Core English Listening Lesson on Non-Profit Organizations and Charities

A non-profit organization is an organization that uses its surplus revenues, extra money, to achieve its goals and advance its work, not to pay profits to investors like a regular company does. There are many different types of non-profit organizations, but in this lesson we're going to focus on charitable organizations, usually called charities, which focus on helping people, animals, and the environment. The activities of a charity may include providing food, medicine, education, and disaster relief, help and supplies after a natural disaster like an earthquake or flood. To get money for their work, charities do fundraising, asking for donations from people. A person who donates money is called a donor. Many charities also recruit volunteers, invite and train people to work for the charity without getting paid. Volunteer work can be done on a short term or long term basis. Finally, in addition to working directly to help solve social and environmental problems, charities often try to raise awareness of problems. Raising awareness means making more people know about the problem. This can be done through publicity, campaigns, etc.

Today we're going to learn some key vocabulary words through 12 statements about charities and related topics. Number one, microfinance helps alleviate poverty by empowering impoverished families to run their own businesses. Microfinance is giving small loans to poor, impoverished people so that they can start a business or continue run their business. This helps alleviate, make less bad, poverty. Poverty is the condition of being poor without money or basic necessities. Finally, the verb empower means to give someone an ability or power. Number two, thousands of people in rural areas are starving due to the drought. The verb starving means suffering from lack of food and a drought is a long period of no rain. Because of the drought the people couldn't grow enough food to eat. Resulting in a famine, that's a serious food shortage in the rural areas, the areas outside of the big cities.

Number three, many of the homeless people in this shelter are mentally ill. A homeless person is someone who has no place to live. Homeless people often sleep on the streets and some of them are also beggars, people who ask for money from the people walking by. A shelter is a place where homeless people can get a temporary place to sleep and often a shower and something to eat as well. The term mentally ill describes a person with a psychological disease such as schizophrenia, for example. Number four, our organization is lobbying for stricter laws to punish discrimination. The verb lobby means to try to influence governments or public officials. You can lobby for something that means you approve of it or lobby against something that means you disapprove of it. In this case the organization is lobbying for stricter laws, more rigid laws or laws with a bigger penalty, punishing discrimination. Discrimination is treating a person differently based on their race, skin color, gender, class, economic level, or sexual orientation.

Number five, we're boycotting companies that exploit children or utilize sweatshops. Boycott means not to buy anything from or interact with the company as a way to express your dislike of that company's actions. The verb exploit means to take advantage of a person so that you benefit but the person does not. Sweatshops are factories where the employees work very long hours in bad or dangerous conditions and receive extremely low wages. Number six, a number of celebrities have endorsed fair trade. Fair trade is an organized social movement that supports producers of coffee, sugar, bananas, etc. in developing countries by paying reasonable prices, not extremely low prices for their products. The verb endorse means to publicly support and give your approval.

Number seven, our program provides tutoring for underprivileged youth. Tutoring is extra help with schoolwork. Someone who is underprivileged doesn't have the opportunities or resources that regular people enjoy, and youth is a general word for children and teenagers. Number eight, after his best friend died of an overdose, Mark founded a grassroots organization to combat substance abuse. An overdose is taking too much of a drug or medicine. In response to this tragedy, Mark founded a grassroots organization, a community-based group that begins at the local level in contrast to a group that comes from outside the community. The verb combat means to fight, to resist, and substance abuse is a term used for both drinking too much alcohol and using illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Number nine, donors have pledged over $200,000 to provide scholarships for refugee children. Refugees are people who leave their homes and travel because of danger, such as from war, disease, or natural disaster. A scholarship is an amount of money given to someone to pay for their education, usually at university. Finally, the verb pledged means promised. That means that nobody has given the money yet, but the donors have promised to give it in the future. Number 10, Barber's Will left half her estate to her son and the other half to charity. A will is the legal document that tells where to give a person's money and possessions after the person dies. The total of all money and possessions is called the estate. Many people after they die want their children to inherit their estate. However, some people make donations to charities too.

Number 11, Michael was arrested for fraud after running a charity scam claiming to help disabled veterans. Fraud is the word for a crime of deliberate deception. In this case, Michael created a scam, a strategy that lies to donors so that they give money thinking it will be used for one thing, but it will really be used for something else. Michael told people the money would be used to help disabled veterans. A veteran is a person who served in the military, and disabled means the person has a physical disability, for example, a person who is blind, deaf, or who can't walk. Number 12, over 5,000 people signed the petition to make the city buses wheelchair accessible. A petition is a document trying to achieve a goal by getting a lot of people to support it. The people write their names on the petition and then it is sent to the authorities. This petition aimed to make the city buses wheelchair accessible, meaning buses would have special equipment so that people in wheelchairs could use them.

The above is the listening material about business English courses, speeches, meetings, negotiations, and phone calls collected by Xiao Wu from Qicai.com. I hope you can gain something after listening!