances. Jim McCorkell, the 36-year-old founder of Admission Possible, a St. Paul group that helps high-school students from low-income families get into college, watched the struggles of his parents, who were both high-school drop-outs. A neighbor who was a college admissions officer encouraged him to apply to Carleton College, where he was accepted. He created an organization to help others get that same guidance, he says, because “I saw how hard my parents’ lives were. That was the inspiration.”